California would've had to make that responsibility known up front. They chose not to do that.
And California directly benefitted from the money they spent. That benefit is electric vehicles in the hands of its population, which improves the state's pollution levels long-term.
You're in multiple computers all connected to the internet. Honestly these days we should all just be able to give the police our names and have them pull up our information. It's the same thing. You'll still get in trouble if the picture doesn't match. The ID could come through in ciphertext and need to be decoded using a secret known only to the person to whom it belongs.
It should be legal to drive without a physical license. We're all stored inside the computer now.
My guess would be eventually the fines rack up to the point where it becomes a more serious offense and more drastic measures are taken. Also, a lot of the enforcement measures likely do not fall under the umbrella of "prosecution."
I'm not sure if driving without a license can ever be escalated to a felony, but I'm sure they can do things like impound the car, etc. That would never involve the DA unless it was challenged in court
Socializing what risk? What are you even talking about? Musk put his entire fortune from PayPal on the line for Tesla knowing that in all probability it would fail. It turned out well for him but it was still a huge risk he took.
I would argue that the opposite is true. California wants a larger cut of profits from business activity within their borders without any risk on their part, or even having to provide better services than competing states.
>> Musk put his entire fortune from PayPal on the line for Tesla knowing that in all probability it would fail. It turned out well for him but it was still a huge risk he took.
For sure Elon Musk is a very smart guy and he works really hard and he knows how to deliver amazing products and his PR skills are amazing... That said, we can't deny that he got a lot of support from the US government. Without US government help (e.g. subsidies, grants, carbon credits), he probably would have failed flat on his face like all other geniuses. His ability to secure government support had more to do with luck (history and social connections) than skill.
So as great as Elon Musk is, he did socialize a lot of his risk.
> For sure Elon Musk is a very smart guy and he works really hard and he knows how to deliver amazing products and his PR skills are amazing...
And again, don't ignore the part where he used his entire PayPal fortune to build a company that he thought had a high probability of failure. That's key to this conversation about risk.
The government chose to take on the risk of providing subsidies in order to get the benefits it enjoys today due to Musk's efforts, which is a growing electric vehicle industry. That wasn't Musk's choice to socialize risk, it was elected officials'. And that choice has paid off well for everyone.
> Government officials didn't risk anything, they risked other people's money
Government has its own accounts, therefore it has its own money to spend. It doesn't matter that they get that money from taxpayers, it belongs to the government by law.
> leverage over politicians
What leverage over politicians was used and what objectives did it achieve? Please give specific examples. AFAIK, the EV credits were designed to get more EVs on the road to reduce pollution and were successful at doing that. They are also not limited to Tesla.
> hoarding attention
What does that mean? You're complaining that people write articles about Musk?
IMO people are overreacting, both people who like and dislike California. Musk is an American citizen and as such can live wherever he likes within US borders. California will be fine without Musk. They've still got nice weather which will attract people willing to pay their high taxes and if they have some tax base loss it's not the end of the world. Maybe they'll have to cut some fat out of their budget but there is plenty of fat.
But why turn around a legacy automaker, even if he thinks he could? It would have to fit into his greater strategy, e.g. providing branding for his EVs or providing auto workers that would otherwise be hard to find, etc.
I took this as just an offhand comment saying "we might be willing to do this if they can convince us it will benefit Tesla" not a statement on how likely it is to happen.
The benefit would be the manufacturing expertise they would gain. I believe he’s on the record saying mass production is a much harder problem than the type of technical challenges with building rockets.
I used to program robots that made body panels. I think people get fixated on the “electric vs. combustion” part and can lose sight of how much other manufacturing is involved. The traditional auto companies have decades of lessons learned related to quality. To their credit, Tesla seems to learn fast but has had a lot of growing pains related to areas like quality control. There’s a surprisingly large amount of issues to prepare for when you make a seemingly straightforward design change like changing the material composition of an component to save money or weight, for instance.
Synthetic clothes shed microplastic particles in the wash. It's actually a significant source of plastic pollution. Cotton is kind of crap fabric and takes enormous amounts of water to grow, but wool and linen are both much more durable.
And California directly benefitted from the money they spent. That benefit is electric vehicles in the hands of its population, which improves the state's pollution levels long-term.