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Best Way to Honor the Intent of the Tax Credit?

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Yes, we realize that income needs to exceed expenses...

I'm still waiting to hear your opinion on how to sell something that costs you $31k to make, for $26k.

Most of us realize the answer is: "Sell something different that doesn't cost you $31k", but your opinion so far is to sell the $31k thing for $26k.

I'm anxious to hear about that math.
Sure, if you are actively working to improve costs, they will follow an experience curve. Here is one for the Model T. It is a log scale. It looks like the price halves from 10,000 units to 500,000 units, but I may need help with reading, too. (Always struggle with log scales if I don't actually draw lines with a triangle.)

The automobile industry is a lot more mature now, but Elon and his team should be able to do more than hold a candle to Ford and his teams. So maybe 1/4 rather than 1/2.

The market is at $26K.
Tesla talent and will, never underestimate will, can make the 3 profitable at market.

Thank you for asking again.
Back to work...
 
The automobile industry is a lot more mature now, but Elon and his team should be able to do more than hold a candle to Ford and his teams. So maybe 1/4 rather than 1/2.

And if they DO somehow manage to make a Model 3 for $23'250 and sell them for $26'000 while there are hundreds of thousands of customers beating their door down that are willing to pay $35'000, I and every other shareholder will get together and sue Tesla to get that bazerk alien at the helm removed.
 
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That means you have to be earning at least $61'000 as single, or $77'000 if married, in that year in order to be eligible for the full $7500 tax credit.
Can you share the math?

From my quick estimates (using 2016 tax brackets) I get ~$47k for single and ~$56k for married to be eligible for the full tax credit. I may have made an obvious mistake somewhere...
 
Don't think you can really look at the 2016 numbers yet, as the standard deduction and exemption numbers may change.
Looking at the 2015 tax table, for single it appears a little over $7500 of tax is owed at 47000-47050, backing out 1 exemption($4000), and the standard deduction ($6300) gives an income of at least $57,300.

For married $7500 of tax is owed at 56150-56200, backing out 2 exemptions ($8000, you and your spouse) and the married standard deduction ($12600) gives an income of least $76,750.
 
Don't think you can really look at the 2016 numbers yet, as the standard deduction and exemption numbers may change.
Looking at the 2015 tax table, for single it appears a little over $7500 of tax is owed at 47000-47050, backing out 1 exemption($4000), and the standard deduction ($6300) gives an income of at least $57,300.

For married $7500 of tax is owed at 56150-56200, backing out 2 exemptions ($8000, you and your spouse) and the married standard deduction ($12600) gives an income of least $76,750.
I knew I left out something obvious - the standard deductions and exemptions.
 
Can you share the math?

From my quick estimates (using 2016 tax brackets) I get ~$47k for single and ~$56k for married to be eligible for the full tax credit. I may have made an obvious mistake somewhere...

I haven't done the math, but keep in mind that everyone's will be different since just looking at the tax brackets doesn't take into account all of your deductions and other credits you may have. The EV credit is non-refundable which means it only applies to any actual tax liability you have that year. Even if you made $100,000 but had some other big tax credits/deductions you still may not take advantage of the entire $7,500.
 
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I haven't done the math, but keep in mind that everyone's will be different since just looking at the tax brackets doesn't take into account all of your deductions and other credits you may have.
I'm not worried about me, I'm just looking at it from the bare minimum salary someone needs to qualify for the $7,500. The bare minimum is not dependent on their deductions/etc.
 
Can you share the math?

From my quick estimates (using 2016 tax brackets) I get ~$47k for single and ~$56k for married to be eligible for the full tax credit. I may have made an obvious mistake somewhere...

At those numbers you didn't yet subtract either standard deductions or exemptions.

I used 2 exemptions below, but even with 1 it doesn't make a huge difference (can't actually have just 1 in the second case):

Single:

Estimated Tax Analysis
Gross income$61,000
Qualified plan contributions-$0
Adjusted gross income=$61,000
Standard/Itemized deductions-$6,300
Personal exemptions-$8,100
Taxable income=$46,600
Tax liability before credits$7,421
Child tax credits-$0
Estimated tax liability=$7,421

Married:

Estimated Tax Analysis
Gross income$77,000
Qualified plan contributions-$0
Adjusted gross income=$77,000
Standard/Itemized deductions-$12,600
Personal exemptions-$8,100
Taxable income=$56,300
Tax liability before credits$7,518
Child tax credits-$0
Estimated tax liability=$7,518


 
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That still has zero to do with tax incentives--which Tesla does not factor into their pricing, which is where this thread started.
And if they DO somehow manage to make a Model 3 for $23'250 and sell them for $26'000 while there are hundreds of thousands of customers beating their door down that are willing to pay $35'000, I and every other shareholder will get together and sue Tesla to get that bazerk alien at the helm removed.

I generally agree with this. Why the incentive trigger was reduced to 200,000, I don't know. Maybe I don't understand incentives. Thought they were there to incent demand for products whose costs were too high to support demand without the incentive. With the idea that eventually production economies would result in healthy demand at an incentive free price.

I expect, from here, that owning and driving a Tesla is sort of like work, that people earn their incentives by owning one. There is no public investment in the future, but the incentive is earned by the people who receive it. Kind of like wages.

Need to reflect on this a bit. Have actually learned something here, but maybe bistable knowledge.


Thank you.
 
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I generally agree with this. Why the incentive trigger was reduced to 200,000, I don't know. Maybe I don't understand incentives. Thought they were there to incent demand for products whose costs were too high to support demand without the incentive. With the idea that eventually production economies would result in healthy demand at an incentive free price.

I expect, from here, that owning and driving a Tesla is sort of like work, that people earn their incentives by owning one. There is no public investment in the future, but the incentive is earned by the people who receive it. Kind of like wages.
Thank you.

Well the idea behind this incentive was to equalize EV's with the subsidies that gasoline vehicles get.

Read this:
Supporting Plug In America

"Plug In America was not successful in convincing GM to stop crushing EV-1s. But we (not me; I didn't join until 2009) did save hundreds of Toyota RAV4-EVs, and smaller numbers of cars from other automakers. Once that crisis was over, we set about talking to automakers, working to convince them that there really is a market for the cars. In 2008 the Bush administration proposed a $2,500 tax credit for electric vehicles; while we were unable to convince the administration to remove the $12k/vehicle petroleum subsidies, we did manage to help level the playing field by tying the credit to battery size, and increased the top end to $7,500."


Nothing has changed in the equation, so to keep achieving that you really have to extend EV subsidies indefinitely.

However, most of us (including Elon) are of the opinion that you should just stop petroleum subsidies in the first place. Then gas will be somewhere north of $5 per gallon, and it wouldn't matter that EV's are a bit more expensive for the same type of car.
 
Well the idea behind this incentive was to equalize EV's with the subsidies that gasoline vehicles get.

Read this:
Supporting Plug In America

"Plug In America was not successful in convincing GM to stop crushing EV-1s. But we (not me; I didn't join until 2009) did save hundreds of Toyota RAV4-EVs, and smaller numbers of cars from other automakers. Once that crisis was over, we set about talking to automakers, working to convince them that there really is a market for the cars. In 2008 the Bush administration proposed a $2,500 tax credit for electric vehicles; while we were unable to convince the administration to remove the $12k/vehicle petroleum subsidies, we did manage to help level the playing field by tying the credit to battery size, and increased the top end to $7,500."


Nothing has changed in the equation, so to keep achieving that you really have to extend EV subsidies indefinitely.

However, most of us (including Elon) are of the opinion that you should just stop petroleum subsidies in the first place. Then gas will be somewhere north of $5 per gallon, and it wouldn't matter that EV's are a bit more expensive for the same type of car.

Very helpful. Maybe there is some too big to fail mentality.
 
Point of order. Hydrogen is not a clean form of energy storage. 95% is made from natural gas, which yes, produces carbon.

As with electricity, how you manufacture the hydrogen determines how clean a fuel it is. Solar powered electricity creating hydrogen creates a clean fuel. Hydrogen would be a better fuel for airplanes, long haul trucks.
 
As to extending the credit, I'd be ok with extending it to something like 500,000 vehicles per manufacturer. But if you want to expand it anymore than that, you have to do what Germany recently did and ask the manufacturer's to pay for half of the credit while the US pays the other half. But I don't see that flying in the US. And I don't think the tax credit needs to be in place until the market place converts to electric. It simply has to catalyze enough of a movement towards electric to get the market seriously headed down that path.

We need to cut our oil use 50% to address the economic ($300B yearly trade deficit, $600B yearly military cost to secure oil), environmental (air, water pollution, global warming) and national security costs (oil terrorism, dependence on Middle East dictators, endless oil war).

Until US achieves those goals, EV credit should continue. We have 255 million passenger vehicles to go.
 
As with electricity, how you manufacture the hydrogen determines how clean a fuel it is. Solar powered electricity creating hydrogen creates a clean fuel. Hydrogen would be a better fuel for airplanes, long haul trucks.
Using hydrogen is basically wasting energy no matter how it's produced. It's also not energy dense compared to other fuels.
 
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