Which candidate is better for Tesla?

[K-MTG]

Forget everything else (This is TMC)...I just merely want to know which candidate will allow Elon to reach his goal?

Don't want this to become a political debate on other issues (emails, wall, etc...) Lets just focus on who will allow Tesla to sell directly to customers, more EV incentives and infrastructure, etc....

 

[LastGas]

With Clinton, one could expect policies similar to what we have seen under President Obama.

Trump has no track record. With him it would be a crap shoot.

 

[Gregkeys]

Trump is going to take back control of our energy, which is the best path to getting off our dependence of non renewable energy.

Hillary is going to sell us out to the highest bidder while telling us that she has done more than any of her predecessors to move us towards renewable energy

 

[flashflood]

Neither of them cares about EVs in the slightest, so there is no explicit for/against here.

Clinton tends to favor established players in general, and Democrats tend to favor unions, so if we ever got into a serious fight between GM and Tesla, it's reasonable to expect that Clinton would side with GM.

Trump tends to favor American over foreign manufacturing, so if a Chinese upstart became a serious threat to Tesla, it's reasonable to expect that Trump would side with Tesla.

Beyond those two scenarios, there isn't much evidence one way or the other.

 

[LastGas]

Trump tends to favor American over foreign manufacturing,

All Trump brand products have been manufactured overseas. I don't see any rational basis to the claim that Trump favors American manufacturing. "Make America great again" is a slogan, not a track record.

 

[Bheuring]

Proble Jill then Gary number 2 even thow I'll be voting for Gary
Ps who is this trump Hillary I don't watch tv that much

 

[wdolson]

At the absolute worst Clinton will be no change from where we are now, though she has been talking about accelerating renewable energy sources. Whether we get any change or not is going to be very dependent on how much Congress fights her. We did learn from the 2008 campaign that she and Obama are very close on policy positions, the primary fight then was a lot more about character than policy. So you can expect her to be pretty similar to Obama on energy policy.

Obama's time in office has seen a lot of American oil come online, but that was in development many years before he ever came into office. The first play in North Dakota was developed in 2006. The federal EV tax credit was passed in 2008, but Obama had gotten incentives through to help develop alternative energy and alternative energy vehicles.

Ultimately Donald Trump is an absolute crap shoot. There has been indication that he would let Mike Pence actually run the country while he directs the workmen to put gold leaf on the White House or something. It is clear he would be bringing in a lot of Republican appointees from the GW Bush administration which was very pro-oil and anti alternative energy.

A large new oil discovery was made on the North Slope of Alaska last week. I'm sure the Republicans would like to see that brought online as fast as possible. "Drill, baby drill!"

 

[Plug Life]

Energy	Clinton	Trump	Johnson	Stein
Should New Fossil Fuel Leases on Federal Land Be Allowed?	Now NC	Pro	?	Con
Should Fracking Be Allowed?	Pro	Pro	Now Pro	Con
Should the United States Build Additional Nuclear Power Plants?	NC	Pro	NC	Con
Is Human Activity Primarily Responsible for Global Climate Change?	Pro	Con	Pro	Pro
Should the United States Authorize the Keystone XL Pipeline to Import Tar Sand Oil from Canada?	Now Con	Pro	Pro	Con
Should the United States Transition Away from Fossil Fuels and Towards Renewable Energy?	Pro	Con	Con	Pro

2016 Presidential Candidate Positions on 75 Issues - 2016 Presidential Election - ProCon.org

 

[K-MTG]

Sigh....If only Elon was born in the U.S, I guess he would rather be president of Mars

Not a fan of either candidates....

 

[hsctiger93]

Yeah, I think it's a moot point. Would take a seismic shift to get away from status quo.

No matter which candidate wins, Congress will be opposed to them. Clinton because she's a Democrat; Trump because many Republicans have jumped off his ship and intend to oppose him. However, as history has shown a "do nothing Congress" tends to be best for our economy. So at least we'll have that going for us. Which is nice.

 

[STbreaker]

In addition to the auto industry bail out, President Obama's administration supported Tesla. As you may remember from previous debates, Republicans tried to criticize him for it. I don't believe a Clinton administration would significantly change their stance.

So traditionally, that would stand to reason that the Republican candidate would be more "anti" than the Democratic counterpart. But... Trump has shown he's throwing all the conventional wisdom in the trash. So who knows.

 

[callmesam]

Jill Stein is far and away the best candidate for EVs who will never be President.

 

[kurdakov]

according to Why Hillary Clinton's energy plan probably won't work Clinton favors to reduce oil consumption by third by 2027 and the way to get to the point is to promote electric cars. So I think Clinton is better for Tesla

 

[Boourns]

Trying to be as objective as possible, I think that the chances of some cataclysmic event that negatively affects the economy is much greater with Trump (even if it's 0.1% versus 1%). So to the extent that avoiding economic uncertainty is good for Tesla, Hillary is better.

 

[McRat]

Trying to be as objective as possible, I think that the chances of some cataclysmic event that negatively affects the economy is much greater with Trump (even if it's 0.1% versus 1%). So to the extent that avoiding economic uncertainty is good for Tesla, Hillary is better.

For Tesla Motors, it all depends on how much effect unionization would have, and how indebted the DNC is to UAW.

Normally, the UAW is a significant contributor to the DNC.

 

[LastGas]

Trump has no voting record. The best one can do is to look at Trump's vice-presidential candidate, Mike Pence. I found a website with candidate voting records that seems reasonably unbiased, and you can see how Pence has voted on energy and environmental issues here.

 

[LastGas]

Normally, the UAW is a significant contributor to the DNC.

That's true, but environmental groups are significant contributors to the DNC as well. It cuts both ways.

 

[Gizmotoy]

There was a question on energy policy at the debate last night and Trump is strongly against the current push to clean energy and renewables that has hurt the coal industry and called for a return to coal.

I don't know if that would be financially worse for Tesla as a company than any other choice, but it does seem worse for Musk's and Tesla's vision for the future of energy.

That said, I'm not entirely sure he's being completely honest in that statement, either. When talking on this issue he often says he's a "free market guy", but one reason coal is currently in decline is because of substantial price pressure from natural gas, another non-renewable. And a huge number of the coal mining jobs were lost due to mechanization of the mining process.

Obama's policies have been part of what permitted Tesla to thrive in the past few years, and Clinton claims more of the same, so of the two options provided in the poll Hillary seems like the safe bet.

 

[xav-]

As Hillary said to Wall Street, she has both a private and a public position on issues.

In that respect Clinton has both negatives and positives:

Positives:
- Against keystone pipeline (publicly in primary)
- against coal mining (publicly during primary)
- against fracking (publicly during primary)

Negatives:
- for keystone pipeline (privately)
- for coal mining (privately)
- "promoted fracking all over the world" (privately in speeches given to Wall Street).

It seems that judging from what Clinton said publicly, she could be really good for tesla!!

 

[Whistle2Whine]

Setting aside my partisan leanings, I'd have to say it's Clinton, no contest. As has been pointed out, she's pro-renewables, yes, but more than anything she's the only one running that pro-renewable, anti-climate change voters can have any leverage over because 1) part of her big jobs push is from American-made renewable products and 2) dealing with climate change and environmental issues in general is a core issue in a least a few of her key voting blocs needed for election, congress and reelection (Ethnic minorities who suffer from environmental issues (EX: Flint, MI) , Millenials/Young GenXers and women who think about the future of their children's planet). Her political success, far more than her husbands, comes mainly from a coalition of people far more likely to support electric cars and the shift away from fossil fuels. So for her, pushing success of companies like Tesla ends up being 'red meat' to her 'base'. This is a good thing.