2001400ex
New Fish
IIRC, Solyndra was financed with over a half billion by the Federal Government so there was less accountability while it appears as though Nevada is not directly injecting cash into Telsa. I tend to believe foregone future tax revenues are often fluffed up to make companies feel better, kind of like Boeing's list prices. One must also consider the time value of money as it obviously hurt more that the Federales gave Solyndra over a half bill up-front while these tax concessions are probably streamed over 10, 20, or even more years. Nevada's tax concessions are also less risky than what the Feds did because Tesla is a leader in its field, has been a going concern for 15, and is selling roughly 20,000+ cars a year. WTF had Solyndra done to merit all that money other than mutual backscratching between idiots and Obama? How about A123 Battery?
Expanding on that a key variable is that Musk is a BILLIONAIRE while Solyndra's backers were cronies of the Obama admin (they were fundraisers for his 2008 run & Obama paid them back 2 years later) so their ROL (Return on Lobbying) was fantastically high. Has Elon Musk raised money for Nevada State Senators, House Reps, or for the Governor?
As for what Musk / Tesla is doing, I think it's brilliant and wished I had the foresight and money to do it. Can one imagine how impressed the Ancient Romans would've been with creating electricity from the sun and then being able to store it at one's residence for future use? This is really big stuff and could displace more oil use so that we can export more, burn less of it ourselves, and perhaps even lead to lower electricity prices (not in Seattle because SeattleCityLightFS and bloated).
But but but, because of Solyndra, the government should never invest in technology again.