# Study Questions Value of Electric Car Tax Incentives



## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

Duh. This has been demonstrated time and time again. Incentives help the rich, and are merely political posturing - they don't materially affect adoption.


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

PhantomPholly said:


> Duh. This has been demonstrated time and time again. Incentives help the rich, and are merely political posturing - they don't materially affect adoption.


It seemed to be working in a few hundred cases with non-rich people I've come across who were heavily influenced to make the EV purchase because of the incentive. And I've seen similar incentives work on the non-rich for home installations of solar, geo and energy improvements. But I guess I just look at the small picture. I don't even know any rich people.


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## Duncan (Dec 8, 2008)

Historically incentives and government pushes have laid the foundations

Like the power grid, interstate highways, water, sewage
Even - - the bloody internet!


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

major said:


> It seemed to be working in a few hundred cases with non-rich people I've come across who were heavily influenced to make the EV purchase because of the incentive. And I've seen similar incentives work on the non-rich for home installations of solar, geo and energy improvements. But I guess I just look at the small picture. I don't even know any rich people.


Sorry - I was using Obama's concept of "rich" - that being middle class working folks.



Still, such incentives don't really materially impact the outcome. Best government can do is push things a year or two, and the cost is always more than the value returned.


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

Duncan said:


> Historically incentives and government pushes have laid the foundations
> 
> Like the power grid, interstate highways, water, sewage
> Even - - the bloody internet!


It's fascinating to see how history gets re-written in people's minds via propaganda...

Last I checked, the power grid was not created by incentives - it was created by private enterprise starting principally with Thomas Edison and his competitor, Nicola Tesla. 

The Interstates were certainly a Federal building program, but they were entirely paid for by taxes - no "incentives." The goal, from government's perspective, was to increase trade and so increase tax revenues - and they did it with our money. When States embarked on similar programs, they were Toll Roads - a new source of revenue. In Ohio they proved to be a dual source of revenue - created by being ridiculously strict on artificially low speed limits and charging outrageous fines for "speeding."

The internet was likewise not created with incentives. A combination of universities, large corporations, and military projects funded the infrastructure. Once they realized that they could reap money from commercialization far in excess of what it cost to support the extra traffic, it took off on its own. A major cable company for which I have worked even worked out economics for low end hookups, charging fees for those with bad credit such that even non-payers were effectively profitable.

If there are incentives there now for the internet, they had nothing whatsoever to do with its growth.


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