I don't know, government waste and most policy sucks. But there's no reason we can't do stuff or even try.

For instance, take Tesla. It wasn't anything revolutionary. Any auto manufacturer could have invested in battery technology and building a compelling EV, but they didn't. Same with manufacturing in America. Every manufacturer took as given that they have to outsource manufacturing to oversees and components to third parties. But it didn't have to be that way. It takes someone naive and optimistic enough to try something different.

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boplicity 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's easy to forget that Tesla was made possible almost exclusively through government incentives. This is something that most people seem to have forgotten: Tesla exists because the government created incentive programs that paid in cold hard cash. Musk took advantage of those programs, and Tesla absolutely would not have been nearly as successful (and likely not existed) without it.

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bko 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is incredibly overstated. There are "incentives" for all sorts of activities. These incentives were available to all manufacturers. We should have "incentives" to produce electric vehicles and manufacturing in America. Insane not to. And these incentives are often "you would normally have to pay us X million in taxes, but we'll let you pay less". When the alternative is something not being built and no tax revenue, it makes sense. And a lot of subsidies were to buyers of EVs

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fastball 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As much incentive as the oil & gas industry receives?

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Game_Ender 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The government should find ways to strategically invest in developing major industries. The market for them is global and China has/will have a bigger internal market than the US, so without intentional development we'll get a continued industrial consolidation that is bad for the US and the world. I have robotic lawn mowers and vacuum cleaners made by Chinese companies partly because an intentional policy from China's government to grow these capabilities locally.

	▲	dgellow 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The current administration is literally cutting all those strategic investments

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YetAnotherNick 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What was the incentive and was that specific to Tesla?

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Rover222 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is such a braindead take. Ford could have taken advantage of those same EV incentives. Any other new startup could have too. Tesla got nothing special.

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dgellow 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> It takes someone naive and optimistic enough to try something different.

You mean Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, right?

	▲	jvwww 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Tesla would be nothing without Musk. That doesn't take away from Eberhard and Tarpenning; they started the company after all and are great engineers. But it would be nothing without Musk.
	▲	Rover222 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[flagged]

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bigyabai 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Any auto manufacturer could have invested in battery technology and building a compelling EV, but they didn't

...because Tesla sold luxury vehicles at relatively low volume. By the time Elon reneged his "$25,000 EV" promise, China was ready to export vehicles that actually hit that price point. The only thing preventing Americans from driving affordable EVs is Elon's federal protectionism. Is that really progress?

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decimalenough 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The Model Y has shifted over a million units every year since 2023 and sits at the top of many "world's best selling car" rankings.

Obviously it's not a cheap car, but it's still mass market, not luxury.

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bigyabai 5 hours ago | parent [-]

It's only mass-market in the US because of subsidies and tariffs. Chinese EVs change the equation entirely.

Outside the US protectionist bubble, Tesla is seen as a luxury brand and their inability to deliver a $25,000 EV doesn't help.

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decimalenough 4 hours ago | parent [-]

As of March 2026, the Model Y is the best selling car in China.

https://teslamagz.com/tesla/model-y/tesla-model-y-becomes-ch...

Also South Korea, Australia, the EU, etc.

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torginus 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I guess it's to Tesla's advantage that unlike most manufacturers, they don't make a million different models which end up dividing sales.

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manytimesaway 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No it's not. It was the most sold during March, but that's it.

Local sources (https://www.autohome.com.cn/hangye/showroom/) tend to show that it's Xiaomi / Geely that's leading the race in 2026.

Additionally, sales numbers doesn't correlate with the brand image of Tesla : it is a luxury brand, no matter how you put it.

	▲	decimalenough 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You're talking brands, I'm talking car models. And your own source lists the Model Y as the #2 best selling model cumulatively for 2026, behind only the Geely EX2 (星愿), which is a third of the price. Also, you seem to be implying it's somehow a bad thing to have a luxury brand image with mass-market sales, but that's a pretty rare thing to pull off and it's also the key to huge margins. See also: Apple. Look, Musk is a despicable human being, but the Model 3/Y has been a ginormous hit and it transformed the global EV market. Does he deserves all the credit for pulling this off? Of course not. But you need to stick your head pretty deep in the sand to pretend that a) it was not a success, and b) that Musk had nothing at all to do with it.

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5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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