[plandis]

It’s literally a government handout for people wealthy enough to buy more expensive cars and solar.

That money should have been spent to fund R&D/capital expenditures to make cheaper electric vehicles and solar cells for everyone, TBH.

[epistasis]

That money is spent to fund the capital expenditures and the on-the-production-line R&D that drives down costs.

That money that subsidizes purchases of more expensive products also incentivizes all those factories, the things that make them cheaper in the future.

> That money should have been spent to fund R&D/capital expenditures to make cheaper electric vehicles and solar cells for everyone, TBH

If you can convert this vague statement into a policy with real impacts, there would be tons of people that would love to hear it. Otherwise, it's just wishing the world were different, without a path to completion.

Should we all have free energy? Of course! But how do we do it. I'm all ears and hope that you have come up with a defensible policy. (Though ideally you should have shared it 4 years ago, because it's going to be a long time before we have another shot at setting policy, and everybody was begging for ideas like yours back then.)

[ben_w]

> That money should have been spent to fund R&D/capital expenditures to make cheaper electric vehicles and solar cells for everyone, TBH.

It kinda was, it's just that it was spend in China and the US government got the money back by putting tariffs on the imports.

The tariffs are paid by the importer, whose customers also gets a government subsidy paid for by the tariffs that the electorate is told are paid by the exporter, so they get to feel like they're getting a good deal and the voters get to feel patriotic, and why isn't my MSCI China investment doing better…

[knappe]

Which would be great and all, but they already exist. But rather than take advantage of the cheaper existing solar panels and electric cars we'd rather impose massive tariffs on them because of the country making them.