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Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

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Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

#111

Post by daveguy »

ctdonath wrote: post #95
civilian wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude I'm as libertarian as they come; taxation is theft. But you're doing stupid things with semantics here. The company has more money to operate with; we're just talking about this from a business-operation point of view.

There's a substantive difference between being given money vs keeping your own money: one is theft, the other isn't. If we can't get tax cuts across the board, then I'm all for reducing taxes on whoever we can, however we can.

If you appreciate roads, education, police, fire, private property, military, food safety, breathable air, safe drugs, etc, then you shouldn't be trying to cut taxes whenever and however you can as a base principle.

Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

#112

Post by wav-part »

ajnin wrote: post #110
wav-part wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Concept of private property is as old as civilisation. Whereas taxation (at current depth and scale) is barely 50yrs old and already showing cracks.

One of the oldest forms of writing that we know of, Babylonian tablets, are mostly about goods exchanges and paying taxes. I think that you assessment that taxation is a new thing is blatantly wrong.

Taxation is old. Democratically-decided taxation is new.

Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

#113

Post by [deleted] »

civilian wrote: post #103
ajnin wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, as a libertarian, how do you come to the conclusion that private property, which is a political construct, is a good thing, while taxation, which is also a political construct, established by the same set of laws, is a bad thing (If judging by your description of one being "theft" of the other) ?

I think that private property can be easily derived from individual rights. The right to control my own life, the right to do what I want, the right not to be interfered with. Those set a pretty strong precedent for private property. If I create something out of nothing, shouldn't I be able to keep that? I could be down with taxation if someone actually offered me a contract to join the USA with all the provisions. B…

[deleted]

Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

#114

Post by FireBeyond »

bkjelden wrote: post #101
michaelbuckbee wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes to the home's value (aka you'd get more when you sell it). I kind of think of it like brick. Brick has a much longer maintenance cycle than vinyl or wood siding.

The is true in theory, but in practice the housing market isn't 100% efficient. You'll no doubt recoup some of your value, but not all of it.

Part of our bubble is that at times it's been "more than 100% efficient", so to speak.

Witness dozens of TV shows, "You guys had $50K for your reno budget. Your original value was $250K, and you spent $50K and now your house is worth $350K!"

Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

#115

Post by joshvm »

brians wrote: post #69
vonmoltke wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to the other replies, a slate roof is nowhere near ten times the cost of asphalt shingles. It's more like 3x, and that's only if you price the cheapest asphalt shingles.

I had a damaged slate roof. Bids to repair it, replacing most of it, were north of $100k. An asphalt roof with 30 year shingles was under $5k. Ten times isn’t enough. I have a slate roof now, and pay a few hundred a year for replacement of broken skates. For historical-commission reasons, I’m much more likely to do Tesla-style tiles than anything else... and electricity here is 22¢/kWh.

Is slate particularly popular in the US?

In the UK most tiles are made of clay which are cheap and pretty durable. My neighbourhood is Victorian and I guarantee some of the houses here still have their original tiles. Some towns have slate roofs (e.g. the Lake District), but it's more expensive and a local aesthetic/tradition, more than anything else.

Virtually nobody uses shingle roofs. To give an idea of the historic distribution, which is still pretty accurate: http://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/claytile/pic_12...

Replacement prices, for example: https://local.which.co.uk/advice/cost-price-information-roof...

An entire slate roof on a big house is around £12k max. I'm surprised that the difference isn't that much compared to clay, but I imagine most of the cost is labour.

Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

#116

Post by reaperducer »

simonsarris wrote: post #65
reaperducer wrote: post #63

Every time Tesla talks about a "gigafactory" like this one, or the one in Reno, I'm reminded of the episode of The Simpsons, where a snake oil salesman comes to town and sells Springfield on the idea of building a monorail. It's a factory. Yes, a big factory. But not bigger than a hundred that came before it. And even if it was, it doesn't warrant a new word.

So what? It's a clever and catchy name. Giga sounds ambitious and is also a common prefix when talking about energy. Did you know that everyone who buys a Tesla is not, in fact, purchasing a dead Serbian-American guy?

In five years it's going to sound as dated and stupid as all the "cyber" branded things from the 90's.

Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

#117

Post by JurgenKlein »

paganel wrote: post #31
ZoomStop wrote: post #29

Why do they call them all a "gigafactory"? This is getting ridiculous since the subject "gigafactory" in the article is a million square feet and 500 employees.

If you put "giga" everywhere you increase the hype, increased hype probably means a higher share price, a higher share price means more money for investors (virtual or real money, it doesn't matter), more money is good.

Hexamegagigablockchain.

Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

#118

Post by intended »

civilian wrote: post #103
ajnin wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, as a libertarian, how do you come to the conclusion that private property, which is a political construct, is a good thing, while taxation, which is also a political construct, established by the same set of laws, is a bad thing (If judging by your description of one being "theft" of the other) ?

I think that private property can be easily derived from individual rights. The right to control my own life, the right to do what I want, the right not to be interfered with. Those set a pretty strong precedent for private property. If I create something out of nothing, shouldn't I be able to keep that? I could be down with taxation if someone actually offered me a contract to join the USA with all the provisions. B…

Why would I care about individual rights if there is no government ?

I mean if I have enough power and there’s no one to stop me, I may as well take your property AND your person and make you work for me.

It’s just a matter of who has the most guns, and my willingness to cheat on the rules of the game.(you assume individual rights, I don’t)

Do note this is more of a tongue in cheek question, than a serious one.

Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

#119

Post by Hasz »

mohaine wrote: post #109
Hasz wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moore's law is the exception, not the rule. Does Tesla have any sort of public lifetime estimates?

Actually, no. Moore's law is really a general trend that is apples to pretty much everything, just with different constants. As our knowledge and tech advances, everything gets cheaper and easier. This is also known as "Economies of Scale".

No. In basically no other industry does "performance" double every two years. Agricultural output doesn't double every two years, drugs aren't twice as effective every two years, and cars aren't twice as fast every two years. Semiconductor manufacturing is the exception, not the rule.

As for the different constants point -- you can model anything as an exponential function with a small enough coefficient. Moore's law is significant because it doubles every two years.

Economies of scale is in reference to mass production (scale). Making 1000 widgets is cheaper than making 10 widgets on a per widget basis. This is fundamentally different from the predictions made by Gordon Moore.

It's also like to point out that Moore's Law hasn't applied for a while now. Ultimately, we'd be at >5nm, and that's nowhere near ready.

Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

#120

Post by powvans »

webXL wrote: post #93
civilian wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax breaks are pretty much the same as cash-over-time, come on.

No, you come on. You are not giving me the money in my bank account just because you say I don't have to give it to you.

These incentives are often transferable tax credits. It isn’t unusual for a company to have little or no tax liability in the state offering the incentive. There are markets where the tax credits are sold to companies that do have tax liability in the state.

It’s effectively putting cash directly into the pocket of the businesses you seek to attract.

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