One of the weird things is the way manufacturers used emissions regulation as an excuse to lock their engines down.
Older engines had no computers. But computer control allows things that are needed to meet emissions like variable valve timing and whatnot. Also, engines are supposed to detect faults in emissions control systems and throw an error code.
So they brought in ECUs, but they DRMed them. Now they said it's so people can't tamper with emissions, but they DRMed everything to the point where now you have to take it to the dealer for servicing.
Do they need DRM to prevent people from tampering with emissions? No, they could have ringfenced it like some devices with radio transmitters do. Does DRM in the ECU prevent people tampering with emissions controls? Also no. There are people doing EGR deletes and whatnot on Tier 4 engines all the time.
But they were able to use emissions as the wedge to do what they really wanted to do: make their equipment not third-party serviceable.
By the way I think this also is a microcosm of the failure of the liberal order. The government should have cracked down hard on manufacturers doing this to begin with. The fact that they allowed manufacturers to turn their customers into serfs "in the name of emissions" obviously just ended up discrediting emissions control.
Back when Wikipedia was new people had a tendency to spend all day in it clicking deeper and deeper. It was called "ratholing."
It was timewasting or avoidant behavior for sure, and often described negatively. But at least you were learning something.
Silicon Valley then spent the next few decades trying to understand that behavior so they could isolate it, strip all positive value out of it, and make it highly profitable.
There's an Isaac Asimov story where people are "educated" by programming knowledge into their brains, Matrix style.
A certain group of people have something wrong with their brain where they can't be "educated" and are forced to learn by studying and such. The protagonist of the story is one of these people and feels ashamed at his disability and how everyone around him effortlessly knows things he has to struggle to learn.
He finds out (SPOILER) that he was actually selected for a "priesthood" of creative/problem solvers, because the education process gives knowledge without the ability to apply it creatively. It allows people to rapidly and easily be trained on some process but not the ability to reason it out.
Back then he had a PR firm working for him, getting him cameos and good press. But in 2020 he fired them deciding that his own "radically awesome" personality doesn't need any filtering.
Personally I don't think Elon is the worst billionaire, he's just the one dumb enough to not have any PR (since 2020). They're all pretty reprehensible creatures.
Any number of past mega-rich were probably equally nuts and out of touch and reprehensible but they just didn't let people find out. Then Twitter enabled an unfiltered mass-media broadcast of anyone's personal insanity, and certain public figures got addicted and exposed.
There will always be enough people willing to suck up to money that they'll have all the yes-men they need to rationalize it as "it's EVERYONE ELSE who's wrong!"
The watershed moment for me was when he pretended to be a top tier gamer on Path of Exile. Anyone in the know saw right through it, and honestly makes me wonder if we just spotted this behavior because it's "our turf", but actually he and people like him just operate this way in absolutely everything they do
If you even read the article you linked, you'd be aware the source of the money there is from other vehicle manufacturers to Tesla not from govt/tax payers.
Perhaps you are confused, the regulatory credits were sold by Tesla to other car makers so they could meet their emissions requirements. That $11 billion came from other automakers, not taxpayers.
So you're saying Tesla made $3 billion directly from taxpayers and another $11 billion in cash transfers from their competitors required by the government?
Tesla was given $3 billion in government subsidies.
It made $11 billion selling regulatory credits created by government regulation.
I'm not interested in getting bogged down in how actually government regulation is the same thing as subsidy even though the taxpayer doesn't foot the bill (but does collect the tax on the backend of it.) There is a good reason why subsidy and regulation are not the same interchangeable word. I suppose that without glasses of nuance/understanding they blur together and look the same (government action -> money for someone), but lets wear glasses here.
The original argument was that Tesla made a substantial amount of its revenue from subsidization, i.e., government mandated payments extracting money from one set of people to fund another. Subsidies can entail direct taxation, followed by payment to a company. Alternatively, they revolve around regulatory schemes that mandate transfer payments from one group (in this case, ICE car manufacturers and their customers) to another (EV manufacturers.) Although the mechanism is slightly different, they're both subsidies. To be clear: I have no problem with these subsidies! Just think your pedantry is misfiring.
Tesla's original "secret plan" (published on their website) was to become a commodity car manufacturer faster than electric cars became a commodity. Such that the other manufacturers would find them selling obsolete vehicles and Tesla just becomes the new General Motors.
This was the justification for their stock price for quite a few years: "It's logical that Tesla is worth more than all other automakers combined because it will soon be the only automaker."
But now Tesla is way behind on self driving (which was oversold by the whole industry tbh). So what's their new plan? Now they're no longer a car company and will make robots!
He "evolved" on this after the election..
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