Hyperloop Hype. What Else Do You Expect From Elon?

The classic sign of a con man is that he always responds to information or developments that undermine his previous promises with new!, better! promises. Elon Musk fits this template to a T.

Most of the news from Tesla lately has been less than favorable, and all of it contradicts previous pronouncements. Vehicle shipments have failed to make forecast, and it is  trying to manage expectations about Model 3 production and sales. It is becoming clear that Tesla will face considerable competition in electric cars, and from companies that have a proven ability to build automobiles in quantity with quality–both of which Tesla has yet to do. As a result, the price has cracked considerably in the past few weeks.

So Elon needs a distraction, and another fantastical statement about Tesla would probably be ill-advised. So what to do? Tweet tantalizing trash about Hyperloop, of course! (I have to rely on press reports, because Elon blocked me long, long ago. I’m so proud.)

Musk stated that he had received “verbal govt approval” to build the NY-DC Hyperloop.

Approval from whom, exactly? Elon didn’t say. Approval to do what, exactly? Elon didn’t say.

Forget the what: the whom question is amusing enough. I can imagine a conversation between Elon and an alderman in say, Applegarth, NJ. “Hey. I’d like to drill a tunnel under your town and run high speed capsules carrying passengers underneath it. What do you think?” “COOL! Go for it!” Then Elon whips out his iPhone and tweets that he got “verbal govt approval.”

Just think how many jurisdictions there are between New York and DC. (And how many of those are corrupt as hell.)  This is also the Land of NIMBY. So unless there is some supersecret Regional Subterranean Construction Authority that can approve–verbally, no less–the building of something like Hyperloop, can override local government in NY, NJ, PA, DE, and the Federal government as well, there is no single body to give the approval that Elon claims he has.

But reality doesn’t matter in ElonWorld. He needed something to feed the fanboyz, and he did. And non-fanboyz (e.g., the WSJ) actually treat these utterances seriously.

Note that Elon’s Hyperloop Tweet gets wall-to-wall coverage, but the fact that his brother-in-law Peter Rive has left Tesla to–wait for it–“spend more time with his family” has barely registered in the news.

Rive was a co-founder of Solar City, and was in charge of one of the projects that Elon had hyped earlier–the Solar Roof, which was supposedly about ready to be installed en masse.  Has anyone actually seen such a roof? I thought not. Yet more hype, the failure to deliver on which requires hyping Hyperloop.

Musk has gone through execs like Kleenex during a bad cold. And now he can’t even keep his relatives.

But Elon always has rent-seeking to fall back on. Of all his bullshit, the biggest is his claim that the company does not depend on government largesse: “And I should perhaps touch again on this whole notion of – it’s almost like over the years there’s been all these sort of irritating articles like Tesla survives because of government subsidies and tax credits. It drives me crazy.”

So I presume you sent back those CA ZEV and US subsidy checks, right Elon? For the sake of your sanity.

Thought not.

Take Elon’s pronouncements at face value (I know, I know) and you would think that the impending phase out of Federal subsidies would be great news for his mental health. But given the fact that EV sales have this tendency to collapse when subsidies go away (recent examples being Hong Kong, China, and Denmark), the loss of this revenue stream is a grave threat to the company. But never fear, California, which hasn’t met an idiotic green technology that it won’t throw money at, is getting ready to throw large green Elon’s way:

The California state Assembly passed a $3-billion subsidy program for electric vehicles, dwarfing the existing program. The bill is now in the state Senate. If passed, it will head to Governor Jerry Brown, who has not yet indicated if he’d sign what is ostensibly an effort to put EV sales into high gear, but below the surface appears to be a Tesla bailout.

. . . .

This is how the taxpayer-funded rebates in the “California Electric Vehicle Initiative” (AB1184) would work, according to the Mercury News:

The [California Air Resources Board] would determine the size of a rebate based on equalizing the cost of an EV and a comparable gas-powered car. For example, a new, $40,000 electric vehicle might have the same features as a $25,000 gas-powered car. The EV buyer would receive a $7,500 federal rebate, and the state would kick in an additional $7,500 to even out the bottom line.

And for instance, a $100,000 Tesla might be deemed to have the same features as a $65,000 gas-powered car. The rebate would cover the difference, minus the federal rebate (so $27,500). Because rebates for Teslas will soon be gone, the program would cover the entire difference – $35,000. This is where Senator Vidak got his “$30,000 to $40,000.”

The Tesla Model 3 would be tough to sell without the federal $7,500. But this new bill would push Californian taxpayers into filling the void. It would be a godsend for Tesla.

AB1184 would be a huge expansion of the current Clean Vehicle Rebate Project which has doled out 115,000 rebates for $295 million to buyers of EVs and hybrids since 2010, averaging about $2,550 per rebate.

Under AB1184, hybrids and hydrogen powered cars are not included, and rebates for plug-in hybrids are slashed – perhaps to keep Toyota’s technologies at bay.

Even the current, relatively small Clean Vehicle Rebate Project has been lambasted as a subsidy for the wealthy who can afford to spend $100,000 on a set of wheels. A study, cited by the Mercury News, showed that of nearly 100,000 rebates, over 80% went to Californians with incomes over $100,000. This notion of a subsidy for the wealthy also applies to the federal rebate.

So of course Elon threw himself across the Assembly door in Sacramento, right? He’s bombarding Jerry Brown with calls begging him to veto right?

Yeah, sure. No this smells for all the world like California doing a solid for a local company (and the wealthy Californians that buy its cars). And we know how Elon can work governments to get him to shovel money his way.

In some ways, you can’t blame Elon. As transparent as his shtick is, it seems to work. P.T. Barnum’s dictum about a sucker being born every minute seems to be a low-ball estimate when it comes to Musk’s con. So until it doesn’t work, he’ll keep doing it. Given that reality isn’t an option, what else is he going to do?

If Elon fools you once, shame on him. If he fools you twice, three times, four times . . . shame on you.