this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2025
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Oh so they admit they've just been ripping off everyone before.
Nah they did that when they increased the price by the amount of the EV credit when Biden renewed them. It has always been about corporate welfare payments just like the half a dozen times Republicans and Democrats have given billions to major ISPs for "rural broadband" which still doesn't exist apparently.
Rural broadband exists. I have a fiber connection it a remote cabin from it. It's actually better than what's at my house in the city, coincidentally.
Is it from a major ISP? From what I've seen in just about every rural area around me, municipalities have had to roll out their own fiber lines at their own expense and still offer internet at a fraction of the price of any of the national companies that received these billions of dollars in handouts from the government.
Yes, it was federal dollars to an ISP and not the municipality. This particular municipality would never do such a thing regardless of incentive.
This seems to be the case every time the government gives out a credit or money directly to any company. From what I understand it's exactly the same with solar panel credits, the companies that manufacturer or install the panels just raise prices for the amount of the credit and consumers are tricked into thinking they're saving money.
I mean, that just makes the ripping off more obvious, not less ripoff.
Broadband is a good one... They REALLY should be putting requirements on these handouts/contracts... fail to deliver? Congratulations! You're paying it all back.
Anyone that's ever worked on corporate contracts knows to have milestones and penalties. The fact that broadband subsidies (often) didn't is very telling.
Very telling indeed. Too bad noone is listening...
Not how economics works. Prices are set by how much people are willing to pay, not how much something costs to produce. Incentive programs exist just as much (if not more) to incentivize producers to invent, produce, and promote things via increased profit margins as they are to incentivize consumers to buy a thing due to lower costs.
That Ford drops the price when they no longer have an incentive to offset part of the price for the consumer is completely normal, expected, and not at all nefarious.
Where did I say it wasn't economics? I said they're ripping people off.
That says nothing about how capitalist fucks will celebrate it.
If you think ripping people off isn't bad just because it's taking place in a market... then congratulations: You've learned nothing from history.
What would constitute "not a ripoff" in your view?
Passing the savings off to the consumer, as was the entire fucking supposed point of the subsidies.
Not OP, but I'm pretty sure the point was to increase adoption of EVs. That includes the buyer, the seller, and even third parties like charging stations and equipment.
Although I will grant that the implementation was presented as savings for the customer.
CAs was for EV adoption and applied broadly to domestic and international brands, feds excluded non-US manufacturing so is goal was to "build back better" manufacturing in US (50% less rebate if battery wasn't sourced US, too) while also promoting EV adoption-- supposedly meant to be a compromise with the America first crowd.
Neither quite work as intended due to the mark up, but it's technically divided between consumer and seller, so there's some benefit to consumers even if it's only a fraction. Incentives for companies still help EV adoption too, although that really didn't seem to work on short sighted American companies.
Frankly, the real problem was only 6 EV models qualified for the federal originally, and Tesla made out like a fucking bandit.... Plus it's not like they even had gas vehicles to sell anyway!
That might be how the subsidies were sold to you, but any economist will tell you that isn't how subsidies work, or why they are implemented as policy. As the other poster noted, subsidies don't exist to benefit consumers, but to increase the use of a particular product. A faction of political power determined that increased adoption of EVs would be in the public interest, so subsidies were instituted to speed up EV adoption. Who gets the money or who benefits is completely besides the point.
(As a side note, I think EV subsidies are not really the best idea in terms of the public good, and the money would be better spent on public transit improvements or micromobility subsidies. But EVs thread the needle of political palatability, so here we are.)
Prices are set by the company and are limited by what people are able/willing to pay. Which I think is an important distinction to make. I know you were trying to make the point that a price isn't just equal to its cost to produce. But it's weird to downplay production costs and then talk about increased profit margins being an incentive when that is a factor.
Funnily enough, the reason Ford gave for the price increase and subsequent decrease in 2023 was production cost changes.
The government offset part of the price for the consumer not Ford. All you're really saying is "can you really blame them?" for maximizing their profits. Which I think is one of the more insidious sentiments currently.