Tesla moves headquarters from California to Texas

[DonCoquixote]

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/07/tesla-moves-its-headquarters-from-california-to-texas.html

Elon, there are so many ways to dissect this it is not even funny.

Let's ignore the fact that you are empowering a state that tried its best to kill the entire idea of electric cars, and indeed, still is.

Let's ignore the fact that you seel to the eco-conscious crowd who has been sick of Texas trying to kill the idea of ecology.

Let's ignore the fact that what caused this "supply chain " problem that you bemoan was caused by people like do who felt that Covid regulations should not apply to THEM, which is why Texas, along with my beloved Florida, has a higher rate of Covid then California.

Let's ignore the fact you now have to convince tech workers to move to a state where abortions are illegal, any psycho can carry a gun, openly and anywhere. I know that, like most tech barons, you may not think of the woman techies who will think "me, move to Texas, fuck no!", but you at least have to consider the dudes who realize even though they may admire the guys who get women pregnant and then run, they sure don't want to pay child support.

and let's ignore the fact that those cheap rents you are selling will rocket once developers see a chance to bleed those workers. A shotgun shack not for a mule will suddenly triple in price.

OH, don't try to hide behind liberal Austin; the right has been grinding that away for years, to the point where those artists and hippies that you may use to attract the tech workers are being driven out.

NO, I will have to attack you at a BASE Level, because that is really what you exist for, self-gratification.

As much as you hate regulation, you will LOVE dealing with texas when they catch you with your Cannabis, the stuff you vaped on TV and made your stock drop. You may think yourself immune, but if the Texans need to find a way to take your stuff, they will use it. I am sure your tech workers, some of whom need that legal in California green to get through working for you, know this too.

PS: OH, I forgot the fact that a large part of the tech center is LGBT, if not LGBT friendly. Good luck getting people from Frisco to love Texas

PPS: Let's not forget the fact that your chances of getting an educated workforce are a LOT less. Do you think you will get tech workers in a place where "JEEEZUZZZ" is more imporatant than Math?

[2naSalit]

1. All valid points...

That he probably hasn't considered.

[Lovie777]

2. Pay very little taxes if any . . . .

Rich get richer, that's all Musk cares about. Typical.

Texas tho is becoming a much hated state. Seems like most hate California - LOL.

[Omnipresent]

3. I'm not sure...

In a way, Elon’s going to California Texas!

[Demobrat]

4. The Texans who have been there for generations

are going to despise the Tesla workers when they start driving housing prices up. And the Texans all have guns.

[Budi]

5. Tesla 1 yr ago. "Tesla is building a lithium hydroxide refinery in TX"

Article from Tesla 1 yr ago.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.teslarati.com/tesla-lithium-hydroxide-facility-cybertruck-gigafactory-texas/amp/

Start Date 2022.
Tesla is building a lithium hydroxide refinery in Texas for its Cybertruck factory.

A recent report from market intelligence publisher Benchmark Mineral Intelligence has revealed that Tesla is poised to build a lithium hydroxide chemical plant in Texas. The lithium hydroxide refinery will reportedly be situated in Texas, and it will be used to feed the upcoming Cybertruck Gigafactory.

The spodumene conversion facility will be built adjacent to Gigafactory Texas, and based on Benchmark Minerals’ report, the facility has a target date of Q4 2022 for its start of operations. This is a notably aggressive timeframe for such a facility, though it is something distinctly Tesla. Ultimately, the lithium hydroxide refinery will add to Tesla’s plans to set up a cathode facility in Texas, which Elon Musk has described as part of the electric car maker’s cell production plan.


SNIP
The upcoming conversion/refining plant will turn hard rock spodumene ore into lithium hydroxide, which is used directly in battery cells. It should be noted that prior to Tesla’s battery efforts, this process has traditionally been performed in China using spodumene that’s sourced from Australia. In its report, Benchmark Minerals noted that Tesla will be using a hydrometallurgical process to turn its spodumene ore into lithium hydroxide, effectively eliminating the use of sulphuric acid. This process, however, remains untested in the commercial scale.

Interestingly enough, a recent announcement from Australian mining firm Piedmont Lithium has revealed that Tesla has signed a five-year deal to acquire spodumene from a mine in North Carolina. In its press release, Piedmont noted that its Tesla deal represents about one-third of the expected 160,000 tonnes per annum that’s expected to be produced at its North Carolina mine.
This deal will likely supply Tesla with 8,000 tonnes of lithium hydroxide a year, starting between July 2022 and July 2023.
MORE...

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

11. This will be a high cost for electric vehicles, impacting environments

Refining will impact Texas somewhat. The big open-pit mine west of Charlotte, NC, will impact that area severely and permanently. Maybe it's just an acceptable impact of "green" transportation.

[Budi]

15. Great read on the honest truth. Researching the processing of Lithium/spodumene

From DUer Lonelybird
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215932224#post22


Assessing the environmental impact of spodumene mining and processing
Energy 18th August 2021

https://www.innovationnewsnetwork.com/assessing-the-environmental-impact-of-spodumene-mining-and-processing/14157/

[Budi]

6. K & R to Your OP, DonCoquixote

[Hortensis]

7. Or, further empowering of TX liberals and moderate cons and

threat to RW extremism.

It's not as if NASA or people like him have a lot of areas to choose from for launches and recoveries. If SpaceX takes off, it's going to be a very exciting place to be. It'll join the power players in TX politics, and its politics will have to be acceptable to the employees it needs to attract.

[DonCoquixote]

32. well, I have to rebut

I come from Florida, and many people thought that a bunch of Northerners like myself would make the state bluer. Well sorry to say, the opposite effect happened; the rat race of red-state made people more resentful of browns and blacks, because doggonit, they compete for jobs, and acted, in their eyes, acted insufficiently grateful to liberals. Yes, it is ugly, but I saw people who were blue blue become red here, almost like a zombie virus. Do not think employees will be enough either, because there are always employees willing to take a paycheck.

[Hortensis]

33. "Zombie virus!" Yes. Us too. We moved to GA during a liberalizing

wave from inside and out that was quashed. Our liberalizing migration into conservative regions is real, though, and the uber reactionary resistance that's finally engulged our nation is not to nothing, but to giant, enraging fears of what is.

Many people always react to change badly and most of us are afraid now. Security's been replaced with anxiety, and hope for the future with fear of the unknown. With reason. Climate crises, forced migration of hundreds of millions, and falling wages, contempt for labor, grown children who can't support themselves, obsolete skills and "the end of work"?! And all the culture war fears on top if it. The zombie virus.

Whatever people here think about Elon Musk personally, focusing on him's kind of missing the point. He and millions like him drove the last two centuries of great change, and they're busily forming the future we're going to be living in willy nilly. Good and bad, but the sequelae of life-altering technological changes include vast social changes that are almost always liberalizing.

Meanwhile, the children of the zombies may breed true, but they grew up seeing the social changes their parents fear as mostly normal. In FL too, liberalization is the zombie virus killer and it's not only coming from outside. Demographic progression is on our side in more ways than one. Failing a devastating crash into a RW authoritarian state, I believe our expections were and are reality based but notions of how long they would take were mistaken.

[JohnSJ]

8. California I suspect is one of the largest consumers of Tesla, and I don't think Texas is

[ashredux]

20. There are a bunch of them in Austin

[markie]

9. oh well...

guess I won't buy a Tesla

[SYFROYH]

10. On the other hand, Tesla employees could help turn Texas Blue.

Maybe.

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

12. Used 2020 Tesla Model 3, std range with nav, $47,800 in town, 10k mi, nope, still too much for me

[NNadir]

13. Many people at DU worship Musk and his unsustainable car for...

...millionaires and billionaires.

They think batteries dependent on slave labor among children for cobalt are "green."

Head over to our E&E forum to learn how you too can worship a car.

It's rather appalling how little people think, how rote their opinions are.

Meanwhile this libertarian asshole is literally stealing the sky, the vision of the universe, with little attention being paid.

Texas is the perfect place for Musk. Most of his business practices amount to crimes against humanity, and the contempt that the Texas government has for humanity is clear for anyone to see.

[Budi]

16. Thank you.

Assessing the environmental impact of spodumene mining and processing
Energy
18th August 2021

https://www.innovationnewsnetwork.com/assessing-the-environmental-impact-of-spodumene-mining-and-processing/14157/

If your're already a bit alarmed at the ev impact being somehow held in such media secrecy, this article gives a clear reason to why.

I call it, The Elon Musk aggressive move into this market before the shit hits the fan.
Texas will protect his exploits.
🤬

Credit to DUer Lonelybird
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215932224#post22

[hunter]

34. I suspect Musk is bored with cars and is moving on.

Tesla may end up as a GM brand like Saturn was. And then it will be gone.

[Mary in S. Carolina]

14. Remember when

several corporations moved to Raleigh - Research Triangle Park and the state turned blue. The more educated moving into the state the better chance of it going blue.

Another example, the republicans claim that Minnesota is a purplish state, yet South Carolina is deep red, yet both states won/lost by about the same percentage. South Carolina is trending Democrat and the vast majority moving into the state are from tri state area - democrats.

[Budi]

18. Tx is already ahead of that game via their horrific redistrcting map.

Shoring up the slightest chance that the RW crooks currently embedded deep in all the exploitable power they could dream of, remain where they are.

The only way out of that is a slim chance of litigation.
🤨

[dalton99a]

17. Of course he goes where environmental and labor regulations are the worst

and where politicians are for sale cheap

[ashredux]

19. Well, at least he should be bringing some blue votes with him

[dchill]

21. Is Elon going to coup Texas...

...I hear he coups whoever he wants.

[Jon King]

22. Oracle and Tesla and others are helping blue Texas

The suburbs and metro areas are growing fast. Lots of transplanted Californians. The Texas Repugs are doing what they can to stop the inevitable by cheating.

[kimbutgar]

23. I will never buy a Tesla even if I could afford one.

F that freak Elon!

He just had a big judgement against his company in California for a hostile working environment where a guy was racially harassed and management ignored it! He is pissed with the California ruling!

[Jon King]

24. Hopefully Mary Barra the CEO of GM kicks his butt.

She just announced yesterday GM is going fully into electric vehicles. She has made some mistakes in the past, but has forged a good relationship with President Biden.

[mathematic]

25. Tesla is not a tech company it's a car company

Like other car companies, they develop technology to make cars but that does not make them a tech company.

Some great trick of salesmanship that musk has pulled to get people to view his company and products as "tech" and GM and ford's products as boring old industry.

[AllyCat]

26. Always wanted a Tesla, but think I am looking elsewhere

for an electric vehicle when I’m ready to retire the hybrid.

[Crowman2009]

27. Now would be a good time for the big 3 to lure some talent.

And they have better lawyers than Elon if he tries to stop any of his soon to be former employees.

[Aviation Pro]

28. Wish he would solo in his space penis

And never return like that Heavy Metal corvette he launched into orbit.

[CaptainTruth]

29. "Moved headquarters" leased office space?

Corporate headquarters are just offices? Noted that they're moving to the only city in Texas that I would consider cool (music) & blue:

"Travis County, TX is Very liberal. In Travis County, TX 71.4% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election,"

I wonder what will happen the next time Texas freezes & Tesla's operations there get shut down for a month? As a business owner I certainly wouldn't want to locate critical functions in an area with such vulnerable infrastructure.

[PatrickforB]

30. I learned a LOT about spudomene mining and refining in this thread.

I did not know, for instance, about the 'copious greenhouse gasses' produced in the mining/refining processes.

Seems like we need to be much more thoughtful and environmentally conscious with all of this stuff.

On a side note, my cousin, who has been in the auto parts industry for over 40 years, tells me that when plug in cars first came out, the conventional wisdom was the batteries would only last around 7 years, but they are actually lasting over 10 years. So that's good. But we still must figure out how to mitigate the environmental impacts of spudomene extraction.

As to Tesla moving the storage battery factory to Austin, TX, their management might send a few specialists there, but for the factory assembly force, they will try to hire and train indiginous workers. But here's the problem: There are presently only 64,000 manufacturing workers in Austin, concentrated in Travis County, and there are currently over 8,000 unique job postings for factory workers. So think about that for a minute - employment in manufacturing is concentrated at only 0.7 times as the national average.

So he's going to have staffing problems unless he can get some of the assemblers to move from the Bay area.

Housing IS much cheaper in TX, though. It is. The Cost of Living index for Austin metro is 96.6, with the national average being 100. To put this in perspective, the COL for San Fran metro is 164.8. So a MUCH cheaper cost of living, coupled with low taxes and low regulation will make it easier to operate IF they can get the people.

It is laudable that Musk is trying to keep this operation in America (he is expanding the CA facility as well, and intends to mine the spudomene in NC, so that is jobs here). Remember we lost around 800K manufacturing jobs to NAFTA alone, according to some counts. Thing is Xi in China is shutting down the so-called Gilded Age and taking much more control of industry, so Musk and others may well stop outsourcing things to China just because it will become much harder to do business there.

Another word on TX - it is decidedly anti-union, which is a huge factor in bringing in new business - sadly.

So, yeah, I get why Musk is expanding in the Austin area. It may prove a good business decision, BUT remember that here in the capitalist utopia that is 'Murika, we have the primacy of the shareholder doctrine in full force, which means that Musk and his C-Suite officers will actively work to automate, keep wages down, suppress even a peep about organizing, and they will worry far more about shareholder profits than they will about the environmental effects of spudomene - and that will be an externality anyway. The article mentions contracting with mines in NC, not owning them.

So, low taxes, low wages, high profit potential, and the ability to 'externalize' environmental impacts of mining/refining makes this an unsurprising move.

[hunter]

31. Not the same hell as Mars, but it will do.

Bye.