Tesla has also received a substantial amount of government support, including state and federal EV rebates for buyers of its cars (roughly $300 million), an extremely large handout from the state of Nevada ($1.3 billion), a large handout from New York ($1 billion), handouts from US Government ($500 million), carbon credits ($520 billion as of 2015). Collectively, Tesla's government support actually exceeds the government's bailout of Ford by several orders of magnitude...
GM and Ford were propped up by the government during the Great Recession to protect tens of thousands of jobs. Both companies have since repaid those loans...though GM discharged much of its loan through bankruptcy.
My understanding is that in 2009 Ford rejected the bailout the US automakers were offered (taking instead a loan which they are still repaying, through 2022).
GM was effectively nationalized (at a reported cost of $11b) and the creditors lost their shirts.
> Tesla has also received a substantial amount of government supporting, including EV rebates for buyers of its cars.
All automakers are eligible for this support...if they build electric cars. Ford and Tesla are the only automakers to have never declared bankruptcy. These are tiresome arguments that hold no water.
Which is why I edited my comment to provide more detail. It's not just the EV rebates, Tesla has also received substantial government handouts; on the order of billions.
GM and Ford were propped up by the government during the Great Recession to protect tens of thousands of jobs. Both companies have since repaid those loans...though GM discharged much of its loan through bankruptcy.