When the government wants electric car production it has a choice to invest directly into electric car R&D or to subventionize electric cars. The United States spends much more money on subventions than on R&D.
I would guess that if you ask the lawmakers they would say something like “Electric car companies are much better at investing money into developing better cars than the government happens to be, so the subventions are the more effective policy tool than paying the same amount of money for basic research”.
I don’t think this is a pure matter of incentives but simply of the ideology of privatization. It might be wrong and in reality direct government R&D is more effective than subventions but that’s an argument you have to make more directly.
When the government wants electric car production it has a choice to invest directly into electric car R&D or to subventionize electric cars. The United States spends much more money on subventions than on R&D.
I would guess that if you ask the lawmakers they would say something like “Electric car companies are much better at investing money into developing better cars than the government happens to be, so the subventions are the more effective policy tool than paying the same amount of money for basic research”.
I don’t think this is a pure matter of incentives but simply of the ideology of privatization. It might be wrong and in reality direct government R&D is more effective than subventions but that’s an argument you have to make more directly.