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The pickup is in the works...

http://jalopnik.com/tesla-will...

Regarding the motorcycle, would you take a harley?

http://www.autoblog.com/2014/1...

The last thing Jersey needs is more car dealerships and lots. So I can see the numerical limits as having some merit.

Have you ever been to a Tesla dealership? They are nothing like typical dealerships. They don't have sprawling lots full of cars. They are small, typically in pedestrian friendly areas nowhere near other dealerships, and have just enough cars that you can look at the models and options, with a few more cars for test drives. They're more like a retail store than a dealership lot. Here is a blog with pictures of dealerships around the world.

Each car is built to order, and you come pick it up at the dealership or they deliver it to you. I suspect the limit is a compromise with opponents of Tesla's model, not anything to do with too many dealerships.

Its misleading to specify torque at zero rpm, your power is zero because there is no movement.

What does movement have to do with anything? Do you even know what torque is? Here, let me help you with that. In a nutshell, it's force. There's all kinds of forces in the world that don't result in movement. Lucky for you. You're sitting in a chair, aren't you? Demonstrating an instance of force without movement all by yourself. Amazing, isn't it. Forces get applied before movement starts.

nice try lol. You must be homeschooled or something. With no movement the static force gives no acceleration - might as well say a section of a tree trunk is providing thousands of pounds of thrust and make a free energy machine. Or gear down a hobby servo motor ten billion times and 'prove' you can generate more torque than any tesla with a 1.5V AAA battery. Or you may realize you lack a basic grasp of physics. Electric motors have higher torque than internal combustion motors of a similar size only at lower speeds.

All of the above cars you mention can beat the tesla in some or many of what people would call performance specifications, such as acceleration...

Tesla P85D 0-60 mph 3.2 s Audi S8 0-60 mph 3.9 s Yes, the sports cars can beat it. It's a SEDAN. A five door liftback sedan. For crying out loud... And for the record, the curb weight of the Audi is 4685 lbs. The curb weight of the Model S is 4647 lbs. The Model S is lighter than the gasoline car in the same class and price bracket.

The tesla 60 gets a 0-60 of 5.9 seconds but acceleration isn't the only performance metric. The 208 (60) to 270 (85D) mile range puts it at the bottom of the list. Handling and braking are also important - its a fact you can get a comparable performing vehicle for less money if you forgo electric.

Efficency isn't hard to see - in the case of pollution its co2/distance. coal power to charge your battery isn't going to be any better for the environment than economy fossil fuel cars. Its not my opinion, a simple google search would show you this if you took off your fanbois goggles.

Really? Truly? Sorry, those links are probably too hard for you. They require you to calculate the efficiencies yourself by dividing. Here, let me help you.

2012 Coal 33.8% 2012 Internal Combustion 32.8%

Coal is more efficient. Not a lot, but it is. It's definitely not radically worse, or even slightly worse. So shifting from petroleum to coal for transportation is a gain, made better by the fact below about the efficiency of electric motors in transportation applications.

Lmao you have no idea - your link shows the power plant effciency, not the transmission losses, charging losses or the efficiency of the electric vehicle. By that logic gas vehicles are 100% efficient as they require no power plant for recharging. http://shrinkthatfootprint.com... you can get the same or better emissions with a economy gas car and far better co2/mile emissions from a modern diesel vehicle, in the vast majority of locations that people live around the entire planet, and at less than half the cost. Not to mention that site is highly biased toward electric cars and if anything have overestimated things. People would buy them if they got the crazy subsidy electric vehicles get, if you could get one new for 5-10k usd instead of 15-20k usd people would line up around the block.

Its misleading to specify torque at zero rpm, your power is zero because there is no movement.

What does movement have to do with anything? Do you even know what torque is? Here, let me help you with that. In a nutshell, it's force. There's all kinds of forces in the world that don't result in movement. Lucky for you. You're sitting in a chair, aren't you? Demonstrating an instance of force without movement all by yourself. Amazing, isn't it. Forces get applied before movement starts.

All of the above cars you mention can beat the tesla in some or many of what people would call performance specifications, such as acceleration...

Tesla P85D 0-60 mph 3.2 s
Audi S8 0-60 mph 3.9 s
Yes, the sports cars can beat it. It's a SEDAN. A five door liftback sedan. For crying out loud... And for the record, the curb weight of the Audi is 4685 lbs. The curb weight of the Model S is 4647 lbs. The Model S is lighter than the gasoline car in the same class and price bracket.

Efficency isn't hard to see - in the case of pollution its co2/distance. coal power to charge your battery isn't going to be any better for the environment than economy fossil fuel cars. Its not my opinion, a simple google search would show you this if you took off your fanbois goggles.

Really? Truly? Sorry, those links are probably too hard for you. They require you to calculate the efficiencies yourself by dividing. Here, let me help you.

2012 Coal 33.8%
2012 Internal Combustion 32.8%

Coal is more efficient. Not a lot, but it is. It's definitely not radically worse, or even slightly worse. So shifting from petroleum to coal for transportation is a gain, made better by the fact below about the efficiency of electric motors in transportation applications.

Also you are highly misinformed with electric motors, they are often 80-95% efficient when very lightly loaded and are near 50% efficient at peak power at half the no load speed - these are basic facts even a high school student should know.

Really? I guess you haven't made it to high school yet. I'll just describe the graph for those who won't follow the link. At 10% load the tested 25 horse power premium efficiency motor hits 80% efficiency. At 40% load, it hits 97% efficiency and it never drops below that, all the way out to 160% of its rated load.

and yes 10, 20, 30, 40 years from now we will replace our industrial electrical power production with better sources, but cars last 10 years at best. So right now the wrong thing to do is buy electric if you care about pollution.

My infernal combustion car is 14 years old, thanks. Right now, if you care about pollution, and can afford the gasoline-competitive electric cars (either of them), you can also afford to cover your roof in solar panels from one end to the other. I can't, just yet, but someday I will. At which point I won't care what "industrial power production" is doing.

Then again I don't suppose facts are your thing.

I replied with links. With numbers. You didn't. You should stop typing now.

This actually exists (well, not the George Jetson bit) - in Europe Renault sells a car with six user-selectable engine sounds:

See: http://www.autoblog.com/2012/0...

Choices include a Clio V6, a Nissan GT-R or a Harley motorcycle...

Dismissing it "just a hybrid" is no more accurate than calling it an electric car. It's runs as an electric car until the all-electric range is exhausted -- about thirty miles -- and then runs like a hybrid. Parallel mode may kick in to drive the wheels if the battery is exhausted and it needs the extra push. Since the average driver drives twenty-nine miles a day (some more, some less, YMMV) it means that most days many (maybe most) people wouldn't need to use gas at all. The 2016 Volt gets fifty miles all-electric range on a charge, so the number of people this would cover goes up. I drive a 2012 Volt and I need to make a long drive (about 200 miles) once a week, so most electric cars would not do it for me, but the Volt makes the drive by switching to gas and runs most of the rest of the week off the battery. As far as dependability goes, J.D> Power gives them top marks. I can tell when my Volt goes into parallel mode and it rarely happens, so the "complex" system you're concerned about does not receive a lot of wear and tear.
 
I suppose that it could be argued that plug-in hybrids like the Volt are just a stop-gap measure until we have charging stations available and fast-charging batteries to shorten the time a recharge takes, but I rather like how my "stop-gap" is working out.

no, the volt was actually updated today as well - http://www.autoblog.com/2015/0...

they are 2 totally different cars. But the new volt is looking pretty awesome, this bolt kinda looks like a mix between the BMW i3 and the chevy spark

The energy cost of methane is the lowest and it has a slight Isp (specific impulse) advantage over kerosene...it does not have the pain-in-the-ass factor that hydrogen has

I know hydrogen has a high "pain-in-the-ass" factor, but are electric cars that much better?

"What if I suddenly feel like driving from Florida to Alaska?"

How about Arizona to Fairbanks. Seventeen days for the trip is quite a long time, though. I've driven between LA and Fairbanks twice, and can do it in 7 days without pushing too hard.

generally calculated to average 2 tons, even "big" SUVs aren't usually as heavy as their size might imply. I don't like SUVs either, but that's no excuse for bad policy.

2 tonnes is heavy for a car. It is fucking insane for an average.

To put the numbers into perspective. here's some weights of the top selling cars in the US from 2013 that aren't SUV's or pickups:
Honda Accord = 1500-1670 KG
Toyota Camry = 1500-1600 KG
Honda Civic = 1200-1300 KG
Nissan Altima = 1450-1550 KG
Toyota Corolla = 1250 KG

How many heavy cars are on the road to get the average to 2 Tonnes (2 tonnes is 2000 KG for the uninitiated)? A large sedan should be between 1500 and 1800 KG, a small car should be under 1200-1400 KG and a city car should be under 1200 KG.

Your heaviest Mustang (500GT convertible) weighs in at under 1850 KG and a Chysler 300 SRT-8 just inches over at 2012 KG when weighed with fluids and a full tank (basically ready to drive). 2T is stupidly high for an average weight.

Sure! Here is a source:
http://www.autoblog.com/2014/0...

Wrong. When I buy it I own it. Now if I lease it that would be entirely different. Having said that I will say that in this day and age if I buy anything from a dealer I'm going to go over it with a fine tooth comb. I always assume dealers are out to fuck you because.....they are.

They call it rent to own. They own it until you make the last payment.

But otherwise, there are plenty of good reasons to disable OnStar, as they still listen in even if you don't pay for the service: http://www.consumerkarma.com/2...

http://www.autoblog.com/2011/0...

Presumably they backed off......

http://www.cnet.com/news/onsta...

Um, I do not believe it for a second. If it is there, it will be used, and possibly abused.

This mandatory tracking is the main reason I stopped buying GM Vehicles.

so?

S3 - competes with akamai, and azure - cloud services
fire/kindle- compete with sammy, goog, apple - hardware (nevermind all the amazon basics branded accessories)
amazon locker, next day delivery - distribution/logistics- FedEx/UPS
the dome - major studios, netflix - content
amazon fresh - safeway, albertsons - food
music/video streaming - apple, netflix, google, MS - digital distribution (and don't forget the game studio they bought)
and with a "store" coming to Manhattan - retail.
what's next, cars? oh, wait... http://www.autoblog.com/2014/0...

amazon is fighting a multi-sided war
look what happened to the Nazis when they decided to take on the Allies in the West, and the Russians in the East - Germany got crushed in the middle

if you spread yourself too thin, you risk losing all the battles. (Fire phone anyone?) - a little dramatic perhaps, but
Wall Street just set a shot over the bow.. the "jack of all trades, master of none" philosophy is going to come back and bite them

you invest in a company to make money... sooner or later, your investors will bail if they don't see a return.

what kind of business likes to see their investors bail?

ones that see it as a good time to go private.

so?

S3 - competes with akamai, and azure - cloud services
fire/kindle- compete with sammy, goog, apple - hardware (nevermind all the amazon basics branded accessories)
amazon locker, next day delivery - distribution/logistics- FedEx/UPS
the dome - major studios, netflix - content
amazon fresh - safeway, albertsons - food
music/video streaming - apple, netflix, google, MS - digital distribution (and don't forget the game studio they bought)
and with a "store" coming to Manhattan - retail.
what's next, cars? oh, wait... http://www.autoblog.com/2014/0...

amazon is fighting a multi-sided war
look what happened to the Nazis when they decided to take on the Allies in the West, and the Russians in the East - Germany got crushed in the middle

if you spread yourself too thin, you risk losing all the battles. (Fire phone anyone?) - a little dramatic perhaps, but
Wall Street just set a shot over the bow.. the "jack of all trades, master of none" philosophy is going to come back and bite them

you invest in a company to make money... sooner or later, your investors will bail if they don't see a return.

what kind of business likes to see their investors bail?

We have a separate class of 'Licensed Hire Vehicles' which are not as flexible as taxis - you have to book them rather than hail on the street. This does require explicit registration of the vehicles, but I've seen one with 'Uber' flashes, so it seems to work. This is a good solution for people who want to make a real living out of Uber, rather than just occasional.

http://green.autoblog.com/2007...

is an alternative outcome - registration to avoid London's congestion charge (for driving in the streets of much of central London)

Car batteries are far cheaper, see:
http://green.autoblog.com/2014...
$5500 for a 24kWh battery, hopefully prices like this will make it to home systems soon. Tesla's battery $20,000 for 85kWh, about the same per kwh.

30kWh is a lot of electricity, maybe you could shave a big chunk off of that with more efficient appliances, lights and standby settings. UK households average around 12kWh/day.

Until they have a more affordable version, the with be a niche. Bugati is also a niche. Niche doesn't mean bad.

Bad example. Bugatti isn't a niche, Bugatti is just a marquee brand of the Volkswagen Group.

And while obviously Tesla will remain relatively small until they have the pricing and capacity to sell more cars, that's not really a very good definition of a niche. They are backordered for months and have already announced longer term plans for their next 2 models. That's called *startup*, not a niche.

As far as the price - maybe it's high, but also maybe Bob Lutz doesn't quite understand the concept of stock valuation. In theory its price is based on the POTENTIAL value of the company, not it's current state. Or maybe he's just butt hurt his former company's stock (GM) has tanked while Tesla's has skyrocketed.

Actually, if you want *real* niche, it's Lutz's new company, who's car (I'm not making this up) is basically taking a Fiskar Karma and replacing the electric motor with one from a Corvette ZR1: http://www.autoblog.com/2014/0...

"The car has unusual good looks" - that was before the BMW i8
"Rich people will buy it if they think its not gonna leave them stranded" - there's also the Porsche Panamera S eHybrid, which has better performance for about the same money and a big name behind it. For 1/3 more - which wouldn't be a deal-breaker for folks in the upper-upper-middle-class - there's the aforementioned BMW i8, also backed by a well-known automotive maker. WangXiang may not be small but they don't - as yet - have solid name recognition outside of China.

And that's if you're only discounting Tesla's established - and growing - Supercharger network. One little-known fact is that they're also installing 80 A chargers that can provide about 55 miles of range per hour, about the same as charging at home with the Dual Charger High Power Wall Connector.
http://green.autoblog.com/2014...

"because that gets the car under the magic $100,000 price barrier" - I'm not sure how much of a barrier that is. These cars are mostly being bought by folks who are quite well off. I would say that "price barriers" exist at $25k, 35k, $50k but anyone who's trying to decide between a top end Model S, the Panamera S, the i8 or the Fisker Karma isn't going to make up his mind solely on a $20k price difference; it'll be just one of several factors in the final decision.

What if I want a Model 3 but without the battery and the electric motor? I'm going to mod mine, Flintstones-style.

Perhaps you would be interested in a BMW i8?

The average price of a new car in the US is $30K nowadays. A BMW 3-series starts at $32K, and given that Tesla started out going after the market dominated by things like the BMW 7 series, S-Class Mercedes, Audi A8 and Lexus LS, it's not surprising that the next market(s) they would go after would be similar -- the SUV will compete against things like the BMW, Mercedes and Lexus models and the smaller car will compete against the 3-Series, Audi A4 and Lexus models. The luxury auto business has higher margins and people who can afford those higher margins tend to want more of the latest anything -- phone, computer, tablet, clothes, thermostat, food/drink, etc. It would probably not be unreasonable to assume that the buyer Tesla is targeting is someone who likely has a fairly recent smartphone, luxury car less than five years old, owns a home, is married, and is in their late 30's to early 50's. They likely have a fairly established career, a family, and an income around $150K before taxes. They aren't going after the people who are shopping the Ford Fiesta, Toyota Yaris and Honda Fit, or recent college grads, or people with their first job. They are pretty much going after the same people Audi did when they were rebuilding themselves.

As someone who is shopping in the $15K range for my next car, and who is very close to hitting 200K miles on the current one, I largely agree with you. I have come around to the point where I'm aggressively eliminating all debt that I possibly can, with the eventual goal of being debt free. Pouring 40K into something that's going to be regularly doused with road salt, snow, rain, mud and will eventually wear out entirely seems like a waste of money. I need a car to get around, get to work, visit family and friends -- for my lifestyle there is definite value which owning an automobile provides, there is no denying that. But at this point in my life I can say that I'd rather spend $15K on a compact sedan that will accomplish all I need it to do than spend $40K on something that largely does the same thing. That extra $25K can go towards retiring debt, funding college for the kids, paying down the mortgage, etc.

Sources on the 30K price:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/mo...
http://www.autoblog.com/2012/0...

Sources on Audi:
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/29/...
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money...

They probably rigged their SUVs to actually manufacture CCl4 and immediately release it into the atmosphere just because.

Oh c'mon now, no one (over the age of 2) would behave that petulantly, right?

In Japan, Toyota sells a hybrid minivan (the Estima) that uses the Prius drivetrain and is based off the (discontinued in the states) Previa styling:

http://green.autoblog.com/2013/11/07/toyota-estima-hybrid-minivan/

Most of these vans get less than 20-25 MPG, so an offering that gets 40 MPG city (or better) would surely be more compelling than a gimmick megaphone. Hey Toyota, about get your act together and bring your superior automotive technology to the USA instead of this kind of stuff.

I've been asking Toyota for years. That said, I finally caved and got a non-hybrid Sienna, and it gets about 20mpg combined average. I'd kill for that Estima to be sold here even if they did mark up for adding a hybrid drivetrain.

In Japan, Toyota sells a hybrid minivan (the Estima) that uses the Prius drivetrain and is based off the (discontinued in the states) Previa styling:

http://green.autoblog.com/2013/11/07/toyota-estima-hybrid-minivan/

Most of these vans get less than 20-25 MPG, so an offering that gets 40 MPG city (or better) would surely be more compelling than a gimmick megaphone. Hey Toyota, about get your act together and bring your superior automotive technology to the USA instead of this kind of stuff.

Mazda has a *prototype*

"Mazda engineers at the event putting such technology at least three years out while stressing that the test car is just that, and not scheduled for production. "

http://www.autoblog.com/2013/1...

Interestingly enough, Tesla already has patents covering this hybrid battery approach. According to this patent it was filed back in 2010.

I'm waiting for someone to make the Mythbuster's Dimpled Car. They got nearly 10% better MPG in their test.

The problem with diesel cars in the USA is that they're more expensive than current hybrids (particularly the Prius)

The hell they are:

2014 Jetta TDI Value Edition: $21,295

2014 Beetle TDI: $24,595

2014 Chevy Cruze Diesel (no options): $24,310

2014 Prius Base Model: $24,200

Seems to be just about the same to me, save the Jetta; mine was a bit more (~$28,000), but that's because I sprung for every option except satnav. Seems the real problem is lack of options, unless you're a VW or Chevy fan.

diesel fuel is on average more expensive at the pump than 87 octane gasoline.

Yea, but you get almost-if-not-more-than twice the miles out of the same amount of fuel, so it ends up being a net win. I will concede that the sticker shock of diesel fuel does cause a lot of people's brains to shut off, and thus, not see the benefit.

You're awful fucking lucky then.

http://www.autoblog.com/2014/0...

General Motors can't seem to get its name out of the "bad news" column. Two more recalls were announced late Friday evening that will see The General calling in 490,200 fullsize pickup trucks and SUVs, along with 172,000 Chevrolet Cruze models.

For those keeping track, General Motors has issued recalls for an alarming 4.8 million vehicles so far since last month.

The Chevy Silverado 1500, Tahoe and Suburban, GMC Sierra 1500 and Yukon models from the 2014 and 2015 model years are being recalled for a flaw in their transmissions wherein loose oil cooler lines may cause a fire. The automaker said in a statement (see below) that it knows of three incidents of loose transmission lines causing problems, but no injuries. We can't confirm whether it was this transmission issue that caused the widely publicized blaze that consumed a 2015 GMC Yukon that was being test driven in California.

Tesla poached a lot of their engineers by 2006.

You forgot the oblitory links:

http://the-tubez.prochan.com/T...
http://www.autoblog.com/2013/0...
http://www.co.benton.ar.us/med...

As a Tesla owner I can say that electric-only cars are great as long as you're not always driving 300+ miles in a stretch. Every morning I have a full battery. When I plug in in my garage I add around 55 miles of range per hour. On long trips the superchargers have been great. In my trips between the Bay Area and Lake Tahoe/Reno I stop in Folsom and grab a burger. By the time I'm done with my burger my car has plenty of charge to reach my destination, usually around 30 minutes after 2 hours of driving (I need a good charge since my destination in Lake Tahoe is 7200 feet and the pass to Reno is around 5K feet). Soon battery swapping will be an option as well. The Tesla battery still holds 80% capacity at the equivalent of 750K miles.

The Volt starts at $35k and the next generation (2016 MY) will have a low end offering starting at $30k which compares favorably with the average new car price of almost $31k last year

Here is one link.

Or a V6 sound out of a 3 cylinders 0.9 liter engine in the case of a renault clio

And this must also not be true.

Or the one at CNN Money.

Well, be careful - there are some auto makers that have some game. It took them 20 years, but BMW finally has an iDrive system that's almost worth the money. They finally got rid of the god awful interface it used to have, and gave you one that actually makes sense. They still have the jog-wheel, but also put a capacitive touch top on it. Oh, and it will talk to your smartphone in a way that doesn't make you want to choke kittens.

Obviously you haven't been paying attention. The same ones that move our food to our local grocery stores. Diesel trucks already are pretty damn efficient for what they do. And being that fuel prices already cut into barely-living wage standards (and unsafe sleepless driving), it's to their advantage to increase MPG through market forces on their own. The main goal of Obama isn't to increase the MPG standards, but reduce greenhouse emissions from semi trucks. The goals may be one-in-the-same, but the premise of reducing CO2 has far more crippling ramifications.

Unless they plan on forcing truckers to retrofit existing trucks with modifications (through government subsidies [your tax dollars]), there's just no way they can increase MPG when hauling heavy cargo with existing trucks. To my knowledge, newer trucks are already on the bleeding edge of technology that isn't cost prohibitive. That last part is key.

And people, don't bring up trains using diesel-eletric engines. It's only diesel-eletric because there isn't a transmission that can be made small enough to support the gearing necessary to drive it.

you might want a Defender

Looks like they're on the way out - what else do people buy in that class? I've always had a romantic fascination with them but couldn't figure out how people bet their lives on them in the desert but my friends in the US with Range Rovers are always having the things die due to some electrical or mechanical problem.

http://www.autoblog.com/2013/10/10/land-rover-ending-defender-production-after-67-years/

...they probably still have all of the Jaguar IP for welding, riveting, and clinching aluminum.

I would assume that that IP was sold with Jaguar to Tata some 5 years ago now (source). Sure, they probably can license that IP pretty easily (as I recall, the deal had Ford still doing a bunch of R&D for Jaguar and Land Rover), but saying that they have all of the IP would be misleading.

If the car owner does all charging at the office, the cost of electricity would offset at least some of the cost of replacing the batteries. But I don't know that it would be worth it. This blog post suggests that the average cost per month of electricity is less than $50 for fairly average use, but the battery replacement program for the Leaf is $100 per month.

Then again, the car owner would have to replace their battery after so much usage anyway regardless of where it is being charged, so assuming the employer's usage causes about twice as many recharge cycles, the employee might just break even.

Meanwhile the business gets a win by fully charging the cars when at non-peak usage, say around $0.05/KWH, and fully discharging during peak usage, say around $0.45/KWH, even if they have to supply twice as much energy to the cars as they use to power the office. (I pulled those $/KWH numbers from a post below; I have no clue if they are legitimate.)

I probably wouldn't participate in this program unless the employer provided a bonus incentive.

Speaking of which. People have died in this car on a race track too.

http://www.autoblog.com/2007/10/24/4-5-million-awarded-in-porsche-carrera-gt-case/

Never dropped this on anyone before, but:

[citation needed]

Average fuel economy of US passenger car fleet: 24.9 (a new record!)

Estimated average motorcycle fuel economy: 35 - 40 mpg. Many models get almost double that.

Show your data where "most motorcycles use more fuel than cars", or shut the fuck up.

Interestingly enough, a Prius gets 51/48 est. mpg, which is significantly better than the average for motorcycles, meaning that the Prius uses less gas than most motorcycles. (Simple statistics) For all passenger cars, the average is over 35mpg. It appears that motorcycles on average aren't much better than cars. Sadly.

Never dropped this on anyone before, but:

[citation needed]

Average fuel economy of US passenger car fleet: 24.9 (a new record!)

Estimated average motorcycle fuel economy: 35 - 40 mpg. Many models get almost double that.

Show your data where "most motorcycles use more fuel than cars", or shut the fuck up.

Manufacturers require 92 or better for certain high compression engines. This trend is increasing as manufacturers turn to more compression and forced induction to achieve CAFE fleet averages.

"Enterprise" grade drives are often faster, having better processors and more cache, and they don't do dumbass things like park heads every 8 seconds because the drive manufacturers have to listen to server and storage array manufacturers and meet their requirements to get certification for use in advanced storage systems.

You're an idiot. Please, stay away from any important systems. Just spend your time poasting on slashdot so you don't do any (more) damage.

How far fetched is this scenario ... look no farther than bio-ethanol.

Ethanol, made primarily from corn is pushed by ADM, Monsanto and some other corn producers. They make more money when corn is used -- go figure! There are various "greenie" organizations who have called it wasteful and not particularly green. Perhaps the MEDIA driven by the big pockets of corporations failed to mention the controversy around ethanol.

Of course, I could spend 2 seconds to verify this claim; http://green.autoblog.com/2013/02/07/broad-coalition-working-against-ethanol-says-its-worse-than-t/
I'm thinking I could find a LOT of "greenies" who are against ethanol. They might not have caught on at first, but their goal is a healthier environment and people -- not to "stick it to the man".

So are you going to re-think this evil Greenie meme or are you just going to find more evidence because someone told you that environmentalists are behind forcing oil companies to keep antique refineries and forcing waste on coal companies? I wonder if there is a financial incentive behind misinforming people? Is that hypothetical or can I find a bunch of examples of advertising dollars from big polluters buying adds on news companies.

Heck, I'm betting if we crunch the numbers we will find that BP spent more advertising on CNN than they did paying reparations in the Gulf. Now we don't KNOW if that influences coverage,... but why wouldn't it?

http://green.autoblog.com/2013/06/21/tesla-model-s-battery-swap-takes-just-90-seconds/

Musk framed the choice to Supercharge or swap as one between "free or fast." While Supercharging costs a Model S driver nothing, getting a new, fully charged battery pack will cost around the same as about 15 gallons of gas (so, let's say around $60). Later, you can get your old pack back (again, fully charged and for another $60 fee) or you can pay an undetermined fee and keep the pack. Forbes says there will be a warranty available on the replacement pack, depending on its condition.

Good riddance. These infotainment systems have historically been buggy and lead to animosity misdirected at the auto manufacturer rather than the software provider. Witness the story of Ford. On the rebound after the auto-crisis of 2007, Ford quality grew by leaps and bounds, outpacing the industry in 2008, and resulting in a top-5 JD Power and Associates ranking in 2009. That year, Ford added Microsoft SYNC to their vehicles and called it "MyFordTouch." The interface was so buggy and inconsistent that it lead to Ford dropping from number 5 in JD Power's quality 2010 quality rankings (despite no major overhalls and no new engines that year), to number 23 a year later, and then all the way to 33rd this year. Now Ford customers have launched a class-action lawsuit against Ford.

The sooner auto manufacturers standardize on a infotainment system, the better. The fact that this is open-source and based on Linux (specifically, Tizen) makes it even more likely that updates will be provided many years down the road. (even if not by the manufacturers themselves, by the community; think Cyanogenmod). This makes cars less like disposable toys and more worthy of being the second-largest expense that most households make.

I know no one wants to think that the car they worked so hard on could catch fire or be in a wreck, but these things happen. Unfortunately, not to much attention is paid to the firefighters that have to respond to these incidents. Firefighters, for the most part, can handle a "traditional" car fire. When you start adding these big battery packs, dozens of airbags, combustible metals and higher ethanol fuels then things can start to get really hairy.

This article details some of the problems that the FD encountered with this fire. I know in the past Nissan released something for the Leaf, has Tesla done anything like that?

Hindsight is 20/20, but I think this FD was a little too aggressive considering they didn't know how the vehicle would react. We need to consider deploying foam or dry-chem on car fires from the start. Also, if there's no life hazard, I wouldn't want to create one by putting my head right next to a battery filled with I-don't-know-what and then proceeding to poke holes in it with my halligan.

Cars are dumpsters on wheels, you never know what's in them. The insurance company will buy the owner a new one, no need to get hurt for something that's already 99% burned by the time you get there.

Another crack pot case.

What is the $100/month you talk about? Is that (optional) battery replacement insurance?

Yea, guess so... probably should have read the article and not just the snippet Google shows, huh?

Here's how it works. At any time, like when the warranty is about to end – so, at 4 years, 11 months or 59,999 miles – or even after the warranty ends, a Nissan Leaf owner can sign up for the battery replacement program. At that point, you start paying $100 a month (or whatever the final cost will be) and immediately get a new battery pack that has a full 12 bars of capacity.

That's actually not a terrible deal, especially considering what some of those aftermarket warranties for petrol automobiles cost.

So for me, it's closer to $20K (not including sales tax).

Better, but it would still be impractical for my needs. I would get more use and value out of a motorcycle.

YMMV, of course, and the pun is most definitely intended.

OMG, talk about an something Obvious. Shit, the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Russians, hell every country on Earth is trying to get their people into the CIA, and if they can't do that I'm sure they'll find some agency they can get into. If that fails there's always Industrial Espionage as well. Even a ex-CIA official thinks it's worse than in the cold war.

It's time to realize that a) we spy on the world and b) they spy on us and Industrial Espionage is probably more common than you think, even when the spies are employed to spy on companies in the same country!. http://images.businessweek.com/slideshows/20110919/famous-cases-of-corporate-espionage#slide6