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Or they can what Consumer Reports does: Buy the models themselves. I didn't see mention of it while skimming TFA, but many review sites/publications use samples/loaners from companies, making this kind of bait-and-switch easy.

Sure, this means they might not get the review out before it's released, but that also makes this kind of thing far harder to do. (They could still release a first batch of high-quality items, and then successive batches use lower-quality parts, but that still costs more money and will mean less people swindled.)

This is why real professional reviewers, like Consumer Reports (and their nonprofit Consumers Union parent) don't accept advertising, and don't accept gratis review products. They go out and buy products from off the shelf from some random store. It also means they don't review vaporware products previews or pre-release samples that are typically cherry-picked before being sent to reviewers. They do auction or sell off products after review so as to reduce their expenses.

Hint, they've learned enough to being still in business of just reviewing products since 1936. Most review websites are increasingly obvious about how much of a shill they are. Personally I can't believe Extreme Tech to be so naive as to be surprised by this behavior.

Manufacturers typically don't advertise which controllers or brand of Flash RAM they use, because they are not willing to be held hostage to their suppliers. As far as they are concerned, as long as the product so do what the (brand) manufacturer claims, not what some reviewer claims from their sample of one testing, it is not false or misleading advertisement necessarily.

Then again I'm reminded that many tech enthusiasts websites rejected Bob Colwell's The Zen of overclocking (paywall; IEEE Computer, Volume 37 Issue 3, March 2004) as anti-overclocking drivel. Even though he was the chief IA-32 architect at Intel for of the Pentium Pro to Pentium IV processors.

This is why real professional reviewers, like Consumer Reports (and their nonprofit Consumers Union parent) don't accept advertising, and don't accept gratis review products. They go out and buy products from off the shelf from some random store. It also means they don't review vaporware products previews or pre-release samples that are typically cherry-picked before being sent to reviewers. They do auction or sell off products after review so as to reduce their expenses.

Hint, they've learned enough to being still in business of just reviewing products since 1936. Most review websites are increasingly obvious about how much of a shill they are. Personally I can't believe Extreme Tech to be so naive as to be surprised by this behavior.

Manufacturers typically don't advertise which controllers or brand of Flash RAM they use, because they are not willing to be held hostage to their suppliers. As far as they are concerned, as long as the product so do what the (brand) manufacturer claims, not what some reviewer claims from their sample of one testing, it is not false or misleading advertisement necessarily.

Then again I'm reminded that many tech enthusiasts websites rejected Bob Colwell's The Zen of overclocking (paywall; IEEE Computer, Volume 37 Issue 3, March 2004) as anti-overclocking drivel. Even though he was the chief IA-32 architect at Intel for of the Pentium Pro to Pentium IV processors.

Thanks for the idea, and I'll check if my bank offers something similar for my credit card. But I'm going to stick with credit cards from now on. I realize now that there's a reason why banks seem to try to push us to use debit cards every change they get.

Here's an article describing why:
http://www.consumerreports.org...

I say screw them, at least until they pull their heads out of their asses and give us secure cards (chip and pin).

So basically owners of hybrids could start to think about getting Total Cost of Ownership of their cars to somewhere in the neighborhood of my more fuel efficient diesel. Consumer Reports link. And that on top of the under-reported diesel MPG formula used in the US. Consumer Reports shows 36 average MPG for the Volkswagen Jetta TDI Wagon. My total combined is 38.6. On long trips, it averages about 44 MPG, with the AC on. I have not met a Jetta TDI owner that does not say likewise.

Hybrids owners, see me rolling, they hating, controlling,

'cause I'm riding diesel.

Not necessarily. A larger car can have bigger crumple zones. If its crumple zones are twice the size of the small car, then the acceleration that you'll experience in the collision is a lot less and so there's a greater chance everyone will survive (assuming that the relative impact speeds will be the same).

Don't let facts get in the way of a good story. :) While survivability is about equal for SUV vs SUV and car vs car impacts, studies have shown that in SUV vs car impacts the passengers of the car are 7.6 times more likely to die.

Armed with this information an autonomous vehicle trying to protect everybody should: (a) choose the impact with the least inertia for all concerned (i.e.: go for the car travelling in almost the same direction as the autonomous vehicle as opposed a car travelling in an opposite direction) and (b) for a choice of head-on impacts, prioritize impacting the car with a mass closest to its own. An autonomous vehicle biased towards protecting its own driver should target the smaller vehicle... but this will inevitably lead to "I've got the biggest autonomous vehicle" wars with people trying to protect themselves from other vehicles as we've seen happen with SUVs.

REF: http://www.consumerreports.org.../p

A material that does this has been sold in the US since 2013. The consumer version is Rust-Oleum Never-Wet. When new, the surface really will not retain water or mud. But the Rust-Oleum product doesn't provide a tough surface, and the effect doesn't last if the surface is touched or rubbed much.

It might make sense for cars. For this to work, you need a surface that you want clean, gets dirty, but isn't a working surface. That's a car body.

Yes, I can, because I don't own a smart phone, and expressly for those reasons. I also don't post pics of relatives or give out information of their behaviours online, with OR without their permission. No twitting, no facebooking, no blogging of habits.

Fair enough, but even you must recognize that that your standards are rather extreme and far from the norm. And I suspect unacceptable to the majority of people. Its the same as preaching total abstinence from sex as the cure for AIDS - it definitely works, but most people won't do it.

No, I don't contradict, because they NORMALLY give up their information freely (posts, pics, updates) and it's gotten so prevalent they aren't even cognizant that they do so anymore. As I said, it's tangentially related, not directly. It isn't that she didn't secure her phone, it's that she let her phone give her information out all the time, and had gotten so used to it as to forget that it did so. Afterwards she didn't turn it off, she was FINE with that feature.

You are arguing that because she normally spills her personal data on Facebook, she deserves to have it spilled through geolocation without her knowledge. Which seems unfair. You said that shes not tech savvy, does she even know what ticking on the geolocation box does? Is it fair to put all the burden of securing their data on the users, when the companies that provide services go out of their way to make it difficult for their users to hide their data?

Under a settlement that Facebook signed with the Federal Trade Commission last year, it was barred from making misrepresentations about the privacy or security of consumers’ personal information. It also agreed to obtain users’ consent before making changes that override their privacy preferences, among other things.

The data (or at least a decent portion) is out there to be collected, but a formalised request for it, one that could possibly be of actual benefit for the target, makes it a knee-jerk bad.

This is why we need strong privacy laws. Just because personal data is easy to harvest and collect and use does not mean it should be allowed.

A cheap car (like a Toyota Corolla or Honda Fit) costs about $5000+/year to own. If you get rid of that car and live in a place where you don't need one (i.e. San Francisco) you've got about $400 extra per month that you can spend on rent. So you don't have to be rich to spend $1900/month, which is plenty if you want to share a 2 bedroom apartment with someone in SF.

http://consumerreports.org/cro...

It's not for everyone but obviously a lot of people like it enough to do just that.

There's actually about 16 million cars sold last year in the US, and the overall fleet has a median age of 10.8 years. (11.1 for cars, 10.4 for light trucks) so you have even longer to amortize the cost, and across fewer vehicles. While I would agree that the safety benefit of a backup camera on a Chevy Spark is dubious at best, the shift toward SUV's and minivans, combined with the design trend toward thicker roof pillars has contributed to a much larger blind spot behind modern vehicles. And yes, most victims are little kids, or the elderly.

http://blogs.cars.com/kickingt...
http://www.consumerreports.org...

They just need to win nearly all of the awards, and continue winning them.

That's a good way of looking at it.

I used to calculate it like this:

You pay a dollar premium to an insurance company. They take 15% or 20% of that off the top for administrative costs and profits (that's the item called "loss ratio" in their annual report). The doctor gets 80 cents, and he has to spend another 15 cents for administrative costs, so he's left with 65 cents of your premium dollar.

The funny thing is that most of that doesn't go to insurance company profits, it goes to administrative costs.

The other ways that the American health care system is more expensive than any others is doctor's income ($200,000/year for a general practitioner, $400,000/year or more for a specialist), over-treatment (http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/health/doctors-and-hospitals/choosing-wisely/index.htm), and our heavy over-use of technology (we over-use CT scans so much that they're a significant cause of cancer http://www.consumerreports.org...).

You can get fiber-based phone service w/o broadband. This isn't about using VoIP over a broadband connection, it's about straight phone service over copper vs. fiber. From Consumer Reports (and some others):

But there may be another reason why copper presents problems for phone companies. Federal law requires them to share their copper lines with competitors. There’s no such requirement for fiber.

If you get fiber broadband service, then you're correct that you're stuck with that telco being your ISP and/but you can, obviously, get VoIP over that broadband from anyone - assuming that telco doesn't block/throttle that service while Net Neutrality doesn't exist...

However, all this seems to be continuously in flux and my information may be outdated.

For normal traffic, there's no need to travel at 80 mph. In fact, it reduces gas mileage usually to go significantly above 55 or so, because air resistance increases much more rapidly and you have to fight that at high speeds.

Cite your sources for this often repeated tripe. My own MPG continues to rise until it peaks when my speed exceeds 110 mph. Most any car that I've owned (and none of them were your big honking pointless SUVs or any other sort of passenger truck) continued to increase in performance up to at least 80 mph.

Good lord. Well, this is enough to call your whole post bogus already.

Try a freakin' search engine. The second link that came up for me is a 2009 study from Consumer Reports, with a variety of vehicles.

To the best of my knowledge, the increase in speed limit in TX over the years did not see a significant increase in accidents or fatalities.

That may be the case. There certainly are situations where raising the speed limit has not increased fatalities, but usually in places where (1) people generally already drove significantly over the limit, and (2) people did not actually increase their speeds on average to keep up with the corresponding increase in limit (in other words, if the limit went up 10 mph, the average speed went up only a little).

But this is irrelevant to the GP's point, which was accusing politicians of lowering speed limits for revenue purposes. If that does happen, my guess is it happens around cities, where highway speed limits are often significantly lowered (and also there are more likely to be a greated density of cops around to collect tickets). My point is that often there are other reasons for those lowered limits -- beyond safety, often the desire to prevent traffic problems.

In most modern cars, putting the cruise control on at high speeds will result in people relaxing... it doesn't matter whether you're going 55 or 65 or 80.

Citation please.

Well, there are a number of studies showing decreased attention for people using cruise control, such as this one. It's clear that reaction times are increased, etc. The higher the speed you're traveling, the more problematic these increased reaction times are.

I haven't really done a search for studies, but I've talked to a LOT of people who agree that the "feel" of higher speeds in many newer cars has become a lot smoother in recent years. Lots of car companies even advertise how quiet and smooth their rides now are.

I'm not saying the difference in traveling at 55 vs. 80 is nil, but I don't think it's anywhere near as noticeable in recent cars. Given the inherent additional danger of higher speeds, I think it's on the burden of you and GP to prove that people somehow are alert enough to actually drive "more safely" overall at 80 compared to 55.

You're pretty much street pizza at speeds greater than 60mph. The risk of bodily injury and the mortality rate increase from a speed of 60 mph to 80 mph is such a small number that you can consider it a foregone conclusion that you're not coming home in one piece or at all.

By that logic, why stop at 80 mph? Why not travel at 100 mph? 120 mph? 140 mph? It's already a foregone conclusion that you're going to die in a crash at any speed over 60, so why bother considering safety at all?

Of course that's nonsense. The faster you go, the more reaction time you need to avoid anything or make any changes to what you're doing. Combined with the increased kinetic energy that increases with the square of velocity, driving faster still is more likely to get you killed.

Sure, in certain types of severe collisions, you're going to

Once you approve a purchase, a child can shop unsupervised for 30 minutes—and ring up big charges

At that price, do they burn out gracefully, or start to smoke and become a fire hazard because the manufacturer skimped on safeties ?

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2011/august/recalls-and-safety-alerts/bulbs-pose-fire-hazard/index.htm

I'm afraid the SUV does make the college student safer. There was a good Consumer Reports article on it:

                      http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/05/suvs-are-safer-than-cars-in-front-crashes-but-there-is-more-to-the-story/index.htm

Tesla Model S uses a proximity sensor to detect the key fob in your pocket and extend the door handle with a motor:

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/05/video-sci-fi-wizardry-of-the-tesla-model-s-doors/index.htm

To quote from an article:

"From the instant you walk up to the Tesla S and the door handles motor out of the door, you know this isn't going to be like any other car you've ever driven. You open the door and the air conditioner has fired up, and your music is already playing. You put your foot on the brake, shift into gear, and you are off and running. There is no âoestartâ button. When you arrive, you just get out of the car; it turns itself off and locks up as you leave."

Tesla originally had a sleep mode for the inboard computer that was supposed to consume around 1%/day. But they found that the sleep mode often resulted in the car not detecting the key fob. So they disabled it until they could patch it. Not surprisingly, it sucks a lot of power while its sitting in non-sleep mode waiting for someone to walk by with the right key fob. If they had stuck with a manual door handle and a push start button for the engine, then the idle power issue would never have come up. In any case, Tesla is working on it and will resolved it eventually.

No, the plan doesn't suck. You can't know that without actually having some real information about it. You're willingness to declare something in the absence of any actual real information

You are right that I should have been clear that this is my educated guess and not a fact. However, I think it is a good guess, junk health insurance is (apparently) a real thing. I would have expected they were illegal already but they were not.

"You can't be trusted to decide for yourself. We will run your life for you."

I believe in the "social contract" theory advanced by many. You should be able to decide for yourself, sure.
But if you decide to forego insurance that will actually cover you in case of an emergency, then you should also decline your right to be treated at any emergency room for free. And since we do not consider the latter to be acceptable...

(note that all of this applies to anyone who prefers "affordable" insurance to the real kind. If you cannot afford any insurance, that's a different story)

For example how do I know that medicine is safe to take. I am unable to test it for myself, not being a biochemist.

Do you do an EE analysis on the electrical products you buy, or do you look for the UL (Underwriters Laboratories) sticker? Drugs are an interesting example here because the FDA has crowded out any private provider, where it's hard to compete against "free", especially when "private non-profit" is illegal.

a mechanical engineer to decide whether a car was safe

So you don't go by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety crash test ratings? Consumer Reports even includes their data and adds additional criteria like comfort and maintenance ratings.

I have no choice but to rely on the government for many things, because I am unable to get the required expertise to be completely self-reliant.

Have you ever checked on whether a doctor was board certified, whether a bike helmet was ANSI or Snell rated, or whether a manufacturing company was ISO9001?

The only time you don't have a choice is when the government has come in to take over an industry. Ask the organic food folks, where the third party certifying organizations have been driven out of business by the feds, who allow non-organic material in foods that are allowed to be labeled as "organic" by them (but were not by the independent parties).

http://www.consumerreports.org/

I take most reviews with a grain or more of salt after Consumer Reports tried to show that the Suziki Samuri 4x4 was unsafe.

Anyone remember those units they mounted to prevent the vehicle from rolling over followed by the manuevers to cause it to roll up onto them? Those levers were over eight feet long and weighed a 100 pounds/45Kg each (200#/90Kg a side). Tell me that thing wont roll at 20 mph with the center of gravity raised that much. Hell put em on a comparable Jeep CJ 5/7 of the time (80's) and see what in hell happens. That's when Consumer Reports lost my trust. Now if they'd done it as an educational effort and compared several models of 4x4, I'd still be willing to trust them somewhat but they shot themselves in the foot with the full out biased against a Japanese company that had been producing a 4x4 for the same length of time as the Jeep.

Fast Turtle - Posting AC due to mods

I think you're misremembering the lawsuit. Suzuki's biggest complaint wasn't with the rollover protection outriggers, but their claim was that CU porposely tried to make the Samarai roll over by putting it through multiple runs and using multiple drivers until they found one that could make it roll over.

CU, of course, denied that this was the case.

Suzuki sued them for $60M, but in the end, they ended up settling out of court (after Suzuki lost several court challenges) with no exchange of money, and CU promising: "CU and Suzuki agree not to refer to the Samurai testing or rating or their litigation in any advertising, promotional or fundraising materials. CU agrees to remove from CU's website entitled consumersrighttoknow.org those portions that refer to their litigation and Suzuki. Suzuki agrees to remove its website entitled suzukivcu.com."

So it's not quite as simple as saying "the outriggers did it". And, as a high riding, narrow wheelbase vehicle (like the Jeep), the Samarai *did* have a propensity to roll over "Over the years, over 200 Suzuki Samurai rollover lawsuits have been settled and Suzuki's own expert witnesses testified the automaker was aware of 213 deaths and 8,200 injuries involving Suzuki Samurai rollovers.". That doesn't mean it was less save than other cars in its class, but that also doesn't mean that it had no rollover danger.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzuki_Samurai_v_Consumers_Union
http://www.theautochannel.com/news/press/date/19970422/press001969.html
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2012/05/suzuki-and-consumers-union-agree-on-dismissal-of-lawsuit/index.htm

Consumer Reports covered Fresh Paper a few months back, and from their testing, determined an air-tight container performed better.

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2013/06/claim-check-fenugreen-freshpaper/index.htm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDR20j0aTUY

Consumer Reports covered Fresh Paper a few months back, and from their testing, determined an air-tight container performed better.

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2013/06/claim-check-fenugreen-freshpaper/index.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDR20j0aTUY

So they actually composted for you?

Consumer reports found the bags completely intact after 13 weeks in a standard compost heap.

Yes, and each incarnation leaves gullible first adapters with expensive toys laying around that they can never use. Or maybe they buy up few movies 3D and watch them over and over again just to convince themselves it wasn't such a dumb purchase after all. (Like laserdisks).

The problems of 3D TV are never going to be solved with a flat image plane. We've been through this before. When manufacturers have to warn kids away from their product (even if the warnings turned out to be overwrought), you should probably realize that there is something less than optimum going on. And when movies that were never shot in 3D start appearing in 3D you know the effect is all computer generated an guaranteed to be sub-optimum. In fact if you need special glasses to view 3D TV you know its less than optimum before you even see it.

This idea will work someday, when we get multi-planar TV sets or holographic displays that you can actually walk around and view from different angles. That's not likely to be a technology you hang on your wall. Because faking depth really doesn't work very well, and the resistance to wearing the glasses is significant.

In the US three wheeled vehicles are legally classified as motorcycles. Helmet laws by state. There is another company that makes a motorized tricycle that is working on getting the helmet laws changed.

A very short trip (3 miles) is bad for efficiency because of the warm-up time. If you noticed, the engine has to run continuously for first three minutes or so to bring itself up to the temperature. (There is a thermos bottle for the coolant, and that helps, but still ICE operation is required to warm up the catalytic converter.) These 3 minutes yield usually not more than 25 mpg. Your mileage was improved by longer weekend trips.

In this aspect, an EV is superior if you only need to go a few miles. But this has other issues. If you live that close to work, you probably are renting an apartment. Parking at such places has no chargers, and you get one car per apartment. If your weekly commute is short, you aren't burning much gas in the first place, so your savings on fuel are tiny.

This is actually another EV dilemma. If you drive only around the town, with 5-10 miles round trip, you won't save much fuel this way. To realize savings you need to drive a lot. But EVs are not ideal for long distance driving, and that would wear their batteries faster (I guess.) So an EV is not cost-effective if you live in an apartment in the city. The same EV is not time-efficient if you are a farmer who drives 30 miles to the grocery store. EVs have to target suburban families who can own a charger, who can have more than one car, and who have to drive a certain and well predictable distance every day. For Leaf, that distance cannot be more than 30 miles (Leaf's range drops down to 50 miles after a year of use. Even new cars are not that great, per reports of owners.) For Tesla S it could be 100-150 miles. Driving less than that just pushes the break even date into farther future. If the battery dies from old age (10+ years?) then you never break even.

Ford? You mean the company that dropped from the top of Consumer Reports quality rankings in 2009, to 23rd out of 26 in 2012? Where the only changes made to their vehicles were superficial adding of Microsoft SYNC, which was so disastrous that it had to be re-branded "MyFordTouch" and "MyLincolnTouch" and users are still frustrated? (note: I'm not referring to their refresh of engines for model year 2013, that won't be reflected until next year's Consumer Reports).

Now they are offering hour long classes for customers to learn the new system. Why do I have to spend an hour learning how to use my radio?

Yeah, good luck with that. Microsoft is shitting all over Ford even though they had started showing signs of life after the recession.

We get the Skeptical Inquirer - http://www.csicop.org/si/ - "the official journal of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Six times per year Skeptical Inquirer publishes critical scientific evaluations of all manner of controversial and extraordinary claims, including but not limited to paranormal and fringe-science matters, and informed discussion of all relevant issues..."

Also, Cook's Illustrated - http://www.cooksillustrated.com/ - which has some nice "evidence based" cookery with a bit of "Consumer Reports" thrown in. We ignore the note from the publisher each issue which is just crazy talk....

And Consumer Reports - http://www.consumerreports.org/ - their technology reviews are not always as well informed as I would like them to be, but they try to maintain a level of unbiasedness that is quite admirable.

There was this nice app to cure acne and the damned FTC killed it. WTF does the FTC know about skin treatments anyway?

http://news.consumerreports.org/money/2011/09/ftc-anti-ance-smart-phone-apps-marketers-fined-for-baseless-claims.html

I do not have large batteries that will need to be recycled or tossed into a landfill next year.

This idea that hybrid batteries need to be replaced every year is a thoroughly debunked urban legend. I drove to the office this morning in a Ford Escape Hybrid that has 70,000 miles and is 5 years overdue for a battery replacement, by your count.

And out of curiosity, what's wrong with recycling a battery?

Or just use consumer reports
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2012/02/the-most-fuel-efficient-cars/index.htm

I don't know why you're asserting that Consumer Reports has not 'tested' it, when everyone's posting links to them: http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2012/11/video-tesla-model-s-drive---the-electric-car-that-shatters-every-myth.html

Granted, that might not be an official 'test', but people at CR do, in fact, assert it gets over 200 miles per charge without any pampering.

Consumer reports has in fact, NOT TESTED IT YET.

They haven't? In fact there are two articles giving it noting but praise, and no mention of problems.

http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2012/11/video-tesla-model-s-drive---the-electric-car-that-shatters-every-myth.html

This one is even close to taking the same route the NYT guy took:
http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2013/01/rapid-charging-at-a-tesla-ev-supercharge-station.html

Consumer reports has in fact, NOT TESTED IT YET.

They haven't? In fact there are two articles giving it noting but praise, and no mention of problems.

http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2012/11/video-tesla-model-s-drive---the-electric-car-that-shatters-every-myth.html

This one is even close to taking the same route the NYT guy took:
http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2013/01/rapid-charging-at-a-tesla-ev-supercharge-station.html

Oops, my bad on the plaza thing [I assumed you had to take an exit off the freeway to go to a gas station that also had a charger].

It's on the NJ turnpike, so as is typical for toll roads (at least all around the north east out to Illinois) you don't have to exit and reenter.

This is because [ordinarily] you park, get a burger, then refuel and leave. ... But, then again, if the charging stations were actually in individual parking spaces in the parking lot this might make sense. ... However, having a charging cable in a parking slot might not be a good idea. Because, the parking lot is an area where children get in/out of cars. Letting them get near something that is potentially hazardous doesn't seem like a good idea. Upon further reflection, I would guess that the charger is in a special area near the gas pumps

There's no street view of the plaza itself so I can't check for certain, but that is exactly what I would expect. The thing is, because charging takes so long (relative to gas), the workflow is a lot closer to (1) park (2) charge (3) get a burger and hang out during the charge (4) leave. In other words, the appropriate place for the charger is exactly the same as the appropriate place for most people to park when eating -- the parking lot. The assembly line design you mention is exactly counter-productive to the goal of EV charging.

There is a shopping center parking lot nearby where I live that has EV charging stations. Where are they? In the parking lot as normal. And they're not quite the prime real estate for spots, but they're close.

You're overestimating the hazardous nature of the plugs too. The chance of an accident from a charging station I would speculate would be minuscule compared to the risk from all the cars driving around. :-)

But, if this were true, Tesla would know this and I don't think they'd mention it as an issue.

The Milford installation is "new". (Source.) Perhaps it hadn't been around for long enough for people to complain. Or perhaps the complaints didn't make their way up to Musk. Or perhaps it's somewhat of a common issue for EV owners, and none thought to report it. I still think that all of these explanations are way more plausible than Musk's pseudo-accusation of deliberate sabotage by driving around unnecessarily.

They could be combined/cross-checked to produce the most accurate result.

Yeah, but did Musk? IMO, for as transparent as he's pretending to be, he actually gives very little data about the data he's released. (As another example, he claims that the car was never out of power, even when being loaded onto the flatbed. But from some reports, the car has two battery sets -- the main battery, and a 12V. Presumably the graph Musk shows is of the main battery. Where's the data for the 12V? Are the charges combined together somehow on that chart? Is it gathered? Why doesn't Musk mention this omission if not? (I'm sure he knows about that.) There is a plausible explanation that the main batteries still had charge but the 12V died; if so, then it did need towed after all, making Musk's statement about the charge on the main batteries meaningless.)

Like I've said elsewhere in this thread, I'm not actually on Broder's side on this really. Rather I don't find either side particularly credible at the moment.

This overnight loss of range had been previously reported by Consumer Reports, and Tesla reportedly told them the same story- that the range will recover as driving is resumed and the batteries are warmed up. This was also in the vicinity of the Milford supercharging station.

http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2013/01/rapid-charging-at-a-tesla-ev-supercharge-station.html

"The night before my voyage back to work, I had 88 miles left, according to the car's computation. I knew that would be cutting it pretty close, so I planned on a 30-minute supercharging session in Milford to gain some juice and added peace of mind. But while parked outside my house overnight, the temperature dipped and so did the indicated range, which now read only 58 miles. (Yes, a little range anxiety began to set in.) How can 30 miles evaporate just like that? According to Tesla, the car's computer takes into account the freezing temperature and readjusts the remaining range. The company also said that, upon restarting, the battery warms up and the computer once again updates the range. I didn't notice it adding miles to the range but the range remained steady for most of my 28-mile drive back to the supercharger. I connected to the charger with 50 miles on the meter and after 30 minutes, I was back to 150 miles—more than ample range to get back to our East Haddam test track."

Like this? http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2012/11/video-tesla-model-s-drive---the-electric-car-that-shatters-every-myth.html

When I see an unbiased third party do the test - like Consumer Reports or Motor Trend - then I'll take what has to be said seriously.

You may have made that comment sarcastically, but in case you didn't (and for those unfamiliar with the other tests):

From CR: Tesla Model S - The electric car that shatters every myth.

From Motor Trends: 2013 Motor Trend Car of the Year: Tesla Model S.

While those two publications aren't perfect, they seem to have way more credibility than Broder.

Replying to a bit of a troll, but:
Consumer reports basically the same route.
Motor trend car of the year 2013

A decent 7000 watt generator can be had for $800-900 (I know, just bought one) and a tri-fuel conversion kit that adds support for natural gas/propane can be had for a few hundred more. That leaves quite a bit from the original $2k to pay for installation of a proper transfer switch and fuel.

Generator: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/home-garden/home-improvement/generators/generator-ratings/models/overview/troy-bilt-xp-7000-30477-99044703.htm
Tri-fuel kits: http://www.propane-generators.com/tri-fuel_kits.htm

button batteries

Senate bill seeks regulation for button-cell batteries. (There are already regulations restricting the use of button batteries in children's toys.)

plastic bags

Generally designed with holes these days for safety reasons.

bottled water

That one mainly gets adults in trouble, kids usually know better.

chairs

Fairly tightly regulated

phone cord

Hasn't this been banned from kids playsets altogether because of the safety hazard?

...which is why people don't buy many American cars any more. Japanese makes top the reliability ratings., while American cars are among the worst.

so the 100,000 tons, times 2000 pounds per ton, divided by 13 (as per article only half the yield of dry corns 26 lbs. per gallon ethanol), gives 15 million gallons of ethanol. the USA uses 380 million gallons of gasoline per day.

Ya? and that means 15 Million less gallons of gas that would be used.

It's a start, combined with other things, would help make a dent in the usage of gas/oil.

I guess you want to wait till gas is $20 a gallon before we start using other fuels? Maybe you do. I don't drive, so I don't buy gas, so really, I don't care much, but it's this attitude that everything has to be big to be effective that is annoying.

Much like no one is going to make a WoW beater, no on is going to come up with a solution that can totally get rid of the use of gas/oil. But we can find a bunch of renewable resources that together can help a lot.

I'd like to know where you got your conversion from gallons of ethanol:gallons of gasoline. Because last time I checked, ethanol contained less energy per gallon than gasoline, equating to less efficiency; thus 15 million gallons of ethanol does less than 15 million gallons of gasoline

http://www.hho4free.com/gasoline_vs_ethanol.htm

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2011/01/the-great-ethanol-debate/index.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel#Ethanol-based_engines

I sure hope you know something I don't.

Consumer Reports finds it totally usable; though of course you can they could be lying, too. As you can claim I am too, when I say I find it better than the pre-iOS 6 Google Maps version (so far I've only had one issue finding something, and the smoothness of the new vector-based maps when scrolling and zooming is ten times better). Accept everything that supports your opinion, and call everything else a lie - it's a simple way to always be right.

Apple's maps are definitely not perfect (particularly outside the US), but "total garbage" is total bullshit.

Is there yet a way to tell at time of purchase whether a CFL bulb is going to warm up in an acceptable time?

This is why I subscribe to Consumer Reports. They do all of this testing for me so I don't have to do it myself.

I've had excellent results with EcoSmart soft white bulbs (sold only at Home Depot). If you time it right you can get them for $1 for 4 bulbs in my area. That's cheaper than the old fashioned incandescent bulbs! Honestly, as long as I don't have them on a dimmer, I can't tell the difference.

Maybe next there will be a slashdot story telling me that buying my TV from Rent-A-Center is a bad deal, or that Montel Williams Money Mutual Loans might not be such a good deal??? Duh?

Actually, compared to those deals hawked by Troy Aikman, Hulk Hogan, and Montel Williams, the Microsoft deal isn't so bad a ripoff. Some finance guy could probably tell us the interest rate--might be less than a credit card?

Plus: When this happened a bunch of motor magazines tried braking when the car was under full throttle and the brakes won. Every time. Even with muscle cars. cite

You can also put the car in neutral.

Not sure what this says about the "Highway Patrol Officer"'s abilities as a driver. If he couldn't manage either of those then this new system won't save him.

Sorry, Toyota reliability is still top notch. My family has owned 6 of them and they have all lasted 20 years at least.

2012 Consumer Reports top 9 most reliable brands were Japanese. Scion, Lexus and Toyota were three of those 9.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/new-cars/cr-recommended/best-worst-in-car-reliability/reliability-findings/reliability-findings.htm