Ah, the "all vehicles must be one size fits all" myth rears its ugly head once again.
I'd wager that half of all of the vehicles in the US see more than two passengers once a month or less. No, it's not a suitable replacement for the other half of all vehicles. But trying to make all vehicles do all jobs is a good way to ensure that they do one or more of those jobs poorly. A commuter or errand vehicle needs to get a passenger or two and some cargo from point A to point B. It doesn't need to be able to haul around a family of Mormons and their bicycles.
Exactly. On the one or two times per year that I need a truck, *I Rent One*. I don't keep a truck around at all times for the offchance that I might perchance need one. Why do people feel the need that they must have a vehicle that can do everything when they'll mainly just use it for their daily commute?
Can't handle bad weather? Where's that coming from?
Sadly, I'm legally prohibited from talking about what I know of its drivetrain, but I'm going to have to strongly disagree with you there. But I'd love to know where you're coming from with the whole "winds" thing. It's perfectly smooth all the way around; how are winds supposed to get a grip on it? It may be light, but it's even more aerodynamic than it is light.
Small and light doesn't have to mean unsafe. Example: rollovers. Not only are big, topheavy vehicles like SUVs more likely to roll over, but they're also more likely to crush their occupants. Big and heavy means more weight trying to crush the roof. Furthermore, more modern materials can reduce weight while *increasing* strength./ I am legally prohibited from stating what I've seen in regards to the Aptera, but I'll just point out that there's a video on YouTube of an Aptera employee slamming a large hammer into the vehicle's shell with absolutely no damage. Go try that with your car sometime and see if you get the same results. Lastly, big and heavy often means less maneuverable which means more likely to get into an accident. There's this strange notion in this country that accidents are inevitable, so you better armour up; however, greater maneuverability and lower stopping distances means lower odds of getting into an accident in the first place.
We're always just "2-3 years" away from these things reaching market,
Name one EV from any remotely serious contender that was 2-3 years away a few years ago that isn't available now.
There were lots of serious commercial EV projects back in the late 90s and early 00s. Once the CARB ZEV mandate was overturned by the courts, however, the programs all disappeared. However, the recent high gas prices, a rising green movement, concern over global warming and an increasingly volatile middle east, and so on has led to a new resurgence even without the old ZEV mandate. 2-3 years ago, however, there were almost no EVs being developed with serious plans for commercial release -- just small-scale testbeds, home conversions, and concept cars. One exception would be the Tesla Roadster, and guess what? It's here today.
1) Even the diesels in large trucks and busses are only about 45% peak efficiency 2) Peak efficiency != average efficiency. Average efficiency is notably worse than peak. 3) Engine efficiency != vehicle efficiency. You have to factor in parasitic losses.
I seriously don't know how Th!nk plans to stay in business with the City versus some of its competitors. Say, the Aptera, for example.
Seating: 2 or 2+2 (Th!nk City); 2+1 (Aptera) Trunk: 6 cubic feet (Th!nk City); 15.9 cubic feet (Aptera) Top speed: 60-65mph (Th!nk City); 85-90mph (Aptera) Accel: 0-30 in 6.5 seconds (Th!nk City); 0-60 in less than 10 seconds (Aptera) Range: 110 miles (Th!nk City); 120 miles (Aptera) Charge time: 10 hours at 230V/14A (Th!nk City); 8-10 hours at 120V/15A or 2-3 hours at 240V/30A (Aptera) Construction: Plastic, aluminum, steel (Th!nk City); Layered composite monocoque (Aptera) Insurance category: Car (Th!nk City); Motorcycle (Aptera) Purchase price: $20-25k + $150-$200 per month battery rental (Th!nk City); $27k (Aptera)
Seems a no-brainer to me unless you're one of those people who don't like the Aptera's looks (I think it's one of the most beautiful cars I've ever seen). I'm getting an Aptera:)
Mail me off-forum, and explain in detail what you plan to use it for; I'll decide whether or not to give you a copy, and whether to cripple it to any degree before handing it over. At the very least I'll have to strip out passwords, usernames, etc.
Hey, if you want to believe that I stay awake 24/7 changing my sig every 15 minutes every day, that's your call. I'd personally rather not give Slashdot a reason to block my script by passing it out. But any remotely clever user can do the same basic thing as I did. It only takes three wget commands, and the only python libraries you need to use are random, os, re, and urllib.
Do you watch the Colbert Report? Remember the whole "Bridge in Hungary" vote thing? I was one of the people driving that;) I wrote an elaborate script that auto-changed proxies whenever they blocked an IP or whenever it went down, switched secondary domains whenever they blocked emails from that domain, and so forth, all the while making up registrant names and email addresses, confirming them, and then voting. Much fun was to be had;)
The combination of wget and python; lots of fun can be had with that. Such as, for example, my auto-updating slashdot sig which changes every 15 minutes.
For saying that black men get it easy in this country? Gee, I wonder why.
McCain was cleared of any wrongdoing over the whole "Keating Five" thing, so the fact that you bring it up shows your ignorance or intentional deceit.
Obama was never even *charged* with any wrongdoing. McCain was in a heck of a lot deeper. In Obama's case, it wasn't Rezko who bought the lot. His wife did, and she turned a profit on it.
As for factcheck, I think they are full of crap too.
Well, thanks for positioning yourself so far out in right field that you're in the parking lot.
Let's see. Worked together for years... Check.
On a charity board that met quarterly. Whoop-de-freaking-wow.
Close friends? Debatable, but the coffee thing is pretty damning.
A single campaign meet and greet, and you think this even *possibly* passes the "close friends* test?
I didn't even see the Infant Born Alive Protection Act on factcheck's site. (Although I didn't look too hard)
No kidding you didn't look hard. It's right there -- Born-Alive Baloney.
Do you know that "Joe the Plumber" does not have a plumbing license in Ohio? It was widely reported. Do you know that "Joe the Plumber" does not need a license as a plumber to work as one as long as the company he works for has that license? That was NOT widely reported.
Did you know that everything he said to Obama, from his income to his plans, is bunk? That he has a problem with actually paying his taxes, but if he did, he'd get three times larger of a tax cut under Obama's plan than McCain's?
Do you know that William Ayers gives money to schools? Widely reported, but not true. William Ayers gives charity money to hand chosen companies to do stuff for schools. Do you know that one of the main points of William Ayers "education plan" is to teach children to question authority? Fine idea, but it should be taken with a grain of salt when the guy pushing recommended "killing pigs" and "killing your parents". This has not been reported by any news outlet.
You're confusing Ayers and the Annenberg Challenge itself. Ayers was just one member of the board of the Annenberg Challenge. It has a diverse board; it was even founded by a member of the Nixon administration. Education Week says the group reflects mainstream thinking about education reform.
But seriously, do you really want to play the "Did You Know" game with me?
Wrong! McCain/Palin had to bring up Ayers, and Wright, and Rezco, because the press wouldn't.
Yeah, it's not like the press spent about three months talking almost exclusively about them during the primary or anything. It's not like an entire primary debate was almost an exclusive Ayers/Wright/Rezco "Gotcha-fest" toward Obama or anything. That must have been in some parallel universe, right?
Could you imagine the outcry if McCain had received favorable (extremely favorable) business deals from a convicted slum lord?
They didn't get any traction because the press ignored the argument that was presented and slammed McCain for "negative campaigning", although nothing that was said was false.
First off, "Joe the Plumber", in addition to everything else, is a registered Republican and the grandson of Charles Keating. Yes, that Charles Keating. What's next, citing Cindy McCain and calling her "Cindy the Housewife" as an example of McCain support?
Secondly, Palin herself used nearly identical language when describing how her state, Alaska, "spreads the wealth" from the oil industry around.
Third, progressive income taxes have little to do with Marx. They have absolutely nothing to "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need"; that'd be state assignment of jobs, which isn't even tangentially related.
Fourth, the US has a form of *inverse* socialism under the current system thanks to the ridiculously low rate that capital gains are taxed at, and given that the wealthiest Americans earn almost all of their money from capital gains, not direct income. Warren Buffet once famously noted that he pays a smaller share of his income in taxes than his secretary, and this situation is pretty much standard among the wealthy. Republicans often deliberately focus only on income taxes, deliberately ignoring the contributions from payroll and capital gains taxes. Factor them in, and we live in an inverse-socialist society.
Fifth, *so what* if it was the other way around? Let's take a second and hypothetically invert our tax system so that taxes are all on purchases instead of income. Would you support higher taxes on luxury goods, and little to no tax on necessities? Probably 95% of Americans would. Great. But there's a problem with that. How much of a tax rate do you put on a head of lettuce? A can of mushrooms? Fresh button mushrooms? Fresh portabella mushrooms? Shiitakes? Truffles? Essentially every item would have to be analyzed for how much of a "luxury" it is; it'd never work out. But you can flip the system back to what it currently is and get a *good approximation*. The poor simply can't spend a sizable portion of their money on luxury; they need it for necessity. The wealthy simply can't spend a sizable portion of their money on necessity; it can only go to luxury. Well, there's one exception to that -- if they buy necessities for others. That's known as charity, and it's deductable. In short, a progressive taxation system is just a simpler approximation of taxing luxury spending at a higher rate.
Sixth, to preemptively address the claim that if you tax the wealthy more than we currently do, it'll destroy the economy: that's complete nonsense. During our nation's biggest boomtime (after WWII to the mid 1970s), the top income tax bracket rate was over 70%, and over 80% most of the time (over 90% at times). Historical evidence flatly contradicts this notion.
It's an interesting difference, though, isn't it? Islamic fundamentalists trying to get rid of public displays of pictures of Mohammed, trying to eliminate people reciting the Quran in products, and so on, and meanwhile, Christian fundamentalists are insisting on public displays of pictures of Jesus, trying to get readings from the bible everywhere, and so on.
If you absolutely need more than 2+1 seating (i.e., you're only going to have one car and/or rarely have anyone in the household who travels by themselves or with one adult and one small child), then you're right; it's not for you. However, a huge portion of the American population is not in that situation. It's sad watching a hummer going down the freeway carrying only the driver. What a waste.
If you do need more than 2+1 seating, not only are there many other EVs coming out from other manufacturers in the next few years (although no other true electric hypercars that I've seen), but Aptera's next model, codenamed "Palomar", is to be a four-wheel, four seater. I'd expect it to be somewhat more expensive and probably ~30-40% less energy efficient, but hey, four seats. Of course, with the credit crisis, I imagine it might be a while before they can bring it to market.
Several dozen. They're only a small fraction of the way through the preorder list, though.
This headline is quite misleading. Tesla is not about to go "belly up". Tesla had an extremely ambitious scale-up plan (one might say overambitious), trying to get the Model S not only onto the market, but in mass production. The current credit crisis really can't support that kind of expansion from a new company like Tesla. Which, really, is why this crisis is such a disaster, especially for cleantech. Innovative cleantech companies are generally high risk, high reward. Right now, the market can only tolerate low risk. Hence, Tesla is basically undoing part of their expansion and will be focusing more on Roadsters until they get into the black rather than trying to leap ahead to the Model S. Given their preorder list, Tesla is guaranteed a revenue stream so long as they can deliver product faster than they're burning money (and they just cut some of the burn)
Losing the third wheel has a whole range of benefits. One, it gets the motorcycle classification, which allows them to have a lot more of a free hand in how to design things. To Aptera's credit, they're voluntarily doing the normal safety things, although some companies use the motorcycle classification to avoid things like crash tests. The other issues are practical, not legal. Given that the ideal shape is either a teardrop or a truncated teardrop (depending on the situation), the aerodynamic benefits of a central rear wheel are obvious. Another hypercar -- the Volkswagen 1L car -- has four wheels so it can retain the car classification, but it puts them right next to each other, basically making it effectively into a three wheeler. There are some major weight benefits from ditching that extra wheel. Not only do you lose the weight of a wheel and a tire, but you also lose the weight of a driveshaft, differential, etc. And not only does losing these parts cut weight, but it also cuts manufacture cost and time as well as maintenance costs (less to break). Lastly, three wheels improves vehicle response time since the average distance from the center of mass to the wheels gets reduced and the mass is decreased. So, lots of benefits.
With a "tadpole" configuration (two wheels in front, one in rear), you retain essentially all of the stability for driving in "normal" conditions. However, you lose stability in "unusual" conditions (a good example being skidding backwards or nearly backwards at high speeds). Basically, don't be an idiot and try to pull a J-turn in a tadpole trike unless you're fond of injuring yourself.
The GP is absolutely correct, though. Americans have this mentality of assuming that crashes are inevitable that's not shared in much of the rest of the world. Hence, a lot of Americans only feel comfortable driving overweight (read: unmaneuverable) armored tanks that make them *more* likely to be involved in accidents. Statistics bear this out; SUVs are more likely to be involved in accidents than small cars.
As for safety: try over double the NTSB standards on roof and door crush strength, modelled with the same crash-survivability testing software that BMW uses, with normal car safety features (traction control, dual airbags... Actually the airbags are among the most advanced on the market -- in-seatbelt curtain airbags), and so on down the line. And I'll take a crash in a composite vehicle over a steel one any day. You ever seen the sort of 100+mph crashes of exotics that people walk away from? It's pretty amazing.
As for your last line, you're completely wrong on all counts. It's a 2+1 seater -- two full sized seats in the front and one seat for a small child in the back. And it has 16 cubic feet of trunk space, which is the size of your typical sedan's trunk. This is not a small car -- just an unusually shaped one. The unusual shape eliminates the presence of a normal backseat in exchange for the aerodynamics to gain its extreme efficiency.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, the "all vehicles must be one size fits all" myth rears its ugly head once again.
I'd wager that half of all of the vehicles in the US see more than two passengers once a month or less. No, it's not a suitable replacement for the other half of all vehicles. But trying to make all vehicles do all jobs is a good way to ensure that they do one or more of those jobs poorly. A commuter or errand vehicle needs to get a passenger or two and some cargo from point A to point B. It doesn't need to be able to haul around a family of Mormons and their bicycles.
As I said, I've signed an NDA, so I'm legally prohibited from talking about the drivetrain. Which is what this conversation would delve into.
Exactly. On the one or two times per year that I need a truck, *I Rent One*. I don't keep a truck around at all times for the offchance that I might perchance need one. Why do people feel the need that they must have a vehicle that can do everything when they'll mainly just use it for their daily commute?
Can't handle bad weather? Where's that coming from?
Sadly, I'm legally prohibited from talking about what I know of its drivetrain, but I'm going to have to strongly disagree with you there. But I'd love to know where you're coming from with the whole "winds" thing. It's perfectly smooth all the way around; how are winds supposed to get a grip on it? It may be light, but it's even more aerodynamic than it is light.
Small and light doesn't have to mean unsafe. Example: rollovers. Not only are big, topheavy vehicles like SUVs more likely to roll over, but they're also more likely to crush their occupants. Big and heavy means more weight trying to crush the roof. Furthermore, more modern materials can reduce weight while *increasing* strength./ I am legally prohibited from stating what I've seen in regards to the Aptera, but I'll just point out that there's a video on YouTube of an Aptera employee slamming a large hammer into the vehicle's shell with absolutely no damage. Go try that with your car sometime and see if you get the same results. Lastly, big and heavy often means less maneuverable which means more likely to get into an accident. There's this strange notion in this country that accidents are inevitable, so you better armour up; however, greater maneuverability and lower stopping distances means lower odds of getting into an accident in the first place.
We're always just "2-3 years" away from these things reaching market,
Name one EV from any remotely serious contender that was 2-3 years away a few years ago that isn't available now.
There were lots of serious commercial EV projects back in the late 90s and early 00s. Once the CARB ZEV mandate was overturned by the courts, however, the programs all disappeared. However, the recent high gas prices, a rising green movement, concern over global warming and an increasingly volatile middle east, and so on has led to a new resurgence even without the old ZEV mandate. 2-3 years ago, however, there were almost no EVs being developed with serious plans for commercial release -- just small-scale testbeds, home conversions, and concept cars. One exception would be the Tesla Roadster, and guess what? It's here today.
1) Even the diesels in large trucks and busses are only about 45% peak efficiency
2) Peak efficiency != average efficiency. Average efficiency is notably worse than peak.
3) Engine efficiency != vehicle efficiency. You have to factor in parasitic losses.
I seriously don't know how Th!nk plans to stay in business with the City versus some of its competitors. Say, the Aptera, for example.
Seating: 2 or 2+2 (Th!nk City); 2+1 (Aptera)
Trunk: 6 cubic feet (Th!nk City); 15.9 cubic feet (Aptera)
Top speed: 60-65mph (Th!nk City); 85-90mph (Aptera)
Accel: 0-30 in 6.5 seconds (Th!nk City); 0-60 in less than 10 seconds (Aptera)
Range: 110 miles (Th!nk City); 120 miles (Aptera)
Charge time: 10 hours at 230V/14A (Th!nk City); 8-10 hours at 120V/15A or 2-3 hours at 240V/30A (Aptera)
Construction: Plastic, aluminum, steel (Th!nk City); Layered composite monocoque (Aptera)
Insurance category: Car (Th!nk City); Motorcycle (Aptera)
Purchase price: $20-25k + $150-$200 per month battery rental (Th!nk City); $27k (Aptera)
Seems a no-brainer to me unless you're one of those people who don't like the Aptera's looks (I think it's one of the most beautiful cars I've ever seen). I'm getting an Aptera :)
Mail me off-forum, and explain in detail what you plan to use it for; I'll decide whether or not to give you a copy, and whether to cripple it to any degree before handing it over. At the very least I'll have to strip out passwords, usernames, etc.
meQme@daQughtersofQtiresiQas.orQg (remove Qs)
Hey, if you want to believe that I stay awake 24/7 changing my sig every 15 minutes every day, that's your call. I'd personally rather not give Slashdot a reason to block my script by passing it out. But any remotely clever user can do the same basic thing as I did. It only takes three wget commands, and the only python libraries you need to use are random, os, re, and urllib.
Do you watch the Colbert Report? Remember the whole "Bridge in Hungary" vote thing? I was one of the people driving that ;) I wrote an elaborate script that auto-changed proxies whenever they blocked an IP or whenever it went down, switched secondary domains whenever they blocked emails from that domain, and so forth, all the while making up registrant names and email addresses, confirming them, and then voting. Much fun was to be had ;)
Thanks for that one. I actually once wrote a python script to mimic that very behavior for my icecast streaming setup.
The combination of wget and python; lots of fun can be had with that. Such as, for example, my auto-updating slashdot sig which changes every 15 minutes.
Bullshit. Talk about being bitter and not getting along with your fellow Americans.
Does he cling to his mouse and his keyboard, too?
(sorry, I have to joke to try to cheer up; 52% of California voters just annulled my marriage yesterday)
Remember Geraldine Ferraro being called a racist?
For saying that black men get it easy in this country? Gee, I wonder why.
McCain was cleared of any wrongdoing over the whole "Keating Five" thing, so the fact that you bring it up shows your ignorance or intentional deceit.
Obama was never even *charged* with any wrongdoing. McCain was in a heck of a lot deeper. In Obama's case, it wasn't Rezko who bought the lot. His wife did, and she turned a profit on it.
As for factcheck, I think they are full of crap too.
Well, thanks for positioning yourself so far out in right field that you're in the parking lot.
Let's see. Worked together for years... Check.
On a charity board that met quarterly. Whoop-de-freaking-wow.
Close friends? Debatable, but the coffee thing is pretty damning.
A single campaign meet and greet, and you think this even *possibly* passes the "close friends* test?
I didn't even see the Infant Born Alive Protection Act on factcheck's site. (Although I didn't look too hard)
No kidding you didn't look hard. It's right there -- Born-Alive Baloney.
Do you know that "Joe the Plumber" does not have a plumbing license in Ohio? It was widely reported.
Do you know that "Joe the Plumber" does not need a license as a plumber to work as one as long as the company he works for has that license? That was NOT widely reported.
Did you know that everything he said to Obama, from his income to his plans, is bunk? That he has a problem with actually paying his taxes, but if he did, he'd get three times larger of a tax cut under Obama's plan than McCain's?
Do you know that William Ayers gives money to schools? Widely reported, but not true. William Ayers gives charity money to hand chosen companies to do stuff for schools.
Do you know that one of the main points of William Ayers "education plan" is to teach children to question authority? Fine idea, but it should be taken with a grain of salt when the guy pushing recommended "killing pigs" and "killing your parents". This has not been reported by any news outlet.
You're confusing Ayers and the Annenberg Challenge itself. Ayers was just one member of the board of the Annenberg Challenge. It has a diverse board; it was even founded by a member of the Nixon administration. Education Week says the group reflects mainstream thinking about education reform.
But seriously, do you really want to play the "Did You Know" game with me?
Wrong! McCain/Palin had to bring up Ayers, and Wright, and Rezco, because the press wouldn't.
Yeah, it's not like the press spent about three months talking almost exclusively about them during the primary or anything. It's not like an entire primary debate was almost an exclusive Ayers/Wright/Rezco "Gotcha-fest" toward Obama or anything. That must have been in some parallel universe, right?
Could you imagine the outcry if McCain had received favorable (extremely favorable) business deals from a convicted slum lord?
You mean like this?
They didn't get any traction because the press ignored the argument that was presented and slammed McCain for "negative campaigning", although nothing that was said was false.
As for accuracy...
First off, "Joe the Plumber", in addition to everything else, is a registered Republican and the grandson of Charles Keating. Yes, that Charles Keating. What's next, citing Cindy McCain and calling her "Cindy the Housewife" as an example of McCain support?
Secondly, Palin herself used nearly identical language when describing how her state, Alaska, "spreads the wealth" from the oil industry around.
Third, progressive income taxes have little to do with Marx. They have absolutely nothing to "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need"; that'd be state assignment of jobs, which isn't even tangentially related.
Fourth, the US has a form of *inverse* socialism under the current system thanks to the ridiculously low rate that capital gains are taxed at, and given that the wealthiest Americans earn almost all of their money from capital gains, not direct income. Warren Buffet once famously noted that he pays a smaller share of his income in taxes than his secretary, and this situation is pretty much standard among the wealthy. Republicans often deliberately focus only on income taxes, deliberately ignoring the contributions from payroll and capital gains taxes. Factor them in, and we live in an inverse-socialist society.
Fifth, *so what* if it was the other way around? Let's take a second and hypothetically invert our tax system so that taxes are all on purchases instead of income. Would you support higher taxes on luxury goods, and little to no tax on necessities? Probably 95% of Americans would. Great. But there's a problem with that. How much of a tax rate do you put on a head of lettuce? A can of mushrooms? Fresh button mushrooms? Fresh portabella mushrooms? Shiitakes? Truffles? Essentially every item would have to be analyzed for how much of a "luxury" it is; it'd never work out. But you can flip the system back to what it currently is and get a *good approximation*. The poor simply can't spend a sizable portion of their money on luxury; they need it for necessity. The wealthy simply can't spend a sizable portion of their money on necessity; it can only go to luxury. Well, there's one exception to that -- if they buy necessities for others. That's known as charity, and it's deductable. In short, a progressive taxation system is just a simpler approximation of taxing luxury spending at a higher rate.
Sixth, to preemptively address the claim that if you tax the wealthy more than we currently do, it'll destroy the economy: that's complete nonsense. During our nation's biggest boomtime (after WWII to the mid 1970s), the top income tax bracket rate was over 70%, and over 80% most of the time (over 90% at times). Historical evidence flatly contradicts this notion.
Well, he is an inspiring candidate who knows his stuff. ;)
Not if her nemesis, the Floating Head of Vladimir Putin, has anything to say about it. It's Alaska!
It's an interesting difference, though, isn't it? Islamic fundamentalists trying to get rid of public displays of pictures of Mohammed, trying to eliminate people reciting the Quran in products, and so on, and meanwhile, Christian fundamentalists are insisting on public displays of pictures of Jesus, trying to get readings from the bible everywhere, and so on.
It's just a different kind of crazy.
If you absolutely need more than 2+1 seating (i.e., you're only going to have one car and/or rarely have anyone in the household who travels by themselves or with one adult and one small child), then you're right; it's not for you. However, a huge portion of the American population is not in that situation. It's sad watching a hummer going down the freeway carrying only the driver. What a waste.
If you do need more than 2+1 seating, not only are there many other EVs coming out from other manufacturers in the next few years (although no other true electric hypercars that I've seen), but Aptera's next model, codenamed "Palomar", is to be a four-wheel, four seater. I'd expect it to be somewhat more expensive and probably ~30-40% less energy efficient, but hey, four seats. Of course, with the credit crisis, I imagine it might be a while before they can bring it to market.
With all of the EVs coming out, there's only *one* that you like?
Several dozen. They're only a small fraction of the way through the preorder list, though.
This headline is quite misleading. Tesla is not about to go "belly up". Tesla had an extremely ambitious scale-up plan (one might say overambitious), trying to get the Model S not only onto the market, but in mass production. The current credit crisis really can't support that kind of expansion from a new company like Tesla. Which, really, is why this crisis is such a disaster, especially for cleantech. Innovative cleantech companies are generally high risk, high reward. Right now, the market can only tolerate low risk. Hence, Tesla is basically undoing part of their expansion and will be focusing more on Roadsters until they get into the black rather than trying to leap ahead to the Model S. Given their preorder list, Tesla is guaranteed a revenue stream so long as they can deliver product faster than they're burning money (and they just cut some of the burn)
Losing the third wheel has a whole range of benefits. One, it gets the motorcycle classification, which allows them to have a lot more of a free hand in how to design things. To Aptera's credit, they're voluntarily doing the normal safety things, although some companies use the motorcycle classification to avoid things like crash tests. The other issues are practical, not legal. Given that the ideal shape is either a teardrop or a truncated teardrop (depending on the situation), the aerodynamic benefits of a central rear wheel are obvious. Another hypercar -- the Volkswagen 1L car -- has four wheels so it can retain the car classification, but it puts them right next to each other, basically making it effectively into a three wheeler. There are some major weight benefits from ditching that extra wheel. Not only do you lose the weight of a wheel and a tire, but you also lose the weight of a driveshaft, differential, etc. And not only does losing these parts cut weight, but it also cuts manufacture cost and time as well as maintenance costs (less to break). Lastly, three wheels improves vehicle response time since the average distance from the center of mass to the wheels gets reduced and the mass is decreased. So, lots of benefits.
With a "tadpole" configuration (two wheels in front, one in rear), you retain essentially all of the stability for driving in "normal" conditions. However, you lose stability in "unusual" conditions (a good example being skidding backwards or nearly backwards at high speeds). Basically, don't be an idiot and try to pull a J-turn in a tadpole trike unless you're fond of injuring yourself.
The GP is absolutely correct, though. Americans have this mentality of assuming that crashes are inevitable that's not shared in much of the rest of the world. Hence, a lot of Americans only feel comfortable driving overweight (read: unmaneuverable) armored tanks that make them *more* likely to be involved in accidents. Statistics bear this out; SUVs are more likely to be involved in accidents than small cars.
As for safety: try over double the NTSB standards on roof and door crush strength, modelled with the same crash-survivability testing software that BMW uses, with normal car safety features (traction control, dual airbags... Actually the airbags are among the most advanced on the market -- in-seatbelt curtain airbags), and so on down the line. And I'll take a crash in a composite vehicle over a steel one any day. You ever seen the sort of 100+mph crashes of exotics that people walk away from? It's pretty amazing.
As for your last line, you're completely wrong on all counts. It's a 2+1 seater -- two full sized seats in the front and one seat for a small child in the back. And it has 16 cubic feet of trunk space, which is the size of your typical sedan's trunk. This is not a small car -- just an unusually shaped one. The unusual shape eliminates the presence of a normal backseat in exchange for the aerodynamics to gain its extreme efficiency.