If you had the cash for a luxury car, you might get a Tesla... Have you driven what else $100K buys you these days?
Just being expensive doesn't make it a luxury car, nor does it come with the service that you get from a luxury dealership.
Maybe you would buy it, but you'd be crazy to not at least look at your other options.
BTW, you say the car that is half the price isn't as nice. Are you 100% sure that is an absolute fact? You'd be shocked what $50K will buy you in a car these days. Heck, $35K will buy you a REALLY nice car these days.
Why is the Tesla considered ridiculously overpriced, yet a pickup truck like the 2010 Ford F450 at over 64 thousand
The F450 is a commercial vehicle built for a completely different purpose than a Tesla Model S
But ok, I'll play.
The new 2016 F-150 Limited that is coming out in a few months will be about $60K.
However, that is loaded, top of the line, with everything in it. A loaded, top of the line Tesla Model S is north of $100K. It also has far less utility than a F-150 does, so they STILL aren't the same thing.
Now if you want to compare it to a Merc S class, sure, go ahead, about the same price, but a Merc is just a status symbol like the Model S is.
You can get the features and function of the Model S for half the price in a gas version.
Over the life of the car, you will easily save at least $10k by using electricity instead of gasoline. If you take that into account, you hit his $25k target.
Maybe... unless gas prices stay low and perhaps get lower.
Keep in mind that as more and more people switch to EVs, the demand for gas will drop and cut into the price.
I just filled up my car the other day with E85, first time I've done that, but I thought I'd give it a try to see what all the fuss was about.
$1.49 a gallon and while my economy is about 2 mpg lower than one E10, the lower price more than makes up for that.
Less than $25 to fill the tank for nearly 400 miles of driving range. An EV would likely be less than that, but it is a trivial cost at the end of the day after paying for the car and insurance on it.
Either obey the law, fight to get the laws changed or get the fuck out of the market.
That would be fine, if it were a reasonable level playing field without unions and lobbyists mucking up the works.
Often times laws about things have less to do with "the public good" and more to do with who is funding elections.
Fighting such laws can take years, a whole crap load of money, and still not succeed due to the elected officials being in office for sometimes decades and being married to the existing companies.
I suppose that it just shows that it makes sense to pay people to do that job, at $7.25/hr, but if min wage was really raised nationally to $15/hr, they'd start with order taking and move on from there.
Honestly, I'd personally rather have robots make my food anyway, it will come out better, cleaner, and healthier than if humans make it.
Thanks for the fair and reasonable replies. I wish more people here replied that way.
You're correct of course, it takes only a shift in technology or price to change things. Could EV sales be 30% in 30 years? Yes, they could. It would take a shift, but such things have happened before.
It will be interesting to watch, that is for sure.
Perhaps, but such things tend to be expensive because they are low volume and are used in commercial kitchens, so they can be priced higher.
Still, I suspect it wouldn't actually take that long to pay for itself. A McDonald's open 24/7 that can cut its kitchen staff by 2-4 people, works out to $1,839,600 at a total employee cost of $10/hr, with an average of 3 employees removed.
Now in fairness, it might only save 1 person overnight, and you might need 2 machines for busy places, but frankly it could pay for itself in a year.
Raise min wage to $15/hr and it becomes a no-brainer, because your true cost for employees becomes more like $20/hr at that point.
It was also an interesting challenge for the 19th century, when steel plows, tractors, and reaping machines displaced all the people who were no longer required to grow stuff.
Lots of people keep saying that sort of thing, but sooner or later we're going to reach the end game of it.
Yes, machines now make our food, those people do other things. They went to work in factories making stuff, but that now is done by robots or overseas by virtual slave labor (which won't last, but robots will pickup that slack).
Then they moved into tech and service businesses. But that has only so much room and will become automated at some point.
Or do you believe that we'll always find something new for humans to do no matter how automated our world becomes?
At $7.25/hr, I'd agree with you, employees would be hard to beat.
The question becomes, how high does that have to go before that changes?
It might cost a million dollars to put a robot into a McDonald's that can make most of their menu. That probably makes no sense at current wages. Maybe it doesn't at $15/hr either. But at some number it should.
And it won't remove all employees, just cut down the number of them. You might go from 8 people during lunch to 4.
And when they haven't really embraced self-service ordering which should be the easy part, well I think the employees are safe a little while longer.
Regarding this point, there is a fine line between saving money and having good customer service. That being said, Siri often understands me better than the 17 year old kid behind the counter. Honestly I don't want to use a touch screen order system, but if I can just speak my order, I'll take that.
Also, keep in mind the push to replace fast food workers hasn't hit yet because the min wage is still $7.25/hr. Oh sure, a few places it is higher, but you don't develop for a national chain like McDonald's based on a few exceptions. If the national wage went to $15/hr, I think you'd see that change in a big hurry.
What often gets missed in the talk of $15/hr min wage is what happens to the current people making $15/hr today? They aren't going to accept getting paid what a McDonald's worker is getting, so it will push up wages across the board for everyone.
Which sounds good, until it causes many companies to start reconsidering their staffing needs and what options they have to cut back on them.
The irony to this is that a lot of low skilled workers are currently demanding more money for their current jobs. Raises to the min wage of $15/hr and so on.
The company's robot can "slice toppings like tomatoes and pickles immediately before it places the slice onto your burger, giving you the freshest burger possible." The robot is "more consistent, more sanitary, and can produce ~360 hamburgers per hour." That's one burger every 10 seconds.
One of these robots in a McDonald's could probably replace 4 or more employees. If McDonald's isn't testing these now, they're nuts.
Momentum Machines cofounder Alexandros Vardakostas told Xconomy his "device isnâ(TM)t meant to make employees more efficient. Itâ(TM)s meant to completely obviate them." Indeed, marketing copy on the company's site reads that their automaton "does everything employees can do, except better."
The same is true of the Amazon Warehouse robots, those jobs are history...
Yes, yes, there will be new jobs building these robots, but do you believe that someone who used to flip burgers is now going to build robots? Do you think it will take just as many of them to build the robots?
We are approaching a point where we no longer need all the people we have to do all the things that need to be done. This will be an interesting challenge for the 21st century, what do we do with all the people who are no longer required to make stuff?
Ah, the fallacy of the excluded middle. I'm afraid that's complete bullshit.
You calling it bullshit doesn't make it so...
I'm dealing with what is, not what is technically possible if I were King and could dictate solutions.
Is a massive solar/wind system technically possible? Yes, of course it is.
It is politically possible? No, not even close. There are too many actors in that game with too many different interests and conflicting points of view.
If you look at any reputable analysis (that is, ignore the fake nuke shill ones put out by Fred Singer and pals) you'll find that solar and wind would be quite possible - as long as you are OK with the same kind of massive public funding and international co-operation that nukes also require.
You can fund solar and wind all you like, you run into issues of distribution and storage. While it is true that the sun is always shining somewhere and the wind is always blowing somewhere, that doesn't help when the power can't get from there to where it is needed. And that isn't a problem that money alone will solve, it is a political and national security issue.
Batteries aren't really the solution, they will never last long enough and people don't want to go without power. I recall an exceptional event in 2007, it rained here for 45 straight days. Could wind have made up the difference? Maybe, but I like the fact that the power is 24/7 reliable, wind and solar will never be due to how humans have divided up the planet.
That might change in the future, but it won't be in our lifetimes.
---
Do not misunderstand, I have no problem with building wind and solar where they made sense. We may see their share of US total power rise to 20% combined in the next 20 years. I don't think we'll ever see it pass 50% in our lifetimes, for various political and social reasons. It might pass 50% in our children's lifetimes, but I think it would take a reordering of the world's political systems to get it to 100%.
That is indeed an improvement... of course it takes a $100k car to get there.:) (yea, I know, the base model is less, but who buys those?)
170 miles takes as little as 2 hours to drive, depending on where you're at. Then 30 min to charge, not counting stop/start time.
It is getting there, but that isn't it yet. Now if they can get 170 miles of range down to 15 min, and do it in a $35K Model 3, now that'll be much more interesting...
So if most families get an EV within 30 years we have close to 50% EV adoption.
It would bring adoption close to 50%, for families with 2 or more vehicles... but that leaves out all the single vehicle households or the households who have a need for 2 longer range vehicles, or who have 3 or more vehicles in the house.
EVs might be 10% of new vehicle sales in 30 years, only time will tell there. But I think the objections of the buying public won't be so easily overcome, regardless of technical solutions. There are a whole lot of people who wouldn't buy an EV tomorrow, even if it was the same price as the gas car, simply due to "fear, change, new, unknown, etc."
That will, to some extent, take a generation shift to overcome.
I dunno, Where I vacation, you see solar panels springing up all over the place. On schools, houses, all over.
Good for you, where I live I have never seen a solar panel on a house roof, ever. Not a single one.
In some places they will make more sense than others, and that is fine.
You seem to think this is an all-or-nothing solution, but it isn't. Solar will clearly continue to grow from its current level to something higher. This does not mean it will grow to enough to make a difference to the outcome that matters.
These people have no idea that solar panel electricity doesn't work, and all the panelhaters memes are ignored by them. And they are lighting their houses, running their heating systems, and computers, and cooking, and somehow managing to do this without bankrupting themselves.
I never said it doesn't work, but you go on being all drama about it if you like.
Those few solar panels installed won't change the game and they are massively outnumbered by the people who don't have such systems.
We aren't.
There are fewer of you in the world than you think there are.
Some of us take a rather longer view than your "I got mine, so fuck you" outlook.
It is a shame that is all you got out of what I wrote...
The reality is that many of us are not "with us or against us" type people, rather we're moderate and in the middle.
What I was trying to say, and I'll try it again, is that there aren't enough of "you" to counter "them" in the overall picture.
It is a statement of how things are, rather than how we wish them to be. Plenty of people talk about hopes and dreams and "what might be if everyone just came together as one".
Yes, that sounds great, but it isn't reality. The US Secretary General just gave a passionate speech imploring the fighters in Syria to stand down and put their weapons down. Sounds great, but it is a fantasy and isn't going to happen. They are fighting for a reason and neither side wants to give in to the other, so it turns to violence.
So how has that war on drugs been working out for you?
The US has a higher percentage of its population in prison than just about any country on Earth. We imprison people for all kinds of crap, often for long periods of time.
It doesn't accomplish anything other than to spend a lot of money and ruin a lot of lives.
So my question then becomes... if you really want to be nuclear free, what then?
How are we going to provide a stable, reliable power grid so that people can have dependable 24/7 power?
Solar and wind alone? I've given this some through and honestly I just don't see that as a viable option. Oh, in a few places it might be... but to be completely free of coal, oil, and natural gas, you'd need it to be viable everywhere.
That isn't likely to happen in our lifetimes.
So a vote against nuclear is really a vote for coal, oil, and natural gas. Is that ok with you then?
Or we could do things that work, like improve building processes to reduce the need for AC, eliminate older plants, reduce consumption, control environmental releases and not chase after unicorns.
Who is this "we"?
I honestly don't think I'm the one chasing after unicorns.
Slashdot Mirror
If you had the cash for a luxury car, you might get a Tesla... Have you driven what else $100K buys you these days?
Just being expensive doesn't make it a luxury car, nor does it come with the service that you get from a luxury dealership.
Maybe you would buy it, but you'd be crazy to not at least look at your other options.
BTW, you say the car that is half the price isn't as nice. Are you 100% sure that is an absolute fact? You'd be shocked what $50K will buy you in a car these days. Heck, $35K will buy you a REALLY nice car these days.
That is a nice cute meaningless reply...
I'm sure you think you were full of snark, but you're just being obtuse...
They are already a contender against IC. The range is the last bastion where they don't beat the crap out of them.
Lord what are you smoking?
Range? Range is not the issue, for most people an EV makes a lot of sense for a second vehicle today, right now.
The real issue is price, and while it will come down, it will take longer than Musk wants it to.
The Model S is expensive... you can buy a car just as nice for half the price that burns dead dinos...
Why is the Tesla considered ridiculously overpriced, yet a pickup truck like the 2010 Ford F450 at over 64 thousand
The F450 is a commercial vehicle built for a completely different purpose than a Tesla Model S
But ok, I'll play.
The new 2016 F-150 Limited that is coming out in a few months will be about $60K.
However, that is loaded, top of the line, with everything in it. A loaded, top of the line Tesla Model S is north of $100K. It also has far less utility than a F-150 does, so they STILL aren't the same thing.
Now if you want to compare it to a Merc S class, sure, go ahead, about the same price, but a Merc is just a status symbol like the Model S is.
You can get the features and function of the Model S for half the price in a gas version.
If I could afford a Model S I'd buy it.
I can afford it and I won't buy it.
Why? Because for the price, it just doesn't have the utility it should.
You can buy cars that are just as nice for half the money, it makes no sense other than as a fashion statement or a "I'm saving the Earth" statement.
Over the life of the car, you will easily save at least $10k by using electricity instead of gasoline. If you take that into account, you hit his $25k target.
Maybe... unless gas prices stay low and perhaps get lower.
Keep in mind that as more and more people switch to EVs, the demand for gas will drop and cut into the price.
I just filled up my car the other day with E85, first time I've done that, but I thought I'd give it a try to see what all the fuss was about.
$1.49 a gallon and while my economy is about 2 mpg lower than one E10, the lower price more than makes up for that.
Less than $25 to fill the tank for nearly 400 miles of driving range. An EV would likely be less than that, but it is a trivial cost at the end of the day after paying for the car and insurance on it.
Either obey the law, fight to get the laws changed or get the fuck out of the market.
That would be fine, if it were a reasonable level playing field without unions and lobbyists mucking up the works.
Often times laws about things have less to do with "the public good" and more to do with who is funding elections.
Fighting such laws can take years, a whole crap load of money, and still not succeed due to the elected officials being in office for sometimes decades and being married to the existing companies.
Fair points...
I suppose that it just shows that it makes sense to pay people to do that job, at $7.25/hr, but if min wage was really raised nationally to $15/hr, they'd start with order taking and move on from there.
Honestly, I'd personally rather have robots make my food anyway, it will come out better, cleaner, and healthier than if humans make it.
Thanks for the fair and reasonable replies. I wish more people here replied that way.
You're correct of course, it takes only a shift in technology or price to change things. Could EV sales be 30% in 30 years? Yes, they could. It would take a shift, but such things have happened before.
It will be interesting to watch, that is for sure.
Perhaps, but such things tend to be expensive because they are low volume and are used in commercial kitchens, so they can be priced higher.
Still, I suspect it wouldn't actually take that long to pay for itself. A McDonald's open 24/7 that can cut its kitchen staff by 2-4 people, works out to $1,839,600 at a total employee cost of $10/hr, with an average of 3 employees removed.
Now in fairness, it might only save 1 person overnight, and you might need 2 machines for busy places, but frankly it could pay for itself in a year.
Raise min wage to $15/hr and it becomes a no-brainer, because your true cost for employees becomes more like $20/hr at that point.
Sure you do... have fun in fantasy land...
It was also an interesting challenge for the 19th century, when steel plows, tractors, and reaping machines displaced all the people who were no longer required to grow stuff.
Lots of people keep saying that sort of thing, but sooner or later we're going to reach the end game of it.
Yes, machines now make our food, those people do other things. They went to work in factories making stuff, but that now is done by robots or overseas by virtual slave labor (which won't last, but robots will pickup that slack).
Then they moved into tech and service businesses. But that has only so much room and will become automated at some point.
Or do you believe that we'll always find something new for humans to do no matter how automated our world becomes?
At $7.25/hr, I'd agree with you, employees would be hard to beat.
The question becomes, how high does that have to go before that changes?
It might cost a million dollars to put a robot into a McDonald's that can make most of their menu. That probably makes no sense at current wages. Maybe it doesn't at $15/hr either. But at some number it should.
And it won't remove all employees, just cut down the number of them. You might go from 8 people during lunch to 4.
And when they haven't really embraced self-service ordering which should be the easy part, well I think the employees are safe a little while longer.
Regarding this point, there is a fine line between saving money and having good customer service. That being said, Siri often understands me better than the 17 year old kid behind the counter. Honestly I don't want to use a touch screen order system, but if I can just speak my order, I'll take that.
Also, keep in mind the push to replace fast food workers hasn't hit yet because the min wage is still $7.25/hr. Oh sure, a few places it is higher, but you don't develop for a national chain like McDonald's based on a few exceptions. If the national wage went to $15/hr, I think you'd see that change in a big hurry.
What often gets missed in the talk of $15/hr min wage is what happens to the current people making $15/hr today? They aren't going to accept getting paid what a McDonald's worker is getting, so it will push up wages across the board for everyone.
Which sounds good, until it causes many companies to start reconsidering their staffing needs and what options they have to cut back on them.
The irony to this is that a lot of low skilled workers are currently demanding more money for their current jobs. Raises to the min wage of $15/hr and so on.
http://www.businessinsider.com...
The company's robot can "slice toppings like tomatoes and pickles immediately before it places the slice onto your burger, giving you the freshest burger possible." The robot is "more consistent, more sanitary, and can produce ~360 hamburgers per hour." That's one burger every 10 seconds.
One of these robots in a McDonald's could probably replace 4 or more employees. If McDonald's isn't testing these now, they're nuts.
Momentum Machines cofounder Alexandros Vardakostas told Xconomy his "device isnâ(TM)t meant to make employees more efficient. Itâ(TM)s meant to completely obviate them." Indeed, marketing copy on the company's site reads that their automaton "does everything employees can do, except better."
The same is true of the Amazon Warehouse robots, those jobs are history...
Yes, yes, there will be new jobs building these robots, but do you believe that someone who used to flip burgers is now going to build robots? Do you think it will take just as many of them to build the robots?
We are approaching a point where we no longer need all the people we have to do all the things that need to be done. This will be an interesting challenge for the 21st century, what do we do with all the people who are no longer required to make stuff?
Even more interesting that you ignore all the other points and only reply to that one.
Ah, the fallacy of the excluded middle. I'm afraid that's complete bullshit.
You calling it bullshit doesn't make it so...
I'm dealing with what is, not what is technically possible if I were King and could dictate solutions.
Is a massive solar/wind system technically possible? Yes, of course it is.
It is politically possible? No, not even close. There are too many actors in that game with too many different interests and conflicting points of view.
If you look at any reputable analysis (that is, ignore the fake nuke shill ones put out by Fred Singer and pals) you'll find that solar and wind would be quite possible - as long as you are OK with the same kind of massive public funding and international co-operation that nukes also require.
You can fund solar and wind all you like, you run into issues of distribution and storage. While it is true that the sun is always shining somewhere and the wind is always blowing somewhere, that doesn't help when the power can't get from there to where it is needed. And that isn't a problem that money alone will solve, it is a political and national security issue.
Batteries aren't really the solution, they will never last long enough and people don't want to go without power. I recall an exceptional event in 2007, it rained here for 45 straight days. Could wind have made up the difference? Maybe, but I like the fact that the power is 24/7 reliable, wind and solar will never be due to how humans have divided up the planet.
That might change in the future, but it won't be in our lifetimes.
---
Do not misunderstand, I have no problem with building wind and solar where they made sense. We may see their share of US total power rise to 20% combined in the next 20 years. I don't think we'll ever see it pass 50% in our lifetimes, for various political and social reasons. It might pass 50% in our children's lifetimes, but I think it would take a reordering of the world's political systems to get it to 100%.
Tesla Superchargers provide 170 miles of range in as little as 30 minutes.
http://www.teslamotors.com/sup...
That is indeed an improvement... of course it takes a $100k car to get there. :) (yea, I know, the base model is less, but who buys those?)
170 miles takes as little as 2 hours to drive, depending on where you're at. Then 30 min to charge, not counting stop/start time.
It is getting there, but that isn't it yet. Now if they can get 170 miles of range down to 15 min, and do it in a $35K Model 3, now that'll be much more interesting...
So if most families get an EV within 30 years we have close to 50% EV adoption.
It would bring adoption close to 50%, for families with 2 or more vehicles... but that leaves out all the single vehicle households or the households who have a need for 2 longer range vehicles, or who have 3 or more vehicles in the house.
EVs might be 10% of new vehicle sales in 30 years, only time will tell there. But I think the objections of the buying public won't be so easily overcome, regardless of technical solutions. There are a whole lot of people who wouldn't buy an EV tomorrow, even if it was the same price as the gas car, simply due to "fear, change, new, unknown, etc."
That will, to some extent, take a generation shift to overcome.
I dunno, Where I vacation, you see solar panels springing up all over the place. On schools, houses, all over.
Good for you, where I live I have never seen a solar panel on a house roof, ever. Not a single one.
In some places they will make more sense than others, and that is fine.
You seem to think this is an all-or-nothing solution, but it isn't. Solar will clearly continue to grow from its current level to something higher. This does not mean it will grow to enough to make a difference to the outcome that matters.
These people have no idea that solar panel electricity doesn't work, and all the panelhaters memes are ignored by them. And they are lighting their houses, running their heating systems, and computers, and cooking, and somehow managing to do this without bankrupting themselves.
I never said it doesn't work, but you go on being all drama about it if you like.
Those few solar panels installed won't change the game and they are massively outnumbered by the people who don't have such systems.
We aren't.
There are fewer of you in the world than you think there are.
Some of us take a rather longer view than your "I got mine, so fuck you" outlook.
It is a shame that is all you got out of what I wrote...
The reality is that many of us are not "with us or against us" type people, rather we're moderate and in the middle.
What I was trying to say, and I'll try it again, is that there aren't enough of "you" to counter "them" in the overall picture.
It is a statement of how things are, rather than how we wish them to be. Plenty of people talk about hopes and dreams and "what might be if everyone just came together as one".
Yes, that sounds great, but it isn't reality. The US Secretary General just gave a passionate speech imploring the fighters in Syria to stand down and put their weapons down. Sounds great, but it is a fantasy and isn't going to happen. They are fighting for a reason and neither side wants to give in to the other, so it turns to violence.
Right now the cars are *not* legal to drive.
The EPA would like to have a word with you...
You are not correct.
So how has that war on drugs been working out for you?
The US has a higher percentage of its population in prison than just about any country on Earth. We imprison people for all kinds of crap, often for long periods of time.
It doesn't accomplish anything other than to spend a lot of money and ruin a lot of lives.
So my question then becomes... if you really want to be nuclear free, what then?
How are we going to provide a stable, reliable power grid so that people can have dependable 24/7 power?
Solar and wind alone? I've given this some through and honestly I just don't see that as a viable option. Oh, in a few places it might be... but to be completely free of coal, oil, and natural gas, you'd need it to be viable everywhere.
That isn't likely to happen in our lifetimes.
So a vote against nuclear is really a vote for coal, oil, and natural gas. Is that ok with you then?
Do not confuse anecdote with data.
That being said, US trucks have long been better than US cars. The cars have been rapidly catching up the past few years.
The new F-150 looks to be one of the best yet, given all the high-strength steel in the frame.
Or we could do things that work, like improve building processes to reduce the need for AC, eliminate older plants, reduce consumption, control environmental releases and not chase after unicorns.
Who is this "we"?
I honestly don't think I'm the one chasing after unicorns.