The world has never faced a technology which had the potential to take out the entire human ecosystem before.
You mean like nuclear weapons? Perhaps you are not old enough to remember the Cold War. We've had the capability to destroy the entire planet for roughly 60 years and on a few occasions have come disturbingly close to doing it. Fossil fuel pollution is a serious threat but it's not the first technology in a position to wipe us out entirely. Fossil fuel pollution has only become an acute threat in the last few decades though that should not be interpreted to minimize the seriousness of the problem.
Since our economy is far less dependent on heavy manufacturing than it used to be, we're not in nearly as much trouble as other nations.
As a percentage of they overall economy yes but in absolute size the US manufacturing sector is enormous. Depending on how you measure it the US manufactures $2-4 Trillion in goods each year which is roughly the size of the entire GDP of Russia. The only country with a manufacturing sector even close to that in size is China. The "death" of manufacturing in the US has been greatly exaggerated. Manufacturing is a large and vital portion of the US economy and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
True enough - the world has survived such things, but countries whose dominance is closely tied to such things often fare poorly during and after such transitions.
The economic power of the US is not strongly tied to fossil fuels. The US uses them heavily but so does every other industrialized nation on earth. Nations whose economic output is primarily tied to fossil fuel mining (like Saudi Arabia) should in theory worry about such things but the US could relatively easily switch to new sources of power within reasonably short time scales. Most of the economic output of the US is not based on mining or distribution of fossil fuels.
Unless the U.S. starts, pretty damned soon, to find an alternative to fossil fuels, it's economy is in for a beating, the likes of which few have scarcely imagined.
Exactly what do you think is going to replace fossil fuels that is not going to be available in the US? Seriously, I'm all for replacing fossil fuels with cleaner sources of energy but there is NOTHING out there presently or in the reasonably likely future that is likely to do more than dent the use of fossil fuels for at least the next 30-40 years.
Fossil fuels will become obsolete sooner or later, and the world will be better off for it.
While I would love that to be true, what technology do you think is going to make that happen? Solar and wind cannot do the job by themselves due to their unpredictability on time scales shorter than months. Nuclear fission is feasible but the waste and operational safety concerns make it too much of a political and economic hot potato. Geothermal and hydro simply aren't available in a lot of locations in sufficient quantity. Transmission losses force power generation to need to be relatively close to point of use and there is no economically viable form of superconductivity. Nuclear fusion and other more exotic power sources remain perpetually 25 years away.
I'd love to say that fossil fuels are doomed but I don't see any reasonably likely scenario in at least the next 40 years where that could possibly be true. Sure we might see a breakthrough in fusion or energy storage that would change the equation significantly but we cannot presume such a breakthrough will occur. We absolutely should maximize our use of solar and wind. Nuclear could be a bigger piece of the energy pie. Fossil fuels should be regulated to ensure that they have to pay the full cost of their use including all pollution they cause. But will all that occur? I doubt it.
Using locally produced solar energy in a northern area that sees peak energy usage in the middle of winter is not really a good idea
They don't use air conditioning in Germany? Solar isn't going to fix every problem but even if it can solve just part of the problem then it remains a good idea. Why would you not want to use relatively clean solar energy for at least those times when it is available? The only credible argument against solar power is an economic one. No it will not be able to supply all our power needs but neither is any other single source of fuel. They all have drawbacks of one sort or another. What seems abundantly clear however is that any technology that allows us to reduce use of fossil fuels at reasonable economic cost is a good thing.
There is this stupid tendency here on slashdot to dismiss partial solutions to any problem as unworkable. Solar does not have to supply all our energy needs to still be a good idea. The economics of it still need to make sense but there is no principled reason why it should not be a significant part of the energy supply equation.
Seems like it is only a matter of time until coal power goes away. It will be a long time, granted, but in the next decade or two solar will get so cheap that the impact on traditional centralized generation will be quite severe.
I hope you are correct but I think you are being wildly optimistic. Coal isn't going to disappear anytime in the next 40+ years baring some unexpected technological breakthrough. The US and China have HUGE amounts of coal and can get to it relatively cheaply. Solar will not catch up on a cost basis without continued subsidies for an unclear amount of time. Coal has an economic advantage because power plants that utilize coal are not required to pay the full economic cost. Even the cleanest coal plants are able to dump significant amounts of pollutants into the environment without any economic direct consequences. To level the playing field coal will need to be required to account for these costs and I don't really see that happening in any reasonably foreseeable configuration of political leadership in most of the world. There simply are too many people making too much money from fossil fuels for that to be likely to occur.
Solar is advancing relatively fast but it's no panacea and absent some energy storage breakthrough it's of limited use when the sun isn't shining. We should definitely advance solar as far as it will take us but it's not going to solve the entire problem alone. Same issue with wind. Very useful but difficult to predict availability on short time scales. Nuclear fission is current the only non-fossil fuel power source we have with sufficient generating capacity to serve as a base load in place of fossil fuel sources in places not blessed with hydro or geo-thermal close by. Obviously fission carries its own set of problems which are well known.
I guess they are watching what is happening in Germany with horror and realizing that is their future too.
Germany is spending a LOT of money to subsidize solar. It's unclear whether this is economically sensible though I do hope that their experiment proves a success. However there are (too) many here in the US who regard that sort of subsidy as blasphemy and will do everything they can to fight it. The fact that many of these same people will ironically support subsidies (both explicit and implicit) for fossil fuel production will never come up because they are supported by that industry.
But they don't specifically know how much energy goes into heating and AC, vs. other household uses.
My furnace is gas and my AC is electric. All other sources of electric and gas are fairly consistent from month to month. My furnace accounts for the vast majority of seasonal variation in my heating bill and AC the same for my electric bill. So yeah, my electric company knows what I use for heating and AC vs everything else. Nest might give them a slightly more accurate picture but not that much.
Really? They never break and need replacement? Love to live in the your world where things never break or need fixing. Here on earth I've seen both motors and electronics get fried and maintenance regularly.
When was the last time you did "regular maintenance" on the electronics in your car?
Who said it was "regular"? Electronics problems happen all the time that aren't a part of regular maintenance. We have a guy in our office with a Ford Escape that has been in 4 times for fixes to the electronics - all recalls. Hell, I run a company that manufactures wire harnesses and most of our products go into automobiles. If you think they never break or need repair, you are very, very wrong.
Oh and to answer your question, the last electronic maintenance I did to one of my cars happened about 4 months ago. Had a sensor that went bad.
If Tesla has published a maintenance guide/schedule, then this should be a no-brainer.
They should publish such documents but that doesn't make it a no-brainer. Some maintenance can be performed by lots of people. Some should only be performed by those who are trained and do it with some regularity. I'm perfectly capable of wiring a house but I don't do it often so I hire an electrician that will do an as-good if not better job and will know about some of the more obscure issues I might unintentionally overlook. The trick is knowing where your limits are. Not everyone does and just because you can read a maintenance book doesn't mean you should automatically assume you are adequately trained for that job.
Which is no different than the way other auto makers are treated. Which, in the eyes of the Feds, makes it perfectly reasonable.
Just because the other automakers are treated that way doesn't mean that's how it should work. Frankly I think we should all be cheering for Tesla here. Auto dealers are a drain on the economy and have protections they don't need or deserve.
Well hey, I'll bet a lot of companies want to operate their businesses in ways that are not currently legal, but they don't.
So Tesla should just suck it up and accept an unfair, pointless and obsolete law that protects the profits of an undeserving group that costs both manufacturers and consumers money for no added benefit? We as consumers should be forced to pay for a middleman that adds cost but not benefits? What pubic interest is served by the status quo? Not to mention that car dealers are among the most reviled companies on the planet for some well deserved reasons. I'll get the popcorn and hope Tesla takes the auto dealers to the woodshed.
Whining that the rules suck isn't going to get cars out the showroom doors.
No but challenging the laws in court WILL get the laws changed. I have no respect for anyone who simply acquiesces to an unjust and harmful law.
What quirks? There's nothing quirky about servicing brakes, or anything else on that list. It's bog-standard stuff.
Every car has quirks and something like a Tesla or even a Prius requires special training for stuff more complicated than the most basic of maintenance. Most mechanics have a decent understanding of internal combustion engines and the rest of a convention auto but that doesn't mean they can transfer that understanding to electric vehicles. Sure, your corner mechanic can probably handle the brake job but he is going to be WAY out of his depth in dealing with the drive motors, the battery pack, much of the electronics, etc. Furthermore sometimes even the routine stuff sometimes has special/non-obvious requirements that can be important to ensure proper functioning and reliability.
Independent mechanics don't have "specialized training" for all the cars they work on.
Actually a lot of them do, particularly when it comes to more specialized vehicles. I used to work in a place that trained and certified mechanics on the finer points of driveshafts, axles, and engine repair. Being a good mechanic is a lot more complicated than many realize.
So you're arguing that you should be able to use the "I bought it in another state" loophole to avoid sales taxes?
Sales tax gets paid on the car in the state you bought it in. If I buy a car in Michigan, why should Ohio get a cut even if I happen to be an Ohio resident? The transaction took place in Michigan so that's where the tax should be paid if any applies. If Ohio wants the transaction to take place there then they should put appropriate incentives in place to encourage that to happen.
Then why would anyone buy anything in their home state?
Because that's where it is available. Are you going to cross state lines to pick up groceries? Furthermore most states charge use tax for items purchased out of state where sales tax was not applied.
You realize they could just set up a local state dealer and sell through them? It puts the tax in the state which is what they're after.
Of course they could. That would then A) reduce Telsa's profits, B) make the product more expensive for customers, C) expose Tesla to potential conflicts of interest between them and the dealers, D) make for an inefficient use of capital, E) allow local governments to double dip on tax revenues (registration fees/taxes + taxes on local dealer profits) that they otherwise would not be entitled to. Explain to me how any of that benefits the public interest.
Top Gear gives them a bad review because the car breaks down?
Top Gear lied about the car. The fact that they got away with it in court does not mean their actions were ethical or justifiable. Suing them may have been pointless but what else were they supposed to do? Let Top Gear make shit up without calling them out on it? That's a great way to ensure that people never get correct facts about your product.
NYT reviewer gives them a bad review because the car drains its power in the cold?
NYT reviewer was shown to have fabricated parts of the story and was not an honest or fair reporter of the facts.
Cars catches fire? Attack the press for reporting it...
You have that backwards. The press is eagerly reporting car fires for Tesla vehicles disproportionately to their frequency, severity or likelihood in relation to other auto manufacturers. More GM vehicles catch fire in a typical week than Tesla vehicles have in total but you don't hear about GM vehicles catching fire do you?
Meanwhile everyone else makes electric cars without all the drama queen nonsense!
Point me to a single vehicle on the market today that is all electric, comparable to the Model S in performance and sold in similar unit volumes. No the Nissan Leaf isn't anywhere close to the same car - it's got half the range and a quarter of the performance. The Chevy Volt is a hybrid so it's not comparable. Same with the Prius. Would you prefer the "drama queen nonsense" from GM killing people with defective products and then ignoring the problem for 10+ years?
You have too many zeroes there - as of this past December, there were 25k+ Teslas on the road worldwide, which would make the Tesla "a product designed for the 0.001%".
You have ignored the implicit assumptions in your argument that A) only the wealthiest 0.001% could/would buy a Tesla, that B) there are no substitute products available, and that C) everyone who is in the 0.001% has gone ahead and bought a Tesla. All three of those assumptions are demonstrably false.
Why? Is there some law against Tesla opening dealerships?
If Tesla owns the dealerships then yes there are many states with laws against that. It's dumb but that's the way the laws are written and the auto dealers are obviously highly motivated to keep their little cut of the profits protected.
No, really, I don't understand why that's such an impossible business model for them to adopt. Is it a logistics issue? Lack of funding? Ego problem? Help me out here.
It's about several issues but the big one is money. Any time you have a middleman they are going to want a profit and that adds to costs for customers and reduces potential profits for Tesla. No company wants to deal with a middleman if they don't need to. Sometimes a middleman is necessary to reach customers or to prevent financial and/or safety abuses but that isn't really the case here. Tesla would rather be able to pocket the percentage they would otherwise have to pay to a dealer and frankly they should have every right to do so in this case. There is no compelling public interest to be served by forcing you and me to buy cars through a dealer if we don't want to.
Requiring dealers arguably hurts consumers (higher prices), hurts manufacturers (lost sales due to higher prices and third party marketing) and hurts governments where the manufacturer is based. Governments with a tax interest in the dealer network and the dealers themselves benefit but at a pretty substantial cost to the rest of society. Requiring dealers is pretty similar to requiring a tariff - it raises prices and benefits the local economy but ultimately hurts consumers and manufacturers and is an inefficient use of capital.
Tesla can sell all the cars they want, as long as they use local dealers to do so. Therefore interstate commerce is not prohibited.
True but like many laws whose time has come and gone the market has changed and there is no reasonable argument that can be made against Telsa selling direct if they want to do so. I think this might simply be one of those cases where the law no longer was appropriate but no one had a sufficient economic interest to want to bother challenging it. Tesla does and they have a good case.
Controlled substances can only be sold through pharmacies by licensed pharmacists.
That is because there is a compelling public safety concern regarding the distribution of drugs. Middlemen are useful in basically two cases: 1) for connecting buyers with sellers when they would otherwise be unable to meet efficiently and 2) for controlling distribution of a product where there is a significant public safety or public economic concern. Both apply to the sale of pharmaceuticals. Dealing with drug manufacturers directly would be both difficult for consumers as well as introduce some pretty serious public safety issues.
And new cars can only be sold through local car dealerships.
Car dealers sometimes are helpful in connecting buyers to sellers but most car manufacturers are big enough that they are not really necessary for new vehicles unless the car manufacturer doesn't care to be bothered. Car dealers certainly serve no compelling public safety or public economic interest. Originally car dealers were necessary for car manufacturers to reach the public because many years ago they lacked the resources to run their own distribution network. Now they frankly are something of an anachronism that is no longer really needed but they've managed to get some laws passed protecting their little financial nest and won't give it up without a fight.
By that logic, California shouldn't have the right to restrict a citizen from purchasing a firearm made in another state.
That's correct at least in principle but there are some nuances. The state should not have that right to restrict sale of a product as long at the product itself is legal and there are no public safety issues involved. That said there are some pretty important differences between purchasing a weapon and purchasing a motor vehicle. Motor vehicles have to be properly registered and titled no matter where they were purchased and appropriate training and licensing is required for their use. Firearms clearly have some public safety issues attached to them so sensible measures regarding their sale and distribution and use are not in principle unreasonable. Furthermore there are federal regulations regarding the interstate sale of firearms. That is one case where a middleman might at least in theory actually serve the public interest. For cars I can see no reason whatsoever for dealers to be a protected group.
It was never designed to connect any and all peripherals. You are completely missing this point.
I'm not missing that point at all. The use cases for Firewire and USB overlapped heavily and USB was both cheaper (it's backers charged more to license and the tech was more costly too) and could be used with more devices that people actually had. Firewire was arguably better for a lot of purposes but USB was good enough for most of those purposes. Thunderbolt probably has a better shot than Firewire did to stand apart but so far where Thunderbolt and USB overlap, USB is winning easily. Kind of a pity since Thunderbolt is the design I actually prefer for a lot of uses. I like the connector better too.
According to Intel and others it is aimed to almost expose PCIe bridge to connections rather than replacing USB.
Users don't care. In fact most of them have never even heard of PCIe. Only engineers give a shit about that. Nobody is asking the question "how can I bridge PCIe"? They are asking how they can connect their hard drive or their monitor or their printer. Users only care that it works, not how efficiently. You are 100% correct that Thunderbolt is a better technical solution but it is not a better economic solution. Better economic solutions will beat better technical solutions in 10 out of 10 cases.
No one I know has a USB driven monitor so it cannot be everyone. Yes they have monitors that have USB ports but these are to use as a USB hub.
No, not USB pass through. USB driven monitors. Does not even require a separate power cable and works fine with USB 2.0. There are other versions besides. They aren't widely used but with USB 3.1 I fully expect to see more devices like it.
Again you are completely missing the point. If you need sustained transfers like digital video back in the day, you wanted a FireWire not a USB.
I'm not missing the point at all. They won't know and won't care that USB is a sub-optimal choice. Yes, USB is inferior for that purpose but if it gets their work done with a minimum of fuss no one will care. The pros will use specialty gear because they know and have a reason to care. Most others won't. Bear in mind that I run a company that makes specialty wire cables/harnesses so I deal with pros and engineers on this stuff daily.
How the hell is TB going to cost you a lot more money?
You can't figure that out? I do have one computer with Thunderbolt but the port sits unused because I have nothing that needs it. My monitor is driven by HDMI and I'd have to get an adapter to use the Thunderbolt port. None of my storage, printers, mice, keyboards, or ethernet needs Thunderbolt. I would have to spend money to integrate Thunderbolt to get right back to exactly where I am right now without it. Furthermore the chipsets and other gear necessary to run Thunderbolt are more expensive than those for USB. (Have you priced Thunderbolt adapters and cables recently?) Putting Thunderbolt onto a board increases the cost of that board more than putting USB on the board does. Intel is pushing it but ARM and other chip makers are not so it isn't (yet) available for anything that doesn't have an Intel chip.
Other than the fact that Intel is the one pushing it and is part of their ultrabook specification?
You are hugely underestimating how difficult it is to displace an installed base. People already have a ton of USB gear, it's backwards compatible, USB 3.1 is pretty darn fast, etc. Furthermore Thunderbolt is only compatible with Intel chipsets and a huge percentage of devices out there are based on ARM and other processor manufacturers. The old saying is trite but true that people buy solutions, not products. In order for people to buy Thunderbolt gear it needs to solve a problem for them. I'm not rooting against Thunderbolt, I'm just dubious of its long term prospects in any use where it overlaps with USB.
press windows and type, just as before works the same way, even better.
I know almost no one who actually works with Windows that way. Seriously, barely anyone uses the windows key on their keyboard. They get their mouse and start clicking. Slower but that's how they do it.
No, that doesn't make sense. Because you are saying that New Jersey cannot regulate sales of cars in their own state because of where they are made.
New Jersey should NOT have the right to restrict a citizen from purchasing a product made in another state (or even within New Jersey) in order to protect an unnecessary middleman in the transaction. That is what is happening here. The laws are not in place to protect citizens, they are in place to protect dealers and their frankly obsolete business model.
Just for reference: Apple computers (including notebooks) provided at least 7W per Firewire port.
IMO it should be possible to power an entire laptop with a USB (or equivalent )cable. We need a commonly accepted data cable that can deliver data at speeds similar to Thunderbolt or USB 3.1 and also be able to carry enough DC power to power a reasonably powerful laptop or desktop PC via a single port.
Replace names like smartphone and tablet with touch computer.
This is why they don't let engineers name products. As the old saying goes, if an engineer were asked to come up with a name sushi they would call it "cold dead fish".
they do not go and create new markets on their own like Apple used to (at least they don't do it any more)
"Don't do it anymore"? Dude, the iPad was introduced in 2010. While others introduced tablets before that, nobody took the market seriously until Apple jumped in. Apple introduced the iPhone in 2004, and the iPod in 2001. How frequently do they have to create multi-billion dollar businesses from nothing for you? Apple has started or at least popularized at least 7 major businesses that I can think of (personal computers, graphical operating systems, desktop laser printers, mp3 players, smartphones, tablets, app/music stores) plus a number of smaller spinoff businesses. There aren't a lot of other companies with a comparable track record of hit products. If they go another few years before without a hit product then sure, let's wonder what's going on. But Apple has a track record of making big new products about every 5 years or so. Let's postpone the funeral for a least a few more years.
(For the pedants out there I'm fully aware that others usually created the technologies Apple works with - that's why I said they've started/popularized the business rather than the technology)
Clearly, you don't understand the use case of the iPod Classic: an order of magnitude more storage than a 32GB cell phone is hardly made redundant.
As the capacity of smartphones gets larger the number of users of the iPod Classic is going to drop. My smartphone has 64GB and that is more than adequate to store my entire music collection. If I need more space to store something then I have a 2TB portable hard drive. There are some people for whom the iPod Classic makes sense but the number is steadily shrinking.
The shuffle is more redundant, even if you can personally find a case where you like to use it.
The use case for the shuffle is primarily exercising. Running with anything much larger is pretty annoying and one doesn't need an entire music library or a screen for a 30-60 minute workout.
I'm still amazed that Apple, of all companies, is the one that's still actually catering to that segment. I haven't seen another HDD-based music player in years.
Not really that shocking. Most of that market segment has gone the way of the dodo and unsurprisingly the dominant product in that market (the ipod classic) is the last player standing. It doesn't cost Apple much to keep making them so it remains a smallish but profitable business for them. I expect at some point they'll pull the plug but the margins are good, the unit volume is adequate and it doesn't require a lot of management attention.
Keep deluding yourself that glued together devices will have better lifespan.
You may be right but what is your evidence that glued i-devices don't last? Just because you bought something else which works well find doesn't constitute evidence for or against the longevity of iPads. Lots of glued products last just fine so what are you basing this assertion on?
Slashdot Mirror
The world has never faced a technology which had the potential to take out the entire human ecosystem before.
You mean like nuclear weapons? Perhaps you are not old enough to remember the Cold War. We've had the capability to destroy the entire planet for roughly 60 years and on a few occasions have come disturbingly close to doing it. Fossil fuel pollution is a serious threat but it's not the first technology in a position to wipe us out entirely. Fossil fuel pollution has only become an acute threat in the last few decades though that should not be interpreted to minimize the seriousness of the problem.
Since our economy is far less dependent on heavy manufacturing than it used to be, we're not in nearly as much trouble as other nations.
As a percentage of they overall economy yes but in absolute size the US manufacturing sector is enormous. Depending on how you measure it the US manufactures $2-4 Trillion in goods each year which is roughly the size of the entire GDP of Russia. The only country with a manufacturing sector even close to that in size is China. The "death" of manufacturing in the US has been greatly exaggerated. Manufacturing is a large and vital portion of the US economy and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
True enough - the world has survived such things, but countries whose dominance is closely tied to such things often fare poorly during and after such transitions.
The economic power of the US is not strongly tied to fossil fuels. The US uses them heavily but so does every other industrialized nation on earth. Nations whose economic output is primarily tied to fossil fuel mining (like Saudi Arabia) should in theory worry about such things but the US could relatively easily switch to new sources of power within reasonably short time scales. Most of the economic output of the US is not based on mining or distribution of fossil fuels.
Unless the U.S. starts, pretty damned soon, to find an alternative to fossil fuels, it's economy is in for a beating, the likes of which few have scarcely imagined.
Exactly what do you think is going to replace fossil fuels that is not going to be available in the US? Seriously, I'm all for replacing fossil fuels with cleaner sources of energy but there is NOTHING out there presently or in the reasonably likely future that is likely to do more than dent the use of fossil fuels for at least the next 30-40 years.
Fossil fuels will become obsolete sooner or later, and the world will be better off for it.
While I would love that to be true, what technology do you think is going to make that happen? Solar and wind cannot do the job by themselves due to their unpredictability on time scales shorter than months. Nuclear fission is feasible but the waste and operational safety concerns make it too much of a political and economic hot potato. Geothermal and hydro simply aren't available in a lot of locations in sufficient quantity. Transmission losses force power generation to need to be relatively close to point of use and there is no economically viable form of superconductivity. Nuclear fusion and other more exotic power sources remain perpetually 25 years away.
I'd love to say that fossil fuels are doomed but I don't see any reasonably likely scenario in at least the next 40 years where that could possibly be true. Sure we might see a breakthrough in fusion or energy storage that would change the equation significantly but we cannot presume such a breakthrough will occur. We absolutely should maximize our use of solar and wind. Nuclear could be a bigger piece of the energy pie. Fossil fuels should be regulated to ensure that they have to pay the full cost of their use including all pollution they cause. But will all that occur? I doubt it.
Using locally produced solar energy in a northern area that sees peak energy usage in the middle of winter is not really a good idea
They don't use air conditioning in Germany? Solar isn't going to fix every problem but even if it can solve just part of the problem then it remains a good idea. Why would you not want to use relatively clean solar energy for at least those times when it is available? The only credible argument against solar power is an economic one. No it will not be able to supply all our power needs but neither is any other single source of fuel. They all have drawbacks of one sort or another. What seems abundantly clear however is that any technology that allows us to reduce use of fossil fuels at reasonable economic cost is a good thing.
There is this stupid tendency here on slashdot to dismiss partial solutions to any problem as unworkable. Solar does not have to supply all our energy needs to still be a good idea. The economics of it still need to make sense but there is no principled reason why it should not be a significant part of the energy supply equation.
Seems like it is only a matter of time until coal power goes away. It will be a long time, granted, but in the next decade or two solar will get so cheap that the impact on traditional centralized generation will be quite severe.
I hope you are correct but I think you are being wildly optimistic. Coal isn't going to disappear anytime in the next 40+ years baring some unexpected technological breakthrough. The US and China have HUGE amounts of coal and can get to it relatively cheaply. Solar will not catch up on a cost basis without continued subsidies for an unclear amount of time. Coal has an economic advantage because power plants that utilize coal are not required to pay the full economic cost. Even the cleanest coal plants are able to dump significant amounts of pollutants into the environment without any economic direct consequences. To level the playing field coal will need to be required to account for these costs and I don't really see that happening in any reasonably foreseeable configuration of political leadership in most of the world. There simply are too many people making too much money from fossil fuels for that to be likely to occur.
Solar is advancing relatively fast but it's no panacea and absent some energy storage breakthrough it's of limited use when the sun isn't shining. We should definitely advance solar as far as it will take us but it's not going to solve the entire problem alone. Same issue with wind. Very useful but difficult to predict availability on short time scales. Nuclear fission is current the only non-fossil fuel power source we have with sufficient generating capacity to serve as a base load in place of fossil fuel sources in places not blessed with hydro or geo-thermal close by. Obviously fission carries its own set of problems which are well known.
I guess they are watching what is happening in Germany with horror and realizing that is their future too.
Germany is spending a LOT of money to subsidize solar. It's unclear whether this is economically sensible though I do hope that their experiment proves a success. However there are (too) many here in the US who regard that sort of subsidy as blasphemy and will do everything they can to fight it. The fact that many of these same people will ironically support subsidies (both explicit and implicit) for fossil fuel production will never come up because they are supported by that industry.
But they don't specifically know how much energy goes into heating and AC, vs. other household uses.
My furnace is gas and my AC is electric. All other sources of electric and gas are fairly consistent from month to month. My furnace accounts for the vast majority of seasonal variation in my heating bill and AC the same for my electric bill. So yeah, my electric company knows what I use for heating and AC vs everything else. Nest might give them a slightly more accurate picture but not that much.
Motors and electronics don't need maintenance.
Really? They never break and need replacement? Love to live in the your world where things never break or need fixing. Here on earth I've seen both motors and electronics get fried and maintenance regularly.
When was the last time you did "regular maintenance" on the electronics in your car?
Who said it was "regular"? Electronics problems happen all the time that aren't a part of regular maintenance. We have a guy in our office with a Ford Escape that has been in 4 times for fixes to the electronics - all recalls. Hell, I run a company that manufactures wire harnesses and most of our products go into automobiles. If you think they never break or need repair, you are very, very wrong.
Oh and to answer your question, the last electronic maintenance I did to one of my cars happened about 4 months ago. Had a sensor that went bad.
If Tesla has published a maintenance guide/schedule, then this should be a no-brainer.
They should publish such documents but that doesn't make it a no-brainer. Some maintenance can be performed by lots of people. Some should only be performed by those who are trained and do it with some regularity. I'm perfectly capable of wiring a house but I don't do it often so I hire an electrician that will do an as-good if not better job and will know about some of the more obscure issues I might unintentionally overlook. The trick is knowing where your limits are. Not everyone does and just because you can read a maintenance book doesn't mean you should automatically assume you are adequately trained for that job.
Which is no different than the way other auto makers are treated. Which, in the eyes of the Feds, makes it perfectly reasonable.
Just because the other automakers are treated that way doesn't mean that's how it should work. Frankly I think we should all be cheering for Tesla here. Auto dealers are a drain on the economy and have protections they don't need or deserve.
Well hey, I'll bet a lot of companies want to operate their businesses in ways that are not currently legal, but they don't.
So Tesla should just suck it up and accept an unfair, pointless and obsolete law that protects the profits of an undeserving group that costs both manufacturers and consumers money for no added benefit? We as consumers should be forced to pay for a middleman that adds cost but not benefits? What pubic interest is served by the status quo? Not to mention that car dealers are among the most reviled companies on the planet for some well deserved reasons. I'll get the popcorn and hope Tesla takes the auto dealers to the woodshed.
Whining that the rules suck isn't going to get cars out the showroom doors.
No but challenging the laws in court WILL get the laws changed. I have no respect for anyone who simply acquiesces to an unjust and harmful law.
What quirks? There's nothing quirky about servicing brakes, or anything else on that list. It's bog-standard stuff.
Every car has quirks and something like a Tesla or even a Prius requires special training for stuff more complicated than the most basic of maintenance. Most mechanics have a decent understanding of internal combustion engines and the rest of a convention auto but that doesn't mean they can transfer that understanding to electric vehicles. Sure, your corner mechanic can probably handle the brake job but he is going to be WAY out of his depth in dealing with the drive motors, the battery pack, much of the electronics, etc. Furthermore sometimes even the routine stuff sometimes has special/non-obvious requirements that can be important to ensure proper functioning and reliability.
Independent mechanics don't have "specialized training" for all the cars they work on.
Actually a lot of them do, particularly when it comes to more specialized vehicles. I used to work in a place that trained and certified mechanics on the finer points of driveshafts, axles, and engine repair. Being a good mechanic is a lot more complicated than many realize.
So you're arguing that you should be able to use the "I bought it in another state" loophole to avoid sales taxes?
Sales tax gets paid on the car in the state you bought it in. If I buy a car in Michigan, why should Ohio get a cut even if I happen to be an Ohio resident? The transaction took place in Michigan so that's where the tax should be paid if any applies. If Ohio wants the transaction to take place there then they should put appropriate incentives in place to encourage that to happen.
Then why would anyone buy anything in their home state?
Because that's where it is available. Are you going to cross state lines to pick up groceries? Furthermore most states charge use tax for items purchased out of state where sales tax was not applied.
You realize they could just set up a local state dealer and sell through them? It puts the tax in the state which is what they're after.
Of course they could. That would then A) reduce Telsa's profits, B) make the product more expensive for customers, C) expose Tesla to potential conflicts of interest between them and the dealers, D) make for an inefficient use of capital, E) allow local governments to double dip on tax revenues (registration fees/taxes + taxes on local dealer profits) that they otherwise would not be entitled to. Explain to me how any of that benefits the public interest.
Top Gear gives them a bad review because the car breaks down?
Top Gear lied about the car. The fact that they got away with it in court does not mean their actions were ethical or justifiable. Suing them may have been pointless but what else were they supposed to do? Let Top Gear make shit up without calling them out on it? That's a great way to ensure that people never get correct facts about your product.
NYT reviewer gives them a bad review because the car drains its power in the cold?
NYT reviewer was shown to have fabricated parts of the story and was not an honest or fair reporter of the facts.
Cars catches fire? Attack the press for reporting it...
You have that backwards. The press is eagerly reporting car fires for Tesla vehicles disproportionately to their frequency, severity or likelihood in relation to other auto manufacturers. More GM vehicles catch fire in a typical week than Tesla vehicles have in total but you don't hear about GM vehicles catching fire do you?
Meanwhile everyone else makes electric cars without all the drama queen nonsense!
Point me to a single vehicle on the market today that is all electric, comparable to the Model S in performance and sold in similar unit volumes. No the Nissan Leaf isn't anywhere close to the same car - it's got half the range and a quarter of the performance. The Chevy Volt is a hybrid so it's not comparable. Same with the Prius. Would you prefer the "drama queen nonsense" from GM killing people with defective products and then ignoring the problem for 10+ years?
You have too many zeroes there - as of this past December, there were 25k+ Teslas on the road worldwide, which would make the Tesla "a product designed for the 0.001%".
You have ignored the implicit assumptions in your argument that A) only the wealthiest 0.001% could/would buy a Tesla, that B) there are no substitute products available, and that C) everyone who is in the 0.001% has gone ahead and bought a Tesla. All three of those assumptions are demonstrably false.
Got any other straw men you'd like to prop up?
Why? Is there some law against Tesla opening dealerships?
If Tesla owns the dealerships then yes there are many states with laws against that. It's dumb but that's the way the laws are written and the auto dealers are obviously highly motivated to keep their little cut of the profits protected.
No, really, I don't understand why that's such an impossible business model for them to adopt. Is it a logistics issue? Lack of funding? Ego problem? Help me out here.
It's about several issues but the big one is money. Any time you have a middleman they are going to want a profit and that adds to costs for customers and reduces potential profits for Tesla. No company wants to deal with a middleman if they don't need to. Sometimes a middleman is necessary to reach customers or to prevent financial and/or safety abuses but that isn't really the case here. Tesla would rather be able to pocket the percentage they would otherwise have to pay to a dealer and frankly they should have every right to do so in this case. There is no compelling public interest to be served by forcing you and me to buy cars through a dealer if we don't want to.
Requiring dealers arguably hurts consumers (higher prices), hurts manufacturers (lost sales due to higher prices and third party marketing) and hurts governments where the manufacturer is based. Governments with a tax interest in the dealer network and the dealers themselves benefit but at a pretty substantial cost to the rest of society. Requiring dealers is pretty similar to requiring a tariff - it raises prices and benefits the local economy but ultimately hurts consumers and manufacturers and is an inefficient use of capital.
Tesla can sell all the cars they want, as long as they use local dealers to do so. Therefore interstate commerce is not prohibited.
True but like many laws whose time has come and gone the market has changed and there is no reasonable argument that can be made against Telsa selling direct if they want to do so. I think this might simply be one of those cases where the law no longer was appropriate but no one had a sufficient economic interest to want to bother challenging it. Tesla does and they have a good case.
Controlled substances can only be sold through pharmacies by licensed pharmacists.
That is because there is a compelling public safety concern regarding the distribution of drugs. Middlemen are useful in basically two cases: 1) for connecting buyers with sellers when they would otherwise be unable to meet efficiently and 2) for controlling distribution of a product where there is a significant public safety or public economic concern. Both apply to the sale of pharmaceuticals. Dealing with drug manufacturers directly would be both difficult for consumers as well as introduce some pretty serious public safety issues.
And new cars can only be sold through local car dealerships.
Car dealers sometimes are helpful in connecting buyers to sellers but most car manufacturers are big enough that they are not really necessary for new vehicles unless the car manufacturer doesn't care to be bothered. Car dealers certainly serve no compelling public safety or public economic interest. Originally car dealers were necessary for car manufacturers to reach the public because many years ago they lacked the resources to run their own distribution network. Now they frankly are something of an anachronism that is no longer really needed but they've managed to get some laws passed protecting their little financial nest and won't give it up without a fight.
By that logic, California shouldn't have the right to restrict a citizen from purchasing a firearm made in another state.
That's correct at least in principle but there are some nuances. The state should not have that right to restrict sale of a product as long at the product itself is legal and there are no public safety issues involved. That said there are some pretty important differences between purchasing a weapon and purchasing a motor vehicle. Motor vehicles have to be properly registered and titled no matter where they were purchased and appropriate training and licensing is required for their use. Firearms clearly have some public safety issues attached to them so sensible measures regarding their sale and distribution and use are not in principle unreasonable. Furthermore there are federal regulations regarding the interstate sale of firearms. That is one case where a middleman might at least in theory actually serve the public interest. For cars I can see no reason whatsoever for dealers to be a protected group.
It was never designed to connect any and all peripherals. You are completely missing this point.
I'm not missing that point at all. The use cases for Firewire and USB overlapped heavily and USB was both cheaper (it's backers charged more to license and the tech was more costly too) and could be used with more devices that people actually had. Firewire was arguably better for a lot of purposes but USB was good enough for most of those purposes. Thunderbolt probably has a better shot than Firewire did to stand apart but so far where Thunderbolt and USB overlap, USB is winning easily. Kind of a pity since Thunderbolt is the design I actually prefer for a lot of uses. I like the connector better too.
According to Intel and others it is aimed to almost expose PCIe bridge to connections rather than replacing USB.
Users don't care. In fact most of them have never even heard of PCIe. Only engineers give a shit about that. Nobody is asking the question "how can I bridge PCIe"? They are asking how they can connect their hard drive or their monitor or their printer. Users only care that it works, not how efficiently. You are 100% correct that Thunderbolt is a better technical solution but it is not a better economic solution. Better economic solutions will beat better technical solutions in 10 out of 10 cases.
No one I know has a USB driven monitor so it cannot be everyone. Yes they have monitors that have USB ports but these are to use as a USB hub.
No, not USB pass through. USB driven monitors. Does not even require a separate power cable and works fine with USB 2.0. There are other versions besides. They aren't widely used but with USB 3.1 I fully expect to see more devices like it.
Again you are completely missing the point. If you need sustained transfers like digital video back in the day, you wanted a FireWire not a USB.
I'm not missing the point at all. They won't know and won't care that USB is a sub-optimal choice. Yes, USB is inferior for that purpose but if it gets their work done with a minimum of fuss no one will care. The pros will use specialty gear because they know and have a reason to care. Most others won't. Bear in mind that I run a company that makes specialty wire cables/harnesses so I deal with pros and engineers on this stuff daily.
How the hell is TB going to cost you a lot more money?
You can't figure that out? I do have one computer with Thunderbolt but the port sits unused because I have nothing that needs it. My monitor is driven by HDMI and I'd have to get an adapter to use the Thunderbolt port. None of my storage, printers, mice, keyboards, or ethernet needs Thunderbolt. I would have to spend money to integrate Thunderbolt to get right back to exactly where I am right now without it. Furthermore the chipsets and other gear necessary to run Thunderbolt are more expensive than those for USB. (Have you priced Thunderbolt adapters and cables recently?) Putting Thunderbolt onto a board increases the cost of that board more than putting USB on the board does. Intel is pushing it but ARM and other chip makers are not so it isn't (yet) available for anything that doesn't have an Intel chip.
Other than the fact that Intel is the one pushing it and is part of their ultrabook specification?
You are hugely underestimating how difficult it is to displace an installed base. People already have a ton of USB gear, it's backwards compatible, USB 3.1 is pretty darn fast, etc. Furthermore Thunderbolt is only compatible with Intel chipsets and a huge percentage of devices out there are based on ARM and other processor manufacturers. The old saying is trite but true that people buy solutions, not products. In order for people to buy Thunderbolt gear it needs to solve a problem for them. I'm not rooting against Thunderbolt, I'm just dubious of its long term prospects in any use where it overlaps with USB.
press windows and type, just as before works the same way, even better.
I know almost no one who actually works with Windows that way. Seriously, barely anyone uses the windows key on their keyboard. They get their mouse and start clicking. Slower but that's how they do it.
No, that doesn't make sense. Because you are saying that New Jersey cannot regulate sales of cars in their own state because of where they are made.
New Jersey should NOT have the right to restrict a citizen from purchasing a product made in another state (or even within New Jersey) in order to protect an unnecessary middleman in the transaction. That is what is happening here. The laws are not in place to protect citizens, they are in place to protect dealers and their frankly obsolete business model.
As far as sushi is concerned, cold and dead are redundant, so an engineer would have come up with something like raw fish.
I think you just proved my point for me. Much obliged.
Just for reference: Apple computers (including notebooks) provided at least 7W per Firewire port.
IMO it should be possible to power an entire laptop with a USB (or equivalent )cable. We need a commonly accepted data cable that can deliver data at speeds similar to Thunderbolt or USB 3.1 and also be able to carry enough DC power to power a reasonably powerful laptop or desktop PC via a single port.
Replace names like smartphone and tablet with touch computer.
This is why they don't let engineers name products. As the old saying goes, if an engineer were asked to come up with a name sushi they would call it "cold dead fish".
they do not go and create new markets on their own like Apple used to (at least they don't do it any more)
"Don't do it anymore"? Dude, the iPad was introduced in 2010. While others introduced tablets before that, nobody took the market seriously until Apple jumped in. Apple introduced the iPhone in 2004, and the iPod in 2001. How frequently do they have to create multi-billion dollar businesses from nothing for you? Apple has started or at least popularized at least 7 major businesses that I can think of (personal computers, graphical operating systems, desktop laser printers, mp3 players, smartphones, tablets, app/music stores) plus a number of smaller spinoff businesses. There aren't a lot of other companies with a comparable track record of hit products. If they go another few years before without a hit product then sure, let's wonder what's going on. But Apple has a track record of making big new products about every 5 years or so. Let's postpone the funeral for a least a few more years.
(For the pedants out there I'm fully aware that others usually created the technologies Apple works with - that's why I said they've started/popularized the business rather than the technology)
Clearly, you don't understand the use case of the iPod Classic: an order of magnitude more storage than a 32GB cell phone is hardly made redundant.
As the capacity of smartphones gets larger the number of users of the iPod Classic is going to drop. My smartphone has 64GB and that is more than adequate to store my entire music collection. If I need more space to store something then I have a 2TB portable hard drive. There are some people for whom the iPod Classic makes sense but the number is steadily shrinking.
The shuffle is more redundant, even if you can personally find a case where you like to use it.
The use case for the shuffle is primarily exercising. Running with anything much larger is pretty annoying and one doesn't need an entire music library or a screen for a 30-60 minute workout.
I'm still amazed that Apple, of all companies, is the one that's still actually catering to that segment. I haven't seen another HDD-based music player in years.
Not really that shocking. Most of that market segment has gone the way of the dodo and unsurprisingly the dominant product in that market (the ipod classic) is the last player standing. It doesn't cost Apple much to keep making them so it remains a smallish but profitable business for them. I expect at some point they'll pull the plug but the margins are good, the unit volume is adequate and it doesn't require a lot of management attention.
Keep deluding yourself that glued together devices will have better lifespan.
You may be right but what is your evidence that glued i-devices don't last? Just because you bought something else which works well find doesn't constitute evidence for or against the longevity of iPads. Lots of glued products last just fine so what are you basing this assertion on?