You’d be surprised, I think. Sure, ‘Plaid’ is a cute reference to a middling-funny 34 year old movie; but you want customers to make a $130,000 purchase, they’re going to start to wonder about the care and attention that was put into the details when the trim name is this goofy, stale joke.

These are cutesy references, but I wonder how many purchasers they alienate with these outdated references to marginally funny movies that are pretty much played out as touchpoints. I’ve thought the same thing with their naming strategy. The Model 3 was originally going to be the Model E before Ford asserted a…

Read the introductory paragraph, insta-no dice; like every other car whose value is tied up in extremely low mileage.

(Source: https://erdavis.com/2020/01/04/visualizing-the-geography-of-fm-radio/)

None of them.

I was specifically pointing out that the claim of no, or little, US chip fabrication because it’s too expensive is a bit off. There’s lots of manufacturing capacity in the US, and manufacturers aren’t really leaving the country.

But that’s not exactly true. NXP, Samsung, and Infineon all have high volume fabs in Texas; and have yet to show signs of moving their production. Which, of course, is one of the problems in the semiconductor supply chain - all those plants are just now recovering from the Texas blackout.

Kinja munched the links. Let’s try again:

The semiconductor shortage is so poorly reported here.

Yes. Tesla should be looking at reasonably foreseeable misuse; and building in functional safety safeguards into their level 2 driver assist feature.

The driver was flung into the back seat by the force of the collision?

A thing about Tesla, that the company’s proponents don’t acknowledge - there are a lot of fundamental design flaws in their vehicles. Fundamental defects that exist out of carelessness, or hubris, or simply not knowing. The “Move fast and break things” mantra of Silicon Valley did move the market for full EVs; at the…

Even at high speed, this was probably survivable; right up to the point where the vehicle caught fire and the passengers couldn’t get out.

I suggested this to Mrs. Montgomery one time.

It’s Cellular Vehicle to x; because there is both Vehicle to Infrastructure and Vehicle to Vehicle.

Or, less charitably, that’s where the dirt that ‘buried’ the sides of the Fiat came from; because it really looked like somebody mounded up around the sills.

In defense of the Michigan Left, here’s the intersection of W. Outer Drive and the Fairlane Green shopping complex entrance in Allen Park, MI:

Here’s the interesting point - there’s only one locks that can accommodate the biggest boats. It dates back to 1896, and was rebuilt in 1968. The other was built in 1943. A new 1200' lock is being built; but it won’t be finished until 2030. The project was originally approved in 1986, but groundbreaking wasn’t until…

The Soo connects Lake Superior with the the rest of the Great Lakes; so it’s not the limiting factor for lakers to get out to the ocean; that’s the Wellend Canal, as Goose points out. Lake freighters have to pass through the Soo, especially taconite boats, or they’re no good to get iron ore from Minnesota to Detroit.

One clarification - the waters of the Great Lakes extend the US/Canada border, under the theory you could sail from Lake Huron through the Mackinac straits and land in Chicago, or the Dells.