I can go to my Stihl dealer, touch and grope and yank and throttle all of their chainsaws, ask the salesmen questions, and buy the one that provides the best value to me (or, go home and appreciate my Husqvarnas even more, as I usually do).

The dealership was just trying to protect you.

As I’ve said before: if Tesla starts treating its customers as the big 2.5 have treated theirs for decades, and the Tesla customers continue to be fanbois, then they’ll be silly.

“Beta testing” as you understand it (reading your comment) is not the same in the transportation, medical, and nuclear industries. Nothing can be released to the field until qualification testing has been completed, and that includes requirements-based testing of the software.

Big 2.5 have shareholders, Tesla has shareholders. Both groups want ROIC.

Sometimes (there are sooo many variables in this game), the answers are: “They really can’t.”, and “To keep us from winning it.”

Nobody ever wants to beta test something. That’s why beta tests are never used. </s>

Based on the comments to last week’s article, VW executives need to be handsomely compensated “because their divisions weren’t cheating and they didn’t know about it”.

OK, I’ll help.

A pair of glasses, a few outfits from J Crew, and a working knowledge of buzzwords can get you surprisingly far.

Let me just play avionics safety engineer for a second:

Just don’t make mistakes on a gov’t grant. Otherwise, the pitchforks attack the next budget.

I think it should file a lawsuit for the obviously derogatory adjective used to delineate it from other matter.

I always think of pulse detonation engines when I hear “mouse farts”.

With a big freakin’ river between them!

So what you’re saying is: IF you make it to O’Hare, and IF you can make it out of O’Hare, then you can make it anywhere!

True also for solar sails?

Per McCulloch, no. It would explain radiation.

Impossible technically, not theoretically.