The dumbest part is the headline: “it was pure spectacle!” Wait, really, a PR stunt designed purely for spectacle was... for spectacle? What’s next: “Aston Martin Scandal as James Bond Revealed to be a Fictional Character.”

Drivers who talk about how good their car is in the snow because it’s all wheel drive. See also: people who don’t understand the difference between grip and traction.

an even slower Carrera T

Yes, fair point. If you compare it to something like an Aston Martin or McLaren, it’s insane how cheap it is to own a GT3.

It really depends. Some people paid $100k over MSRP for a 992 GT3, and of course had to pay sales tax. Hard to get all of that back, even when it sells way over MSRP at auction.

The 911 numbers are skewed by the extent to which people have had to pay ADM on more recent purchases. If you paid $10k - $20k over MSRP, that puts the numbers in a different light.

Yes, the Panamera is already reasonably practical with its hatchback, so the ST version is really just a bit of a gimmick vs. making it much more useful. The Sport Turismo / Cross Turismo make more sense in Taycan form, since the regular Taycan’s trunk is tiny and the opening is small. The Sport Turismo is still…

That’s what the Sonderwunsch (Special Wishes) department is for.

15% of the purchase value is $75 million, not $7.5 million. For a yacht of this size, it’s probably less than 15%, but still your $7.5 is likely way off.

Tesla had negative cash flow of $3.4 billion in 2017, so the $250 million while not insignificant was kind of a rounding error. Tesla also did sell stock in 2017 - they raised $400 million of equity. “Products” like the Roadster served to pump the stock more than pay the bills.

100%. I remember when I got my 1999 Golf, and it was a step above other small cars in terms of interior ambience and perceived quality (actual quality / reliability, maybe not so much). It was hampered by a crappy automatic and VW’s ancient 115 hp 2.0, but it still drove with a level of refinement beyond what was…

In the days when BMW actually did make sharp and engaging sports sedans in the lower reaches of the 3-series and 5-series range, the majority of buyers were still just buying them because they were a BMW, not because they actually cared about the dynamic qualities, or could even tell the difference.

At least the sedan is really a hatchback, so it’s already decently practical. On the Taycan, the size of the trunk opening compounds the already limited trunk space to make it very impractical.

Given that some Tesla buyers paid $15k for imaginary FSD, paying just over half that and actually getting something doesn’t seem like such a bad deal.

When I bought my Tesla, the sales associate very clearly stated that only government regulation was preventing Tesla from having full autonomy. Even then, it was necessary to believe in a conspiracy against Elon to believe in FSD. This was when Tesla had only just released AP2 with the side cameras on the Model S door…

Global population is on its way to peaking, after which it will decline. It’s projected to peak at 9 - 10 billion. No one here seems to have any interest in data.

I agree that one of the biggest issues is regulatory capture, whether that’s pharma companies, the banking and finance sector, or massively wealthy individuals influencing public policy to their benefit. However, there just aren’t easy solutions to healthcare and other mega-scale social challenges. The US system is…

Every system that has ever professed to have overthrown the regime to create equality among the people has resulted in authoritarianism, but perhaps that is what these kids actually want. They have a delusion that it would be more comforting to remove what feels like a dog-eat-dog dynamic in modern capitalism, not…

That would require actual research and effort. Some people would call it journalism.

Both false in terms of overall trend. There are of course going to be small fluctuations from year to year, but the trend is clearly a reduction in poverty and an increase in life expectancy globally. This trend is unequivocally because of the advances created by primarily capitalist systems.