So $670k for a really good kit car? Huh.

You forgot about the software....the huge expense to develop and maintain the software.

There is still hardware to inventory: it’s a 12" screen/tablet.

No, but lots of people were willing to put down a deposit based on speculation and hopes of being able to flip it for profit. Still others are willing to put it down to be able to say “I’m getting a Tesla bro”. That is, until they get called and told to come in and sign their purchase agreement 3 years from now at…

Your conflating stats and torturing the data to say something that isn’t true...

Um, no.

Yea, but cross “those with money” and “under 40" and those concentric circles produce a relatively small number.

I would hazzard a guess that a 12" screen and accompanying software (with associated R&D expenses) cost far more than all the switches and knobs in my GTI.

Target demographic? Did you mean tech hungry milenials still living at home and sharing their parents data plan? The ones that can’t find decent paying jobs? That target demographic?

Just click through his kinja page. He posts at least a couple times a week on Tesla, always paints them in a positive light (and omits glaring negatives) and is the first to jump up an defend them often even before an incident gets major coverage (such as today’s post).

Because Ballaban’s latest resume entry is #shill4TSLA

You’re right but Ballaban is on retainer to pump and shill for TSLA so we’ll likely continue to see more stories of him defending dumb things the cars and company might do.

It’s kind of a stretch to blame Takata with this one. The parts would have come from a supplier, the truck wasn’t theirs and the driver was a contractor. The only thing Takata about this is the destination in the waybill

I miss the days when Matt and Travis were running the show....there was enough good content you could skip over the crap and there was less crap like this in general.

The car....

Why does everyone seems to have such a hard time accepting that no electronic device is secure? Yes, you may be secure against amateurs and novices but if a level of gov or nation state wants access they will have it. Stop pretending or filling yourselves in to believing you have any privacy because you don't.

I’d guess his heritage originates somewhere in the middle east....or something like that

Monthly payment shoppers have shot themselves in the foot...

Yay, they took a metric that had already been pushed beyond relevance and pushed it a tad further. Congrats, they are just such engineering wizards....