It’s not a failure because it mopped up the glut of cars that had been overproduced and were sitting unsold as the credit crisis happened. Once the already-built supply of vehicles were sold under CARS, the manufacturers could reopen their plants to stock dealers again.

Yes, but you’re doing something called “thinking” and using “reason.” These are foreign concepts to extremists on both sides of the political fence.

It is because Tesla being the startup it was, said screw SAE let’s do our own thing. They don’t charge fast enough, let’s develop one then convince them to make it a standard plug.

The broken window fallacy does not exactly apply. The consumers who traded their cars in for credits had less disposable income due to the added expense for the replacement car, but their outlay was less than it would have been without the credit. So, the amount of the credit was applied to the economy without…

C4C had very little impact on the used car market. Only 690,000 cars were turned in under C4C. Out of a fleet of 260 Million registered cars in the US, that is a tiny, tiny drop (0.265%).

This is already a problem with the numerous kinds of electrical plug standards. Fortunately in many cases there are adapters. I think the Tesla chargers can adapt to work on any other charging station, but I don’t believe there are any adapters available yet to get non-Teslas to charge on Tesla chargers.

Let me be more clear. The #1 goal of cash for clunkers was to get people to buy more cars and save the automakers. There was also a hope it might improve consumer confidence and jump start the economy. Well the automakers are still around and the economy is strong. I haven’t seen any credible evidence that cash for…

Cash for clunkers might have been shitty for used car prices. And it might have been half baked and poorly executed.

Cash for clunkers took 665,000 cars off the road. The total reduction in sales of automobiles between 2008 and 2012 was responsible for about 18,000,000 fewer cars being manufactured. This means the recession is about 25 times more responsible than cash for clunkers for shortages in the used car market.

I agree, but the big elephant in the room is where is vw going to get batteries? Panasonic, lg, and samsung are already constrained.

It’s laughable to think Tesla will launch a pickup and semi before VW can launch it’s four electric cars. Because it makes total sense to bet on a tiny manufacturer that has yet to meet a production deadline vs a multi-billion dollar automaker, who on a changing basis is the largest automaker in the world. And they’re…

No. She is the worst. It’s one thing to be a flaming racist narcissist; that’s a condition that requires self-awareness to correct, and if there’s one thing a narcissist doesn’t have, it’s that. So, Donald is evil, but I expect nothing more from him.

More realistic to be a robotics scientist. You can read up on it, get books on the subject, memorize and put into practice by going to a local maker’s free studio or meetup group, or you can work on it in your apartment or garage, with a little money and tools from online sources. If you reach out and build a rapport…

“ I don’t think they’re part of some shadowy evil business mafia looking to topple new players ”

Ooh boy.

which also included a side of mansplaining NYPD officer, because of course:

If one is at all familiar with the details of Turkish politics, this video is more depressing than funny, considering we’re basically witnessing the once-promising example of a secular democracy in the Middle East slowly devolve into yet-another religious dictatorship. Enjoy the parliamentary brawls while we can…

A rare showing of what “corporate responsibility” really means. Good on PayPal.