I love the idea that he’s pushing out talent at the top so he can make himself seem more essential, the better to get that $50 billion pay package.

IIRC the Tesla cars do have lower maintenance costs, but are much harder and costlier to repair if they take any serious damage - more likely to be written off as a complete loss (especially if the battery is damaged) by insurance (driving up costs), parts and service are harder to come by, and so forth.

Probably even a higher percentage of old folks on this cruise than the usual. Also massive amounts of on-board swinging. 

There’s not a huge benefit to using CLEAR if you have Pre-Check.

The supposed rationale for dealership exclusivity is that they’re required to maintain a bunch of service centers all over the states they’re in . . . but since you can usually just get your car repaired at a regular auto shop and use the manufacturer warranty anyways, it’s bullshit too. 

If it meets the qualifications, why do we need the rigamarole with the case manager? 

It’d be more about the self-driving aspect of it in practice (if it worked). That would be tremendously useful for people with disabilities that make it impossible for them to safely drive (which heavily limits you in the car-centric US layout), and it would be a godsend for tedious commuting and long-distance car…

An actual self-driving car would be fantastic - no more having to drive on either tedious regular commutes, and you could do some long range car trips much more easily.

I think prospects are promising for the European auto plants, although you might see Republicans in the South become much more alarmed and hard-edged in pushing anti-union opposition with the UAW success at Volkswagen. They usually have unions back in Europe and even some governments pushing them to be neutral…

They could have made the crossover or small SUV that EV buyers say they want. Hell, Tesla itself benefitted from having the most affordable EV models and a bunch of sedans at a time when the other US automakers were wasting money and time on expensive EV pickup trucks as well. 

Waymo’s self-driving taxis are getting pretty good, so it’s not totally out of the question that Tesla could rush out a cheaper, less safe version of that by later this year (although I don’t envy any Tesla engineers working triple-time under that with Musk constantly riding them over progress). Enough that if the…

I love that when Lucy’s brother finds Bud-in-a-jar, he’s gotten hopelessly stuck in a corner. The entire Bud’s Buds plan, doomed by a bad turn if he hadn’t shown up! It ended on a cliffhanger, but I feel like we’re going to get another funny exchange between them at the start of the next season and he’s not just going…

It’s not unusual for hypothetically independent boards to be dominated by the CEO, but Musk is an extreme case in how cultishly servile they are to him. 

1st Gear: We’ll see how long it stays down. Musk still has a cult of retail investor fans, and they’ll probably start buying this shit up hard once it drops low enough to push it back up for Phony Stark.

I can’t believe that I missed that it was a painted fake door that drops them into Vault 4. That’s hilarious.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this is coming from investor pressure. One of the defenses I remember reading of Tesla’s incredibly high share prices was that they were going to become the “Windows of EVs” - IE the  Tesla OS would become the operating system for most EVs, including competitors licensing it out. That didn’t…

I’m curious what it felt like to anyone closer to the epicenter. We had a 5.7 here a while back, and I remember waking up and wondering if I was sick - because everything was swaying back and forth (I made the mistake of running for the doorframe instead of getting under a desk or table). 

I’ve both read and watched it!

If it’s a non-pressurized rover, then that really limits how far you can travel with one from your landing site. This is why I tend to think they should look for a good spot for a base with tons of research opportunities nearby, since it would then be easier to justify sending up a larger, pressurized rover that could…

I know it’s animated, but it honestly would be funnier if they did this as an extremely bizarre live-action show where they all wore the costumes like Teletubbies.