Ding ding ding, we have a winner. Their proposed battery pack size gives away the game. This was never intended to be an affordable micro-bus built on the recycled platform of a compact car, as the original Bus was. This is likely going to be well north of $40k at a minimum.

Somehow, I wouldn’t be surprised if they chickened out again.

Now this is just blatantly misleading. The Internal Combustion version is the E-Pace, while the Electric Motor version is the I-Pace? Ugh.

Why in the hell didn’t the new owner of the murder-beemer take it in to the damned constabulary?!

Not really. Coal’s going the way of the dodo, and even if you run an electric car ENTIRELY on coal (US is about 25% coal and declining rapidly), you wouldn’t have any worse total emissions than an average car. And off of other sources of electricity, the efficiency can be four times as high as ICE cars.

I feel conflicted. On the one hand, this cheating nonsense was absolutely appalling and I’ll be glad to see the polluters go. On the other, diesels’ torque, multifuel capability, and mechanicals so very alluring to my caveman-brain. Electrics are still better in these areas, of course, but only a few models of them…

Not to mention the specter of affordable long-distance EVs looming up in the background like an ominous Zeppelin. Diesels’ torque and efficiency argument gets shot to hell compared to electric.

This probably drives terrible, but I have a MIGHTY NEED to experience it nevertheless in all its cantankerous Soviet glory.

That’s because it’s a thermal airship, basically a motorized hot air balloon, rather than a Helium blimp. This particular 4-seater model only costs about half as much as a comparable 4-seat Cessna Skyhawk, those ubiquitous little high-wing planes that infest tiny airports. In other words, it’s about as bargain…

Car enthusiasts like to tease the Prius because it’s got styling that ranges from frumpy to farcically futuristic, poor driving dynamics (including a CVT transmission, slow acceleration, dreadful handling, and numb steering), and because it’s drearily ubiquitous.

Ugliest rear end since the early model Porsche Panameras. The face is nearly as disgusting as the Nissan Juke and the Jeep Cherokee. Lovely.

That was… almost sadistic.

You know what I’m clamoring for? A good mass-market EV similar to the Mitsubishi Eclipse or Toyota Celica, with 200 miles of range and a $20,000 MSRP. You know what I’m not clamoring for? A glorified cruise control system that’ll leave me a nervous wreck as it twitches eerily along the road.

This is the exact point which I find incredibly simple yet which seems to be either missed or underestimated by a huge majority. It’s mystifying.

“How is this a surprise to anyone? Goddammit.”

Having one or two good ideas (strategies? Successful implementations of existing ideas?) in no way precludes one from also having ideas that, for a variety of reasons, won’t actually work in real life.

What’s an example of a modern warship that can survive so much as a single torpedo or anti-ship missile?

The problem with that approach is that no matter how big you make it, one hit and it’s toast. You might as well make larger numbers of economical ships, at least then you might have a chance at a retaliatory strike.

That is probably the most amazingly unapologetic apology I’ve ever seen.

This is a case of the Government saying “don’t be a reckless idiot,” and them responding “Hold my beer, Cletus—no one tells me what to do.”