1999 called and they want their impressive power numbers back.

I grew up right next to a playground, and my parents still live there. Some time ago they got a laugh when there was a boy and a girl playing there, and the boy was climbing onto the very sloped roof of a play-hut, with very little to hold on to. The girl was standing on the ground and looking up at him, and then…

I believe the point is that the cost to install and remove the package is so negligible that they don’t even have grounds to charge a fee, let alone refuse a refund.

But unless you’re doing away with traffic stops entirely they will move to other excuses and lies. I’ve been pulled over (not in VA, but where I live) for looking at cop. Yes he didn’t like the way I looked at him (he was driving aggressively and damn near hit my car). Then there is the age old excuse when all the…

if they’re getting turned away for credit, then they’re leaving with the used truck at 10-15%, not 6.

They are basically caricatures of Japanese silhouette race cars from the 70s and 80s. The designs are taken from these race cars and turned up to 11.

My neighbor just totaled her Prius via a run-in with a cement mixer. She and the batteries are unhurt. Those batteries plus this anomaly of transport would make an excellent project for what is going to be a boring, long and lonely winter.

It’s not about looking mean, it’s about looking rugged. It’s a little dumb but people’s perception is very important. If they want a truck it’s because they want to do work or adventure things. Things that require durability. So they want their vehicle to look like it’s capable of those things. (even if they’re not…

Tesla has their own media ecosystem, headed up by Electrek and extending through a series of evangelist blogs that brook no deviation from the Elon-is-God party line. The less they have to deal with an interested but reasonably impartial media that actually asks meaningful questions, the happier they are - and why…

At this point, you should almost start making up stories and asking them to comment...

But EVs are supposed to be so simple and reliable that mechanics will go out of business?

Engine and gearbox in the car weigh something like 400# (~260 engine, ~130 gearbox). Stuff going in would be somewhere around 750# (~200 motor, ~550 batteries). The weight of ancillaries and cooling systems etc would come close to cancelling. So probably ~350# increase all in.

The best solution to this is to not answer any phone numbers you don’t know. 

Someone at my apartment building has a Model S. I assume he must charge at the office or something because we don’t have anything on property here for that.

The reason why is because its a fabulous chassis with a huge trans tunnel and overbuilt rear axle. It’s 500 pounds less than a Corvette and takes a small block easier than any other small car. The fact that the stock engines like to turn the chassis into a roller with high regularity means that the LS swap industry…

One big excuse is cost. This will be expensive. I’m pretty keen to build an electric car one day but when I looked into it recently, it would have been significantly more expensive to build a 300-400hp electric car than to build one with a tuned LT4 at near 700hp. (Yes, I know the electric motor has torque from 0 RPM…

I have an excuse: I don’t want it. I’m happy with my 390 cubic inches of ‘Merican V8 and 10 mpg, thank you very much. It makes the fun vroom vroom burble noises that make me giggle like a deranged schoolgirl when I go out driving. You can convince me all you want that when I feel the instant torque of a 500 hp…

And you’ve got to figure out how to make all the cells sit there safely.

What kits like these need is some kind of modular battery system, like fill up your former engine bay or the volume your fuel tank occupied with battery lego bricks, with some sort of idiot-proof wiring system. there’d be multiple different…

I found half a dozen on eBay after 10 seconds of searching, which is about 6 more than these kits on the market right now.

If the total cost of conversion is $30,000 or more, will we still not have an excuse? Because not wanting to sink myself that much further into debt sounds like a pretty reasonable excuse.