Grills are nothing more than exposed high drag areas to get air flow to the radiator to compensate for the low thermal efficiency of the ICE. There is s drag and airflow penalty from that big cave on the front of a ICE vehicle. It’s a solution to a problem that does not exist for Tesla. BEV stylists have a new…

This thing is being positioned and priced against the BMW 3 series. That is exactly what I expected them to do as it correctly frames the Tesla 3 for comparisons in reviews against a well known reference point.

Bingo, that is exact what was said by product planning at the OEM I worked at in the late 1990's when the first crossover was presented. It was all about suburban female buyers who did not want a mini van. They were getting ready to get away fro off of frame-on-rail truck based SUVs.

So these two adults live and sleep in a house with two vehicles and do not have an electrical outlet? If your typical daily drive is less that the fully charged range of an BEV you will rarely charge outside of the home. All of the 10 minutes stops to fill up the tank also disappear.

Timing is everything with this. The thing is only new once and will have a slow ramp up. Tesla will do a Elon keynote and position the product via videos that will have massive view counts. Other car companies are envious of his ability to market with no real advertising expenditures.

All the running units seen in the last few weeks had one 15 inch touch panel. A HUD would be sweet. This big-panel display will end up being significant in my opinion. It offers a huge polarizing design departure from every before. From a production and future proffing standpoint it eliminates a lot of build…

If true, then ICE is dead once BEV production scales and large number of used BEV exist along with recovered and recycled battery components. With BEV the wear components are few and the replacement or repair will be simple. Worn battery pack s will be the most common high mileage condition needing attention, it…

That “blandness” will be viewed as foreshadowing the future direction of automotive UI and UX. BEV and autonomous are the core technologies of the automobile by the early 2020's. Today’s gauges other than speeed indicator are irrelevant in robo-electric vehicles. Why do A/T equiped cars have tachometers? They are…

Data to back up those claims?

Classic example of “regulatory capture” tactic of an incumbent interest. You make the other side illegal through small details like that. Ohio is gerrymandered by the GOP and is becoming a backwater place.

It has to do with the electric power steering system on the Lexus hybrids.It greatly simplifies the robotic conversions. I learned that from a google engineer on the google team a few years back.  

I lived in Ocean Park in Santa Monica for years. It is a living museum of daily drivers of all vintages. There was literally an BMW Isetta on my street for a few years. Occasionally I do a street view scan to catch up, it’s still the same.

Yes, I have been in the car industry for thirty plus years and seen every trend. The mid 80s 300E and 500E rank high in influence. Still my favorite overall design after thirty years.

The auto industry is indeed figuring out that will have to abandon fossil fuel ICE as core technology for their products if they want to remain relevant. You are probably right with the 10 percent penetration point creating a tipping point of no return. 10 percent would be about 1.7 million units alone in the US. …

Uh, no to both. The CIA warned GWB in August 2001 about Bin Laden intent to attack within in terms USA in a daily brief attended by the POTUS. The CIA was bypassed by the White House Iraq study group to build a slanted case on WMD.

Easy, the two areas are mutually exclusive.

Excellent idea, it is very a Elon Musk type idea that also teaches the exponential concept in a tangible way.

Uh, the appeal is the twenty first century drive system. Tesla drive motors and thermal efficiency make ICE look like a steam engine. EV’s offer a operating cost model that is 1/5 of a comparable ICE and energy cost is about 1/10. then there is the blazing performance thing with Tesla.

Yes that Olympic area should be good territory. I live in Ocean Park in Santa Monica from 1985 to 1997. I did a google street view just now. There is an original Avanti in a carport on the north side of Third St just south of Pico Blvd. it has been there since I moved there thirty one years ago. It’s a derelict of…

Which accounts for the 30,000 fatalities and hundreds of thousands of injuries due to traffic “accidents” annually. We really are not that good at driving, we just think we are.