I hope by ‘trucks’ he means autonomous shipping container chassis. IF you want to really change the world, make a shipping container chassis with built-in electric power train and guidance.

because, when you strip away all the marketing BS, very VERY few people want a full size pick up (HERESY!). The ugly truth is that they’re just too damn big to be useful. A modern Dodge ram is the size of a commercial truck with all of the difficulties in getting around in such a large vehicle and (some would argue)…

I find no fault in your scientific

well, that’s the thing; The ‘real’ performance exhaust systems that make a lot of noise on a modern car...don’t really make that much more power. you might pick up 5-8 hp, but on a 300+ hp car, who cares?

ever drive behind a big truck and see what’s in front of him, up to and including road signs? try it sometime.

yep, and it’s probably the right solution. Speaking from experience, no one is going to lift a finger until someone completely innocent dies, then they will close the bridge, and the residents will have to suffer the completely unbearable hardship of driving a few blocks out of their way to get across the tracks.

have you ever once, in your entire life, seen firsthand what happens when a truck hits something at high speed? I’m talking real life, not youtube views from the safety of your office chair while you avoid doing work. It’s one part mortar round explosion, two parts yard sale, and then season liberally with a real-life…

these old rail bridges are all fun and games with truck strikes until some jackass hauls a shipping container or a loose heavy equipment and it gets knocked off the back of the truck and kills the guy behind the truck. This has happened before. Then EVERYONE gets sued and all of a sudden, the cost of raising the…

no, they’re not. there’s both ground/ship based laser and drone based laser, which can be piloted remotely. where’s the need?

delivery systems and munitions? yes. 100%. Manned tactical dog fighter craft that usurp vast amounts of funding from everything else? No. They are now pointless.

Then it’s not an air superiority fighter anymore. it’s a gunship with no need for high speed maneuverability, and these days, you can do that with a drone. This isn’t Top Gun anymore. A pilot can’t dodge a beam of light. All he can do is be a target.

you have to be odd to be number 1

he really didn’t. his fame for advances in aerospace technology are impressive, but he’s more famous for his involvement in the movie business and being insane.

yes. very much so.

so I have to ask; a laser that can instantly burn a plane out of the sky... doesn’t that implicitly obsolete the idea of an air superiority fighter jet? What’s the point of an F-35 if you can incinerate it with a glance?

there’s so many ways you could go with this; you could cite Queen lyrics of “I want to Break Free”, you could go with the Braveheart “FREEDOM!” scream when they’re spooling his guts out at the end, you could even go topical with a Game of Thrones reference to Dany freeing the unsullied and then surfing the crowd. I’m…

I’m actually fairly well invested in the brand: currently in my driveway are a 2006 A3, a 2013 A4, and a 2015 S4. I’ve had extensive seat time in the current A3 and I’ve driven the S3 at length - twice (because I wanted to give it a second chance after disliking it the first time). So yeah, talking out of my ass, but…

the cost delta here for the S3 vs. the Golf R (comparably equipped) is about $5k-$7k, depending on how you define ‘comparably equipped’. You could add in stupid stuff like the fact that Audi wants you to fork over $575 for any color except black, or that they want $400 to paint the calipers red

Because it’s not that different and I agree with you. The S4 is a 335 competitor, not an M3 competitor, but it was still something special. Audi has eroded that away to the point that it’s as non-special as could possibly be; it’s an engine option, nothing more. the escat same thing as when you opt for the V6 in a…

it’s not an S4. It’s just an A4 with an A6 motor and the sport suspension/trim. They really should just call it the A4 3.0T. Given Audi’s nonsense, I’d be willing to bet folding money that they went turbo just to keep the 3.0T badge identical to the rest of the 2.0T/2.5T/4.0T series. (I’m only half-kidding - they’re…