That’s what happens when you buy a car from a company that at time seems almost like a borderline Ponzi Scheme - one that has never delivered a product on time or on-cost.

Try owning a car from a profit-making company that has an airbag under recall where that company won’t tell you when parts will become available...…

Wind is absolutely cheaper than coal.

The idea that you have to have backup gas plants is a debunked myth. On a regional level, you only need backup of about 20% of the installed wind capacity - and that backup doesn’t have to come from natural gas. It can be solar. It can be nuclear, etc. On a national level, the…

What war on fracking? The number of drilling rigs out fracking SKYROCKETED under Obama.

Worst. War. Ever.

Most people who claim the grid can’t handle charging cars don’t seem to realize how much excess capacity there is on the grid for overnight charging - it’s pretty common to see electricity demand drop 35% overnight from peak daytime levels. That’s a LOT of capacity. And leveling out the demand curve has huge benefits,…

Even those have gone out of favor, though.

Here in Ohio, we have renewable energy standards (assuming the legislature doesnt gut them). They’re pretty meager, but they encouraged growth in renewable facilities. Those pretty much put the oil burners out of business.

How?

Because the grid operator forecasts demand, then…

There’s no expensive vendetta against coal. Coal is shrinking in usage because most of the coal generating fleet in the US is positively ancient and past the end of its service life. Hardly any coal plants younger than 55 years old have closed - most closing have been 60 or more years old. They were horribly…

HEh...

I actually know someone who bought an F-350 diesel to tow the horse trailer they didn’t have for the horses they didn’t have, and likely wouldn’t get for nearly 10 years....

You could easily argue that a midsize sedan fits well over 90 percent of the populations’ needs and the vast majority have no need for a truck of any sort. I have several hobbies that need a truck on occasion, and I just rent one when needed. A couple times a year and it is still vastly cheaper than paying the extra…

ALL vehicle requirements are based on footprint, not just trucks.

The smaller the vehicle, the higher the mpg requirement - but the requirements were set based on input from manufacturers as to the technical difficulty of making each change, such that the increased mpg would be equally challenging across all vehicles -…

The “I’m really thrifty” claim literally made me groan.

Sorry - but a $60,000 used car is NOT a thrifty choice in any way, shape, or form. Sure, it may be cheaper on gas and maintenance than an IC powered car, but that doesn’t mean its thrifty. Thrifty would be buying a used Fusion, Camry, Altima, etc, and saving…

“I don’t see this “revolution” happening until they fix charge time”

That may be closer than you think. The co-inventor of the Li ion battery claims to have a new formulation that is longer lasting and takes much less time to charge (minutes for a full charge). There are also flow batteries or ultracapacitors as…

HAHAHA

+1

“Obama administration, pushed fuel efficiency standards that only hybrids could meet.”

That isn’t true at all. Hell, the F-150 can be bought today in a model that is just 1 mpg short of the 2025 fuel efficiency targets a vehicle that size had set for it. You seriously don’t think they can squeeze out 1 more mpg in 8…

Neutral: “someone inevitably brings up the high environmental costs of simply producing a car.”

That’s only because these people have bought into rhetoric from those with a vested interest in the status quo. Those stories are almost always filled with horror stories based on mining and environmental practices abandoned…

Have you ever read Ben Rich’s book on the Lockheed Skunk Works? He was director there from 75-91. He makes it pretty clear in there that Carter had been advised to kill the B-1A because it was deemed to be obsolete by the Pentagon - the F-117 was beginning prototype flights and had demonstrated stealth tech and the…

But the cap told me to put 710 ounces of washer fluid in it!

I’m not convinced it will trash our economies. Yes, the way they report it things will look bad, as GDP growth may become a thing of the past. But the problem is that we report GDP growth, not GDP growth per capita. The latter is what matters most to everyday people. Does it matter to you if the GDP is $100 billion…

You’re right, but one of Tesla’s stated goals with the Model 3 is to upsell people into the Model S instead. If sales for the S are softening, it implies that you might actually have prospective S buyers going for the 3 instead, which is a problem for Tesla’s business model.

““IIHS and dozens of other private industry groups around the world have methods and motivations that suit their own subjective purposes,” the spokesperson said.“

Good grief. IIHS’s purpose is to reduce claims costs to the insurance industry. What freaking motivation would they have to give the Tesla a lower rating…

So in other words, the “Carter Era of Neglect” was actually not significantly different than what we had been spending when he took office, there was no decline over his term, and it was still basically record peacetime spending. Oh, and the Obama “defense freeze” that they complain so much about being disastrous was…