“It doesn’t seem like doctors drive awesome cars anymore. I’m sure most of the younger ones right out of school are still saddled with massive student loan debt. Not long ago, I was treated by a young doctor who was daily-driving a 2007 Scion tC. I kind of felt bad for him.”

On the contrary, I know a lot of doctors…

Honestly, while the merger with Solar City makes their cash crunch even worse, Solar City could arguably improve things, too. How? Shut down most of Solar City’s operations. Stop leasing out to new customers, and turn to just maintenance of their existing customer base. Their overhead would plummet, but revenue would…

1st: This is actually Tesla’s first ever quarterly profit. Non-GAAP profits are no better than cooked books.

We’ll see if they can keep it up, or if their hard push for sales in Q3 was more indicative of managing quarterly returns to try to create a profit. Elon claims otherwise, but he doesn’t have a great track…

Another benefit of pushrods - the camshaft is generally controlled by a chain, and seeing as the camshaft is right on top of the crank, that chain is extraordinarily short and not dependent upon any tensioners. So forget any timing belt changes, forget failures from failed tensioners, etc - danged things were near…

Sadly, I lived in a low-to-medium density area once that had a brilliant mass transit system. You could get anywhere in the area with no more than a 5 minute penalty for the bus over a car. Thanks to a well-designed system, they had more daily riders than cities 32 times its size.

Most mass transit systems in the US…

What you describe is a benefit that is commonly given for mass transit already. But it doesn’t improve the utilization of an Uber fleet. Utilization is measured based on how often the vehicle is actually in use. We have low utilization right now because our cars are generally parked doing nothing. But Uber will be in…

I don’t doubt fossil fuels will be around for awhile.

But their continued use does not preclude a “death spiral” for the industry. Take ExxonMobil for an example. They currently have about $80 billion in accounts payable plus short and long term debt, plus another $80 billion in other liabilities and deferred long term…

I doubt utilization ever hits 20% with Uber etc. Why? The driving factor in utilization today is commutes. When you have everywhere wanting to go someplace at the same time, Uber, etc, cant fill the demand unless they ramp up supply, which will squash the utilization rates again. What makes much more sense than Uber…

The majority of American’s cant afford a 35k car?

The average price of a car vs. median annual income has fluctuated some over the years, but not as much as people want to believe. It’s typically been 6 to 9 months salary. At 35k you’re at the upper end of that range, but you also have to consider life expectancy of…

Arguably, it could be far more cost effective for society in general to invest in mass transportation....

The battery lease is about the same price as fuel, but don’t forget to add in the electricity cost in addition to that.

Apart from that, the general pricing strategy they have is a good one as it takes the fear out of the cost equation for people.

I think you’re on the right track, but the range demand is really going to be a function of recharge time. If you could recharge in 5 minutes with a 200 mile range, I think you’d potentially be looking at greater acceptance than 500 mile ranges with 8 hour recharges. Heck, I know I want to take a break now and then…

Will this be how Tesla meets the promised price on the Model 3? Offer a lower price version, restrict initial sales to the higher price versions, complain the lower price one doesn’t sell, then kill it off? In other words, will it be a complete ruse with only a few ever sold at the lower price?

I’ve never understood that mentality. I know plenty of people that the second they get out of debt on one loan, they go out something else on a loan - most of the time something that isn’t the least bit necessary, just another toy. Then they end up worrying about every little random bill and whether they can afford it.

Used car values in general are insane. Last time I bought a new car, the Ford dealer had a 2 year old Taurus (2008) with 110,000 miles on it and they wanted $21,000.

What also blows my mind is how people justify it sometimes, too. I’ve heard arguments that expensive ($35-40k) 4 year old used F350s are acceptable…

Monthly payments without considering terms is pretty much a useless way to look at the cost of something.

OF course, dealers are happy if all you care about are monthly payments

#3:

Good freaking luck on that one..

Except the UAW has endorsed Clinton (though I’m sure some fools in the UAW support Trump)

An exit tax is VERY different from what Trump has proposed.

Exit taxes only affect companies if they change the country they’re incorporated in. Shifting production around doesn’t trigger an exit tax. Reincorporating to the Grand Caymans to claim a lower tax rate would, even if not a single employee moved locations.