If you put a hefty tariff on foreign cars, then the vehicles would either not be sold here or they would be built here to avoid the tariff (ever heard of the chicken tax?). If they weren’t sold here, then the sales would go to companies that WERE building cars here.

Um... NAFTA didn’t exist, and there wasn’t anything approaching open trade between the US and Japan when that plant was built.

Ok. But can it run offline without a data connection? Nokia’s Here app offered that capability years ago, and any old podcast / music app could allow you to play what you wanted on the stereo.

If it requires data service over your phone, it’s pretty much pointless, IMO.

How do you reach that conclusion?

Toyota had their CA auto body plant, Georgetown plant, and 3 parts plants prior to NAFTA, and they had 1 Canadian plant. Since then, they’ve added 5 plants in the US and 2 in Mexico.

There are some significant concerns here with this roof.

First, is cost. Musk says it will be competitive with traditional roofs when factoring in energy savings. Ok. Great. What kind of roof is he referring to? Asphalt shingle? Cedar Shingle? Metal? Terra Cotta? Slate? There’s an enormous difference in cost there. In…

Not sure on the Flex, but the Taurus I had and the Fusion I have both had/have rattles. But the nice thing? They’ve always been easy to fix. Taurus was all about pulling a bolt-in insert out of the dash, affixing some felt to the backside and reinstalling, and the Fusion is the same thing, only in the inserts in the…

I don’t particularly care for the looks, but actually kind of like the vehicle.

Big problem is sales have been abysmal, the platform will be very dated, and fuel economy is poor by today’s standards, making it hard to justify as requirements tighten.

Might make more sense to come out with an upscale variant off the…

“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…