There’s more to the side pole impact test than how stiff the body is. Tesla likes to compare themselves to Volvo yet if you look at the NHTSA technical documents for the test, the comparable Volvo is safer in the side pole test.

Rod from God is a terrible and stupid idea. If you do the math on kinetic energy at impact, it’s like a crappy missile, basically. Just put missiles in space (and yes, you can, only weapons of mass destruction in space are forbidden by the Outer Space Treaty).

The NHTSA doesn’t do small overlap tests... That’s the IIHS. They also do a headlight test that a majority of car makers including Tesla don’t ace. And the reason it’s so stringent has to do with pedestrian deaths being on the rise because of distracted smartphone users. It just goes to show that the IIHS test isn’t a…

Actually, if you just release it, it stays in orbit and doesn’t go hit anything on the ground for perhaps several years — or even centuries, depending on where you are when you release it. You’ll need propulsion to deorbit the projectile.  But otherwise, the concept is sound.  It’s often called the “rods from God”…

That is what I hope, but my training tells me to trust but verify. My background is industrial so as soon as I see stuff like 360 kW at 800V, I start thinking about two things safety systems and voltage drop. It looks like the latter is taken care of by local rectifiers, but without knowing the safety systems in place…

Yeah, there’s a reason why most other forms of engineers think the sparkies are crazy.

You’re not wrong but there’s a huge difference between this technology and existing high-power systems. There’s never really been consumer-grade medium voltage/high-power products before - it’s all been commercial / industrial.

The electrical engineer in me still questions the arc flash hazard potential in these quick charging systems. The amount of energy they are moving is ridiculously high at regular operation but when something goes wrong the resulting explosion is many times greater than the normal operating energy.

They can simply build cars much cheaper than Tesla can.

The only thing the “owner” of the white truck did here, was lower the value of the vehicle. Which means after the lender gets done reselling the vehicle and applies that to his outstanding loan, he’ll continue to owe more money than he can afford.

“Car repossessions are major bummers, and they happen all too often in a climate where auto dealerships prey on the financially vulnerable.”

Here is the room containing all of the repo truck drivers that care about such things

I think everyone with a modicum of knowledge about ww2 aircraft development is aware of the Zero fighter’s later shortcomings. However in the early phase of the war it was indeed a superb fighter. The Allies had several advantages in all theatres of war.

On the list of things that you shouldn’t need a manual to operate, door handles are near the top.

That was my first thought...this doesn’t look much different from a mirror besides there being a camera in its place. I don’t know why they didn’t do something more like this

Not Japanese enough. They should be mounted on the fenders.

They really can’t figure out a way to do this without a giant camera arm sticking out?

It dramatically increases the unsprung weight.  

Underwater sweeping for krill and plankton

The collisions with the most energy are not necessarily the collisions that present the highest risk. Most modern cars can absorb an awful lot of energy into safe, internal deformation for forward collisions. Impacts to the sides of vehicles and roll over accidents often cause the most fatalities, because there is not…