As if you need to be a psychologist to notice "people still confuse his arrogance for strength, his false bravado for accomplishment, and his superficial interest in them for charisma."
I think you need to look up the word "hoax". Pretty much all the media I've seen was reporting on what what going on in China, Italy, Iran, Australia, Japan, etc., informing rates of infection and mortality, giving advice on how the virus spreads and how to avoid getting it, etc. Definitely not a hoax. Criticism about Trump dismantling the pandemic team put in place by Obama to address SARS and Ebola is both factual and relevant - not a hoax. The only hoax I've seen is the trash coming from Limbaugh, Hannity, and Fox News. "Folks, this is nothing more than the common cold". It takes some serious mental gymnastics to interpret that "narrative" as "prudent measures". And as proof, most of my Fox News watching relatives and friends thing this pandemic is a big nothing burger.
In addition to not dismantling the pandemic team and reducing funding to the CDC, he should have at least started preparing back in January. Making sure we can test for it, notifying schools, hospitals, and businesses about the potential disruptions. Instead, it late February - early March, he's pleading with a cruise ship to stay off shore so they don't "hurt his numbers" and pretty much dismissing the whole thing saying it's not so bad - people can still go to work, etc. I don't know what planet you live you where Trump was accused of doing "too much".
The EV tax credit isn't mean to aid someone in financial hardship, per your EBT example. Poor people don't buy new cars anyway. It's meant to spur adoptions of EVs until they've reached efficient economies of scale, EV component manufacturing maturity, etc. The barrier to entry for the auto market, and especially a new technology is HUGE, and the EV credit is meant to lower that barrier. As to why, that's a different story and if you don't subscribe to AGW science and related externalities, etc, that's a different discussion.
The Taycan looks like a great performance car. It handles better and that is the essence of a sports car to me. That said, I'd rather have my 3 year old Model S. Why? Because the Taycan wouldn't work as a daily driver. The lower ground clearance of the Taycan means I'd be scraping the bottom too often, while the S is high enough for normal use, plus I can raise it with air suspension. The S has much more interior space, plenty of room for the kids and luggage. Even my 3 year old S has better range than the Taycan (269 miles EPA), and the supercharger network let's me go just about anywhere without concern over charging. Tesla service has been stellar. Every Tesla service center (and ranger) can service a Model S, whereas Porsche will likely have to have an EV specialist "available", as has been the case for GM, Jaguar, and Audi.
Don't underestimate this last aspect. I'm constantly amazed when people ask me "how I like my Tesla", they often follow with their own plans to buy one. When I add that other EVs are available from established automakers, their response is often that they don't trust EVs from the others, but have confidence in Tesla. I was surprised at first because this is coming from older people who I assumed would put more trust in the old guard. However, I get this response repeatedly and more frequently as Tesla grows.
You made a fatal assumption that every gas station pump needs to be replaced with an EV charger, which undermines your entire argument. I've had an EV for 3 years and 99% of my charging more more happens at my house and the same can be said for most EV owners.
ALL petro cars fill up gas stations. ONLY EVs travelling outside their range fill up at fast chargers. Even if people spent 20% of their travel outside their EV range, meaning they drove more than 200 miles per day, that's still 80% less vehicles needing "gas stations". When I lived in MS, I drove my EV 200 miles round trip once per month on a "freeway in a rural area". 200 miles in any direction will get you to metro area, in my case Jackson, and there were high voltage lines leading into every small town along the way. The absolute killer, in my opinion, would be to put chargers at rest stops. Tons of parking, easy access from the freeway, room to stretch your legs, bathrooms, and vending machines. Of course, MS would fight that tooth and nail just because.
Have you noticed how fast your phones charge compared to 5-10 years ago? Plenty of advances get introduced incrementally without much fanfare.
"Because this car is paid for and costs me nothing to keep running."
Nobody's saying send your perfectly good car to the scrapyard and buy an EV.
People love to focus on the challenges for EVs - and I say challenges because they're all addressable. Fast charging is getting faster. It's now to the point that you can add 200 miles of range in 10-15 minutes (@250 kW). Battery R&D has brought down prices dramatically and enhanced lifetime and performance. Yesterday's tech can get you nearly a 400 mile range (Model S) or 300 mile for Model 3. A 500 mile range is a few tweaks away and a 1000 mile (lithium metal battery) range looks very much possible as the physics of reactions in the battery is better understood. Reputable researchers (Jeff Dahn of Dalhousie University among others) have announced batteries that will last 1 million miles. True story: I actually had a guy tell me I needed to run my EV down so the battery didn't suffer a memory effect. The technology is improving and has room to improve. Keep up.
Charging at home is just a perk, not THE perk of EVS. The drivetrain is simply superior. It's perfectly responsive. No rough idle or idle at all. No gas smell on a cold start before the cat can start working. No torque band all over the place as you climb through gears. Pull out in traffic or merge with confidence, not worrying if/when your trans will downshift or turbos kick in. They truly are superior and you have to drive them to understand.
Did Slashdoters leave or just get old? We used to joke about screaming "get off my lawn", but now that's the tone of most highly rated comments.
If early adopters (myself included) didn't "virtue signal", Tesla would be dead, as would be the EV. Can you not entertain the idea that some of us are voting with our money and not "signaling". I could care less what other people think of me, but since 2010, I admired Tesla's product design (I'm an M.E.) and business plan, because I thought, unlike others, it could work. Also, assuming you're a nerd b/c you're on SD, this problem of transportation energy is orthogonal to general electrical generation, though one thing is certain: we can't get off of fossil fuels with billions of vehicles burning petroleum products.
Yea. I'm sure they would gladly hand over their corporate lock-in for Exchange/Server/Office/Windows
Watch out.
I lost my grandmother to colon cancer, so I can sympathize. Colon cancer is not found using radiology though. It's found using a colonoscopy.
They can post on their own websites. This is still "News for Nerds", right?
Might I add that GM already went bankrupt once and the other guys were close. There are many reasons, but none as substantial as a shift to electrification. The ICE is the core of their business and a major differentiator. I think there's a real good chance they will go under or not exist as we know them today.
I guess you drove the 900 mile trip without refueling? Is it really so terrible to stop for 30 minutes after 3 hours of driving?
You know how many times I've stopped to "fill up" the last 3 months? 0. I take 10 seconds to plug in at night and start each day full. 0 time wasted as the gas station. No diesel or gas on my hands or shoes or fumes breathed. How is it you can write off EVs based on 6 30 minute driving breaks, but not write off gas cars for 52 trips to the gas station?
China has already installed over 165 GW (equiv to about 200 or NG plants), 40 of which was installed this year. The original target was 105GW, which they blew past and now are considering a 210-270 GW target by 2020. Also, due to gov. incentives, China has the largest EV market in the world, with over 1 million sold to date and they're just maturing. Shenzhen, with 13 million people, runs 100% electric buses. https://www.pv-magazine.com/20...
The narrative that China and India are polluting to gain economic advantage is just RW radio garbage. They realize that fossil fuels are a dead end and the country with the most advancements in growing renewable energy market will prosper. We should be leading, but instead we're falling further behind and ceding the lead to China.
Trump has no agenda - any fool can see. He only cares about his "ratings" and "brand" (his words). He just regurgitates whatever Fox News, Hannity, and Limbaugh say, which reinforces what that audience saw on TV or heard on the radio. Just as Pruitt set out to destroy the EPA and hand it over to the regulated, this administration has sold the government to the highest bidder. Many of those companies that lobbied for tax cuts used those profits to buy back stocks, pay executives bonuses, then they continued to lay off and outsource workers. https://www.theguardian.com/us... https://www.techdirt.com/artic...
Only God can make random selections.
