they'll have to use many small DC-to-AC inverters instead of a few long ones to manage the transmission losses.

When I got solar panels, I got a system with Enphase microinverters. There is one microinverter per panel, plus one microinverter per battery module. My home has dozens of microinverters.

IMHO it's clearly the way to go for a project like this. If a tree limb starts casting shade on one part of the canal, you don't want a whole "string" of panels to all have their output drop. See the section "Efficiency in partial shade" in the below link.

https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/pros-and-cons-of-string-inverter-vs-microinverter

Also, long runs of relatively low-voltage AC are safer than stringing together panels into a high-voltage DC run.

I'm not sure when the patents on microinverters will run out, but the first microinverters appeared in the 1990's so at least some of the patents must already be expired. IMHO microinverters really are a better technology, so once microinverters are free from patents (or at least free from the most important ones), I think they will become the standard for solar power.

I agree with nearly everything you said. I would have tried to word things a bit more politely, but you aren't wrong.

In fairness though there is one point to discuss:

Citizens have taken to sabotaging them in protest.

I saw a TikTok video explaining how to sabotage them (step zero, steal a traffic cone; step one, put the cone on the hood of the Waymo car; hey presto, the car thinks it can't drive at all). That video gave a reason for doing it, and that reason was that self-driving cars are bad because everyone should be taking mass transit all the time.

So in fairness, some of the people sabotaging the cars don't care if the cars are working correctly or not. They believe that nobody should be allowed to have personal transportation, and everyone should be forced into mass transit. This is an axiom with some people.

Even having something like RADAR as a "don't crash into the big object in front of the car" type failsafe would be a good idea.

Tesla used to have a blog posting up called "Seeing the World in RADAR" that talked about the problems of seeing with RADAR. For some reason they removed this blog posting so I can't give you a link.

This blog posting documented some of the weird issues with RADAR. For example, a discarded aluminum soda can can appear to be a giant hazard right in front of the car, because the shaped metal dome in the base can reflect the RADAR beam back perfectly if the angles are just right.

Elon Musk has said many times that RADAR was a problem because the cameras would give one input and RADAR might give a different input, and it was a problem to reconcile the two. (For example, the cameras don't see a giant hazard, and the RADAR sees a discarded soda can.) He decided that it would be best to go 100% vision-based, and I think history will record that as a reasonable decision.

On Twitter, Elon Musk has said that only high-definition RADAR would be useful. The old RADAR that Tesla used to put on their cars was not HD.

The new "Hardware 4" sensor suite does appear to include an HD RADAR unit.

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-hardware-4-vehicle-teardown-reveals-radar-module/

I'd willing to bet most accident reports contain something like the phrase "I didn't see them"

By the way, one neat thing about Tesla's self-driving is that its cameras are mounted on the exterior of the car. I sometimes don't see an approaching car or pedestrian if they are behind the "pillar" of the car. But the FSD hardware includes cameras mounted on the pillar, on the outside of the car, so there literally isn't a blind spot.

Tesla already has issues with their cars rear-ending others since they removed the front radar, as they simply can't recognize certain types of vehicle.

I'm gonna need you to provide references.

There have been documented cases of Tesla cars, driving themselves, hitting things and killing someone. To my knowledge, most or all of these cases involved very old versions of Autopilot, possibly even "Hardware 1" (which only had a single front-facing camera). And all the ones I know about involved the car hitting a non-moving object like a fire truck or a semi-truck trailer.

The old self-driving had problems telling whether an object in front of the car was actually in the road or not. If the car was heading uphill and there was a sign above the road, the sign could look like it was in the road so the car had to assume that not everything it saw that appeared to be in the road was actually there. (It had to, because panic braking for no real reason is also an unsafe thing to do.)

Now, Tesla self-driving decomposes the problem into two parts: first, a neural net takes the 8 camera inputs (360 degree view around the car) and builds a 3D vector space model; then, another neural net uses the 3D model to make driving decisions.

Clearly a 3D model, if correctly constructed, means the car can tell whether something is actually in the road in front of the car or not. And the car shouldn't be hitting anything, whether it can tell what kind of vehicle it is, or not.

I drive a Tesla that has the Full Self-Driving beta. At this point, I trust it not to hit anything; I don't trust it to correctly follow all the rules of the road or perfectly navigate the roads I drive on. I'm definitely not claiming it's perfect. But again, I trust it not to kill me or others.

Everyone else greatly simplified this task with lidar and radar.

Everyone else has also greatly simplified this task using high-resolution maps, with the result that their cars can't drive anywhere that isn't covered by an HD map. Only Tesla is trying to solve the full, general problem.

Are they planning to have an AI driver that is trained on the rules of the road?

Yes, I'm pretty sure that's what they are doing. When my car drives me on the freeway, it will often use the passing lane to pass other cars, but then it gets out of the passing lane. It actually shows me the message "changing lanes to get out of passing lane" (quote from memory and may not be exact). This must be a trained-in behavior.

I don't know if FSD beta was given a rule just for Washington state, but in Washington it's actually in the state law that the left lane is the "passing lane" and you are supposed to get out of it if you aren't actually passing.

But the carpool lane doesn't count as a passing lane; you can hang out in a carpool lane. And, my car doesn't try to leave the carpool lane.

FSD isn't perfect but I can see progress.

As Elon Musk said: "Tesla makes the impossible late."

I did enjoy visiting a store called "Book Off" that had used and remaindered books and videos. I got a DVD of a Pixar movie in Japanese for like 600 yen.

I will check out Do It Yourself!, thank you for the suggestion.

"Subs, not dubs"

I can't believe you left Yurucamp out.

Never saw it, never even heard of it. But I just looked it up. Apparently IGN said it is "a wonderful celebration of nature and friendship".

I like slice-of-life as a genre, and a laid-back slice-of-life anime would be a good one to add to my watch list. Thanks, I'll check it out.

We get it. You like fantasies about high school girls.

I certainly don't hate them... but I don't get all excited over drawings of girls, especially drawings of girls young enough to be my daughters.

I do like escapist fare, and I tend to watch things that were well-reviewed. Lycoris Recoil was very well-reviewed (I watched it after seeing John Wick, But Make it Anime) and when I tried watching it, I liked it.

caters to sexually repressed Japanese and incels

Why, I do believe I've just been called an incel. Sorry to break it to you but I'm happily married, and have been since I graduated from college.

And you might try watching those shows and see how pervy they are or aren't.

I've seen criticisms that Iwakakeru -- Sport Climbing Girls focuses too much on girls wearing revealing clothing, but to me what's interesting about it is the climbing stuff. The main character is unlikely but just barely possible... she has a real gift for analyzing climbing walls, to the point where she freaks out other climbers. After she puts in the work to build some muscle, she becomes a top climber. The show really is about sports.

Lycoris Recoil is John Wick action. I'm only partway through it, but there was one episode that had a wacky comedy subplot about one of the main characters needing to buy new panties. Frankly I wish they had cut that out and put in more John Wick stuff in its place, but I guess someone thought it was funny. But I'm watching it for the gunfights and explosions.

Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid is all about the wacky hijinks. One of the dragons likes to wear sexy clothes when in human form, but that's mainly milked for laughs. I guess they sell some body pillows with that character to otakus. There's another character who is an ancient dragon, very severe and stern, who becomes somewhat addicted to playing console video games. There are a bunch of different gags all playing at once.

The other animes just aren't in any way prurient. If you think they are, there's something wrong with you.

P.S. I have a particular interest in Japanese anime because I took a bunch of Japanese classes and I speak a little bit of bad Japanese. So I like watching Japanese cartoons in Japanese with subtitles on, and trying to understand what they are saying. That would also work with live-action movies, but what is available on streaming services is pretty much anime.

You left out the whole isekai genre, what about Arifureta?

I haven't seen that one, but I did watch Re:ZERO and I liked it.

Also I was interested in Remake Our Life! (which is a time-rewind story rather than a proper isekai) but I didn't like the direction the story turned, and it doesn't seem to have an ending... Crunchyroll has 12 episodes and the 12th one doesn't end anything, it just stops in the middle. (The protagonist was born to be a producer, and he uses his producer skills to try to help artists, and toward the end he decided that his help was bad, when it seemed clear to me that his help was actually helpful. So I was going WTF, he was all angsty over what seemed like no reason to me.)

Crunchyroll is a great deal. I have been a customer for years. You get access to a huge library of anime with more arriving all the time.

I have visited Japan, and when I looked into buying anime on disc, I was shocked by how expensive it was. Crunchyroll is a better bargain than anything available to the people in Japan.

There are other anime services... I'm probably going to sign up for HIDIVE and try that out. But if you only sign up for one, I recommend Crunchyroll.

P.S. Here are a few animes on Crunchyroll which I recommend:

A Place Further than the Universe: slice-of-life about high school girls managing to get on a trip to Antarctica

Psycho-Pass: a grim SF thriller set in a somewhat dystopian world. (I'm recommending the first season.)

Iwakakeru Sport Climbing Girls: a sports anime where the sport is competitive wall climbing, and the protagonist finds her gaming skills help her figure out routes. (I also like the music.)

Lycoris Recoil: a secret agency recruits young girls and turns them into assassins who eliminate threats to public safety. One of the protagonists is essentially John Wick as a Japanese schoolgirl. (I'm only partway through, but I haven't heard that the ending was bad so I'm expecting to like the whole series.)

Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: a dragon decides to become a maid for a software developer. Wacky comedy ensues and Miss Kobayashi's life gets more complicated as more dragons keep showing up. (Dragons have a human form and are keeping a low profile.)

Spokane to Omak, over the pass to Twisp, then south to Wenatchee, in the winter. Will you make it?

I checked with ABRP and my car can make the trip. I would plan to stop in Entiat and top off the battery at the Tesla Supercharger there.

https://abetterrouteplanner.com/

According to Plugshare, Omak has multiple "level 2" chargers. Depending on what you were planning to do in Omak, you might be able to plug in your car for a few hours... if you are spending the night, odds are good you could charge your car fully.

You chose this route well as a tough test. ABRP says my car should start by charging at the Spokane Supercharger station to 96% state of charge, and could make it all the way to Wenatchee with 14% charge left, no charging stops along the way. But you specified winter, and I'm sure that eats up the 14% margin and more. But the Supercharger in Entiat should make it work.

Note that Wenatchee is also not great for Teslas. There is no Supercharger in Wenatchee. If you have the CCS adapter, you could maybe fast charge that way, but the CCS adapter is expensive and I have no plans to buy one. (My car would need an upgrade before I could use it, making it even more expensive.)

If you are spending the night in Wenatchee, it shouldn't be any problem, you can use a level 2 charger and the charge should be done before morning. Note that you can charge a Tesla anywhere by plugging into an ordinary 120V outlet... but in winter, it may not charge fast or at all. But 240V charging works even in winter.

Both Winthrop and Chelan have options for level 2 charging, including some Tesla "Destination Chargers". Twisp has a CCS charger, another place you could use the CCS Adapter if you have it.

If you are heading west, there's a Supercharger station in Leavenworth. (I've used it!) If you are planning to get onto I-90 there are multiple Supercharger stations on that. Even in winter, travel on I-90 is easy.

Your proposed trip is an example of a trip that is possible, but marginal. If it's something you plan to do a lot, you might be better served with a combustion car, at least until Tesla builds a few more Supercharger stations.

If I were doing this I'd make sure to pack my Tesla mobile connector charger. In the worst case, find an RV park with 240V power and pay them to use it for a few hours.

Looking at the map, I'd say that Omak would be an excellent place to add a Supercharger station. It would be a nice midpoint between Spokane, Entiat, and the nearest Supercharger to the north (over the border, in Canada, a place called Osoyoos).

If I could add two, I'd add Republic, WA.

But really I wish for three: Omak, Republic, and Coulee Dam. There should be Superchargers right next to the Grand Coulee Dam.

Ah! For completeness, I checked the Tesla web site to see if they are promising any Supercharger stations that would help with your winter tour. It says that in 2024, a new Supercharger station should open in Okanagan.

It really is just a matter of time until Supercharger stations are connected up enough that even a winter tour of the northeast corner of Washington state will be easy.

When I first got a Tesla, it was a challenge for me even to drive to Mount Rainier and back. But now there's a Supercharger in Auburn and it's not remotely hard. The more time goes by, the better connected the charging network will get, everywhere.

P.S. I found the Okanagan Supercharger by looking at the map on the Tesla page. I checked the list of Superchargers and it's not in the list, not even as a "coming later". I also checked https://supercharge.info/ and it didn't have anything yet about Okanogan.

I can drive my car for three or four days in a row and still have 150 miles left. I live within 150 miles of a hospital.

It's really not that scary.

I don't want any 'intelligent charging'. Because I know I"m going to need my vehicle unexpectedly

You do you. I can assure you that unless you have a very unusual situation, a smart charger will work. We have two cars that can drive over 300 miles on a charge, and we generally drive under 30 miles a day. We don't even bother to plug in every day. On a typical day when we plug in, the charging is done in about an hour. If you had smart charger and three cars, every morning all cars would be fully charged.

at some point a better technology is going to come along

It will be electric. If you are in the USA, it will use the Tesla plug standard.

I have five drivers in my house, so one day I will need at least five chargers because there aren't going to be ICEs any more and I'm not switching around cars in my driveway like it's a valet service.

I think you are being a bit silly here. My wife and I are currently sharing a single charger for two EVs and it's no big deal.

I have a two car garage with a small circuit panel.

Well, other people have similar problems and the companies making chargers are also solving those similar problems. For example, if you get only Tesla chargers, they can talk to each other and budget their power use... one can charge, then when it's done, another can charge, and so on. So it should be possible to set up multiple chargers without needing to upgrade your electrical infrastructure.

https://www.tesla.com/support/gen-3-wall-connector-power-sharing

I'm most familiar with Tesla but I know other brands have similar features. And at least a few have a "charge on solar power only" feature, where they tie in with a solar power system and only charge the car when the solar is making power.

And then what if they all of a sudden switch to hydrogen?

You don't need to worry about hydrogen. It's not going to happen.

Hydrogen looked like a good bet a few decades ago, when batteries sucked. Now that batteries no longer suck, hydrogen is a total loser for cars. The biggest indictment of it is that it's less efficient to use electricity to make hydrogen from water than it is to use electricity to charge a battery.

There are a few companies that have been saying that they think hydrogen is a good choice for the future, but they have had no real success in getting people to buy their hydrogen products while Tesla is setting sales records. (Tesla now sells more cars than Mazda or Audi. Not just more EVs, more cars, full stop.)