I totally agree with you on shopping based for total price and it drives me nuts when the dealerships try to talk around it. I usually throw up my hands and tell them I'm going to read their worksheet from the bottom up. You start with the total $ and then show me what went into it. I usually only have to get up and put my coat back on once or twice before they stop with the games.

With that said...many people do NOT buy cars like you or I. Many people live check-to-check so the monthly payment has to work into their monthly budget and it's the only immediately relevant number to them. Sad but true and it's how people wind up getting ripped off at dealerships.

>50% discounts off list price are certainly unheard of in the US. Well unless the car is used :)

The lack of ability to negotiate isn't unique to direct sales. Saturn used to do fixed pricing and IIRC there was one or two others that did the same (again, in the US).

Consider the opposite though...a car with limited availability that's in demand can, and will, be sold above sticker price - much less invoice. Dealerships are just butt hurt that they can't get in on this and scum their way into extra profit.

Tesla has no need to run silly sales and promotions like other manufacturers (you'll note that the DEALERSHIPS aren't offering these promotions themselves) or worry about having stock levels too high. They're selling em as fast as they can make em.

What part of this CAN'T you get if the manufacturer runs the showroom?

Can't. Resist. Can't....
Your insurance is going to suck when they hear your car crashes almost every single day. ...

Also, why limit it in general? Assuming Google and Apple (and others) don't come up with a stupidly complex, locked-down, restricted connectivity method why could't the mfgs support anything using an open/common standard?

In reality only iOS and Android have the market share to make that feasible...but MS will likely throw a ton of money to get themselves included (oh wait, Sync? Derp what a retarded interface).

They're not talking about energy produced, they're talking about the total rating of the panels they produce in a year. So at 250w/panel they're aiming to produce 4 million solar panels/year.

    wow that's about a metric fuck ton of solar panels too. I wish the system integration/install wasn't stupid expensive still.

I wonder what this will do for the long-term viability of the car though...in regards to repairing it. If I have a 1998 Honda civic DX I know I can find parts for the windshield wiper assembly.

If I have a model 1.5.14b (mod alpha) Tesla S with options XYZ ... do I need this wingding or that one for the rear-view mirror? Repair shops are going to hate this game.

At the same time...knowing the battery, motor, and other major components are the same is a huge win for the same question. Frankly the car industry revamping cars every freaking year is beyond stupid. Why is a 3000 pound, immensely complex, expensive piece of machinery rebuilt every year? To tweak a fender and include the radio buttons it should have had last year?

As usual...go Tesla. I just hope they have a good compatibility matrix for the upgraded components.

Yah, I can only imagine this will be useful in some very very specific situations.

In an oil or gas flame, the heat of combustion generally ignites the incoming fuel. In a forest fire you have an *immense* amount of latent heat even if you were to completely extinguish the flames for a brief moment. Similar reason to why they keep spraying down after a house fire is technically out.

Exactly.

NASA built redundancy into everything because they didn't know better. Material science was far less developed. Computer simulations basically non-existent. They didn't design a 30% margin into parts, they guessed and fixed whatever part broken with a strong/better one and tried again. If some part was 5000% over-engineered it wouldn't break but would negatively impact the overall system complexity/weight.

I'm pretty sure NASA (and plenty of others) also said Elon/Space-X was stupid for getting into building launch vehicles too. Yet here we are with their innovation not only a success, but bringing cheaper launches than anyone else. Clearly Space-X is not to be believed. /sarcasm

...we can't do it, you clearly can't either.

Sorry but big government's approach to things isn't what I usually measure up against. They spent how much on the space shuttle and so it would be reusable and instead after every flight the basically take it apart and rebuild every major and most minor subsystems?

Let someone else give it a go before you just say it's impossible

Why not ask GM about 0-day vulnerabilities. How much is it going to cost them to 'patch' all the systems? (wait, is that a reverse car analogy...that works?)

As for RF FOBs ...Yes, let's grab my laptop, an adapter, and solder a dozen or so wires to the car's computer, hack in, run some matrix code, and voila...car starts! ...Or jam a screwdriver into the ignition and twist like they do in the movies.

Ok, so neither is reality but it's a general idea. The steering lockout is defeated electrically in one case and mechanically in another - big deal.

Honestly a tow truck driver can have your car in ~15 seconds. See yahhhhhhh........

Erm buddy...?

Yep...and how much does it cost if you add a backup solution and off-site replication?

Another $1200 NAS
Somewhere to put it
Connectivity
Maintenance and/or monitoring

Cheaper? Probably (for now). Cheaper enough to be worth if if you value your data? Not for me.

No no no...as long as they strictly follow the "rules" they can do anything else that isn't specified without fear of recourse. There are some benefits to having a laundry list of stupid rules and regulations...you can easily play dumb about anything else. /sarcasm

Who says that's a valid contract? The state (i.e. gov't aid) becomes a party to the contract once that woman goes to get aid for her/their child. They weren't involved in nor agreed to it. Granted if the mother(s) had lived up to their end and actually been able to support the child then none of this would have come up.

I don't agree with the outcome though and think this should be treated exactly like adoption.

...is as a projector screen that is only reflective at one very specific wavelength. It doesn't emit any light...there are no pixels...nothing about it changes what parts light up.

It's still quite novel...i'm not sure why they couldn't be more specific (or less misleading?) in describing it.

Keep in mind it's not totally transparent - see how the table looks yellow behind it? Add red and greed and you're going to reduce the incoming light further. They said it can be tuned...so could be changed to avoid any of the peaks in LED, CFL, and daylight. Will be interesting to see where this goes...but if they start painting cars and buildings with this it's going to do odd things to the incoming light.