I cannot say whether they are or are not. However, given that dealerships traditionally make their money from the service side, not sales, it is easy to see why dealers would not want to sell Teslas or other EVs from manufacturers that they're already selling for (think Nissan Leafs, and Chevy Volts). Compared to ICE powered cars, EVs require substantially less maintenance.

In order to sell something in a particular location you need to have a point of presence in that location. When this "Interstate Commerce Clause" was conceived, no one had in mind that Iowans would be prevented from hitching up their wagons and driving to California to buy their plow. They were addressing issues such as the Iowan government baring, imposing tariffs, or otherwise restricting the flow of Californian goods and services in Iowa.

You do not need to provide a complete and better solution before pointing out the flaws in an existing one. While being anti-capitalistic in its own right, elucidating problems, sharing discoveries and ideas is the most efficient means of coming to a solution for any particular challenge. Capitalism is capable of achieving only local maximum. The easiest way to see this is to imagine the nations of the world all comporting themselves as the Western world does. Capitalism by definition is a pyramid wherein each layer stands upon the back of others. With each rise in elevation fewer are able to be supported. Until utopia has been achieved for all, we should not rest with what we have.

I think the most efficient means for Tesla to squash this regulatory capture is probably to focus on building momentum for it's vehicles as well as manufacturer direct sales and maintenance in those states presenting no or minimal obstacles. It's far harder for the entrenched interests to fight ubiquity and "me too" protests than it is to fight a team of lawyers from a start up company with right on their side.

You're missing the point. Their technology isn't solely for the purpose of gaming. They are soon to start pursuing it for games, but this is already being commercially leveraged for a problem domain that was sorely needing the help. Point cloud mapping of real life for engineering and planning.

Convenient but, realistically pirates have no use for a cargo vessel beyond ransom. Nuclear fuel rods aren't exactly something they can walk into a reactor, pluck out and carry off either.

Regardless of what powers the vessel, or its cargo, there's no reason why private security cannot be installed on them. Or as an AC put it less tactfully "Just shoot the damn pirates before they get close enough to come aboard."

Ok. SolarCity then.

They out of sight, out of mind. Further, there's really no one to regulate them. Most ocean going boats are registered in countries with the least stringent of regulations and neither the motivation nor ability to do otherwise.

Frankly, if ever there was a case to be made for nuclear power, it would be these boats.

You have to start some where. Everyone likes to poke at China, but last I checked, per-capita the U.S. is still the world's largest polluter. China carries roughly half the world's solar panel production and is second only to Germany in installed capacity. As an investor in renewables, China is well in the lead of ever other nation.

Ocean going vessels to my understanding have basically no pollution controls on them nor emission standards that they must follow. Consequently they make up some of the worst sources of environmental pollution. Ideally they'd be nuclear powered, but even if they were to implement even basic pollution controls they'd make a world (pun intended) of difference.

I admire your courage to look eminent peril in the face and say "I shall refrain from salvation, from optimal solutions for they are found whereupon the slippery ground resides. I shall stick to my principles and hold tight to the letters of old come what may. Compassion, facts, evidence, fear be damned the pen strokes of men long turned to dust shall be my rod, my compass till I join them in perpetual slumber at the end of my journey."

Setting aside your straw men... I perceive that your position is basically the same as most everyone else providing such speech. "Don't tread on my but let me tread upon you in what ever manner suits my taste." The founding fathers for whom you purport to hold esteem also held to the belief that government should be represented by and for the purpose of the interests of it citizens. Yet, your position, your arguments, all run scared from any notion that would result in you ceding control over any facet of your life to government. If your position was taken at face value and implemented accordingly you would come away with having precious little control. Notions of beverage size would be a distant memory. In its place would be countless individuals operating according to their own principles treating and being treated as paving stones to be tread upon.

Thank you though for that amusing citation of HIPPA though. In any other context, a piece of legislation that your kind would hold up as the quintessential definition of government overreach. I'm assuming you read it right? No? I'll give you a hint, the privacy bit was but a pinch of sugar to make the medicine go down. It really had little to do with the bulk of that legislation.

Uh oh. Careful. Citing the 10th amendment and all. That sounds suspiciously like big government adding to what the Constitution says. Our illustrious founding fathers must be rolling in their graves.

If only it would apply its IQ to targeting those without much of one.

With all due respect to the "framers," I don't give a damn what the "framers" had in mind. They were not gods, they were far from infallible and most certainly not soothsayers. What they had in mind was a pre-industrial revolution society with its concerns and ambitions.

What they penned on paper gave this country a starting point, but it in no way should be the conclusion. The farther we travel in time from the point of their authorship the more limited the scope of understanding those documents will have. A cursory examination of government at every level will quickly testify to this point.

In modern society no man is an island unto himself. The activities of a person will with near certainty have consequences for others to some degree whether good or bad. You hold up a soft drink cup as an example of absurdity. Allow me to illustrate how it is otherwise. The reality is that that 64oz soft drink is of course not the first and only incident of reckless over consumption of sugar but rather a example of a lifestyle of over consumption. At some point this lifestyle begins to manifest health consequences for which medical care is required such as for diabetes and coronary disease. The cost of which saps money from the person's respective health insurance pool and/or increases the hospital's un-reimbursed expenses. Either of which end up driving up costs for everyone else in the healthcare system. Along the way, numerous people have been inconvenienced by incidents both significant and otherwise whether by their larded person spilling out from the boundary of their airplane seat into yours or simply by disgusting them with their lack of personal care.

If the activities of a person have negative consequence on others it becomes their concern. In modern society the central agency through which these concerns are redressed is government.