The 40% impact doesn't apply here. It's not a simple fact that the cold reduces range by 40%. In the cold, energy is used to warm the cold battery and to heat the cabin. Warming the battery is only necessary for the first 10 or 15 miles. After that, the act of discharging maintains the temperature. Heating the cabin will consume up to 15miles/hour of range, regardless of your driving speed. So, in city driving averaging 40mph, that's a reduction in range of about 40%. For a mid-range model 3, that's over 4 hours of driving. It's not unreasonable to expect someone to be willing to stop for 30-40 minutes after 4 hours of driving to each and recharge. But for the context of the discussion, at highway speeds, 15mph for heat only reduces range by 20%. So, you'll have to stop after a little more than 3 hours. But this is worst case, for the mid-range model. Spend for the larger battery, turn the heat down a bit (seat warmers use about 10% of the energy necessary for the cabin heater) and you can get that up to 4 hours.

No, Tesla sold Enhanced Auto Pilot for $5000, and Full Self Driving for an additional $3000 if you pre-ordered. It was supposedly going to be an extra $5000 to add FSD after delivery if you didn't pre-order*. Enhanced Auto Pilot has been functional since day 1, and included Traffic-aware adaptive cruise control, self parking, and summon (the ability to drive the car forward or backwards from the smartphone app.) I always knew FSD was a gamble, and figured paying more to get the feature later was worth it compared to the risk of not knowing when FSD would be available, and how good it would even be. I also figured that there would likely be sales later on where it would be discounted so that Tesla could quickly get zero-cost revenue for an end-of-quarter push. I think the bigger problem is not that they were pre-selling a feature that is likely years away, but that they are now selling it for less before it's even released without refunding the difference to those that bought early. I would have no problem if EAP were cheaper today than when I bought it. Prices for technology always go down, and that's the cost of being an early adopter. But at least in those cases, the early adopters get the benefit of enjoying the technology before others get in at a lower price. That should not be the case for pre-orders.

I made a reservation to have my 3 serviced online. The first available appointment was 2 weeks out. I made my appointment (it wasn't an emergency). The next day, I received a call from the service center that they could have the mobile tech come to me, or I could bring it in later that day or the next.

It's quite a bit more than the salary to employ someone. In addition to their salary, there are payroll taxes, health insurance, pension/retirement, etc. Not to mention, the additional investment in your infrastructure you would need to 'house' these employees (office space, IT infrastructure, construction tools, etc depending on the job function).

Agreed. My typical new car is about $40k, but I went well above to $55k for my 3. After about $11k in tax savings, and free charging at work, it comes out cheaper than $40k.

The REPUBLICAN congress and REPUBLICAN senate had two years to get this oh-so-critical campaign promise in front of the REPUBLICAN president to sign no ability of the democrats to stop it.

That really depends on the end user.

No, Google does not sell customer data. Google sells access to eyeballs. They will deliver ads to eyeballs that fit the metrics that an advertiser specifies, but the advertiser isn't provided with the details of who is behind that eyeball.

Actually, the mining of oil is something that benefits from scale. Once we hit the hockey stick in EV adoption, the cost for gasoline will actually go up as investment in the expensive process to drill deeper and deeper goes away.

That's a bullshit argument. My Model 3 payment is $638/mo. My Honda Pilot payment is $636/mo. Both after similar downpayments, and for the same 60 months. If I wanted a Chevy Bolt, my payment would be significantly lower. Now, add the fact that I am saving $100/mo in gas, and my Model 3 is a bargain.

Tesla Model S has rear-facing seats as an option.

Electric car owners will find themselves at public charging stations infrequently. As an ICE owner, I have to refill at a gas station once a week. An electric car owner generally charges overnight at home, and only has to charge on the road occasionally when their trip is longer than 250 miles. Sure- if you're going to say "But I have a 300 mile trip every week!" then an electric car may not be for you. But you would be greatly in the minority.

Or another perspective, you leave a gun sitting out on your front porch, and someone takes it and shoots someone.

I've had multiple situations where I was incorrectly given a room that was already occupied, which resulted in a bit of a surprise upon entering 'my' room. After the first or second time, I've learned to knock before entering my hotel room for the first time just in case. But you believe that in such a situation it would have been justifiable for them to shoot me?

It's not as bad as it would seem to an iPhone user. In iOS, all major Apple apps are tied to the iOS version. New versions of Apple Mail, Calendar, etc are all tied to new versions of iOS. Android is much more modular. So even a user running Android N has the latest version of Gmail, Calendar, Maps, etc. Even subsystems that the user doesn't directly see, like Google Play Services, are updated directly from Google as soon as they come out.