In those Good Old Days when America was built by legal immigrants were also the days when America had an open immigration policy. Our current policy is broken, and the situation reflects this. We're too mired by politics to even address the policy issue, let alone the issue that it has created (approximately 7M illegal immigrants). However, the GPP argument that these immigrants are essentially eating your lunch is old and tired. It's the same argument for racist policies against the Chinese, Italians, Irish, Eastern Europeans, etc. Same as it ever was.

Blaming rape and drug dealing on illegal immigrants is a ridiculous scapegoat with absolutely no basis in fact. The reality is the opposite of this - illegal immigrants (not accounting for the crime of illegal immigration itself) commit a tiny fraction of the crime in America, and it's very much disproportionate to their population. Illegal immigrants are less likely than natives to commit violent crime or be incarcerated.

...but don't let facts get in the way of your argument.

You seem very certain of the future. I am not so certain. That is not to say that I disagree, I just don't share your degree of certainty.

I would be very surprised to see anything akin to Moore's law apply to battery and charging technology. Pumping more electricity into a car means dealing with not only serious heat dissipation issues but also requires a more and more massive cables. Scaling up today's 120 kW superchargers to charge in 10 to 20 minutes requires something more like 700 kW. Technically possible, but really pushing the limits.

Now, tripling the size of the batteries and then charging completely in 15 minutes will require a massive amount of electric current. Again, pushing the boundaries of thermodynamics. Possible? Yes. Probable? That's another story.

I never debated the efficiency of hydrogen. However, you can have all the infrastructure you want and you still can't get around the fact that it takes longer to charge a car than it does to fill up a tank of gas (or hydrogen).

I'm not sure that I missed that point. If this was of paramount importance to all buyers, there would not be a market for EV's - and there clearly is a market. However, the market hasn't exactly eroded the ICE market (around 60k BEV's against over 17m ICE cars and light trucks sold in the US in 2015). There are many people who do enjoy the convenience that ICE's offer. Others have jobs that keep them on the road all day, and EV's just don't work for that yet.

Who is we? Are you speaking for every vehicle consumer in the world? I mean, certainly you're not speaking for the massive amount of Americans who purchased pickup trucks last year. Do you have some sort of data to suggest that Americans are collectively sick of paying for this utility? On the contrary, light trucks outsell cars by quite a large margin. Surely, there are a whole lot of buyers who prefer having this utility available to them.

That's an interesting attitude. How are others subsidizing towing? My understanding is that roads are mainly funded by fuel taxes, and towing (or even having a large vehicle that is capable of towing) uses more fuel, generating more taxes. Anyone hauling a boat around is already paying more than double than someone driving a mid-sized sedan. Interestingly, we're subsidizing EV's significantly more than large vehicles towing boats. Beyond the state and federal subsidies for the vehicles themselves, EV's don't generate any tax revenue and do not help to fund the roads that they travel on. Even further, due to the weight of batteries, most EV's are very heavy and thus cause more wear and tear on the road than lighter vehicles. I'm not suggesting that subsidizing EV's is a bad thing...but it's disingenuous to suggest that heavy ICE vehicles are somehow subsidized and EV's aren't.

I'm not trying to suggest that electric cars are terribly impractical and will never feasible. However, your position doesn't reflect the reality of the current market.

Sure - why not? It seems like a lot of the discussion revolves around a notion that these two energy storage technologies must be mutually exclusive. I don't think that it has to be. Perhaps FCV's will never live up to their promise. I'm just not ready to write them off just yet...especially based on what is said by a co-founder of an electric car company.

That's an awesome idea. I'd love to see it play out.

Take a look at Tesla's map of Superchargers. They might be plentiful where you live, but they're not ubiquitous in many parts of the country. There are massive gaps, including three large states that do not have any Superchargers, which means that even if you're willing to put up with a 30 minute charge every few hours, you're not making a cross-country trip on I-40, I-80, or I-94. Even doubling the number of Supercharger stations will not live up to the needs of many people for long distance travel (or be nearly as practical for people who travel long distances in ICE vehicles). Further, how does the existence of Superchargers fix the problem of range and amount of time to charge the battery (30 minutes every 250-300 miles is a lot of time)? Certainly, not everybody drives long distances, but at the moment, electrical cars aren't nearly as practical as ICE cars for long distance travel.

So your suggestion is to abandon development of FCV's because electric cars exist and FCV cars don't? That doesn't make sense to me. I've never suggested that EV's don't work. I believe that ongoing research & development in FCV's is a good thing. Excuse me for taking it with a grain of salt when the co-founder of an EV company says that FCV's are a terrible idea.

First, you're mistaken when you say that Superchargers are installed just about everywhere. There are only 624 Supercharger stations in the entire country. There are a few very large states that do not have a single Supercharger. That just doesn't compare to the estimated 126,000 gas stations in the US.

Secondly, I believe that you're missing the point. Batteries are still not the most ideal energy storage mechanism for long-distance travel because of the time required to charge a battery (30-minutes) when compared to a more portable energy storage mechanism that can flow at up to 10 gallons per minute. Your asking where to fuel a hydrogen vehicle on a long trip is disingenuous, because a network does not exist yet. However, with sufficient demand (and technology that does not exist yet on a commercial basis), there is no reason why existing gas stations couldn't update to include hydrogen - and maybe even replace fossil fuels with hydrogen.

Finally, while a Tesla Model X can tow up to 5000 lbs, doing so reduces the vehicle range by 60%. It's great that you have a Tesla and really like it. I'm glad that it works for you. However, the idea that these cars can be all things to all people is incorrect.

Interesting, you're actually making my argument for me. The law treats IP differently than physical property, because it is different. That is why we have separate laws protecting physical property and intellectual property (and significantly different criminal and even civil penalties for violations of such law).

Comparing theft of physical property to intellectual property is an old, tired argument that has never ever worked. Please stop making this comparison. Stealing a Ford off of a lot deprives an entity of a physical asset. Paying for intellectual property under false pretenses due to locality restrictions is completely different. Even copying that IP for no remuneration is different, because it is not depriving an entity of a physical asset. Piracy is not the same as theft and never has been.

Does this justify piracy? No.

Does it justify using the same old tired argument and false analogy? Also no.