I think you will find that batteries are still required.

Subaru built a prototype where they replaced the torque converter between the engine and a tiptronic slushbox with an electric motor. Because the engine is not run by fluid, it's much more responsive and basically eliminates the problems with a slushbox, and it also provides motive starting force and performs regenerative braking for all four wheels. Presumably they'll need to use 2-way limited slip in all differentials for that to work properly. The Germans seem to have largely gone to using Torsen differentials (which are generally two-way) and solving their problems with ABS. Sadly, the ABS modules are made by Bosch...

You're both having a silly argument. Clearly it's a Mercedes. It's not a production Mercedes. That's a more interesting argument in this case anyway.

I bought a used, formerly $70k Audi A8Q. Leaking from every pore. If you don't wrench you can't own an old German car, it will fucking rob you blind. This ain't cheap as it is, but it's a shitpot more car than I could get from a stealership for the same money.

I have the full service history (with receipts) for this car. It has had practically everything done, down to a new transmission. Had a timing belt 50k ago but the coolant wasn't properly maintained so the water pump failed, so I just did one of those.

Basically, german cars have been unreliable as shit since the 1990s, when they went full-balls-electronic. Before that, they really really cared. Features like snap-together connectors with soldered-on pins, that you could order separately and cheaply (packets of pins, individual connector shells) and easily replace in the workshop. Now you need a $2k kit to service all the different snap-together connectors. Instead of putting the connectors someplace sensible and protected, now they're just all waterproof connectors. So when you get some kind of fluid leak other than coolant, now you get a terrible mess that you get to clean up with about four different solvents.

If you're not wealthy or a mechanic you can't afford to own a German car.

I don't know about the companies in China and Japan, and I don't know about stocks, but the general idea that Yahoo isn't actually worth much is unsurprising. Do people still use Yahoo.com or Yahoo mail? Yahoo IM? I understand that, like AOL, Yahoo owns other sites that are doing well, but what's Yahoo's strategy? How are they making money in the face of Google and Gmail?

And the need to do that for everybody just doesn't exist, because everyone can't just go out and buy an EV tomorrow anyway.

Do you have any other irrelevancies to point out about EVs to justify [y]our petro-burning lifestyle?

Obviously, I don't drive an EV. I live in the boonies, it wouldn't work for me. But I would, if it would, and I had the cheese.

It seems to me that the only place the Leaf is actually embarrassing is the range. It doesn't have as much as a fully-kitted Model S and you can't get as much for love nor money. But otherwise, it seems a perfectly adequate car in a way that the original Prius wasn't. I have no opinion on the new Prius, which at least looks as boring as it is.

All the people I know personally who claim to be libertarian are pro-choice, pro-drug, pro-porn, against federal government being involved in sex education At all, against special status for churches, and pro-assisted-suicide.

I, mind you, am not a libertarian. I'm far too socialist for that. But I agree with them on many principles of freedom. Where we part company is that I want business to be heavily regulated. Businesses are legal fictions to begin with, otherwise they are simply groups of people.

Those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to look like a dumbshit on Slashdot. Quick quiz, how did Saddam Hussein come to power in the first place?

We bought a lemon tree, then we were told we had to destroy it because it wasn't licensed. Got a letter from the feds no less (well, the USDA or something like that, but anyway.) What did that poor tree ever do to anyone? It just wanted to self-replicate and make us free food.

This is absolutely needed. Because yes, the world has gone mad. For thousands of fucking years: It's called dominion.

Yes, but it's also easier to make use of the exploit information to produce an exploit than a patch. That's why it's responsible to report the bug to the maintainers before announcing it publicly. But your argument is the reason why you don't wait indefinitely for the maintainers to kick out a patch, either.

As usual, the answer lies somewhere between extremes.

My late father-in-law designed inertial guidance systems. He worked on the Apollo program and the Trident missile. And he bought a Mercedes SUV, so it's clear it isn't an SUV that only an idiot would buy. He needed a vehicle that could pull a small boat trailer but had reached an age where he wanted a vehicle that was a little easier on the tuckus than a pickup truck. As such it wasn't a bad choice for him, especially as he had the dough to pay the eye-popping maintenance costs.

I prefer small cars myself, but I've driven a few SUVs and the Mercedes wasn't a bad choice for someone who wanted a truck that drives more or less like a car and doesn't care about the cost.

... because they paid him to drive a Mercedes.

"Mordor" sounds French to me. And "Sackville-Baggins" sounds like a frenchified English name, which I'm sure was no accident.

Who told you that? It's often very easy.

Except a lot of Audis weren't offered with a MT in the USA, so you have to buy a substantially different car. And new car, new problems.

It usually isn't much of a PITA at all, there are a number of such swaps that are very simple and commonplace, like Mustang or F-Series swaps. In the Audis, it's usually a simple matter of a recode, or replacement of a module with a relatively inexpensive used one. Going to an automatic is often a PITA, because of wiring issues. Unless, of course, you're installing a pre-electronics automatic with a VRV or similar.

They're not aiming to be there because they're already there. And it tends to be a lucrative market to be in, because those models attract people who will pay a lot for options.