The Roadster has regenerative (motor) braking as well as perfectly normal friction brakes. You use the former by simply letting off the gas as you would in a manual-transmission gas car; you use the latter by pushing the brake pedal. I don't know much about their comment on the brakes "breaking" but it would be something exactly like any other car. In any case, that doesn't seem to be Tesla's beef with the segment...the problem is that Top Gear straight-up lied and said the thing died on the track when it absolutely didn't.
Under track conditions (with one of those jackasses pushing the pedal to the floor), yeah, the mileage on the Tesla is probably going to be atrocious.
That may be. But the fact remains that the car did not run out of power at any point during their testing. Yet they showed the driver saying "uh-oh" as the car apparently suddenly lost power, and then they showed people pushing it back to the hangar while explaining that it had died on them. The car they were pushing was perfectly drivable at that point, and they represented otherwise with no indication that they were faking it. Sounds like libel to me. Oh, and "you shouldn't take Top Gear seriously" is not an acceptable excuse...although I do very much hope that's the defense they use in court.
I still don't understand why something like the Tesla gets government funding...
Simple: they didn't. This is a loan which must be repaid. Also, the loan doesn't have anything to do with the Roadster, which after all has already been developed and had its manufacturing capability built up. The loan finances the development and manufacturing capacity for the next model, a 5+2 sedan that costs about half as much as the Roadster.
And on the price whining...if you had paid any attention to Tesla's history or past statements you'd know that they have always planned to start at the top of the market and work their way down; after this luxury sedan they plan to work on a ~$30k model for the masses. And before you complain that that's still too expensive, consider that the maintenance costs are nonexistent and the fuel costs dramatically lower. The total cost of ownership of a $30k electric vehicle would probably be lower than a $10k gasoline model.
Ah yes, but now you've gone from "Obama gave Tesla a loan to help his buddy" to "Obama failed to veto a loan that may have tangentially helped his buddy."
I sincerely hope you can tell the difference. And furthermore I hope nobody around here really thinks that a president should have the responsibility to veto any law that might help someone who supported him. That's downright absurd.
A pair of British researchers have said states are only likely to use cyberattacks against other states when already involved in military action against them...
Right. Tell that to the Iranians who just lost 984 uranium-enrichment centrifuges to a US/Israeli worm.
Correct. But more important is the reason why: because it would be absolutely insane not to engage in such programs, and every single economist* who isn't selling the conservative agenda right now will tell you so.
*I use "economist" to mean "one who engages in the science of economics. Or, put another way "Austrian school economists" are not economists.
Then you either:
1)know nothing about economics, and are simply throwing "Keynesian" around because you think it makes you sound smart.
-or-
2)subscribe to the Austrian school, which totally disavows science in favor of pretty philosophy. None of their "theories" are testable or falsifiable, and frankly everything they say is totally contradicted by all the historical evidence we have.
(Oh, and also, the public debt had basically nothing to do with getting us into this mess.)
I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that they might escape the lusts of the flesh. -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain"