The one hang-up with these "cars" is that you need a motorcycle endorsement with your driver's license in order to operate one of these vehicles. That isn't really too difficult and can be obtained by simply visiting a local motorcycle dealership when they are offering classes (often several times per year) or finding a motorcycle club of some sort to help out, but it does take some extra effort and money.

I do like Elio Motors as a company, and it is something to check out if you want a cheap commuter vehicle. Elio Motors is also following behind Tesla in terms of using the "gallery" style stores and direct sales to consumers over the web. That could be a good thing for Tesla as well since it shows they aren't the only company trying this business model.

Fine, if they stop traffic for mere mortals like myself on special occasions, I'm fine with it too. Just don't go passing special laws just for these folks.

I had a friend of mine who was a local campaign manager for a presidential candidate (not even the President himself, just a major candidate for one of the two big parties). They met with the Secret Service and got to ignore every single traffic sign and signal even though the candidate wasn't even in the car. There wasn't any real emergency, no need to get to a hospital or anything. They just simply ignored local laws of any kind and showed no consideration for stuff like speed limits and such.

I simply disagree that this is something that should happen at all. It shows complete disregard to others who do have important things to do in their lives too, and the imperial king formerly known as The President does not have any special distinction either.

The governor of my state stops at all traffic lights and obeys the speed limit when driving in his limo. I certainly don't see why The President deserves any more special consideration. The local football teams get better treatment, and that is only because the police want to both protect the players from the public and the public from the football players. Besides, the motorcade for the football teams is made up of not just players but also the parents and a couple miles worth of traffic from fans following the procession.

That is something I think is just plain wrong. In spite of being "The President", POTUS should still be bound to local laws of safety and order, like ordinary traffic laws. Yes, I understand the "national security implications" of having the presidential motorcade sitting at a stop light at a random intersection where I suppose a would-be assassin would take a random pot shot at the guy, but that speaks more to how that motorcade shouldn't be so obvious when it is passing through either.

This imperial bullshit really should end. The President isn't a king, and certainly shouldn't be treated like one.

Wireless transmission of electricity works just fine. That is how radios work if you weren't aware of that feature, and how crystal radio sets get their power. Some rather innovative people living near high voltage power lines (the big stuff that carries electrical power from one major metro area to another) have even set up coils and "receivers" to tap into that power.... much to the bane of power companies who hunt those guys down and try to shut them down too (as they do draw power from the towers).

The largest problem with wireless power distribution on a large scale is that it plays havoc with communications frequencies. You also get no free lunch with the idea as power still is required in order to transmit the electricity in the first place, often with a substantial loss in power. On the whole, physical distribution lines are much more effective and efficient, which is why I guess Tesla "failed".

And you should also note that there has been some big changes in television technology too. That 19" flat screen television you are talking about bears almost no resemblance to that 13" Sony Triniton you were talking about other than it takes a television signal (which even that has changed) and converts it to something you can watch on a screen. That conversion from analog to digital alone is a huge deal, and getting rid of the cathode-ray tube is an even bigger deal.

Now try to come up with similar analogies to the automotive industry. Perhaps you could suggest that the switch from an internal combustion engine to a much simpler electric motor is going to make a difference. It very well might, assuming you could get the price of the battery storage technology cheap enough too. Perhaps there is some room for innovation and the ability to make things a whole lot cheaper, but economies of scale and changes in technology are not likely to get you as far with mass consumer automobiles compared to what can happen with television technology or consumer computers.

Tesla has enough of the larger markets in America that they are selling their automobiles at (with states gushing about their products) that I think Tesla Motors as a company will be doing just fine. It will be odd that Tesla can sell there stuff on Manhattan and not across the river, but I guess that is one thing for the Mayor of NYC to gloat about in the future.

Eventually states like Texas and New Jersey will be made to be fools, and citizens in those states may even be pissed because their respective state governments are being such jackasses. This might be a temporary setback for Tesla, but it is something that in the long run is going to backfire on these state legislators as screwing around with mass consumer products is going to backfire eventually.

I don't mind Tesla trying to fight in this case, and they shouldn't let go of a market like New Jersey without a fight, but I think in this case time is on the side of Tesla and not the other way around.

I agree with you that Tucker should not have gone out of business and it was largely regulations that kept him from being able to sell his cars. None the less, Tesla Motors has already done far better than even the most wild imagination that Tucker could have hoped for in terms sales and market penetration.

A fairly large stack of laws have been developed with regards to auto dealership because they are a pretty significant part of American society. More important, they are mostly local businesses who have strong ties with local chambers of commerce (really trade guilds in every sense of the word designed to exclude commerce from people who aren't local and don't pay the squeeze to the local powers that be).

This isn't exactly something new for even just Tesla, but it is something very visible in this case. I have seen similar kinds of problems for other major companies trying to build in some small towns, with Wal-Mart being a good example of a company who has a hard time coming into some areas due to local governments getting fancy with the regulations permitting such stores being built. For example, I think it is still illegal for Wal-Mart to build stores in Vermont (and Wal-Mart has tried). I also know that Volkswagon wanted to build an auto manufacturing plant in the town where I live, and the city council actually turned them down with of all things an "environmental impact study" where of all of the boneheaded things I've ever seen, the complaint issued and recorded in that study which killed the plant is that the facility would "adversely impact the wages of the region by raising wages for other employers due to competition of the workers". Basically they were going to pay too much for the salaries they were going to offer.

It really is a situation where you need to develop local influence in order to be involved locally.

They were pretty specific about the whole thing. There are also notes from the debates during the convention when the clause was put into the document known as the Constitution, not to mention things like the Federalist Papers (and the Anti-Federalist Papers) where the merits of various parts of the Constitution were debated in terms of encouraging or discouraging people in various states to ratify the Constitution when it was going before each of the 13 original states.

A broad reading of this clause was never intended when it was originally reading, and this much more strict reading of this clause is very clearly what was intended. It was supposed to stop tariff wars between various states, not to regulate the quality of the meat in a McDonald's Hamburger in Des Moines.

You claim that you don't care about people doing stuff like BASE jumping, mountain climbing up Mt. Everest, or doing other potentially life threatening things, yet you complain about people going into space on their own dime.... with or without voluntary sponsorships from others. Yet here you go and say precisely the opposite.

It is the same thing for those who want to go into space.

As for Mars One, I think those guys are full of it and don't know what they are doing, and legitimate engineers and even fans are trying to offer help yet it is being rejected in favor of fluff and pomp. That is why Mars One is going to fail, not because they are trying to attempt something foolish. I'll also agree that there will be scam artists and people with less than honorable intentions who are trying to milk those with a dream of someday working and living in space, some of whom have some serious money to offer as well.

Still, what you fail to realize is that there is a good chance that with enough effort, brains, and attention to details that some of these project which are being proposed can succeed. I can't say if Elon Musk and his crazy idea of going to Mars is going to succeed or not, but one thing that certainly distinguishes him from Mars One is that he has put stuff into space, vehicles are orbiting the Earth right now that have been put there with his companies, with several billion dollars worth of money from people who do not lightly spend that kind of money already committed to sending much more into space on his rockets. I think that should count for something, which seems like you are casually dismissing too.

Again, I am not asking you for anything explicitly other than to suggest if you want to help, work with me and others who want to go into space. If you think it is stupid, move along so you don't get in my way. And please, give me the permission and opportunity to do this kind of stuff instead of holding a gun to my head and telling me I can't go into space. It doesn't matter if you do it personally or have laws enacted and a government thug does that instead... it is the same thing in the end.

I don't want to rob you through taxation as I think this can be done completely with private funds and without the government's help. I do know there are some in the space advocacy community, notably Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who want to point a gun at you and force you to pay for activities in space... so know that not everybody even has the same attitude about how to get there either. For myself, if the funds to do activities in space can't be found, that sort of is a "vote with wallets" to show that it may indeed be a futile effort but if the means to get this done can happen with private funds it is something that should be permitted to happen too.

I am not asking for your faith. I am merely asking you to shut up and get out of the way in terms of trying to stop those who want to do this kind of thing with their own dime. If you think this is a foolish task, don't bother participating and I will leave you alone to do whatever it is that you want to do or think is a better use of your time and resources.

It pisses me off when people like you are forcing me to think this is impossible and are actively preventing me and others from even trying. It may be that such endeavors will fail, that people may even die in the process of trying. I just don't want to live in so safe of a world that even the attempt to reach out and do such things has been driven from humanity. I certainly can't stand having a gun placed against my head telling me to forget about this stuff and that I must conform to some dogma that the world is flat and that I need to shut up and be a faithful factory worker churning out your wonderful hunk of plastic crap.

Define farmland, and note that Mars has more surface area than all of the land on the Earth, and millions of metric tons of water as well that is even visible from modest telescopes on the Earth. It will take technology to make the water usable for farming, but it isn't that hard, and flat land capable of being farmed is also possible.

You might be surprised at how much farmland can be created on Mars. One very likely view of what farms on Mars will look like can be found here:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4UgDFk5Mego/UkRCQ1TG5SI/AAAAAAAAC8U/f9Ku2VzmGqQ/s1600/MartianOasis01-signe2000.jpg

I happen to agree with you, but it is a thought provoking thing that smacks against political correctness when I bring the term up with regards to Elon Musk. He deserves to be proud of his South African heritage, and it should be pointed out that any kid from Africa likely could have achieved the success of Elon Musk if they shared his passion and drive (with a bit of intelligence thrown in). Family connections in Canada certainly helped, but it should be an inspirational story to everybody on that continent who deserves some local heroes as well.

The problem with Golden Spike is that I have yet to see a single customer. A nice idea in theory, in practice they aren't going to the Moon yet.

I hope that changes.

I would love to see the tank that holds F2 for anything longer than a few minutes or perhaps hours.

Seriously, as Florine is one nasty chemical that eats its way through almost anything. It eats through glass for crying out loud. I agree it might be a more efficient mixture, but there are some damn good reasons it isn't used, mostly dealing with reality and building actual vehicles rather than something on paper.

The only thing keeping SpaceX from sending people up into space on the Dragon is the lack of approval by the U.S. government, specifically the FAA-AST. I believe Elon Musk when he points out that putting seats in the Dragon and launching it with a crew on the next CRS flight (which will be in a couple of weeks) would already be safer than it was for the astronauts traveling on the Space Shuttle.

There is a launch escape system that SpaceX has currently in development, and is going to perform a test of that system later on this year. It is going to happen soon enough that it is reasonable to check regularly with the Patrick AFB website or upcoming NASA flights for more details.