Bah. Ford has had a decent lineup of electronic vehicles for a few years now. Both the C-Max and Fusion models have plugin hybrid variants. They also have the focus pure-ev small sedan. The C-Max does exceptionally well, has amazing handling, great safety and tech features....and for most of the owners, they prefer having dual engines and two fuel sources over one large battery/electric engine. Many owners are still going 6-9 months between filling up gas, and some up to 750 miles on a single charge/fill-up.

Honestly, I think Tesla is going down the wrong path with pure ev vehicles, spartan interiors, and enormous LED screens for all controls. Ford, on the other, seems to be taking its time but focusing on coming up with the right balance of tech and control. I honestly wouldn't drive a model3 if you gave me one.

Let me count the ways:
- I hate phones. The frequency that I need to make calls is minimal, and for that, I prefer to use Skype.
- No, don't call me, but if you must -- odds are it is going to voice mail, where I'll listen to it at my convenience...and yes, likely via skype.
- No, I don't want to receive any text messages. If something is urgent, I'll check your website -- or you can send me email and I'll see it in an hour or so. If I must have an alert system for important stuff, I'd rather it was integrated with Alexa. Alex does have a notification system and I do have alexa units in most major rooms of my home and, at some point in the future, the car.
- Phone screens suck, not so much when you are young...but definitely when you get older. And, typing on them is horribly inefficient. If you want to have 2 factor authentication, integrate it with my tablet - Not my phone, and not SMS.
- Phone batteries suck, I carry my phone with me when I go out the door each day, but the frequency that I use it rather than a tablet is perhaps once/twice a week...and the damn, thing still needs to be charged every day.

Amazon at one point entered the search engine business.....google started to cancel some of the ads that Amazon used to buy for paid search.

Than Amazon wanted to create its own version of android and app store, but google told app developers they would be penalized if they uploaded their apps to both the Amazon appstore and Google's playstore. Now, every amazon tablet has to be hacked to run google play in order to have decent apps. Amazon's still pissed about that as it ruined a lot of their hardware plans - they even had to lay people off in the tablet biz.

Google wasn't happy when Amazon launched their own phone. Google somewhat retaliated by going after Amazon's online shopping business by creating their own 3rd party shopping cart and checkout technology.

And, of course, Amazon and Google are competing in video streaming and other markets.

Personally, I realize they are both monopolies that like to steal my data, but at least Amazon actually treats me like a customer and offer me good value. And, provides excellent customer service. Google seems to think I'm such a putz that I'll give them every possible piece of data about my life for occasional free stuff. Google has zero customer service..everything is automated and you either take their stuff in the same fashion as everyone else or go away.

I'm slowly pulling myself out of every google service I can. Youtube is the most difficult to replace.

You carry extra weight either way. Only question is if its a gigantic battery for your pure EV or a small engine for your plugin hybrid. The battery increases the cost of the car and is very expensive to replace...but with good cooling, will last 10-15 years. The extra engine will require annual maintenance and oil changes every 20K miles or so.

Volt isn't that impressive. Ford C-Max Energi can get around 500-600 combined EV+ICE range, depending on how you carefully you drive it. And, it accelerates decently with a sporty feel plus has (to me) a much better interior than the Tesla Model 3. Decent enough cargo too. If you drive it right, you can also get 125MPGe just like the tesla during normal use. And, you can recharge it at home, gas station or public ev station. Price is usually under $30K w/ rebates. Yes, it's pure ev range is laughably small...but still good enough to handle most peoples daily commute. The ICE engine is pretty nice, but it does also use more gas than some smaller hybrids. If you go on the freeway frequently, your average combined MPGe might drop to 70-90. If you go on a very long trip for hundreds of miles and don't bother to charge the EV battery, MPGe will drop further to around 40MPGe. Still a better deal than the tesla model 3, I think.

One thing you are not taking into account is metabolism and genetics...there are an lucky/unlucky set of people who due to harsh conditions where their ancestors lived have metabolisms that allow them to live on roughly half the calories that a normal human being requires to survive. Their bodies are just much more efficient consumers of calories.

Guess what, they have to struggle and diet nearly their entire life just to maintain anything close to normal weight. Fall off the wagon for even a month and gain 10 lbs minimum. Go through a depressive 6 months and gain 25-50lbs.

At least 2-3 generations of the family on my fathers side is like this....and the gene was passed on to me and probably my kids. Eating anything more than 1200 calories/day as an adult causes weight gain unless accompanied by significant exercise. I have to force myself to limit 'brain work' in the day and push myself outside. I'm forcing my kids to do 2hrs exercise per day.

I finally learned how to balance it out in my 40's....I essentially don't eat meals anymore, just small healthy snacks 2-3 times/day....if I eat anything that looks like a real meal, than it's all I'm allowed to eat for at least 8hrs. And, I do anything I can to trick my body into increasing metabolism by pushing my heart rate up for at least 15 minutes at a time randomly and frequently across the day.

Bullcrap. It's just like public schools in the USA. In the name of equality, we replaced local control of school standards and funding with one size fits all -- And, for the last 100 years of this experiement in public education, average education performance has declined. Any parent who cares about his/her kids has to pay to private or homeschool. All the funds for public school are wasted and there are no refunds. The only thing you can be sure about with public educated kids is that they've been programmed to be obediant to authority, know enough math/science to be useful enough to get low wage jobs from major employers, and know absolutely nothing about history, economics, civics or anything practical...other than the fact that they have 'rights' and the government should provide a minimal living for all (self reliance not required).

Absolutely not surprised to hear about whats going on with the NHS....the public will be programmed to accept healthcare that is only minimally useful to those that meet the governments definition of a good citizen, anyone else can die off. I love the distinction made between urgent and non-urgent...and who determines what is urgent...the bureaucrats.

Depends on your definition of sufficient battery range for an average driver. I've gone the last 6 weeks with my plugin hybrid and only used around 1-2 gallons of gas -- the rest of my energy consumption has been pure electric. I'm probably only going to have to fill up gas 3-4 times/year.

Well, go ahead and buy it today. What you are looking for is a plugin hybrid. Many of this years models have a range of 600-700 miles, have sufficient seating and cargo room to act as family vehicles and have two engines/two fuel sources with a computer that automatically switches between the two. The electric engine/battery is big enough to handle 99% of daily commutes. You can easily find combined horsepower of 200+. Full safety and convenience features. Unless you take long trips, you only need to fill up the gas 2-3 times/year. I purchased mine a few months ago for only $32K.

Once again, false choices here.....we don't need pure ev versus pure gas fanatics. Plugin hybrid gives the advantages of both with little, if any, drawbacks. Purchased mine a few months ago for $32K, it handles 99% of my commutes on pure electric, and yet has 600-700 mile range for travel. Goes whatever speed I want it to. When I'm in a rush, I can fill it up w/ 5 minutes of gas -- when I'm at home, it charges overnight in around 2.5hrs. Using both engines, my MPG average to date is around 75. When on pure electric, I'm averaging around 135 MPG equivalent. Even with expensive electric costs here in Southern California, my monthly fuel cost is now 25% of what it was before (although, my previous car was an inefficient SUV). The new vehicle has less cargo space, but it's still relatively spacious and carries all that I need.

I don't get the fanatics on either side, plugin hybrids make the most sense. Two engines, two fuels...switch between them as you need. Some current plugin hybrids have 600-700 mile ranges today. 99% of daily commutes can be handled on the electric engine, and gas engine only needs to be filled up 2-3 times/year for long trips on the freeway or when high speed is required. What is the benefit of a pure gas or pure ev vehicle over a plugin hybrid with smart autoswitching as needed between the engines? I certainly don't want the sustained low efficiency of pure gas nor the high battery replacement cost of pure EV.

I'm not sure what the whole rush is to get rid of gas engine cars is about.....sure, most people drive commutes that can be more efficiently handled in plugin hybrid. Why do we need to go full EV? I'm perfectly happy with having both an electric and gas engine in my car, and the electric battery is big enough already to meet 99% of the daily drives I make. On the off chance, I go on a long trip or need power to go fast, I'm happy to have the gas engine kick in. As is, I only need to fill up the gas engine 2-3 times/year and I have a range of around 700 miles.

I certainly don't want a huge expensive electrical battery that needs to be replaced every 10 years. And, I like the reliability of having two engines and two fuel supplies.

Depends what you are looking for -- My oldest son will be driving soon. I wanted to get him something modern that he learn on and hopefully keep using for 15 years. Tesla's pricing puts them out of the picture.

Ended up getting a Ford C-Max Energi Hybrid. Has both electric and gas engine. Electric engine has 20-35 mile range. Gas engine adds another 500-600 miles, but isn't really used unless one is taking a road trip or going over 55MPH on the highway. Most days only takes 2hrs of electric charging. Might need to refill gas tank only once/year for him. Feels pretty responsive and has lots of passenger/cargo room.

Cost was only $24K after EV tax rebates.

We don't need cars with huge batteries like tesla, nor should we want to move towards a world of swapping batteries. A proper hybrid car with a modest 10-25Kwh electric battery and a 10-20 gallon secondary gas engine with seamless switching will be the best path for most auto owners.

Most days, the gas engine shouldn't be used except for brief additions of extra energy for big hills or speeds at or above 75MPH. Moderate sized electric battery can charge fast enough and provide 40-100 miles of range easily for speeds under 75MPH.

When you take a road trip, just do a 5 minute fill up of the gas tank every 600-1,000 miles. Those who don't take roadtrips would only need to fill up their gas tank once/year. Otherwise, charging shouldn't be more than a 1-2hr process -- hopefully, technology could get it down to under 30 minutes eventually.

Pipe dream? No, there are existing cars that already do most of the above...the Ford C-Max has a smaller 5-7Kwh battery and the MPH limit before the engine starts is in the 45-65Mph range, but it gets about 20-30 miles electric + 500-600 miles gas range when properly driven. I purchased one recently and am getting 52-100MPG most days. My daily driving isn't much so it generally takes under 2hrs to recharge at night. My understanding is that Ford also has a whole new generation of hybrid cars coming out between 2018-2020, and will be introducing hybrid versions of most of their heavier SUV's. Not sure how they can ever release a hybrid expedition...

In 2006, I spent a pretty penny on a premium Panasonic Plasma 50" 720p/1080i TV......to be honest, with everything mobile on tablets/laptops these days, the TV is only for group viewing of Movies and the occasional TV show with 3-4 people at a distance of 5-10' perhaps once or twice/week. It's normally connected to an Amazon FireTV controller and has Plex installed to watch DVD's/Bluerays stored on the NAS.

Short of the need for group VR or holograms 5-20 years in the future which somehow renders the TV viewing experience obsolete, this TV is never going to be upgraded. It's just not worth the cost given the viewing distance and frequency. Yeah, maybe 10-15 years in the future, the plasma tech inside will slowly dim it too much to be that watchable. But, I'll deal with that problem when it happens.

As for laptop/computer screens, none of the ones here are yet 4K. Ultra crisp screens are nice, but not enough to force an early upgrade. I am at an age where I prefer a perfectly well done small screen at high DPI...... I'm more likely to buy screens in the 9.8" - 17" size range and 2.7K seems to be where most of those are at right now.