> Outside of super-caps or battery swapping, you can't charge the car with electricity faster than you can pour in a liquid hydrocarbon.

The more batteries you have the faster you can charge real miles, and this scales infinitely, assuming you can obtain electricity as the necessary rate (think charging stations at electrical substations).

> Last I've read, those "subsidies" are normal tax breaks that any business can claim for long term capital investment.

Nope, the oil industry gets special tax breaks despite record $billions in profits. Obama campaigned about this.

> Tangentially - what hybrid, what was the savings rate and the cost to break even?

Toyota Highlander vs. Hybrid model. Assuming my driving mix, and $3 per gallon gasoline (never dipped below that since I bought the vehicle).

Well sort of. The big problem is that there is no iterative compiler for TeX. AucTeX can give you some syntax checking, but far from complete. The preview feature for snippets of code "works", but you lose the document as a whole. I want to be able to press a key in Emacs in the middle of some 100 page document and immediately see the effect *on the whole document* in a parallel window...

Well being that you only need to travel from now to.... now, I'll sell you a time machine for $100.

Target and Walmart sell adult bicycles for under $100. Bus passes vary by location, but many are $30 or less. Walking has always been free, but who knows what it might cost when you use your time machine to go to some dystopian future?

Where will you fill up your gas burner when those stations are gone?

Been done--in Europe, during WWII, many cars were converted to use producer gas derived from wood...

So you must be really pissed about the oil industry's subsidies...

Sure, but it's not the same thing. You could also buy a bicycle for $100, or a bus pass for $30, or walk for free...

That's about the same price as a BMW 5 series--both are luxury cars, except that the Tesla is faster, more powerful, larger, and cheaper to run.

The price isn't absurd, comparably. This is a luxury sedan comparable to BMW, Mercedes Benz, etc. Same price range, but the Tesla is more powerful...

Indeed. When I first started using LaTeX (1992), it reminded me when I first started using computers (1979). Writing (card punching) some code, sending it off to be compiled, then running another time to get the output. Compilers used to be all-or-nothing, start each time from scratch. Find an error, attempt to fix it, and start over again. Now if I use modern IDE, even Eclipse, I see much of this process with each keystroke. The compiler is different now--able to make incremental changes on the fly. AFAIK this is not the case for TeX. I'd love to type LaTeX code in Eclipse, and have syntax/reference error highlighting, etc. And also have xdvi (or whatever) open on the side, showing each incremental change as I type...

> I'm the asshole.

Well I'm glad there's something we agree upon.

The fact that you can't discern a difference between a blown fuse causing a temporary loss of brake assistance and a degenerative physical defect that threatened safety isn't what makes you an asshole, however.

I have a coffee cup with a slight chip in the handle. Still holds coffee. I can still hold it as easily in my hand. but it's slightly less comfortable. So that means my coffee cup IS BROKEN BROKEN BROKEN BROKEN BROKEN BROKEN!

I bought a house 4 years ago. When I moved in I discovered that an outdoor plug wasn't working. So I called up the seller and shouted "The house you sold me is BROKEN BROKEN BROKEN BROKEN BROKEN BROKEN!", he laughed, hung up on me, and I proceeded to reset the circuit breaker, thereby fixing my BROKEN BROKEN BROKEN BROKEN BROKEN BROKEN house...

Wah wah wah what a lot of crying you do...

Top Gear got caught cooking up the results, just like the NY Times author. They've made admissions, but you can't even come to accept these.

THE BRAKES WERE FUCKING WORKING PERIOD. All you attempts to lie about it notwithstanding. You wrote, and I quote: "When I push down on my brake pedal, and when my car does not then brake, my brakes are broken." In Top Gear the car braked! Can you not fucking understand such basic shit? You're the asshole who refuses to admit you LIED and got caught doing so, only coming with "semantics" arguments after the fact... Puts you in the same class as Top Gear and Jon Broder...

Of course there are standards issues, which eventually get settled. I shouldn't have to explain this on slashdot.

Subsidies? Do you know how much subsidies the ICE (manufacturers as well as petroleum) industry gets still today?!?!?!

I performed a cost analysis for the hybrid car I own. Break even was 30k miles. Well past that. Many people still say hybrids don't pay. They did for me... Cost anaylses are very subjective, and should be.

A Tesla Model S is not every man's car, but it isn't the Roadster for which I might agree on being a "rich people novelty status toy", but I don't think that moniker applies for the Model S. It competes quite well with other vehicles in its class--luxury sedans. Check out how much similar BMWs, Merceds etc. cost. Tesla (Musk) has always said he's working his way down the food chain. The Model X is to be much cheaper than the S, in turn cheaper than the Roadster.

No I haven't read all the manuals nor memorized the syntax nor wanted to become a TeX guru.

Those who want a tool that is easy to use should use a word processor.

If you read what I wrote you'll see I noted the value of continuous rendering explicitly.

Charging while you sleep does not require "quick charges expensive". I rented a Nissan Leaf for a month and they only gave me the 110v charger. I plugged it in when I got home, and it was always done by the morning.

If I had owned this vehicle, I would have punched a small hold in the garage wall opposite my 220v electric dryer, and installed my own outlet. Not exactly a massive investment there. And plenty of people have already decided that EVs are in fact worth the cost *today* (capital cost in money, but also time of recharging cost). Near future situation with 600 mile capacity will also enable faster charging (in terms of range gained per minute of charging) when such current is available.

Of course there are limitations, issues, change over costs. No one is claiming that EVs are superior to ICE in every aspect today, or even ever. But they are reasonable to many today. And they'll only become more reasonable to more people as technology progresses.