Of course, it's not an impossibility that Tesla may run into financial trouble but I don't see them fading away any time soon.
Musk et al have simply done too much of an excellent job in making the mass audience aware of the possibilities of EVs, even if it's at a premium.

Even if the players in Detroit aren't interested in Tesla's corpse, if they were to end up on the rocks, there are other players.
I can see Renault, Peugeot-Citroen, Mitsubishi, Kia or Hyundai, either alone or in partnership, eager to buy it at a discount and that would give them ownership of a desirable brand, with a worldwide exclusive, hi-powered charging network and a partnership with Panasonic, Solar City & Silevo.
They'd be mad to not, at the very least, make an offer.
Musk may crash & burn but unless someone invents a compact Mr Fusion by 2020, his eVision will come to fruition within a decade.

That's what term limits are for and they really, really need to be applied at all levels of government.
Now, since some individuals have held public office at several levels of government, let's say that you can't hold elected office at any for more than 8 yrs for the same position or more than 20 years consecutively for all levels combined.

At that point, I'm not sure if you should be barred from elected office entirely or be forced to sit out for 8-10 years.

Any system will have defects but the current one in the USA is rigged.
You want to be president? Might cost you & your backers a cool $Billion+ to lose.
Are the voting districts fair? Hmm, instead of having an arms length agency with oversight to draw the boundaries, let's have the 2 major parties take turns drawing the maps as they see fit every 10 years.
So what if you get a few districts that look like a dragon trying to pick its nose with its tail.

Let's have companies write the legislation that will be used to oversee them. I'm sure they're all good honest capitalists. And let's appoint prominent people from those very companies / industries to also be the cop on the beat. After all, we can count on them to prosecute their friends, who they'll probably work with again someday.

There are FAR more corrupt governments that America's but they could be so, so much better.
Canada's appear to be pretty clean although it seems that there are fewer checks on the Canadian PM vs the US President if the prime minister of Canuckistan holds the majority of seats in the House.

Then make one of their choices "None of the above".
If you can't get more votes than that non-candidate, you don't get a majority government or there's some limit on the powers that you have if you end up in power.

That way people who don't know who to choose or who feel they have no appealing choices can still make their votes matter.
Give that option and there might no need for compulsory voting.

Tesla has been doing their share for charging, at least for their own autos, The speed of deployment of the Supercharger network is impressive given the relatively small size of the company. I believe that the current availability in America is almost 200 locations with usually 4 - 8 charging bays each and plans to double that number by Fall 2016.

They've also installed hundreds of 80A chargers capable of 10-20 kW at restaurants, malls & hotels.

I spent some time in CA last May, a week each in Anaheim and San Francisco. I can't say that I saw many EVs in Anaheim but San Fran - un-freakin'-believable!!!
Unless you were keeping an accurate count, it seemed that EVs were nearly 1/3 of the vehicles in most parts of the city.

In the USA & Canada, a great many households have 2 (or more) cars. Many of my friends have ready access to 3 or 4 vehicles when you count adult children who live at home or nearby.

One family I'm very close with have 2 vans at home and regular use of either their son-in-law's car as he usually drives his pickup or his plumbing van or their younger daughter's midsize car as she prefers using a van when she has to ferry around her 3 kids who are 2, 5 & 9 yrs old.

During the warmer months, they'll take turns at the family cottage on the lake which is 3-4 hours away.

And they're not unique among families where 2 or more people their own businesses. I can see potential to replace 2 of those vehicles right now and another in a few years with EVs and no disruption to their regular routines.

All 85 kWH Model S cars have an 8-year, infinite mile warranty on battery & drivetrain. If you buy one today, you can drive the hell out of it worry-free, except for what it costs to replace tires, until 2023.
By then, Tesla should have one, possibly 2, Gigafactories in operation and the economics of EV batteries will be very different and in the driver's favor.

This is correct. See the youtube videos of people claiming Obama would pay their mortgage as a good example.

Uh, yeah, if you're a big enough sucker to buy their marketing. They are all for the drug war (I could end there and your comment would already be a smoking crater), they're anti-gun-rights ("duh, for the children! drool"), etc. Only a sucker buys their marketing bs.

Right, got it. Democrats are good, but if they're bad it's in the same ways that Republicans are bad. But Republicans are also bad in even more ways, so they're worse.

Got it.

You'll vote for Feinstein because she's not an evil Republican, right?

"Are the USian voters so damn stupid?"

Yes, they are, almost all of them, no matter who they vote for.

Yes and the kernel & NTFS driver.
And then install Linux. Permanent solution to the IE problem. :-)

Except for those people still stuck on IE6-dependent apps.

10 years ago, maybe. But Slashdot has changed somewhat and, reputedly, so has M$

Solar's impact is greater than just the percentage may lead you to believe.
In many places like CA, TX and the Southwest, it's quite predictable, almost a given in AZ, and the solar daily ramp-up is a good match to the consumption curve.
Also, if you have a lot of rooftop solar that's feeding self-consumption, there's far less stress on the electricity distribution & transmission infrastructure.

TX may have a significant amount of wind turbines but they would have been better off ramping up solar installations once the price started falling back in 2008, even if they didn't install a single additional wind turbine - not that I'm much opposed to wind power.

My wife is from the Philippines and I've traveled there a few times. One of the first things that one notices is that there are very few overweight people. I mean like one in a thousand. It's funny in a way because most young women have great legs even if they're not otherwise pretty.

But when they come to America they tend to gain weight rapidly. In the Philippines they eat a lot of starch. Actually, most calories probably come from starches. But they also tend to move around a lot more.

Here, the issue is not just the diet - it's also the sitting around watching TV or whatever, along with driving everywhere and walking only minimally.

Anyway, the point being that it's not just the food - it's the lifestyle.

"Poverty" and "income inequality" are very different. While the US has a fairly large income inequality, poverty isn't common. (Note that "poverty" to most people means "unable to meet basic needs"). The irony is in our culture that poor people tend to be overweight.