Exhibit A: A freshly minted climate denier talking point. It was likely created by a "PR" company and focus group tested. It sounds like it comes from an expert...someone who has studied the climate history of California. However, no references are given. It merely relies on the confident tone to reach its target audience...the sector of society that has little scientific expertise and that doesn't want to believe that the truck in their garage is likely to make the lives of their grandchildren quite difficult.

Really, this all reminds me of Grima Wormtongue in Lord of the Rings. Seriously, watch Petropolis, and tell me you can't see Mordor in the Canadian tar sands.

The car is almost always plugged it at night. It has a computer. It is trivial to program it to warm up before leaving.

It is hostility based on its physics, based on the simple fact that it will be a dead end. No technological breakthrough, no engineering project, no amount of effort or creative thought will change the fundamental lack of efficiency in this method of energy storage. It is wasteful of energy and will lengthen the time for our society to move to electric transportation. Governments will dump large amounts of money into it. Corporations will use it as their way of satisfying governmental requirements for green technology. But you will still in the end be left with a choice. If you want to move your electric car, do you want to lose 20% of input energy by using grid electricity to charge a battery or 70+% of your energy by using hydrogen. It is simple, unchangeable physics.

Really? Hydrogen? Ok. First off, hydrogen is an energy carrier, not a source. Most hydrogen for transportation these days comes as a bi-product of fossil fuels. So that's not really so clean.

So what if we make the hydrogen from H2O using electrolysis...that means we split 2 H2O molecules into 1 O2 and 2 H2 molecules. There is going always going to be some heat generated in this process, which is by definition waste.

The real and fundamental flaw in this process comes next. In order to transport and use the hydrogen, you have to compress it. This takes energy. Extra energy. And when you compress a gas, it gets warmer. This is a fundamental law of physics. So we have compressed hot gas. What happens to that heat energy? It will certainly not be used to power the car. It will likely be wasted.

Next, you have to transport the compressed hydrogen gas. This also takes energy. Energy that will be lost.

Another large problem with hydrogen gas is that the molecules are small. Why is that a problem? Because it will be difficult to contain the gas. It will tend to escape. The gas will be lost in compression, in transport, and in storage. It is likely that if you fuel your hydrogen car up and park it, you will lose most of your fuel to the air in several days.

Finally, we have to change the energy in the hydrogen back into electrical energy to power the electric motors. The efficiency of fuel cells is an engineering problem, but I suspect there is some intractable physics in there that will cap the efficiency. Let's assume a best case scenario of perhaps 50% efficiency for the cells. That is still a lot of waste. However if you factor in the losses from electrolysis, compression, storage as well, you will have an overall efficiency less than 50%. Probably quite a bit less. So let's say for the sake of argument that the entire process is 30% efficient, which I suspect is generous.

It is well known that the electricity transmission system is highly efficient. Some easy research should tell you that the transmission system is more than 90% efficient. When we charge a battery, there are come losses. But they aren't that high. Let's assume the charging system is 80% efficient. Overall then, that process would be 72% efficient (I think it is higher than that actually).

So, if you have 100J of energy that you wish to use to drive the electric motors in a car, you can use hydrogen, and get less than 30J to the motors, or you can use the electrical grid, and get 70J to the motors. Honestly, why would you use hydrogen? Especially since the fuel cells would be complicated, expensive, and of unknown reliability. Hydrogen as a fuel is flawed at the level of fundamental physics. These problems cannot be engineered away.

Here is a blog about someone's trip in a Tesla across the US in winter. I think that pretty much takes care of all of your points. But you might also be interested in the fact that Norway is one of Tesla's best customers. Here is a video of a Tesla P85D beating a snowmobile in a drag race on ice. And for your convenience, here is a google search with the query "Tesla cross country road trips".

I'm not sure why you have been marked "interesting" when your post is counter-factual or at least deceptive.

Really? Were you aware that Norway is one of Tesla's best customers. I think Norway is a cold country? Here is blog about someone's trip across the US in winter. Here is a video of a Tesla P85D passing pulled over SUV's after a bad snowstorm. I don't see any blankets.

Oh, and Californians buy many Tesla cars. California is kind of hot, isn't it?

I agree. I felt so sorry for Natalie Portman in Episode III. "Oh Ani! YOU'RE BREAKING MY HEART!" Seriously. I cringe. That is no one but the director.

Watch Natalie Portman in Black Swan. She is utterly brilliant.

Not that I hate Star Wars. Far from it. The broad story arcs echo many ancient myths and stories. George Lucas has said that he read Joseph Campbell's "Hero with a Thousand Faces" which surveys many ancient myths for commonality. The idea of a young boy escaping his mundane life to find his "hero's journey" is primal, as is the story of a son of facing the sins of his father. In my mind these things elevate Star Wars into the pantheon of cinema, in spite of the horrific dialog.

NO! In a democratic society, we should NEVER tolerate intolerance.

Fair enough, but what scares me is how many extremists are already in power, in Congress and in the Senate. And on the road to the White House. We as a society really do need to take a close look at what is known as the "christian dominionist movement". This movement seeks to establish an American theocracy with the rule of law given by the bible. We should think about what these people are actually proposing: the death penalty for abortion, both for doctor and mother. The death penalty for homosexuality. Here is an article to give you an idea of what I am talking about. A very good read on this subject is American Fascists.

It is easy to dismiss these people as being a crazy fringe. Indeed every society has its own lunatics. What is concerning is how this extreme form of christianity has infiltrated the main stream of christianity and what we commonly know as the christian right. What is extremely concerning is how many mainstream politicians share similar modes of thought to this movement. When I hear about laws such as what Tim Cook is writing about, I hear the clicking of a ratchet, bringing us a small step towards an American version of the taliban government.

Those of us with a sense of what is actually going on must work towards steering our society away from this cliff. Above all, we should promote the idea that although we live in a tolerant nation, we should never tolerate intolerance. The bastards who bring in laws like this should be run out of town.

Chris Christy scares the bejesus out of me. His personality is scary. He is the kind of guy who in my opinion you don't want to give too much power. The way he shouts down people who are weaker than him particularly concerns me. This article is a good summary of him.

Or she can sell off the US government's core technological assets and turn America into a hollow corporate brand name that creates almost nothing. Just like she did with HP when she sold off HP's advanced technology division as Agilent, and changed HP from a technological powerhouse into a brand-name for shitty computers and components.

Yeah well, I don't think that Bill Gates is a genius. According to this interesting perspective,

And Edison was rather similar. Edison used brute force discovery to solve the light-bulb filament problem, and used some, shall we say agressive business tactics to protect his business. In order to make people afraid of his competition (alternating current, Westinghouse), he used AC to electrocute animals such as elephants. He successfully campaigned to have AC used to execute death row prisoners (the electric chair). He was, IMHO not a genius.

Elon Musk is, in my opinion, a bona fide genius. With a bachelors degree in physics, he taught himself rocket science, and was the chief designer of an entire rocket, the Falcon I. This rocket managed to put two objects in orbit before being superceded by the Falcon 9. The amount of information he must have learned is astounding. Fluid dynamics, combustion, orbital dynamics and trajectory control, metallurgy, each in and of itself an entire field of study. He also has a solid background in computer science.

So, I will give what Musk says on the future of transport quite a bit of weight. He has earned it.

In some European cities, it is customary to leave your car parked in neutral and with no parking brake on (obviously on the flat). When someone wishes to park parallel park in a tight spot, they just nudge the cars in front or behind, causing them to roll, widening the spot. This allows cars to be parked "nose to tail".