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Comment Re:Even 200 miles of range means that you... (Score 1) 318

The interesting part is if you do a lease, as those credits/incentives can be claimed too.
The $7500 federal tax credit gets claimed by the dealer on a lease, but they apply it as a downpayment.
This is how you can get a Chevy spark EV for $139/month with $0 down on a 39 months lease.
And if you leave in CA, you also get the $2500 state incentive, which brings the cost down to $75/month for the life of the lease.
This is for a new car.

As long as these federal and state incentives continue, you could just lease a new one every 39 months for this price.
Your total cost for three 39-month leases would be $8775 and you would get to have 3 new cars over 10 years (9 years and 9 months actually).

The Leaf S will still cost you more on a lease. I haven't test driven the Spark EV. It is not available in many states, whereas the Leaf is.

Comment Re:Even 200 miles of range means that you... (Score 1) 318

Traffic is certainly an issue on the freeways here in California. Probably not so in Canada which has population in the same range as California, but spread over a much larger area.

I agree with you that the Tesla supercharger network is not all it could be. It is not the only option to charge, though, but other options are much slower (level 2, level 1) and not suitable for long trips unless it's your last charge of the day (overnight).

If I had to go to Canada I would likely fly though, as I wouldn't be able to afford to take the time it would take to drive, even if it were feasible with the existing network. I don't have a Tesla S anyway, I have a Leaf, and I make 0 trip per year >200 miles.

Comment Re:Even 200 miles of range means that you... (Score 1) 318

A used Leaf already costs less than $14,000 .

Nissan has plenty of Leaf SL/SV from 2011/2012/2013 coming off leases to unload right around that price

Even a new one is not much more, if you buy the entry level model Leaf S.

MSRP on a Leaf S is $29,010 .

Factor in the $7,500 federal tax credit and you are at $21,510 .

If you live in California, you also get a $2,500 CVRP check for buying a car, or leasing one for at least 36 months.
Some other states have similar incentives as well.

That brings it down to $19,010 .

And of course, you may not pay MSRP for the car.

Comment Re:Some good data... (Score 1) 434

Personally, I am absolutely fed up with the Android OS update situation.

But I am also fed up with the direction that every Android manufacturer has gone. The T-Mobile G1 had a great 5-row physical keyboard. This was the first Android device, which I owned. So did the Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G.

There haven't been any decent Android devices with physical keyboards released since, let alone a flagship.

Apple is clearly not the solution as they don't offer physical keyboards either.

Using a third party pocket physical keyboard like a bluetooth keyboard is not a solution - it requires a case and makes the phone too big, and it also requires separate charging. The software also generally doesn't work as well with the optional keyboard vs the built-in one.

I used my LG G3 with a stylus and a case for 6 months before it was stolen. But this was not nearly as useful as a physical keyboard.
I'm doing the same with the old Galaxy S3 right now, which was my husband's old phone.

For me, voting with my dollars might mean just not buying another smartphone, since there is really nothing on the market that's suitable in terms of input devices. I hate touch screens with a passion.

Comment Re:Even 200 miles of range means that you... (Score 1) 318

This car does exist - my Nissan Leaf with a degraded battery and when using the heat or AC and driving freeway at 65mph has approximately a 50 mile range.
In a few years it will be closer to 40 miles. But it will be someone else's problem as it's a lease which I will return next January.
Not sure what my next car will be, though, since Tesla 3 specs are not known, or avilability.

Comment Re:Even 200 miles of range means that you... (Score 1) 318

Just how many >200 miles trips do you do a year by car that you won't stop ?
Stopping 30 mins to charge every 200 miles isn't the end of the world.
200 miles is at least 3 hours of driving and probably much more depending on traffic.
I know my bladder would be an issue long before the battery would. I would need to stop before 3 hours.
The Tesla S range is a bit more than 200 miles also, I think 240.

I think it's fairly realistic to use a Tesla S if there are Superchargers available on the route you are taking.

Comment Re:Does This Make Sense? (Score 1) 318

I have an EV and a solar PV system which supplies 90% of my household annual electricity consumption, including the relatively small amount it takes to charge the car.

The remaining 10% electricity comes from the California grid which is rather clean compared to the rest of the country.

So no smoke plume here, locally or anywhere.

Comment Re:Some good data... (Score 1) 434

What incentive do Samsung, HTC or LG have to pressure Google to do the right thing ?
They are not going to make money from providing security updates. They will argue lose sales in the short term if people keep their old devices longer.

They will only have an incentive to fix them if people get fed up with the problem and switch to the competition.

Comment Re:Some good data... (Score 1) 434

When non-techies get their data from their unpatched devices compromised/stolen, perhaps they will start to care about updates, too.

But that doesn't mean the latest iOS or Android release necessary, just the original version that came with the device, plus security backports.

Of course, backports are expensive. Most companies don't want to support too many versions of their software for indefinite periods of time.

However, I can tell you from working on enterprise software that support in terms of security vulnerability fixes is often offered in contracts for periods of 10 years and sometimes even more .

The situation with consumer software support and especially device OS is deplorable.

And fragmentation of the OS is at the root of it . Since each manufacturer customizes the OS for each device, they would need to backport all fixes for each device. Which of course they can't afford to do as they don't sell expensive 10-15 year support contract, like enterprise software companies do.

IMO the support model has to change. Buying a new $600+ device every 2 years just to get updates should not be the answer.
It is not just expensive, but also terrible for the environment.

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