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Comment Re:diluting the market (Score 1) 249

For years the USA had a protected market. The lack of a foreign dealer market and parts support was a non tariff barrier to entry. There were also tariff barriers. Then the freight cost, since the handling cost was large.

Then a few large foreign makers decided to enter the market as a multi-year effort. The solved the parts and dealer probler, and developed RORO car carriers (RORO = Roll On - Roll off), where dedicated car carrying ships were made with the ability to drive cars onto special tracked and cleated decks, so each car could be tied down front and rear with fast latching equipment, they could be loaded as fast as drivers could drive them in with many entry points..

That cut the freight cost and delay down greatly .

Then they attacked the planned obsolescence concept, with cars that outlasted US cars by years. The USA tried to fight back with style changes, but the mileage laws that made the fleet efficiency increase over time, forced a streamlined efficiency = better drag co-coefficient = cars all started to adopt shapes mandated by the efficiency = look alike = less fashio,

Europeans and Asians have always wanted cars that lasted longer = less rust = better paint and galvanizing.

Comment Re:diluting the market (Score 2, Interesting) 249

Ah yes, a vehicle designed by GM, to require frequent maintenance, and to rust out in northern area in 5 years, all to keep the replacement parts and dealer system alive.
Tesla wants to eliminate that entire costly tier, a tier that was required by gas cars that wore fast and needed adjustment and complex transmissions etc.
What does an electric car need of a transmission. A differential can be needed, but Tesla might craft a car with 2 rear motors or 4 motors for 4 wheel drive - all direct drive = zero transmission or differential.

Then the UAW cost burden, the pension burden etc etc. - the only way GM can do this by cheating the buyers. Cheating them in the way that killed off most of the USA car business over the last 50 years.

Comment Re:I'm spending 60% of my monthly income on rent (Score 1) 940

The only way for this self destructive positive feedback to be curbed is by calling a property owned for rental purposes a business and taxing it as such without allowing this increase to be passed through to tenants in current leases. There will be an exemption to owners who rent out a a self contained unit in their home.
This would ruin the building companies current racket.

Comment Re:The problem is that landfills are too cheap (Score 1) 371

The only way to promote recycling is to transfer the city cost to the consumer. We are used to can and bottle deposits. If we made more packaging material carry a cash deposit (of the right amount to motivate people to return for the $$, but not enough to make it practical to manufacture fake corn flakes boxes etc)

This would create a logistics nuisance as all these sellers would have to deal with the volume of returns, but that is the price we need to pay to start to solve the problem.

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