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.

Yes, it was more important to waste money on workers wages and benefits, as the US auto industry went down the drain, than to make the vehicles a little better - thus opening the door to all those foreign cars that were better made, latsed longer etc, etc.

I had anticipated that more expensive, higher working load vehicle, might cost more and that they would make some attempt to make them last longer. Of course planned obsolence = planned rust out....

LOL, no, I did not note that it was another with informational content...

Then you are lucky, unless some aftermarket coating was applied or it was made with galvanized sheet steel?

you may be right, it needs to be fully off

avoiding unsprung weight is good.
I want zero mechanical complexity = no differential and 2 inboard front motors and two inboard rear motors for 4WD

3/4 trucks have thicker steel - last longer than the lighter ones.

Still 14 years = a good run.

Re: Onstar - I thought that was free for year one and then stopped unless you paid a monthly fee. The Tesla is also accessible over the wir - WiFi or Cell++ I do not know.

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.

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.

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.

I hereby collect you as my 10,000th genetic slave - the real Genetic Overlord...

I know some viruses insert into the genome at random places. Some of the places are close to known oncogenes, and may enhance the risk of expressing those oncogenes.
A virus known to do this may well be otherwise harmless, but if we can identify it, we may be able to vaccinate children against it, thus reducing the later risk of cancer from that cause. There might be dozens of them and we might be able to reduce cancer over-all this way

With the advent of power FETs, we were able to get rid of the 0.7 volt drop x two = 1.4 volts lost on bridge rectification. Even Germanium and Shottky diodes had 0.3- 0.4 x two = 0.6 to 0.8 volts wasted in rectification. With 12 Volts AC this is a high loss.

Now they use FETs as switches for "synchronous rectification", a very old concept from the dawn of electricity and used in switching power supplies, with toroidally wound coils which allows for efficiency in the 97%+ range. Look here for data http://bit.ly/1HX5Zea

Now mobile homes went to 12 volts, and earlier to 6 Volts, due to the car voltages used in those days.
Now many mobiles are 24 volts.

with losses well under 5% you can free yourself from many limitations.

The most powerful reason for the use of 24 volts or less in homes and trailer light and power is the ability to avoid many grid laws and license restrictions that are linked to safety and the 120/240 Volt grid.

You can operate off-grid quite well at 24 volts. You can use high order home insulation methods to reduce heating and air conditioning loads.
You can buy many appliances that run on 24V DC - or use 24 volts inverters for each 120 volts appliance of the correct size for each appliance to operate at the 97% efficiency range. Freezer and refrigerators can also be bought with high efficiency insulation to save heat and cold more efficienctly