They'd sell a lot more robots, if they looked like beautiful girls. Where is chobits technology already?

Isn't the entire USA a "Constitutional Exempt Zone"?
It sure feels that way.

This is a well-understood technology that has existed since the 1960's -- aside from some materials tech not normally associated with car production, it isn't a big leap to create a vehicle that uses a fuel cell -- heck, they could take an existing Plug-in Prius, pull the battery pack, add-in a fuel cell, and job done.

What *precisely* is making the car this expensive? (I did not RTFA, this *is* Slashdot after all)......

This phone isn't running true Android, it's a port of Android, but using Xenix as the base OS.

For those of you on Slashdot who are not old farts like myself, google "Xenix" to find out what it is. It's part of Microsoft's "Embrace and Extend" policy to use something they own to create a whole new version of an existing popular phone/tablet OS....

And if anyone believe what I'm saying, even for a second, you need to find a BBS for the less naive....

200 pre orders?? Screw that. The Elio has 20,000 pre-orders, and it's not built yet, has a nice low (projected) cost of $6800 and gets 84mpg. And I'd much rather have the Elio than the C-1 (although for a brief moment, I considered the C-1)... But for the long range I need, the Elio fits my requirements better.
http://www.eliomotors.com/

BYD, a Chinese car company, is *supposed* to start selling cars in the USA starting next year as well, of course, every time I read one of those articles, it seems some delay always forced a change of plans.

Tata was also supposed to introduce an American version of the Nano, but my guess is that that's never going to actually happen.

I personally, am hoping the Elio gets off the ground and is a success, not just because it's supposed to be American made, but I'd rather have a car that gets 84MPG, and looks different from everything else on the road. They have 20k reservations already and there's no real car yet, so, clearly the idea is a good one if they can just pull it off without screwing the pooch.

I'm afraid you haven't thought that entirely through yet. CURRENTLY, China's economy depends upon endless American consumption, so tanking the USA's economy by demanding payment would be as bad for China as it would for the USA.

It's kind of like how Donald Trump works -- if you borrow $10k from a bank, and you can't pay it back, you're in trouble. but if you're like Trump and you borrow $100 million from a bank and can't pay it back, the bank is in trouble, so the bank will continue to lend you more and more until you're out of trouble. And allow you to pay it back over decades. Otherwise the bank itself becomes insolvent.

Anyhow; let's assume that China no longer needs a healthy US economy -- they have a large enough middle class that they can afford to consume their own crap, and become a self-sustaining economy no longer dependent upon world trade, like the USA was in the 50's/60's.

So, China demands repayment, even if it destroys the US economy. The US still has a few options, because they are a nuclear power, which can even involve wiping out their debt by wiping out the creditor -- essentially starting world war 3 in order to get out of debt.

But there are other options: For example, when the Chinese middle class reaches the 500 million mark, China may be too expensive to afford itself and will seek to export/offshore manufacturing by that time. Ironically, the USA may be affordable by then, with a large, well-educated, working class in desperate need of jobs.

The Chinese will own the factories, but the stuff will get built in the USA. Which, also ironically, will boost the US's economy and help the USA pay back China. Slowly, over decades, like Trump.

There may be millions of intelligent species out there, but they may be perfectly happy swimming in the ocean all day. Think about it for a minute. There's a potentially second intelligent species here on earth, but we don't give them a moment's thought because they didn't develop an opposable thumb and create tools.

And in hundreds of years, we've never learned to communicate with them on any level that counts. Which makes our chances of every making contact with "aliens" almost impossible.

If they landed in Central Park tomorrow, it might be decades before we could communicate with them because their brains may work in an entirely different way, and we have no frame of reference for communication. They, of course, may have a solution for that, but we sure don't. We're a very, very dumb species when you get right on it.

Lt Saavik: [to Kirk] On the test, sir. Will you tell me what you did? I would really like to know.
Dr Leonard McCoy: Lieutenant, you are looking at the only Starfleet cadet who ever beat the "No-Win" scenario.
Saavik: How?
James Kirk: I reprogrammed the simulation so that it was possible to save the ship.
Saavik: What?!
David: He cheated.
Kirk: Changed the conditions of the test. Got a commendation for original thinking. I don't like to lose.

Would be to get two bots to talk to each other and see where the conversation goes after two minutes -- my guess is that all the code is biased towards tricking actual people in a one-on-one "conversation".

But when a machine converses with another machine, all that code no longer has an effect, and pretty soon the two machines will be essentially babbling *at* each other without actually having a conversation. An outside observer will immediately recognize that both of them are machines.

For example, if they find bleach AND draino under the sink, you're also charged with "Chemical Weapons Possession" if they find candles and matches and charcoal, you have "bomb making materials". The spooks can get you for anything.

Tesla isn't just a car company, they are a technology firm. The *real* value of Tesla (hence the stock price) is in the technology they own and control.

If Teslas chargers become "the standard", then the rest of the world will likely have to license Tesla's other technology to be compatible. This is akin to; anyone can build an ARM-based chip, but you have to license that right from the ARM group, which makes their stock (currently) more valuable then Intels.

Tesla running gear may also become the defacto standard for electric cars, and once the price drops, near unbiquitous -- which will make Musk extremely wealthy. Tesla won't have to make cars anymore, simply license the tech to everyone else to build.

They then can pour that money into more R&D and build even better and better running gear which in turn, all other manufacturers will need to license to keep up with the competition.... Which of course, will keep them very wealthy.

"More than half of Americans -- 52 percent -- say they own stock, mostly as part of a mutual fund or retirement account, according to a Gallup survey conducted in April."

--- of course they do!
How else does that Hedge Fund manager and thousands like him, make those millions? From the millions of Americans who are suckers and believe that the market can work for them and make them money. In reality, they are working hard to make money for the fund manager!

Sure, he gives them something back, but like any other good pyramid scheme, the vast majority of the wealth goes into his own pocket. I can make you a statement account that shows you are making money in my fund -- but that doesn't mean you actually are. Just look at the number of class action lawsuits and tell me that this isn't a grey-area legal scam.

Of course the stock market is divorced from the real world. It's its own bubble, a game played by the upper 5% to enrich themselves and fuck everyone else. They don't care as long as they get their bonus.

You really think a hedge fund manager gives a crap about real-world value? The dude is making $15 million a year shuffling stocks around and skimming right off the top of everyone. He can buy a Ferrari every other week. That's your 'real world value' right there.

The elite don't care. They have burned up America, and were well paid by the taxpayers to do it. Now they are strip-mining what's left and when the country is a empty husk, ready to collapse into a third-world nation, they will get in their private jets, and fly off to their private, gated, guarded compound in Costa Rica or Belize, and live off the interest in their Bermuda bank accounts for the next 12 or 20 generations.

Riddle me this batman... UV light breaks down plastic, I've witnessed it every time I restore a car, or an old computer. All the plastic becomes brittle, breaks down, and eventually crumbles to plastic dust... Why doesn't this happen to the plastic in the ocean -- and everywhere else?