Why don't the automakers just seek refuge under the DMCA from all those evil automobile hackers? Clearly, figuring out how your car works is a direct attack on the very hard work and property of those automakers.

Time to pass a bill state by state. I'm the sure the invisible hand of the free market will line all the right politicians' pockets to rush those through. Hopefully someday we won't be able to own our cars and we can go back to the Ma Bell days when every phone was rented.

For me, the "connection charge" is already an itemized part of the electric bill, so nothing will change.

Smart inverters will solve all of this nonsense. It wasn't long ago that the local gas company would offer special rates to larger customers if they would set up for gas/oil heat and allow their gas service to be remotely shut off. The problem was that, on really cold days, the demand for as would be so high that the pressure would drop and people's furnaces would kick out... so they came up with a scheme that could reduce demand.

I don't see why something similar could not be done with solar. Grid-tie inverters already turn themselves off if they don't "see" grid power that's within the voltage and frequency tolerances, so there is no barrier to getting the inverters to safely shut off or reduce output. All that's needed is a throttling mechanism that will allow the utility to remotely control what goes out into the grid from the home. The inverter can be set to produce only what the home is using and no more, or cut out entirely if needed. We have smart meters that can detect which way the power is flowing so the only missing piece is the control itself.

Seems like a perfect application of power line communication technology; just wedge a controller box in next to the inverter that also interfaces with the meter and waits for a signal to enable throttling.
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Well crap, I got the wrong make :(

The mission was complete; the cargo was delivered to the intended orbit with no difficulties.

They just didn't get the bonus points for a successful experiment in first stage recovery. Once first stage recovery becomes routine, then you can consider it part of the operation - but never part of the mission. They are contracted and paid to deliver the payload to orbit, not recover the first stage.
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I got a 404...

Nuclear weapons are not - and don't need to be - anywhere near as accurate with their targeting.

They also aren't intended to land.
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When it comes to hitting a platform in the middle of the Atlantic ocean with a 15-story building falling from the edge of space, they're basically 2/2.

The ultimate game of lawn-darts!
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So you're not going to be satisfied until some arbitrary, indefensible requirement is met?

For comparison: The Nissan LEAF alone sold more in its first four years than the Toyota Prius in its first four years. EVs in total have sold roughly a third as many vehicles in four years as the *total* Prius sales in the past eighteen years. (536K[1] vs ~1.4M[2])

I don't think anyone could make a credible argument that the Prius was/is a failure, and EVs are on a trajectory to overcome them in market share despite naysayers, FUD and lack of availability.
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[1] http://insideevs.com/monthly-p...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

There are no 2-dollar iPhone batteries because you can't (officially) replaces the iPhone's batteries :)

You're also dealing with different types of batteries here. The chemistry used in consumer electronics isn't the same as those used in (most) electric cars... only Tesla uses commodity cells.

An EV battery is also pretty much the equivalent to buying in bulk. If you purchased 500 iPhone batteries (~27kWh worth) at once you might possibly get them for $2 each.
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About 3% US market share of similarly-priced vehicles ($25K+) in just 4 years, despite many models being unavailable outside a handful of key states.

That's a far cry from "utter shit" for market penetration of a product that's significantly out of the norm and facing strong opposition.
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I know several people who stay away from the polls "as a protest", not realizing that they're not affecting anything at all; it's not seen as protest, but as apathy.

Yep that's right because once the pattern recognition has mastered the easy stuff -- which it seems to be close to doing -- they'll shut down all development on tackling edge cases and anomalies. That's how it works, right? We're still driving cars with shoe brakes and using regular picture framing glass so our bodies are cut up in an accident, right?

I mean, some of these problems like icy roads and snow might make for unsolvable problems but we already have cars that can detect loss of traction and go into traction control mode. Have you ever heard of ABS? Developments like that will likely come along for the special cases of autonomous driving. If they don't, it's certainly not a death knell on the technology. At this point, I'll accept a 95% solution.

That's it? That's your substance? Hell, why not try? Here are my own guesses:

• Insurance companies will struggle to adjust. You know all those annoying GEICO commercials? Prepare to watch a lot less of them and if you're in the auto insurance business, now would be a good time to diversify. And if you're not in that business, prepare to enjoy not having to pay monthly on auto insurance. Huge plus for the economy.
• Real Estate prices will fluctuate away from metropolises. Oh, 1,000 sq ft in a downtown townhouse is $1.5 million dollars? Or a nice house on 100 acres of land is $125,000 but it's one hour away from downtown? Yeah, I think I'll just take that hour drive twice a day and just watch netflix on my phone or read on my kindle or code on my laptop or even just sleep it.
• Drunk driving/texting while driving/distracted driving will become ailments of the past. Lose your license? Afraid of going home from happy hour "buzzed"? Just buy an autonomous car. A lot less accidents too -- huge plus for society.
• Organ sources will dry up. A lot of organs come from car & motorcycle accidents. Morbid but true. Need to up our game on printing organs in order to prepare for this.
• If idiots connect their cars or the underlying system to the internet, people will end up at hacked destinations.
• Parking will become a bigger business -- especially garages that work hand in hand with autonomous vehicles.

These are all, of course, many years off. But it is starting to look more and more inevitable.