Actually electric motors power the biggest machines I can think of, such as draglines, railroad locomotives and ships. The Presidential limo is not designed for a high speed getaway, it is really an armored personnel carrier with a nice paint job. It also doesn't have to go very far. The only time a limo had to go very "fast" was after an assassination attempt, but remember that it has a police escort that will clear all other traffic ahead of it. In JFK's case, speed would have been irrelevant, and in Reagan's case, they still had to drive through Washington D.C. streets which were more of a speed limitation than the limo itself. In addition, there is always an ambulance following the motorcade, so the POTUS would be transferred to it for a medical emergency. (This didn't happen for Reagan since he was shot right next to the limo. His Secret Service agent pushed him in after noticing blood and made the decision to go to the ER immediately.)

Four independent electric motors might actually give the limo more mobility than a single ICE, since all four would have to be knocked out to immobilize the car. They would also be lighter than the ICE. As for power, they could always charge up an electric limo using the APU on board AF1, or just carry additional battery packs. Another option would be to put a turbine generator in the car if extra range were needed, but I seriously doubt the POTUS will ever take a road trip in the limo. Truman might have done it for fun since he liked driving so much, but that was a different time.

Dear NIssan,

One word will explain why the LEAF is not popular:

FUGLY

Speaking of stopping posting, it's time for US Slashdot users to start logging out. The boycott lasts from February 10 through February 17. Let's make it hurt. More specifically, let's make sure DICE hurts -- we're not really hurting /. because /. is US.

Big talk from an AC.

tl;dr FUCK BETA

I'll just throw something out there as someone who works in the media business. I'm in editorial, mind you, so the money side of it is not my thing and I mostly pay no attention to it. But I have worked in offices with people whose job it was to get advertisers to spend money. And just based on the gossip I've heard around the water cooler, the general feeling among sales types is that Slashdot couldn't sell an ad to the Pope on Christmas, I'm sorry to say. The perception is that this community has massive value, but nobody knows how to extract that value. Certain aspects of this community -- most likely, love of free software, liberal opinions when it comes to things like the Pirate Bay and BitTorrent, general cynicism and hatred of corporate messaging, if I had to guess -- make it poison to advertisers. Everybody wants this market, but nobody wants to market to this market if there's a strong chance that it will actually backfire and make them look worse.

So that's the position Dice is in. I'm not saying this to condone how they've handled /. since they acquired it. I've already made my opinions on that clear. I'm just saying it to give you guys some impression of where we are and why.

When you're talking about consumer storage for families, you need three things: reliable, easy to use, and web-based.

That said, it seems to me what you're looking for is SLASHDOT BETA. It has been designed with ease of use in mind, in fact, a complete idiot could poke around at its big images all day and have a great time, and all the whitespace means you'll never get lost, even if you have a major stroke while using it. It's reliable, because unlike the old Slashdot its daily traffic is almost zero, so you'll never have to worry about slowdowns. And it's web-based, because unlike the old Slashdot it uses lots of HTML5 and JavaScript, so that's how you know it's the web, real modern-like.

On the other hand, if you'd prefer to BOYCOTT SLASHDOT, that starts on Monday, February 10. Make sure you logout on Sunday, so that even if you want to check in to see whether Dice has got the message, Slashdot gets NO TRAFFIC from registered users.

And for all you quislings posting about "whining ACs," my real name is Neil McAllister and I am one of the first 5,000 people to register on Slashdot, which means I have been here for almost 20 years. I am fully in support of the anti-beta effort and I am willing to burn all of my karma to bring you this message.

I think it's terrible that the US would try to keep more people from getting access to effective, affordable remedies, such as beta blockers.

Slashdot is a conversation site. The talk IS the action.

Here's some more of it: FUCK BETA.

But before they use that collider they'll want to get it out of Beta first.

Hell, might as well use the opportunity to shill my own stuff (seems like that's what /. is for these days, anyway)...

I was one of the first 5,000 /. users, and like most of you, I too am fed up with all the shenanigans since Dice took over.

That said, I'd like to personally invite the whole, babbling mess of you to come on over to The Register at www.theregister.co.uk.

We're different. We're a little weird. We like to write headlines that pass people off. A lot of the site is pitched from a UK perspective, which means Americans sometimes don't get it, but we actually have an international staff with offices in Australia and San Francisco (where I work).

And even if the headlines sometimes get a little out there, the reporting is actually mostly pretty straight -- although we don't mind calling bullshit when it's warranted. Anyway, at least we DO reporting, unlike /., which just slaps a misleading summary on someone else's stuff. And several of our people have actual tech background (though others are just reporters).

What's more, compared to any other tech site I've ever worked for, we actually do have a lot of really articulate, whip-smart commenters on our stories. I think you would like some of what you read there. We have some trolls and dimwits, too, but that's par for the course.

Fair warning: our comments ARE moderated by our editors. That's probably never going to change, owing in part to the truly ludicrous UK libel laws, where we can be held responsible for the contents of your comments if we "publish" them. But most of what we pull are just pointless personal attacks and spam.

And as a bonus for /.ers, our site design is about as ugly as the old /., so there's that.

Come check us out. We might be kind of an acquired taste but once you acquire it you might be hooked.

I don't really see what good these autonomous vehicles will do. They won't do anything to help get rid of Slashdot Beta, so what's the point?

But that wasn't the proposition. The proposition was how to "get more women interested in open source." If you're talking about excluding women, then fine, if that's actually happening then that's something worth talking about. We shouldn't be excluding people. But why is it necessary to "get people interested"? If they're not interested, then fine, let 'em pursue other interests. It's a big world with lots of options.

Well, that's true, too.