Huh? Converting an automatic car to a manual transmission is almost never a good idea. You're much better off just selling it and buying another (used) model that has the stick-shift from the factory. There's way too many differences between them, especially with modern cars which likely have different engine computers. Even in older cars without the software factor it's a giant PITA.

The newest Prius doesn't look bad at all. However, it's made by Toyota, which has been shown to be incompetent at developing safety-critical firmware.

The SmartCars are butt-ugly, however. And it too little cargo space. The Prius at least seats 4 and has a nice hatchback layout with tons of cargo space.

My $8k used Volvo is incredibly safe, comfortable, and enjoyable to drive, and didn't cost much more than you spend per year on your ridiculous car's maintenance.

1) iPads (and tablets in general) will dominate over PCs once they solve the printing and windows compatibility problem (reality: even the latest tablets suck for these tasks, but PCs are in decline while tablets sales are set to overtake overall PC sales).

Tablets are outselling PCs because people already have PCs, and they aren't replacing them every 2-3 years like they did 10-15 years ago. PCs aren't getting noticeably faster, and software isn't getting horribly slower the way it used to, so everyone's just keeping what they have. This doesn't mean PCs are "dying". Go look at cars driving by you on the road; you'll see lots of people driving cars 10+ years old, since cars last a long time now. Are cars "dying"?

but many folks would gladly give up one or all three of those current benefits for a car that can be bought without going to a dealer, accelerates like a bat out of hell and is smooth and silent and gets OTA software updates and support. Tesla intended to disrupt the market and looks like they're doing so very well.

This is exactly correct. Plus, in the transition period, with so many households being dual-vehicle, it's quite likely many/most EV buyers would also own a gas car, probably less used. They'd use the EV for daily stuff, and the gas car for long trips. You don't really need to be able to drive cross-country in an EV.

Exactly. Or, just use your second car. Seriously, how many people who shell out $75-100k for a car only have a single vehicle?

220V is better for several reasons; not only is it capable of higher currents (with US residential feeds), it's more efficient than 110V since 1) the voltage is higher so you get lower line losses and 2) you're not splitting 220V across a neutral tap on a transformer, and creating an unbalanced load.

1) One needs to be able to charge it quickly, perhaps with an upper limit of about 10 minutes or so,

You don't really need this. When you have an electric car, you plug it in at home and recharge it overnight. Or at work, or some other convenient charging station when you're around town, once these become more ubiquitous. I don't know about you, but I only commute about 30 miles per day. I seriously doubt many people commute more than 100 per day.

If you can afford a $65k-100k car, you very likely have a second car as well. If the second car is a gas car, as it likely is, you don't need extremely long range or fast charging times. Use the gas car for the occasional road trip, and use the Tesla (or other EV) for your daily errands and commutes.

But you're right, once those three points are hit, gas cars are done for. But even before that, there's a market, I think, for people who might want an EV as one of their cars, to use for commuting. If Tesla or someone else made a small, inexpensive (relatively) EV with 100 or 120-mile range, there might be a lot of buyers interested in getting that as their commuter car.

Re-Engineering the electric infrastructure around an alternative source of energy which we do not have.

We don't have electricity? What are you smoking?

This isn't like trying to build hydrogen fueling infrastructure, which Pres. Bush was all excited about in the early 2000s. You just plug into the local power grid.

I'm really ashamed to be part of the Slashdot community. You so-called "nerds" are a pathetic bunch of luddites; you're just like buggy engineers who poo-pooed the then-new automobiles.

No one said the Model S would be available for 35K in 5-7 years. The plan is to make a smaller, cheaper, lower-range model for 35K.

The 35K EVs out there today are an embarrasment.

You're an idiot. The Tesla is rated at over 400 horsepower. There's no 30k Ford with that kind of power.

The other thing to remember about the Tesla is how safe they are, as proven by many crash tests. It's probably by far the safest car available, definitely far safer than anything else built in America. It probably helps a lot not having a big gas engine in front of the passenger compartment, and being able to dedicate that space to crash protection.

It will be pretty soon, when more managers hear about this. Is this in the US or somewhere else?

It's perfect! Unsinkable? Unthinkable!
No Homer will ever be allowed, and all the regulators will be objective and unbowed!

Most client machines don't have multiple drives mirrored either. I was thinking purely in a server setting when I made the comments, though I'll admit that I didn't specify.

A HD with two head systems still wouldn't match an SSD for random reads, but it'd be much better than one. Depending on the use it's seeing, it could even employ different algorithms depending on the use mode it's seeing to help speed things along. In addition, more cache might help it during a large sequential read, allowing the heads to leapfrog each other better. Like I said - engineering and programming nightmare, but an interesting thought experiment.

You're talking about how the system queues multiple data(read/write) requests with the drive, and the drive possibly delivering them out of order(because it's using an optimized path to collect all the data), right?

I assumed that capability from the start. The REAL trick to the system is that to date it's one read head per platter, thus one device serving all the data. With two head systems, the question comes up of how you optimally assign said demands between the two head systems to most efficiently move the data.

I'm guessing you're heterosexual then?