I think you’re limited here in that your frame of reference is only what was offered on the US market. Lots of the rest of the world has always had access to fantastic smaller cars, and still does. In the UK, for example, just this last year we’ve had launches of the R5, the Inster, the eC3, the Epiq, with plenty more to come, like the Twingo.

I’d argue that this has less to do with unsuccessful messaging from Biden and more to do with horrendously successful messaging from an unholy alliance of anti-vaxxers, MAGA types, right wing media, etc. Amoral people decided to sow doubt, and it’s a lot easier to break than it is to fix

There is absolutely *no* Alzheimer's medication that can halt a patient's progression in a clinically meaningful way. I love the idea of him clinging to false hope, though, as his mind erodes.

(The best drugs for Alzheimer's are capable of slowing the progression of a single symptom, memory loss, by six months. So if he started on them at 78, then by age 83, he'll have the memory he would otherwise have had at age 82.5. The effect is so small it can only be detected in population studies. There's lots of trials, but there's also lots of grandiose claims that never go anywhere)

So, TikTok, not Roblox! C’mon.

There was absolutely nothing in that article about Roblox usage. It talked about browsing websites.

You mentioned Tesla only, and you talked about "if" everyone had their thumb on the scale, rather than the fact that they do. And you didn't explain why Chinese OEMs should be obliged to enter the market unsubsidized while US OEMs have, by your own admission, received subsidies.

No, it's never meant that.

In the UK, million has always meant 10^6. Milliard has always meant 10^9, but has fallen out of favor. Billion used to mean 10^12, but now usually means 10^9. Billiard has always meant 10^15, Trillion used to mean 10^18, and now usually means 10^12.

It’s crazy! Here in London, UK, there’s a massive jumble of cars, everything from a Citroen Ami (very rare) or Smart car (pretty common) through to superminis (ten-a-penny), saloons and a bunch of SUVs of varying sizes. But the largest we have is something like a Range Rover, and the smallest SUVs are things like my own car, a Mercedes EQA, which is only 4.4m long. Pickup trucks are super-rare.

Yes to all of that!

But instead we have a 100+ comments focused on bullshit about engine reliability which affects a small % of people, as opposed to the costs of poor fuel economy, which affect many more.

The demand is all coming from AI data centres. We had data centres being built for years without this massive spike in demand.

It boggles my mind that no policy maker seems able to turn the AI demand for energy into an opportunity. Historically, where there's a surge in demand from wealthy industrial customers for a service, governments have been able to extract additional value. The obvious thing to do is to turn to the data centres owners and say "we are happy to give you grid connections, but we're going to charge you at twice the current market rate to fund infrastructure and lower bills for householders". It's such an obvious populist move, I don't understand why it's not being pursued, at least in the UK where we don't have the complete batshittery of US politics.

I'm one of the 18 people in the world who don't live in the US.

So frigging annoying that almost every post on here just accepts the ridiculous framing that Sinij has been pushing, that the most significant effect of this change will be to cut costs because vehicles will become more reliable. Obviously, the two most significant effects will be:
- Vehicles will cost more to operate, because they will need more fuel per mile
- Vehicles will spew more pollutants per mile, damaging the environment and hurting the health of people (and animals)

But because of the framing, no one has talked about this

He never has and he never will. It's all just a bollixy old story he tells himself, like the one about who Slashdot readers are, because he absolutely will not countenance that this is about points on a scale and supporting modal shifts for as many journeys as possible, rather than just trying to stop the use of cars / trucks altogether:
Active transport > electrified public transport > ICE public transport > EV private transport >>> ICE private transport.

That is a very convoluted explanation of how this is going to cost Americans money, just like the stuff about how vehicles are going to be magically more reliable is a convoluted explanation of how this is going to mean Americans spend less.

The blindingly obvious truth is that the operating costs for vehicles is going to increase, because they will use more fuel per mile in the future. And that is the direct and clear reason that this is going to cost Americans money. The other obvious reason is that it is going to be just another way in which US OEMs will diverge from global secular market trends, and thus lose out on economies of scale.