The future is rapidly catching up with you. Tesla and other companies have been installing high-speed charging stations all over the U.S., but also Europe, China, and yes, Canada. It is now possible to drive all over the U.S. without getting stuck without a place to charge, and driving with electricity is MUCH cheaper than with gasoline--- and cheaper still when you consider no expensive tune-ups, oil changes, smog tests, and other expenses you only have with gasoline vehicles.

You are too blind to look beyond the present. The best EVs twenty years ago only had a range of 40 or 50 miles... Every year their range and practicality has increased and their affordability has increased... today's EVs are the quickest, most efficient available and continue to improve yearly. The Chevy Bolt is pure electric and gives a range of about 250 miles per charge, and battery tech continues to increase. The Tesla Model S is going to begin production in a few months, will sell for about $35,000, have a 0-60 of under six seconds... no expensive tune-ups like ICE cars... no oil changes every few months... no smog tests... even the brakes may last the life of the car due to "regen", which uses braking energy to help recharge the batteries rather than wear out brake pads. Until you actually immerse yourself in driving an EV, you do not realize all the problems you expect of an EV do not exist.

You think Trump will be some kind of savior--- what a fool. There is no way he or any witless corrupt Republican Congress can keep the EV market from swallowing up any car makers that are foolish enough to buck the trend. Note that every time there is a, spike in oil prices that pit you in the poor house, there is also a spike in EV sales... and those drivers do not return to driving ICE cars once gasoline prices fall--- when a driver sees the tremendous advantages and increased convenience of EVs, they never go back to the doctor ways. I have four vehicles, all are EVs... If they were more of a hassle than gasoline cars I would not have taken even a second EV, and that is typical of EV owners. If I had any doubts that EVs will be thing over the entire car market I would not sign my comments with my own name, because I know that unlike you, I will never suffer the embarrassment of EVs being nothing more than a passing fad. Gasoline is going the way of the horse and buggy.

How ironic that YOU would be calling anyone a "Neanderthal"! You have the language skills of a grade-schooler, and are too blind to notice that Tesla is going gangbusters selling EVs while the market for ICE cars such as you drive fade in popularity. On March 30, when Tesla announced they were ready to, start taking thousand dollars deposits for their latest EV, they amassed 180,000 deposits within 24 hours and 400,000 deposits within several more days. Those are the intelligent one... you, fool, are the true Neanderthal. There are heaps of reasons there are so many eager buyers, and it is because they have seen just how much more powerful, quiet, trouble-free and practical EVs are. I am not one of the imbecile Luddites such as yourself that hide behind the "Anonymous Coward" monickers... I have full confidence in the future of EVs. Every year from now on, EV sales will grow exponentially--- There is my name... Bill Dale... let's see just who is the fool when it comes to what we will be driving in the coming years! EVs will own tomorrow!

You, sir, are a myopic, homophobic twit. All you can see is the "range anxiety" that 8s, quickly fading from existence, unable to see the enormous other benefits EVs have--- they are far more powerful than that wimpy Ford of yours (the quickest street legal production car on the planet is the seven-passenger, four-dopr Tesla Model S. With the most aggressive options, the Tesla can take you from 0-60 kph in 2.4 seconds... slam you to 155 kph without any gear shifts at all... only has about a dozen moving parts in the entire drive train... and provides the equivalent of more than 90 miles per gallon. Try that with any stripped-down, two seat, $million-plus Ferrari, Lambo, or Porsche, struggling in single-digit economy--- and what kind of range anxiety are you imagining, when that same Model S can handle roughly 300 miles on a charge, and battery technology is extending that range every year---a thousand miles per charge is within reach in the coming years. You, fool, will never be able to get real performance until that pig-headed attitude of your changes. It was the Saudis that used our oil money to commit the 9/11 attacks, or is your memory so feeble to recall that? If we continue to give them hundreds of billions of our money yearly, what worse terror do you think they will gift us with? Do you really think they are not hoping to blow us to smithereens with our own oil money? Or do you think their fracking and oil sand extraction and deep offshore drilling will give us anything better--- perhaps you have forgotten the billions of dollars in damage the BP Deep Horizons did a few years ago, and perhaps you turn blind eye to the swarms of major quakes they have been having in the Midwest from fracking? And the pipeline the DAPL wants to put through the Missouri River that is a source of drinking water for millions of Americans? It took thousands of American Vets to make them stand down when trying to illegally force that pipeline through Are you aware of the HUNDREDS of pipeline leaks from identical pipes all over this country that cause billions in damage? Open your eyes, cretin.

I don't know how advanced THAT particular autonomous car is, but if it is anything like the Tesla autopilot system, it is more than twice as safe. There are hundreds of thousands of autonomously outfitted Teslas on the streets and highways of the country, and they are capable of driving all the way from L.A. to New York without human assistance. In the last several years they have quietly amassed billions of miles of roadwork, proving how much better they are at avoiding accidents. The Tesla has a variety of cameras, lasers, lidars, radars, ultraviolet and infrared sensors that can avoid problems where we would be helpless, such as blinding glare, heavy rain, snow, dust, etc. Teslas are not just toys for the rich--- the Model 3 has 400,000 deposits placed at $1000. each; base price is $35,000, minus roughly $10,000 in tax and other incentives. And don't give me any crap about tax breaks--- Cadillacs, Hummers, etc., have gotten billions of dollars in such incentives for decades, and the oil industry has been getting TRILLIONS in corrupt breaks that serve only the rich. The breaks EVs are getting will soon give all of us the ability to drive clean, powerful, full-featured EVs without need to support the oil industry that is choking us to death--- no oil changes, tune-ups, smog tests EVER... and there has never been a war fought over electricity. We have fought one war after another for oil---all the countries we are invading and fighting are just veiled operations to control oil production.

"Libtards"... those who use, such phrases show their ignorance. You obviously think Trump is some kind of messianic savior when in fact he is preordained for nothing more than bringing the entire country to its knees... no, I do not believe Russia was a major influence in the elections but I have no doubt that it was one of several factors, including a variety of voter frauds, plus MSM direction of public attention to Trump, giving him more media coverage than all the rest of the candidates combined. MSM turned the election into a carnival sideshow, and it will cost this country dearly. Unlike you, AC, I signed my name to this comment... being the coward you are you will never have to suffer the embarrassment of your terrible judgement of Trump--- but I sufficiently confident in my assessment of your Messiah that you see my name above--- mark my words: Trump will be the most disastrous POTUS ever, and you and the other Trump supporters will have to live with that forever.

What idiocy. There is nothing one can do with a rocket that will not involve significant risk; that is the nature of the business. Musk is taking a different and successful path that allows them to recoup more than 99.5% of launch cost by reusing the booster through very clever and innovative design and engineering. It has been a half-century of space launch, which has brought us to a point where Musk has given us a way to launch at a, massively lower cost. Those savings can be used to make those launches safer and safer as they gain experience. Considering that SpaceX has yet to lose a single life in their endeavors tells us more about your wish that he would die, than anything about him. You have an exceedingly dark and crusty soul. Tesla, BTW, has already likely saved dozens of lives by its autonomous design. More than a billion miles of their autopilot cars has shown that when drivers are on autopilot, crashes and mortality are reduced by half... Teslas are the safest vehicles on the planet and continue to get safer and safer. If they WERE not saving lives, they would not even be allowed to be on our roads.

You, sir, are either delusional or blind to any information that is not fake-newsed to you by Hannity, the Tea Party and anyone else determined to bloat space budgets for their own financial gain. Here is the bottom line, jackass: in the half-century since a dozen countries have been launching people and payloads into space, they have been spending ~$60 million at least on first stage rocket engines that burned up on falling back to Earth. That was where expense lists BEGAN... SpaceX was the first company (or any entity, such as a country or consortium) to launch multiple satellites into orbit, reverse the attitude of the booster, fire a second time back toward the launch pad, reverse attitude a second time, firing a third time to reduce reentry velocity, and land that twenty-story tall rocket butt-first on a barge rocking about at sea. The first time they did that, they launched 11 satellites into orbit; the rocket was reusable but was instead retained as a historical artifact for display. SpaceX has done this seven times so far, saving nearly half a billion dollars in launch expenses. The fuel at launch costs about $200,000, the main cost of each launch. That means each time they recover the booster and reuse it, cuts launch expenses by more than 99.5% Malign Musk and SpaceX all you want, all you are doing is showing what a miserable basement-dwelling troll you are. Thank you, Elon, ever so much for making space accessible now as it never has been before.

I often read such inane drivel in Slashdot--- this post is quite the exception--- after reading the first hundred or so comments, I feel like I just took a class in metallurgy. Thank you Barbara Hudson, et. al. Very enlightening.

If you check, the computer Tesla uses can perform TENS OF TRILLIONS of operations per second, which is many thousands of times faster than the typical processors in use today in other cars to prevent rear-end collisions.

??? When there are TWO opposing comments ahead of yours and you do not clarify to whom you are directing your "boar" comment, do you realize no one has the slightest way of knowing which side of the issue you are on, or who you wish such evils upon? All you are doing is muddying the waters!

If there is anything we are seriously in need of in Washington, it is scientific and technical literacy and competency. I do not even know who this woman is yet, but she has my vote right out of the gate.

Doug: read more, stay up to date. What you are talking about is already on the market for cell phones and other devices... the Eden you seek is already at hand.

Donald: you have "school smarts", bit with more practical experience and immersion in the varieties of solutions at hand and the ability to combine combinations of new techs, the problems you speak of vaporize. One of the primary techs that would change everything is the plummeting costs and rapidly rising efficiencies of solar cells. Tesla already has thousands of supercharging stations supplied by solar canopies anx battery storage on several continents... all costs are up front. Properly designed, a city's infrastructure could be hassle-free, off the grid, and far more practical than any charging system relying on vandal-prone cabled chargers.