I had that problem back in the day with an original Leaf, and its small battery. Would pop in to IKEA for some free charging and lunch, and my phone would notify me of the charge ending before I was done eating.

You would have less illegal immigration if there were more legal ways to immigrate. Not just work visas, but family reunion visas too.

Work visas need to be for more than just skilled people. Americans don't want to do the hard, unpleasant work of picking crops for minimum wage. That's fine, it's a choice, but you need someone to do it.

Then there's the fact that your whole economy is based on the premise of never ending growth, and your birth rate is falling. Either you start with the handmaid bullshit, you make up the numbers with immigration, or you tell the billionaires that they need to adjust to a shrinking economy while still increasing your wages.

Human beings are not machines, they do not produce a constant stream of output while they are working. Outside of simple manual jobs, at least. They get tired, they have lives outside the office, stress and overworking make them sick.

Turns out that 5 days a week is less efficient than 4 days a week for most people, i.e. they can get the same amount of work done in fewer hours if the duty cycle is reduced. It's a win-win - the employee has more free time and better quality of life, the employer loses nothing in terms of productivity and saves money on their energy bills.

It's main advantage seems to be that it knows where the pieces are on the board.

I've had ChatGPT forget the current state of things with other stuff too. I asked it to do some web code, and it kept forgetting what state the files were in. I hear that some are better like Claude with access to a repo, but with ChatGPT even if you give it the current file as an attachment it often just ignores it and carries on blindly.

In fact one bug it created was due to it forgetting what it named a variable, and trying to use a similar but different name in some new code.

Speaking of which, EV articulated lorries (big trucks) are a thing in Europe and seem to be working just fine. Norway has EV ferries too, some with wireless charging.

Once people own an EV and understand what the range means and how charging works, they tend to lose interest in hybrids. You have so many downsides - a whole ICE that you have to lug around and maintain, combined with a small battery.

To give you an idea, Bjorn Nyland does 1000km tests of EVs against a reference PHEV that he filled up with dino juice. The PHEV clocked in at around 9.5 hours, and the best EVs are under 10 hours. He hasn't tested the ultra fast 5m charging ones yet.

Most people will want a break on a 9.5 hour journey, so in practice the difference is zero. Charge while you get a coffee. Even the more affordable cars like the MGS5 and Renault 5 add less than an hour, which again is typically less than most people spend on lunch and comfort breaks.

25% VAT is normal in Europe. To be part of the EU or EEA you have to have VAT between something like 20% and 25%, I forget the exact numbers. It's on the high end, but not massively out of whack with what most Europeans pay in tax on cars.

As for it being a "small" country, it is physically large and has a fairly hostile climate. That makes it good for stress testing EVs, and they have proven to cope better than fossil fuel powered cars. In particular, EVs offer much better comfort in terms of things like climate control and noise levels, as well as driving better in low grip situations. Some of them charge faster than you can refuel a fossil too.

Most EVs in Norway are not made there, they are imported from elsewhere in Europe, or from China. There is no shortage of vital materials. The issues in the US seem to be largely because of Trump's tariffs and China's reciprocal limits on exports of rare earths there.

It's getting to the point in Norway where it's inconvenient to need fossil fuels. Pumps are being ripped out and replaced with EV chargers and battery swap stations.

Corporate fines don't work because they are a fraction of the profits. Going after individuals will just mean going after low level people because the problem here is we have a ruling class and we don't like to admit it.

There are some marginal gains in terms of climate change for a electric car but they are pretty marginal. Electric cars not only don't stop climate change but the false impression that buying one helps is making things much much worse.

And I know nobody here likes to hear it cuz it's a guaranteed way for me to get modded down but most of the pollution coming from cars is from their tires now. I mean no kidding we've had zero emissions cars for something like 25 years now.

But every time I go outside I get a nice long full of tire particulate. I mean, didn't anyone ever stop to wonder where are tires go when they wear down? Did we think the tire fairy was taking them?

I don't like electric cars because they're a cool neato technology that encourages us to avoid solving real problems. Nuclear is the same way. Nerds love nuclear and they love electric cars because it feels like progress when really it's not.

And that's the last thing anyone wants to hear.

To be fair maga kills everything. The phrase everything Trump touches dies predates his first presidential run.

That's the problem, something this large it's going to crash the economy this hard should have had a big campaign to sell it to voters. They aren't planning on having elections anymore.

The Republican party just does whatever their billionaire rulers tell them to. There was never any doubt that they would vote for the bill and there was never any real holdouts just people posturing so that you'll vote for them in the midterms.

What I'm saying is I never once saw anyone in the Republican party telling me as a voter how and why this big beautiful bill was going to make my life better. They literally do not give a shit what I think because they're not planning on allowing any of us to vote anymore.

Is legendary among the Republican party for tutting and then voting for whatever horrifyingly terrible thing will hurt her constituency the most. The same goes for Susan collins.

It's like an especially cruel game of Charlie Brown and Lucy football.

If you look at their voting record under Trump they voted with him 95% of the time. The remaining 5% they got picked as the slightly more vulnerable politician. The Republicans picked four of them this time cuz that's how many they had and let the VP break the tie so those four can swear up and down they didn't vote for the bill

There is absolutely nothing left in the Republican party or the right wing except hatred, greed and serving the billionaires to see which one of them is going to be the first trillionaire. You cannot be a good person and be a Republican.

You can be an absolutely fucking clueless person, you can be a democrat, or you can be a terrible human being. Pick one.

It is just ludicrously slow. But is a chess player it's surprisingly good if you're willing to be very very patient

*signed, the American corporations.



Ps, you just gave us 5 trillion dollars out of your pockets because half of you were freaking out over moral panics and the other half don't know basic economics, do you think we're going to let you have video games?