The modification isn't even invasive, can be performed remotely and has some potential to be self-replicating. All you need to do is to modify an ignorant human into an enlightened one.
Or like that film where people are miniaturised.
Maybe a genetic process to make humans smaller each generation until we can ride a domestic cat.
However, when it comes to vehicles, many people are oddly willing to put up with a lot of inefficiencies in the name of occasional convenience or peace-of-mind. How many people drive a pickup with a huge cargo bed that only gets used a couple times a year?
PHEV owner here. Single car in the household, even though I have 2 allocated parking spaces.
By the time the 3-4 year credit agreement is about to renew I'll consider a full EV, but until that happens I'm happy with the compromise of getting only 3.2 miles per kwh. The Tesla charger is installed and will hopefully be ready for whatever car I get next.
This first year of ownership I refuelled twice, ahead of trips to-from the airport. Peace of mind and convenience are certainly worth paying for.
Some worry that the more closely companies intertwine, the more susceptible they are to creating a bubble, or a market not actually supported by real consumer demand
Do investors count as consumers? All I see is Doctorow's trend of enshitification, justifying the removal as many employees as possible until real consumers are paying real money and getting self-service in return.
NY to Phoenix is ridiculous by car, no matter what type. For much smaller distances I'd rent a car rather than add miles to my lease.
And, that drunk homeless guy could be President.
A tempting offer indeed!
Power generation demand can be affected in different ways as private transportation is electrified. It's not an all or nothing proposition.
What we see from China is that they can indeed produce a surplus of BEVs, they can add renewable capacity to the sources they already had, and they can therefore decide to use more renewables.
As fossil fuels demand shrinks, the demand for sea freight goes down as well. Moving fossil fuels to and from refineries is a significant part of sea freight.
As more family cars change over to electricity, the inefficiencies of ICE become more obvious: those who can make the switch need less energy to travel.
What might States do to accelerate the transition? The usual: adjust car buying related taxes to favour EV and make ICE less competitive. Keep the demands on legacy ICE manufacturers to make more efficient and less polluting vehicles.
End exemptions for "classic" vehicles, so that old cars and bikes keep doing roadworthiness tests each year (this is a pet peeve of mine, and might be UK-specific).
Then there are the BIG interventions that have not happened yet (to my knowledge): We can know with some certainty whether the next day will use a lot of fossil fuels or whether the renewable sources will be sufficient. At what point do we prioritise a "climate emergency" over regular productivity, and decide "tomorrow we're turning off non-essentials, everyone gets a lie-in until the solar farms are covering most of the demand at 11am."
It's not just the capital cost of an electric car, which is still ridiculous compared to an ICE (most electrics are premium and sold to high income "eco conscious" buyers who can afford to choose to pay more
Good points, if we disregard China, the largest auto market in the world.
In the West we could have State intervention to reduce the dependency on fossil fuels. It might even be cheaper than being customers to an oil cartel requiring permanent military presence.
From this side of the Atlantic I really don't see the equivalence between your 2 parties.
Disclaimer: I'm a developer of WorkAdventure
Thanks for that. I recently had a look at gather.town and kumospace, and believe this sort of enhanced virtual presence could be really useful. I'll give your WorkAdventure a try.
Exactly that. 10cm of average might have peaks that ruin their food supply, their sewage systems, etc.
If the trend is for sea level rising, it's a good thing if they have an alternative lined up. When the same becomes a necessity in Bangladesh and other larger populations that's when it will be chaos.
right-wing cunts (Tories mostly, new labour include) made the UK hostile to our best-paying students.
2nd best paying students. Those from outside the EU pay more as they were not entitled to treatment equal to that of UK citizens.
I wholeheartedly agree with the name-calling though.
The AI can go on and on and on and waste their time and money and then after having hung up, call again with a different voice for the same thing, rinse and repeat.
Google and many others are selling the AI to answer phone calls and email, so it's all good.
There's a visceral quality to the sound of a high-displacement engine. Granted.
The industry spent quite a lot of money to educate us like that and with important facts like V8 noise being the best. Or V2 if you listen to motorcycle marketers.
When it gets to this point, the choice of the population is to starve to death or create a new, parallel system that serves em.
The population will need to find a way to do all that while paying rent/mortgages, which might prove difficult.
Years ago I worked at a gift vards/loyalty cards SaaS provider. Two unusual clients were a school that had gone cashless and a domestic cleaning franchise.
Someone transfers some money to the platform and then unbanked people make redemptions at different points of sale.
For most users, that means they'll need to subscribe to Microsoft 365. This, in turn, means their data and meta-information will be kept in a US-based datacenter
Is that really how it works? Don't they have multiple regions and special arrangements for US Gov+military and for China? I certainly have noticed in product docs that some services are not available or arrive late if your tenant is in one of these "special clouds".
Machines have less problems. I'd like to be a machine. -- Andy Warhol
