Chinese vehicles, both EV and ICE, are selling like crazy in every market where they can legally be sold. I've spent some time in Latin America recently and have ridden in several of the various models, and the reality is that they are all quite nice. The Uber drivers driving them invariably think that they got excellent value for their money.

In the United States we don't have access to these inexpensive brands. We can either buy expensive ICE vehicles, or even more expensive EVs where you pay a premium to not burn fossil fuels. In that situation it makes sense to want a vehicle that competes favorably with an ICE vehicle. After all, you can get a perfectly good ICE or hybrid vehicle for less than it would cost to buy a less capable EV.

The equation shifts dramatically when the Chinese vehicle you are looking at (whether it is ICE or EV) is 1/3 to 1/2 the price of a comparable vehicle. If I could get a Chinese EV for $13K I, personally, would be willing to put up with some of its shortcomings. As an example, I like the idea of the American made and designed Slate truck. However, it isn't available until next year at the earliest, and it is likely to cost $30K, very close to what a base model Ford Maverik, Nissan Frontera, or even a Toyota Tacoma currently cost. At that price it doesn't really make sense to purchase the far less capable electric vehicle.

However, if the Slate only cost $15K then it becomes far more interesting. That's the sort of price difference that Chinese brands are currently offering. I could learn to live with a range of 150 miles (that's supposedly the Slate's range, Chinese vehicles typically offer more than that), if it costs half as much as the competition. China is making vehicles that are more than competitive with what we currently have access to in the United States, and the prices are very low. The only thing keeping China from making huge inroads in the U.S. auto market is politics.

Sure there are some people that will never buy a Chinese vehicle, and there are other people that will never buy an EV. That's fine. I remember when the same arguments were made against Japanese (and later Korean) vehicles. If the politicians really thought that no one would be interested in these cars then they wouldn't need to protect us from them with tariffs.

The housing market is definitely another place where things have become ridiculously expensive. Fixing that issue is more difficult. Everyone is in favor of low cost housing, until they are building it in their neighborhood.

On the bright side, there is a ready source of inexpensive vehicles already for sale. The only problem is that, in the U.S. at least, our politicians won't let us buy them.

In the case of both cars and houses the solution is to remove existing barriers to supply. Right now it is impossible to build inexpensive housing in many parts of the country, and so we end up with expensive housing instead. It is likewise impossible to buy the inexpensive vehicles that I believe that consumers actually want.

My current daily driver is a 1996 Honda Civic (the base model with a 5 speed manual transmission, no AC, and manual windows). I say this to say that I really like the idea of the Slate. What I want is a basic electric vehicle without frills, and without extra technology that does nothing but break and drive up the price. The problem with the Slate is that it is not yet available, nor is it likely to be available in any numbers for a couple of years. What's more, there are already more capable Chinese vehicles selling in large quantities throughout the world that are available at a lower price. These vehicles come from companies that have already set up manufacturing and distribution channels, and they are selling vehicles in some of the most challenging markets in the world.

I've done a bit of traveling in Latin America in recent years and the reality is that there are several Chinese brands that are already powerhouses when it comes to actually selling, delivering, and maintaining vehicles. They make very competitive vehicles, and, at least in Latin America you can get these vehicles serviced and repaired ridiculously inexpensively. Uber drivers were quick to point out that their BYD (and other brand) Chinese vehicles weren't Toyotas, but they have invariably stressed that they would buy them again.

If it wasn't for the U.S. tariffs the Slate wouldn't even be a contender, and it isn't likely to be a contender when it is finally available. The only real advantage that it has is that it is comparatively affordable when compared to the other ridiculously overpriced EVs that you can currently purchase in the United States.

It is also worth noting that the projected base price of the Slate keeps going up. The first time I heard about it they were saying that it would cost around $12K with tax incentives. That would have put it under $20K without incentives. These days they say that it should cost less than $30K, but that puts it within spitting distance of the base model Ford Maverik, Nissan Frontier, or Toyota Tacoma, which, quite frankly, are far more capable vehicles, from companies with actual track records.

The reason that Chinese EVs are interesting is that they are essentially 1/3 to 1/2 the price of existing ICE truck models with compelling features and decent build quality. In the parts of the world where politics aren't getting in the way these Chinese vehicles are absolutely dominating. That's what I want.

I have spent some time recently in Latin America, including several countries where Chinese imports are absolutely dominating. The local Uber drivers like their Chinese vehicles. They are quick to point out that they don't measure up to Toyota, but that, for the money, they have been an excellent value. They invariably would buy the vehicle again. Every time I get into a Chinese vehicle I ask the driver what he thinks about it, and the results have been overwhelmingly positive.

I haven't driven any of these vehicles, but as a passenger the various Chinese vehicles look pretty well made. For the price I am definitely interested.

The reality is that the entire U.S. auto industry has been chasing the luxury, and large vehicle segment of the market, and I am not interested in those types of vehicles. I want a vehicle that replaces my current daily driver, a 1996 Honda Civic. I don't want someone else's clapped out SUV. I want an inexpensive basic small electric vehicle. The Nissan Leaf is closest to what I am looking for, but in countries where Chinese imports are allowed to flourish the Leaf isn't even a contender. It is simply outclassed by the Chinese offerings.

That isn't even remotely true, at least not in any recent era. The way that bookmakers have made odds for hundreds of years has been to set the odds so that roughly the same amount of bets came in on both sides. The house makes their money from a fee that they take for setting up the bet. This is colloquially know as "vigorish, vig, or the juice."

Read the article linked, it covers how this works mathematically.

It might look like you are betting against the bookie, but the reality is that the bookie doesn't take the bet unless he has someone that is willing to take the other side of the bet, and the odds are set up so that whoever wins the money that they win is balanced by another group that lost that same amount plus a little more. That's why odds for future events would often change over time. if the bookmaker got too much interest on one side of the wager the odds would change to entice people to bet the other way. The vig guarantees that either way the house wins. That's literally what "bookmaking" means.

In other words, historically bookmaking worked exactly like prediction markets, and it has worked this way forever. The difference is that in most of the world it generally has been illegal, because gambling is addictive and destructive. There's a reason that this sort of thing was basically universally illegal, and the reason is that societies that didn't put up these guardrails invariably failed.

There's no catch. This is just Google trying to spike Apple's wheels. Play Store revenue is a much smaller piece of Google's overall revenue than Apple's App Store is of its overall revenue. Google can afford to be generous on that front, with the idea that both regulators and developers will love the change. Apple can't play that game without significantly lowering its total revenue.

Of course, consumers will pay for less expensive phone apps with increased surveillance, but, let's be honest, Apple and Google are both going to increase surveillance either way.

The point of this article is that, even on full sized televisions, YouTube is kicking Hollywood's collective ass. When they look at hours of programming watched on full sized televisions YouTube is clearly on top, followed by Netflix, with everyone else quite a ways behind. That's not counting computer or smaller screens where YouTube is completely dominant. Movies are making less money these days because far less people are spending money on movies. Interestingly enough one of the few bright spots for movies are smaller studios making limited availability movies. These movies have much lower budgets, and basically non-existent marketing, but the empty seats in the movie theaters means that there are screens available at a price where they can make a tidy profit. Traditional television is getting absolutely wrecked. The only part of television that people are willing to pay money for is sports broadcasting. No one has a cable or satellite subscription unless they are a rabid sports fan. The shows that everyone is talking about are as likely to come from Korea or Australia as they are from Hollywood. For years people assumed that Hollywood drove the value of cable television, and now that people have choice it turns out that the valuable part of television is the sports (and to a less extent the news). ESPN costs more than Netflix, Paramount and Apple TV combined, and Disney forces you to purchase to purchase a whole pile of their regular programming to get it. Disney is currently suing SlingTV because SlingTV is selling day and weekend passes so that you can just purchase the games you want to see without all of the rest of the slop that you don't. On top of that Hollywood is seeing increased competition from the entire rest of the world. The hit television show that everyone is talking about is almost as likely to come out of Korea as it is from U.S.

Hollywood is definitely contracting, but it is mostly because making scripted content, whether it is for television or movies, is becoming far less lucrative than it has been in the past. People are watching less scripted content, and when they do watch something it is likely that what they are watching is not from Hollywood.

As you have mentioned Prime Time TV has devolved into cop shows, but it's actually worse than that. The few hits that Hollywood have had over the last few years have invariably been live competitions and other reality TV shows.

William Shatner is a classically trained Shakespearean actor who appeared in festivals and on Broadway prior to switching from stage to television. His TOS enunciation and emphasis is due mostly to his experience with radio performances (which were over the top verbally) combined with directors on TOS constantly telling him to increase the astonishment. And in reality, wasn't anywhere near as pervasive or dramatic as the pop culture version that pokes fun at Kirk.

Ahh, yes... German cars. If every decent car company does something with 6 parts, the Germans will find a way to make it require 27 parts. All of which are horribly expensive and require specialized tools to install. Or they'll put the timing system at the back of the engine so that a routine service item becomes an engine-out procedure. Garbage cars driven by people who don't know any better.

The space station leak reminds me of an old trick for a leaky cooling system in a car: put pepper into the radiator.

The little flecks of ground pepper get washed around the cooling system and eventually block tiny cracks in the radiator or other places. Putting a raw egg into a *cold* radiator will do the same thing; when the engine gets warm it cooks and blocks the leak. Both of these tricks have saved me on the road, they do work. But they are temporary and you need to thoroughly flush the cooling system after the repair.

I wonder if the Space Station has had the same sort of thing happen - airborne dust blocking a leak?

The more land we preserve along the waterways, the better. NJ is an OLD state, which was founded by people going up the waterways and working their way inward. Over time, we have learned that we need to give the rivers, marshes, and estuaries space to do their thang. If it means paying a little more in taxes, so be it. Money is not more important than the well-being of the planet.

You sound like the people in my /r/southjersey subreddit lol. My hometown is one of the most at risk towns of sinking into the water in the state. It's already an island (in southwest nj no less) and most of the land is preserved already. The buying up of the land and marshes really helps protect the land, animals, and people. Boohoo, taxes. Without paying them, you'd be living in a cesspool like Mississippi.

Or, maybe because Palestinians keep on attacking Israelis (and everyone else) in the name of their Pedophile Prophet - peace be upon the illiterate 7th-century caravan robber and warlord - so Israelis rightly have no interest in incorporating them into civil society.

...because the Palestinians were digging the water pipes out of the ground and turning them into makeshift rockets...

...electricity and desalinated water which were both being provided by Israel because the Palestinians are more concerned with appeasing their Pedophile Prophet than with getting their shit together and building power plants and desalination plants...

Gaza is unlivable because of the Gazans. Somalia is unlivable because of the Somalis. All of the Muslim world is unlivable because Islam is an evil ideology. The Jewish people (People of Judea) were established in Israel 6,000 years ago and laid the groundwork for the establishment of Western Civilization, approximately 4,500 years before a self-important warlord and pedophile declared himself to be the messenger of something called allah.

And what is allah? God is supposed to be omniscient. So He tells us to call Him yud-hey-vav-hey... but then after meeting the Pedophile Prophet, He changes His mind and wants to be called allah? An omniscient being didn't know in advance what He wants to be called and changes His mind about His own name? This is NOT the God of the Jewish and Christian people.

You're free to believe whatever you want. But when what you believe promotes death for the sake of forcing your beliefs on others, it's time for your ideology to take a long and hard look in the mirror.

This is what Israel is fighting. How to beat your wife - according to Palestinian TV.

There are two kinds of people in the world: there are those who you can negotiate with, and there are those who fly airplanes into buildings. You cannot negotiate with this. You cannot make peace with this. The only thing they understand is being completely and utterly obliterated, and then playing the victim.

I wouldn't wipe my ass with the Palestinian flag. Doing so would be disrespectful to my feces.

This is it, precisely. If I could buy a new EV for $12K I would absolutely do that. If buying a new EV means that I have to spend $60K then I am not remotely interested. EV vehicles have some problems that make them impractical as the only vehicle for most families. Those problems disappear completely if the vehicle is inexpensive enough so that it doesn't have to be your only vehicle.

China is currently giving EVs away, we are stupid for not taking them up on the offer. Eventually the U.S. auto market would adapt. I am quite sure that they could also make low margin EVs if they had the right incentive. Let's be honest, the American public would probably be willing to subsidize them as they made the change. However, instead we have rigged the entire system so that U.S. manufacturers are incentivized to only compete in the largest, most expensive, and least environmentally friendly auto markets available. It's no wonder that the rest of the world isn't interested in our cars.

Right... I worked for The Beer Store, the brewer-owned private company which distributes beer across the Province of Ontario. Our Premier (roughly equivalent to a State Governor) made a campaign promise of "A buck a beer!".

So, a new empty can cost roughly $0.20 at the time. The law in Ontario is that shelf prices include tax and deposit. So, the can is $0.30 - twenty cents for the can itself, plus another dime for the deposit to make sure the used can comes back for recycling.

Now, on top of that, you have to make a food-grade beverage, pay your excise tax to the federal government, and then there have to be profits for the manufacturer and the distributor/retailer (that would be Brewers Distributing Limited dba. The Beer Store).

Customers would come to me and - with that "I know more than you even though I haven't held a job in 16 years" expertise - tell me that we were going to be carrying "buck a beer" because they voted for Doug Ford (who also cut their welfare increases).

"When do you get it? It's gotta be soon!"

"The first shipment arrives February 31st, so mark your calendar!"

I must have used that line 500 times. Only one person realized that there's no February 31st. To his credit, he had to come back to the store to tell me. LOL

Exactly ONE brewer made the Buck A Beer - Cool Brewing of Etobicoke, in Doug Ford's riding. We were lucky if we got a single case (24 beers) a month. Promise fulfilled... Right.

Anyway... The Beer Store's shelf tags were printed at the distribution center and sent to stores with truckloads of beer and empties in and out. Of course, you always had too many tags you didn't need, and were always short of the shelf tags that you did need. If a tag was outdated and wrong, you have to - ethically if not legally - honour the price. And, of course, if a tag was damaged or lost, there was no tag for that product. All of this hearkened back to The Beer Store's roots as Brewer's Retail where everything was behind a counter and we had a selection wall. In a newer self-service store like mine, this did not work.

Electronic shelf tags were implemented. It was amazing. Snap the tag into place on the shelf. Scan the tag. Scan the product. Press a button. The scan gun would beep and a moment later, the tag would update with the item description and price.

Price changes? Automatically updated on all tags.

Now, something about selling addictive substances: Sometimes someone decides that the item's price is what they have, not what the shelf tag says. And they will argue with you until the cows come home. You get jaded to it.

"That will be $2.25 for the can of Pabst Blue Ribbon 5.9."

"The tag says $1.95 so you have to give it to me for that. You forgot to update the sticker."

"No sir, I assure you that it doesn't. They're not stickers, they're electronic and tied to the POS."

"It says $1.95."

"Sir, if the shelf tag says $1.95 for Pabst Blue Ribbon 5.9, I will give you a full case of it. On the house."

For a moment, they're elated. And then they realize that I'm coming out from behind the counter to call their bluff. In front of the lineup of impatient customers during the daily 10:01AM opening rush. Catcalls. Whistles. Jeers.

Walk over with the dude... shelf tag says $2.25 for PBR 5.9. Now, at this point, I'm annoyed, and I'm not going to short my till $0.30 for him. Or suggest to him an alternative beer that is $1.95 a can. If he'd just passed me all his change and come up a little short, I would have covered it. Personally, out of my pocket, if I didn't have a few nickels and dimes perpetually floating around my cash. I've spent way too much time on both sides of the counter at The Beer Store, so I have plenty of empathy - just don't be an asshole.

Anyway... Dollar stores are dealing with customers who are on the very bottom economic rung, whether from addiction or for some other bad life event. Now, sometimes these people are a nickel away from being able to afford a can of beer - or a jar of baby food. I have seen split tender three ways for a $2 item - $0.50 from returning 5 empty cans, $0.97 by scraping a prepaid Mastercard from last Christmas to the last cent, and then $0.55 from under the sofa cushions or wherever. Unexpected price changes can drastically upset plans these people have made to get a few supplies with their very last dollar.

"I can get a box of Kraft Dinner at Dollarama for $0.50, and two cans of cat food at A Buck Or Two with the other $0.50..." I've seen it, and I've personally lived it.

The shelf tags, especially at a dollar/discount/alcohol/cannabis store of any sort, must be accurate. As an experienced retail manager, electronic shelf tags are simply essential.

You can sell the boss on implementing them with the operational savings, the labour of having to change stickers with every price change. Electronic shelf tags will pay for themselves in very short order.

You're clearly not talking about American cars. What's a 1-tonne Ford Escort? I did have a 1983 Dodge Ram D150 half-ton pickup truck with a Slant-6 and an A-833 manual transmission; that thing would get 25MPG and hold 75MPH all the way westbound across Michigan... of course, it took it a while to get to 75MPH, merging was just like driving a Peterbilt with a 53' trailer full of anvils. That exact same engine and a comparable transmission were available for the Dodge Trucks line from 1960 to 1987 and was renowned for durability and reliability.

The key point is that Americans typically don't want them. To this day, in Canada, gasoline is cheaper than water. I'm not sure if that's a statement about gas prices or a slam against the sort of fool who feels the need to buy their tapwater in PET bottles, but I digress. So people buy horsepower. People buy large vehicles based on truck platforms.

As CAFE forces vehicles to become more fuel efficient - without addressing the underlying consumer demand problem! - manufacturers are being forced to use smaller and smaller engines. This means adding turbochargers to cute little aluminum blocks, narrower cam lobes and variable displacement oil pumps and smaller oil control rings all to reduce the internal drag, and thinner oils which offer zero cushion on connecting rod bearings. All of this gets stuffed into a full-size pickup truck with a trailer hitch. They're intolerant of real-world conditions and use, and because of their complexity they're expensive to repair. These vehicles will not have a long lifespan - sure, you might get a good fleet average mileage, but if 50% of the vehicles don't make it to the 100,000 mile mark, they're getting replaced faster with all the environmental damage of producing and disposing of the vehicle.

Maximizing vehicle life is an important part of reducing the vehicle's overall environmental impact.

There's a great YouTube channel where the owner of a full-service used auto parts business takes apart modern engines and shows you what failed. No prior knowledge of engines is required to understand this. Some engines are spectacularly broken. And Eric talks about what will last, and what won't, with an entertaining sarcasm.

Recycling? The lead-acid primary battery gets removed, then the car gets crushed and shredded. Only the steel and the aluminum get recycled. Anyone who thinks that any other material in a car gets recycled in any quantity has never seen a car shredder in operation. ASR (Auto Shredder Residue) is a special waste stream now consisting mostly of mixed plastics, smashed safety glass, and the crap people leave in their cars when they junk them. All that plastic gets landfilled.