The other option for kept simple is make the central chassis computer fully open source. Top to bottom. So then any and every tinkerer can maintain all parts.

Electric motors can certainly last. Assuming they don't take a bath, an all-electric solution, kept simple, could easily become reliable long lived vintage in the future.

When I say kept simple, I'm talking about no big-ass computer in the middle. No requirements of connectivity. Stuff like GPS autonomy as an optional extra hardware add-on.

The billionaires are to some extent a tool as well. Or more specifically, they choose to align. We need to look at the politics plain and simple. And to get visibility on that, you need to look at the bundled law changes. One class in particular stands out - the Israel exceptions on crimes.

It's a little like how the President can't be lawfully wrong about anything now. Trump could order an assassination of the opposition leader and it's legal as long as it's done as the President. He even gets to pardon the personnel that carried out the order.

Read some of the other posts then. It's all economics. Electric is a money saver. The old trucks may even be getting retired early.

Okay, what your numbers are basically saying is unless the country's truck fleet is younger than 10 years, or there is some extraordinary reason for a change in fleet size, you're 99% measuring replacements by examining purchases.

These are replacements for sure. Commercial trucks wear out fast, or at least the engines do. Not unlike taxis I guess. Just the shear distance they travel. Electric will have a longevity advantage here.

The question will be, are they all short-haul replacements? If they're long-haul too then that's quite amazing.

Except Apple and Alphabet got stiff'd. Meta has stronger connections, err corruptions, I guess. Rule-of-law, what's that?

Yet more free taxpayer funds for the rich. Why isn't Mr Ellison funding this himself?

All these investors are expecting results on the intelligence front. And since that's a total fake sell, the expectations will inevitably crash.

My problem is not that there is slop now, it's that LLM AIs have been sold as intelligent when they aren't at all. There's even people posting on Slashdot that have tried saying AI is intelligent. Although, I haven't seen such posts of late.

Arguably, prompt engineering is a programming language. Just one less formal than usual. You only get a complex result with a complex list of instructions.

My point being there is now expectations of real intelligence. People are waiting for that servant robot to turn up. That's the real mess - It's not even close to happening as sold.

Ya, that's where the reflective coating goes. Only allow the desired band, nominally optical, through to the solar cells.

LOL, I was being loose with "polar". It is the general orbit rather than exact. You obviously understand this though, otherwise you wouldn't have nit-picked.

Which works fine with a decent differential. Funnily, there is a decent differential.

Cool, thanks.

I imagine a lot can be done to increase surface area and effectiveness of radiators, ie: protruding fins. And on the sunny side reflect unwanted spectrum so then less is absorbed as heat.

They don't make financial sense, agreed. I think this and all the other AI bros power generating proposals are not intended to be realistic. It's just for appeasing Trump.

However, on the matter of heat removal, I will point out that radiating heat works really well when the radiators are shaded from the Sun and there is a large differential from the background temperature. Funnily, there is also a need to have large areas of sunshine collecting PV panels. Some of which could be arranged to act very well as shades.