Vehicles normally don't have "side panels" and it's not just a cost reduction measure.

If you're willing to implement "custom options" then you could make it 4wd yourself, without any help from them, like any other pickup.

We taught kids to use crosswalks, now drivers are mowing them down there because the hoods of their pickups are so high that they cannot see them crossing. This is all stuff you would know if you were paying attention.

Thanks for proving you're not paying attention.

In all but five US states you don't even need a CDL to drive a heavy diesel RV. We have a bus registered as an RV, it weighs 10 tons and has air brakes, I can legally drive it on my basic license.

Ironically, it has much better forward visibility than a modern American pickup truck, including the Japanese pickups made here for sale in the US, as it's transit style (flat front.) I can literally see people crossing in front of me that the driver of an F250 can't. And these days, the most popular school bus appears to be the Blue Bird Vision, which is a conventional type bus but has a short, sloping hood. That also has a better view of pedestrians than a modern American pickup.

It's insanity.

Nothing is more American that slaving and genocide.

Slavery is legal in this country and we're funding a genocide right now.

You are truly the dumbest of fucks.

Indeed. We should also, however, recognize that emissions reductions can never get us to net-negative CO2 and that is where we need to get. We should be investing heavily in research into carbon capture and sequestration, because it is the ultimate long-term solution to greenhouse gas emissions, the thing that will allow us to actually reverse global warming.

In the meantime, as you say, we should start by looking at the CO2 emissions sources that allow us to most quickly and cheaply reduce our emissions. The easiest area is electricity production... made even easier by the fact that wind and solar are the cheapest technologies we have for producing electricity, in many cases even when the cost of battery storage is included. And of course as we convert electricity production to non-emitting sources, we should electrify as much as we can the other areas where we burn fossil fuels.

But we also need to be investing in carbon recapture, because some things are going to be hard to convert and, as I pointed out, only recapture can get us to net-negative. We should also be researching geoengineering techniques, such as methods of reducing insolation. Geoengineering isn't a solution (e.g. reducing insolation does nothing to fix ocean acidification), but it may be a necessary short-term measure, and we should be prepared, having already done what we can to understand it in case we need it, and before we need it.

Carbon reduction is good, but it's insufficient and I worry that we're not putting enough into other approaches. A large part of the reason is that people are afraid that attention on anything other than carbon reduction will harm the emissions reduction efforts. That's not a ridiculous concern, but it demonstrates a lack of understanding of the scale and scope of the problem.

The air outside is already measurably cleaner, when we're talking about viruses. There's UV out there much of the time.

Don't smoke crack while watching scifi. It makes you say stupid shit.

Found the guy who hasn't actually compared 1970s vehicles to 2020s vehicles. They had lower hoods in both trucks and most cars (as most cars are now crossovers) and also had superior visibility in every other direction as well.

Around 6% of the cars I've owned have had seat height adjustment.

Most seats do not have a height adjustment.

I'd rather have an empty double DIN, then I can put whatever I want in it, including a big screen that sticks out from it.

Agreed about the HVAC. That should always have physical controls.

These are not actually going to be much more customizable than other vehicles. The sole exception is in the infotainment department, where virtually all modern vehicles have some big overwrought thing that you probably don't want because it sucks, or it will in the future — which will affect you if you're the kind of person who keeps a vehicle. But if you are, the auto industry hates you.

A vehicle being "designed" to be customized is really entirely irrelevant because all of the same work has to be done in order to do that customization. There are "upfitter guides" for all of the vehicles you'd commonly expect to customize, especially vans and pickups, which help with that. I've used these to aid in doing solar installs in RV conversions. That is, any pickup you'd buy is already designed to be customized.

In order for there to be a significant aftermarket for parts for a vehicle, those vehicles have to be numerous. Then companies find it worthwhile to make seat install kits and such. Such things aren't generally complicated, so the modularity is really very overblown overall.

I do think the Slate concept has legs, but it's in the low price and ease of repair areas, and not at all in the customization department, which simply doesn't matter.

Was it one of the Mazda-based models? They were built by Ford, but not with Ford technology.

Ford honestly has had the occasional hit, but also oh so many lemons.

Then you're depriving someone of operating costs and/or time, depending on the specific business model. Just making a copy of something without their involvement doesn't do that, period. It might still arguably be wrong, but it's definitely not theft.

All of the Pi engineers are former bcm employees, last I heard some of the pi people were even current employees. There seems to be some motion away from bcm though.

Who knows what kind of bullshit they will bake into the game, but if GTA V is any indication (who knows?) then you will still be able to play the single player game from e.g. a Steam backup* years from now.

* Never use Steam backups. They usually don't fucking work. Just back up the various directories.