In saner regions of the world pedestrian safety is a requirement in vehicles

No body fucking walks in the US man....hence it doens't occur to us to be any sort of "priority".

Go stand in front of a truck and ask yourself are you going under, or over when it hits you

See?

Now this is where I assume that most people are like myself and try NOT to stand in front of a truck....

Self preservation and all that...common sense some folks call it.

Cars don't have tall hoods, trucks and SUVs do to ridiculous proportions now. Your average truck sitting at a red light can't see pedestrians at a crosswalk, especially children

Not generally a problem, as that NOone walks in the US.

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 â" which will affect you if you're the kind of person who keeps a vehicle. But if you are, the auto industry hates you.

Actually I think there is more user customization available than you think.

I saw a Jay Leno YouTube video on Slate with the owner and lead engineer..was interesting.

It appears pretty much ALL the side panels on this thing are plastic....and screwed on with visible access from the outside of the vehicle.

I can foresee lots of custom shops coming up with new body pieces that can be easily swapped out at any time....

I also saw a hint on that show that in the future potential for 4-wheel drive could be an option....I hope it gets there...talk about massive custom options appearing out there for that...???

But anyway they said they were trying to basically "open source" everything they could able the Slate and give it fully to the user to do...they said they even were allowing user to do their own warranty work, etc....so, don't have to take it to the shop if you know what you're doing and it won't void the warranty.,

but have they managed to stop any pollution coming out of the tailpipe?

/me looks over his list of priorities...NOPE emissions not on my list.

It really isn't for most people you know....

You can get a cheap car that ALSO has basic modern features like power windows, as long as you buy from a capable, modern car company i.e. a Chinese company.

Fuck China.

We need to untangle ourselves from them as much as we can as quickly as we can. They are nothing but trouble for the US.

This is the same dynamic that happened in the 1980s with Japanese cars and the 90s'/00s with Korean cars.

Not even close.

Unlike China...Japan and S. Korea are NOT stated enemies of the USA....china is.

The Trash 80s? Had a Commodore PET 3032. A whole 1 megahertz. On the other hand, the IEEE 488 meant that I could send a command to one disk drive to transfer to a second disk drive, whilst printing, with the computer then totally free to actually do other stuff. SCSI it wasn't, but for the time, it was an ingenious solution to a lot of problems.

Sheer luxury, lad! Sheer luxury!

We had to make our own bits and push them uphill! Both ways! In the snow!

Pah, youngsters.

However, some of you might be old enough to remember the April 1st when the front page turned pink and a link to Cute Overload caused absolute chaos. Did CmdrTaco ever get a pony, btw?

As I posted earlier..sounds like a great money making endeavor .....AC units that fit UK and EU style windows!!!

Will someone over there innovate and cash in, or will it be someone external to your countries?

Sounds like the market in the UK and possibly the EU is ripe for some AC innovation....new window units that will work with whatever window styles are popular over there...?

Ah.....don't be a pussy.

We've been living with that all our lives in New Orleans.....just buy a few AC units for the windows if you don't have central air....

It's not the end of the world....

Hell, I'm doubting you have the humidity to go with the heat they way we do....?

Why not just get a fucking air conditioner like most other modern civilizations do in the 21st century.

I've been hearing about all the EU folks over here for the soccer games raving about the great AC we have here everywhere in the US.

If you can't afford central air...just toss up a few window units. It doesn't cost a ton and makes summer's survivable....especially if humidity is there in the mix.

Hell I live in New Orleans...the capital of heat and humidity in the summer....get some AC and you can do just fine....we do.

Perhaps this was the reason behind Randy Newman's composition....?

"...short people got...no reason to live...."

And Fascism does not work very well either, but that does not prevent the current U.S. moving in that direction.

Not even close...not even with ultra liberal side of Democrats pushing facistic actions and promoting facist laws/rules and societal changes.

And all the while to promote facism they are using the term against anything center left to middle right as facist.....making the term meaningless over time much like they've done with nazi and racism....they've overused them so much then just have no meaning anymore.