The good news is that nine-in young people

What is "nine-in".....? New term to me....

The rush is that burning it is buggering up the planet. If the US refuses, it becomes a security issue and we be dealt with appropriately.

Chicken little has been shouting this for waaaay too long....driving our ICE vehicles will not cause the planet wide DOOM scenario....certainly not in any lifetime soon.

We have plenty of time to come up with new and better vehicle power schemes.....

"making production decisions" is carrying a lot of water, business decisions are not made in a vacuum, they respond to incentives both from consumers, their competition and the state apparatus. Automakers didn't just decide to add 3-point-seat belt's or emissions controls into vehichles because of their own accord, they were either forced or incentivized to.

Actually the ultimate decision maker here...is the consumer at at least in the US, there just is NOT the market for EVs. The people that want them largely have them.

The general populace is NOT clamoring in mass to have EVs.

There are a number of reasons many involving lack of full infrastructure across the whole of the US....but whatever it is, the demand is not there in the US and well....a company is fucking stupid to build what the public is not demanding.....

The US, however, has PLENTY of oil...so, there's no rush for us to get off it.....and go full blown EV.

Besides, since there's not the full needed infrastructure here across the US, no one really wants them yet, at least not in mass.

Central planning is still better than the lack of planning we see in the USA

Well, never fear comrade....we'll soon see the new communist/socials utopia succeed in New York with Mandani!!!

And remember, in NY..if you can make it there, you can make it ANYWHERE, eh?

Good hope China chokes on it.....anything detrimental to China is a win for the rest of the world.

Is there much of a difference between limiting your number and duration of breaks, and clocking you in/out while you run to the bathroom?

Yes; there is a huge difference. Limitations on breaks must be reasonable, and employees must be allowed to bathroom when they need to: for example, the employer can't say you don't get to use the bathroom or can only do once or twice per shift. Limits can be applied, but there are limits to the limits. Generally employers are not interested at all as result in accounting for every little break you take as a result and would only start to notice If you are taking several breaks an hour. On the other hand; employees who are sick or have medical conditions such as Crohn's or IBD may need access to the bathrooms several times per hour, and the law is that employers must accommodate.

The key thing to understand is that an hourly rate of pay is for time the employee spends for the employer - Not amount of time the employee is actually completing useful work. If you are required to be available or be somewhere or do something, then you are on employer time, and that includes time you are there waiting for access, or waiting for the employer's process to allow you work, But it also times While you are there that you are on the job but incidentally require a temporary relief or pause due to your human needs and bodily functions.

This is just in the same way that If you are on an assembly line - the employer Can't pay you on a micro-timeclock which only counts up while you are touching a workpiece. The employer has to pay for All time you are occupied and not free to be at home, or wherever you wanted to be due to the employer.

A good point, but thinking on the marginal transactional costs to process a sale of additional items after one, people deliberately buying two items to 'stick it' to the business and get maybe 5 cents off their purchase is actually benefitting the business, and the customer spending more time figuring out the exact cost before checking out than the five cents are worth.
Basically, I figure that the business could outright discount every item after the first by 5 cents, and still profit more per item when people are buying 3-4 items at a time rather than one.

I doubt that, especially with varying sales taxes screwing with things.
The draw to price everything in .99 is too high. Or even .95 or .97.

A lot of studies of paper vs plastic bills are looking at paper bills using scrap cotton and linen fibers and still having wood pulp.
US bills use the premium stuff and are 0% wood pulp. As a result, our paper money lasts as long on average as the plastic bills.
The math changes when one considers that we don't have to import our fibers into the country and can thus get the good stuff for less than other countries pay for scrap.

If we were to get vehicles at near China's prices its hard to argue that demand for evs wouldn't improve.

Not necessarily.....most of the folks that want and EV, have one.....there just is NOT the demand for them here in the US that you have in other parts of the world.

A lot of this is due to the recharging infrastructure not being in place unless you live at the extreme west and maybe the east coast too.

I live in the New Orleans area....and from the maps and charging station finders I've seen we Still have precious few public charging stations anywhere in this area....

This is typical for most of the US.

With that comes range anxiety, and there's a TON of people, about 1/3 of the nation's populace that can't charge at home due to being in apartment complexes with large parking nots and no chargers or renting homes without chargers out side or no off street parking.

Unless you own your home and can charge at home, it's just a PITA to deal with and EV over here for a significant % of the populace.

I don't want one.....wouldn't work for me.

Never mind that their FSD is more capable than any current system on the market today.

What is "FSD"? New term to me....

those practices would be in the in the same school as wanting paid for the commute to work.

Employers probably ought to be required to pay for the commute, but due to historical reasons they don't generally
for ordinary employees traveling from home to the office. The employer only has to pay when the commute is between
two work locaations (from one office to another).

Similarly the Employees also get hit again, because the government treats your expenses spent on commuting
that you have to pay to get from home to work and back, as still a part of your income.
It is a bit strange that your commute expense dollars are treated as income by the government, at the same time as those dollars are necessary to earn money, and the employer does not pay you specifically for taking that commute, either.
It's an illogical situation that has been entrenched by traditions.

One of my biggest tools I use is "dreaming the solution". It's a strange thing. I
I've used it to grok solutions to very complex problems. The wife has become used to me bolting upright in bed... "Fixed another problem, hon?" It's not something I control, but it is doing WFH. (half my work is WFH) -- So, if I was paid for time worked, Is that time I needed to be paid for? It isn't an instant process either. It's like running a computer overnight to do computation intensive work.

You technically are not working when at home off hours outside employee supervision just coming up with ideas on your own, unless the employer has written a very distinct arrangement with you into a contract.

The hourly wage system is not really designed for such kind of workers if dreaming the solution is serious work.

A comparable profession would be research professors. Coming up with Ideas and Inspiration in your mind is a necessary precondition to do the work, but you are not paid to come up with ideas in your head --- you are paid for completing and publishing works. Completing the task of turning ideas into a viable Tangible product or solution of some kind is what the system compensates for - not ideas in the head, but the time and ever spent either applying them, communicating, or writing them down.

As for that which you don't write down or document in a tangible form.. How can you even prove work was done if asked to make a showing?

Is it illegal if you are salaried? Or how about if you have to take a dump? Or if I think about a problem while eating dinner?

Salaried exempt is a fixed amount of pay per pay period regardless of the number of hours, so they aren't part of this discussion.
You dont' get extra pay for working more than 40 hours doing the same job as you do during regular hours, And they can't pay you less for working fewer hours one day either.

As a salaried worker.. there is no such thing as "clock in" / "clock out time", so it's an unrelated matter. If your employer reduces your pay for a difference in hours less than not working a whole day, then they lose the Overtime exemption.

Clocking out to use the toilet, sip coffee, answer the phone for non-work items, patting the dog's head.

They cannot. Many retail employers would do this with their minimum wage staff if the law allowed it.
This is also Illegal. Federal law prohibits deducting pay for breaks under 20 minutes; even if the employee was persuaded to agree.
Federal law states that breaks less than 20 minutes must be paid. The break has to exceed 20 minutes before the employer may clock you out.

Employers are required to pay for all time spent on breaks less than 20 minutes. The only thing they can do is track or limit your number and duration of breaks.

Employers: Cannot require clocking out for short breaks: It is illegal to dock pay for breaks under 20 minutes

Employers: Cannot impose unreasonable restrictions. That includes things such as not letting employees use the bathroom, or forcing them to take 20 minutes... locking bathroom doors and actions that cause delays, etc. Must allow restroom use as needed per OSHA rules / ADA rules in some situations. An employer cannot require bathroom breaks to be at scheduled times, either.