Comment Re:Sojust like every other tech growth story (Score 1) 180
Made in Sunderland, batteries made in the UK too. EV tech developed jointly with Renault.
Made in Sunderland, batteries made in the UK too. EV tech developed jointly with Renault.
I remember reading somewhere that Apple kind of foresaw this coming and purchased extra memory so they wouldn't have to raise prices as long as possible.
It looks like they've reached the end of their extra supply.
Most of the R&D in China is done with private money. The government does contribute, but it's more long term guarantees than it is cash.
In a democracy, policy can change ever 4-5 years. Look at the US, it's been alternating between pushing renewables to banning them to pushing them to banning them again, over the last 4 administrations. If you were a company developing renewable technology, would you have faith that your investment in R&D wouldn't be banned by the time it reaches market? Doesn't even have to be a ban, just an administration that is hostile to your business, and an electorate that would rather roll coal than see a wind turbine 20km off-shore.
The Chinese government said that EVs were the future and it would ensure that future came quickly and stuck around. It made sure the infrastructure was installed, and promoted them to consumers as a way to reduce pollution. Loans for development were made available. And it stuck to that for the long term, not just the next 4-5 years.
Democracy can do that too, but not in a two party system. Look at European democracies where coalition governments are the norm, where the system is designed to prevent any one party gaining complete power. Planning is longer term, and there is more certainty in future policy direction.
From Europe we look at Americans that way too. Long hours, ridiculously little holiday entitlement (I just booked flights for my six week break over the new year, and I've still got time off to spare), and a billionaire-Epstien ruling class who live in luxury. Only they also get pollution, mass deportations, bankrupted by healthcare costs, school shootings, and so on.
China is far from perfect, but it also doesn't compare that badly.
Probably working on an army of murderbots to protect him from the guillotine.
The usual way of fixing it is to designate those products as critically important and put in a mandate for making them available. Take water, for example. Data centres need it, humans need it, farms need it. If it was just sold to the highest bidder we would be in trouble.
I'm hoping that Chinese manufacturers step up to increase supply, because they will be less concerned about demand drying up. They have both a rapidly expanding domestic market, and the longer term goal to out-compete rivals on price. CXMT is unfortunately allocating a lot of production to AI as well, but they aren't the only ones. Hopefully NAND flash production also ramps up very quickly.
Many of the big Western car manufacturers sold EVs at a loss initially too. I had an original Nissan Leaf that was heavily discounted and came with a 0% loan.
- in comparable population sizes that would mean Canada is roughly equivalent to Connecticut compared to California in the US. If electoral college votes translated to parliamentary seats
Bad comparison. California has 54 electoral college votes and Connecticut has 7 or about 13% as much as California. On the other hand California has 39.5 million people and Connecticut has about 3.6 million or about 9% as much as California. The American system is rigged to allow tyranny of the minority. Low population states get disproportionally high representation in elected positions. If their representation was proportional using Connecticut as the base Florida would have 77-78 electoral college votes.
My question is "How will they implement it?". And a secondary question of "Is that what they're really going to attempt?".
So Grok based these claims on a survey done for a think tank. This just keeps getting better.
When it's codified into the highest law of the land and doesn't work, and suggestions to do so voluntarily can't work to the point of being laughable, what options do we have left?
There's always Nancy Reagan's catchphrase: Just Say No.
Any particular game is expendable. You won't miss out on anything. Games don't even have the network effects and lockin that you get with other types of software; it's a part of the economy where Just Saying No is easiest of all.
Don't like the quality? Don't spend your money. They have no power over us except what we give them. Stop being so selflessly altruistic when it comes to actively supporting your own abuse.
It's so damn easy, and there's already hundreds of years worth of hassle-free game-playing available to spend the few remaining seconds of your life on.
It was worth a go, but it was always a long shot. You could interpret the current rules as requiring some of this stuff, but it's a hard case to make. Either way, it was probably necessary to demonstrate that the current rules are inadequate.
The European Commission is the EU's civil service. Petitioning it was always a long shot, because for them to act you have to convince them that there is a good case within existing EU rules. They aren't there to make new rules, they are there to enforce the existing ones.
They have effectively said that existing consumer protection rules don't extend far enough to force publishers to make offline patches and server code available, but in their opinion do offer some of the things being asked for already and so the petitioners should contact their state consumer rights body.
To get a change in the rules, it needs to go through the European Parliament and the elected MEPs. That's how democracy works. Elected officials make the rules, civil servants enforce them.
"Just the facts, Ma'am" -- Joe Friday