Tesla Barred From North Carolina??????

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
121

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
What isn’t to like about them?[/quote]
Their cars are electric.[/quote]

What does that have to do with the company themselves? Want to know what another model company is right now? Starbucks. They employ hundreds of thousands of people, they turn large profits and make their shareholders money, they are situated to grow even more, which brings more money to their shareholders, more tax revenue to the country, they’re an American company, they’re providing good health benefits to their employees and they provide a product that people enjoy. What’s not to like about that? If you don’t like Starbucks then don’t buy their coffee. If you don’t like Tesla then don’t buy their cars.

You should be thankful that a company like Tesla is based in the U.S. and you should wish that more companies like them existed here. They’re a throwback to the entrepreneurial spirit that formed this country. You sound like a bitter old man who’s always complaining that things were better way back when. Have fun being bitter and essentially having to root against a very well-run American company from here on out, because you are going to look like a Grade-A DIPSHIT when they are still doing well ten or twenty years from now.[/quote]

You asked what’s not to like about them, I answered their product. Same reason people don’t like Smith and Wesson, it ain’t their business practices, it’s their product.
I am not sure where you are confused? Because they paid off thier loans and hired Americans means I should like them? Who the fuck are you to tell me what to like or not like? I hate electric cars. I always have. Unless they drop a V12 in to one of their models I doubt I will like them.
Fisker makes a beautiful looking “car” but it’s a hybrid. I don’t like hybrids. I like internal combustion engines. It’s intrinsic to my nature to like things that go boom, not things that whine, buzz and hum.

122

Another interesting aspect of Tesla’s run of success lately is that they haven’t tapped into their full potential, yet. Cars are really nothing more than status symbols and for whatever reason, Teslas have become a bit of a status symbol in certain circles. That alone will open it up to multiple markets within the car industry: SUVs, small cars, trucks, hatchbacks, etc.

123

I’m I the only person who saw this thread and thought “What could that band have possibly done to get banned from a whole state?”

124

[quote]SteelyD wrote:
I’m I the only person who saw this thread and thought “What could that band have possibly done to get banned from a whole state?”
[/quote]

Not the only one. Tesla played here in my part of country just a few weeks ago. When I saw this thread, I was wondering what kind of a douche state would ban a still-decent 80’s band.

126

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Cars are really nothing more than status symbols and for whatever reason…[/quote]

Nothing more than status symbols? Gee and all this time I though people used them from transportation.

Telsa is a status symbols for the lefty celebrities who cannot be seen in a prius. Otherwise they are transportation for people who do need to go very far and can afford to spend several hours between recharges.
The electric car fad will pass, just as it has done before. It’s inherent flaws are to great to be sustainable. They may be ok city cars, but if you live in Texas, or Nevada or Georgia where commutes tend to be long, they are not viable alternatives to a real car.
Hybrids will probably be around, but I figure their market will always be somewhat marginal. They are not achieving MPG milestones that haven’t been reached by conventional methods. In 1990 Honda came out with the CRX HF which got 50 MPG hwy, a lot of people reported exceeding that. It didn’t have 20 batteries and electric motors hooked up to a very complex drive train that would have to switch between conventional and electric, it was a small efficient motor hooked up to a high-geared tranny.
I had the CRX Si, it regularly got 36 MPG, in the '90’s with a mixture of city and highway driving.

There are many viable alternatives to the electric motor that are far more compelling and efficient. The key is to make create efficiency, not transfer the energy losses to a place you cannot see outside your bedroom window.
Ideas of using more combustible fuels, infusing current fuels with things like O2 and N2O, forced induction are all better ways of creating efficiency rather than transferring energy loss to a lossy power grid.

The only way they are going to be able to make electric cars a fully viable alternative is to have someway of generating electricity in short order. Waiting for the piece of shit to charge isn’t going to work long term. The day the industry is going to take a hit is when the batteries start to go bad and people have to pay $5000 dollars (and that’s cheap for litium-ion) to replace them. The what do you do with the high caustic battery contents? Stick them in a barrel and bury them under a mountain? Sure they can recycle the battery…shell, but the shit that stores and expels energy is just a toxic soup.

127

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Cars are really nothing more than status symbols and for whatever reason…[/quote]

Nothing more than status symbols? Gee and all this time I though people used them from transportation.

Telsa is a status symbols for the lefty celebrities who cannot be seen in a prius. Otherwise they are transportation for people who do need to go very far and can afford to spend several hours between recharges.
The electric car fad will pass, just as it has done before. It’s inherent flaws are to great to be sustainable. They may be ok city cars, but if you live in Texas, or Nevada or Georgia where commutes tend to be long, they are not viable alternatives to a real car.
Hybrids will probably be around, but I figure their market will always be somewhat marginal. They are not achieving MPG milestones that haven’t been reached by conventional methods. In 1990 Honda came out with the CRX HF which got 50 MPG hwy, a lot of people reported exceeding that. It didn’t have 20 batteries and electric motors hooked up to a very complex drive train that would have to switch between conventional and electric, it was a small efficient motor hooked up to a high-geared tranny.
I had the CRX Si, it regularly got 36 MPG, in the '90’s with a mixture of city and highway driving.

There are many viable alternatives to the electric motor that are far more compelling and efficient. The key is to make create efficiency, not transfer the energy losses to a place you cannot see outside your bedroom window.
Ideas of using more combustible fuels, infusing current fuels with things like O2 and N2O, forced induction are all better ways of creating efficiency rather than transferring energy loss to a lossy power grid.

The only way they are going to be able to make electric cars a fully viable alternative is to have someway of generating electricity in short order. Waiting for the piece of shit to charge isn’t going to work long term. The day the industry is going to take a hit is when the batteries start to go bad and people have to pay $5000 dollars (and that’s cheap for litium-ion) to replace them. The what do you do with the high caustic battery contents? Stick them in a barrel and bury them under a mountain? Sure they can recycle the battery…shell, but the shit that stores and expels energy is just a toxic soup.
[/quote]

It’s great to hear that you’re actively rooting for the failure of an American company that provides thousands of jobs and who knows how much money to shareholders here in this country, all because you don’t like electric cars. What a patriot you are.

128

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

It’s great to hear that you’re actively rooting for the failure of an American company that provides thousands of jobs and who knows how much money to shareholders here in this country, all because you don’t like electric cars. What a patriot you are.[/quote]

So the new litmus test of patriotism is whether or not your car needs to be charged for 17 hours so you can drive it for three hours?

What if I don’t buy GM, or Ford, or Dodge autos either?

And on top of that, what if I only buy German autos?

Holy hell, I’m a nazi.

129

[quote]drunkpig wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

It’s great to hear that you’re actively rooting for the failure of an American company that provides thousands of jobs and who knows how much money to shareholders here in this country, all because you don’t like electric cars. What a patriot you are.[/quote]

So the new litmus test of patriotism is whether or not your car needs to be charged for 17 hours so you can drive it for three hours?

What if I don’t buy GM, or Ford, or Dodge autos either?

And on top of that, what if I only buy German autos?

Holy hell, I’m a nazi.

[/quote]

You’re a Nazi ?

Shit, looks like a bunch of Israelis are too…

Israeli electric car start-up Better Places files for bankruptcy.

130

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Cars are really nothing more than status symbols and for whatever reason…[/quote]

Nothing more than status symbols? Gee and all this time I though people used them from transportation.

Telsa is a status symbols for the lefty celebrities who cannot be seen in a prius. Otherwise they are transportation for people who do need to go very far and can afford to spend several hours between recharges.
The electric car fad will pass, just as it has done before. It’s inherent flaws are to great to be sustainable. They may be ok city cars, but if you live in Texas, or Nevada or Georgia where commutes tend to be long, they are not viable alternatives to a real car.
Hybrids will probably be around, but I figure their market will always be somewhat marginal. They are not achieving MPG milestones that haven’t been reached by conventional methods. In 1990 Honda came out with the CRX HF which got 50 MPG hwy, a lot of people reported exceeding that. It didn’t have 20 batteries and electric motors hooked up to a very complex drive train that would have to switch between conventional and electric, it was a small efficient motor hooked up to a high-geared tranny.
I had the CRX Si, it regularly got 36 MPG, in the '90’s with a mixture of city and highway driving.

There are many viable alternatives to the electric motor that are far more compelling and efficient. The key is to make create efficiency, not transfer the energy losses to a place you cannot see outside your bedroom window.
Ideas of using more combustible fuels, infusing current fuels with things like O2 and N2O, forced induction are all better ways of creating efficiency rather than transferring energy loss to a lossy power grid.

The only way they are going to be able to make electric cars a fully viable alternative is to have someway of generating electricity in short order. Waiting for the piece of shit to charge isn’t going to work long term. The day the industry is going to take a hit is when the batteries start to go bad and people have to pay $5000 dollars (and that’s cheap for litium-ion) to replace them. The what do you do with the high caustic battery contents? Stick them in a barrel and bury them under a mountain? Sure they can recycle the battery…shell, but the shit that stores and expels energy is just a toxic soup.
[/quote]

It’s great to hear that you’re actively rooting for the failure of an American company that provides thousands of jobs and who knows how much money to shareholders here in this country, all because you don’t like electric cars. What a patriot you are.[/quote]

I don’t root for them to fail. Only their product. You cannot compel me to like electric cars under the banner of patriotism. If they want me to like them, then they need to make something I like. If they don’t care if I like them or not, then we’re both satisfied. I don’t like their products and they don’t care. I like lot’s of American cars. And the car I like the most is 100% made in America, if I had the cash, I’d have it in a second.
My next car will be an American car because they now make things I want were previously they did not. The market will decide on the fate of Tesla, not me. I damn sure won’t buy one.
The electric car is always going to be a marginal product as it always has been. It’s not a product for the masses. It’s inherent flaws will not allow it to be viable. Electric cars have created a new phenomenon called ‘range anxiety’. Because it takes so long charge, it’s not going to be a mainstream product, people rely on their cars to much for that.
I don’t see an advancement were stored power can be restored in minutes. Sure they will come up with fast charging methods, but it’s still quicker to fill up your tank with gas.

131

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Cars are really nothing more than status symbols and for whatever reason…[/quote]

Nothing more than status symbols? Gee and all this time I though people used them from transportation.

Telsa is a status symbols for the lefty celebrities who cannot be seen in a prius. Otherwise they are transportation for people who do need to go very far and can afford to spend several hours between recharges.
The electric car fad will pass, just as it has done before. It’s inherent flaws are to great to be sustainable. They may be ok city cars, but if you live in Texas, or Nevada or Georgia where commutes tend to be long, they are not viable alternatives to a real car.
Hybrids will probably be around, but I figure their market will always be somewhat marginal. They are not achieving MPG milestones that haven’t been reached by conventional methods. In 1990 Honda came out with the CRX HF which got 50 MPG hwy, a lot of people reported exceeding that. It didn’t have 20 batteries and electric motors hooked up to a very complex drive train that would have to switch between conventional and electric, it was a small efficient motor hooked up to a high-geared tranny.
I had the CRX Si, it regularly got 36 MPG, in the '90’s with a mixture of city and highway driving.

There are many viable alternatives to the electric motor that are far more compelling and efficient. The key is to make create efficiency, not transfer the energy losses to a place you cannot see outside your bedroom window.
Ideas of using more combustible fuels, infusing current fuels with things like O2 and N2O, forced induction are all better ways of creating efficiency rather than transferring energy loss to a lossy power grid.

The only way they are going to be able to make electric cars a fully viable alternative is to have someway of generating electricity in short order. Waiting for the piece of shit to charge isn’t going to work long term. The day the industry is going to take a hit is when the batteries start to go bad and people have to pay $5000 dollars (and that’s cheap for litium-ion) to replace them. The what do you do with the high caustic battery contents? Stick them in a barrel and bury them under a mountain? Sure they can recycle the battery…shell, but the shit that stores and expels energy is just a toxic soup.
[/quote]

It’s great to hear that you’re actively rooting for the failure of an American company that provides thousands of jobs and who knows how much money to shareholders here in this country, all because you don’t like electric cars. What a patriot you are.[/quote]

I don’t root for them to fail. Only their product. You cannot compel me to like electric cars under the banner of patriotism. If they want me to like them, then they need to make something I like. If they don’t care if I like them or not, then we’re both satisfied. I don’t like their products and they don’t care. I like lot’s of American cars. And the car I like the most is 100% made in America, if I had the cash, I’d have it in a second.
My next car will be an American car because they now make things I want were previously they did not. The market will decide on the fate of Tesla, not me. I damn sure won’t buy one.
The electric car is always going to be a marginal product as it always has been. It’s not a product for the masses. It’s inherent flaws will not allow it to be viable. Electric cars have created a new phenomenon called ‘range anxiety’. Because it takes so long charge, it’s not going to be a mainstream product, people rely on their cars to much for that.
I don’t see an advancement were stored power can be restored in minutes. Sure they will come up with fast charging methods, but it’s still quicker to fill up your tank with gas.[/quote]

What does its mass availability have to do with anything? There are all sorts of products that are not available to the masses which are still doing well. I would argue that the electric car has always been a marginal product at best in the past because there was virtually no market for one. Now there is a market, however small, and Tesla is dominating that market, as evidenced by the imminent demise of companies like Fisker while Tesla’s stock continues to explode.

You also assume that the current drawback to electric cars, range of drivability and battery capacity, will continue to be a problem. I think one of the beneficial byproducts of Tesla’s popularity is that more and more researchers, scientists, engineers, investors and so forth are realizing the huge untapped potential of longer-lived batteries, and will race to get into that market as fast as possible. It’s the holy grail of the future of energy independence for this country, along with expanded natural gas acquisitions and nuclear fusion power. It’s part of the trifecta of energy breakthroughs that could really change the economy of this country and the way we go about everyday things.

Think about it: if we could store enough energy in a battery for an electric car to drive even 1000 miles per charge, at an average speed of 75mph, that would RADICALLY alter the market for electric cars. Correspondingly, in the future that technology would naturally miniaturize to the point where we could use our phones for months without charging them, perhaps use batteries to power our homes, or certain appliances within it and so on. As society becomes more and more technology-centric with our iPhones and iPods and iPads and electric, driverless cars, electric jets (an electric plane just made a trip recently from California to Texas), electric trains (trains are STILL an extremely “green” mode of shipping) and so forth, longer-lived batteries will become a necessity that a smart entrepreneur is going to want to get in on the ground floor of. I think that Tesla could be a catalyst of sorts that sparks this revolution in energy usage and storage. I’m sure they are already working on new, safer ways to store energy in their batteries for longer and longer. A company that is smart enough to turn huge profits in such a short time in a market like the electric car market, while all of their competitors fail left and right, is surely smart enough to know that they need to do whatever it takes to realize this new technology.

133

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Bert, maybe I’ve missed your reply but have you convinced yourself that electric cars do not use fossil fuels?[/quote]

Fuck no, I haven’t convinced myself of that. I don’t think I’ve touted any sort of environmental benefit of this vehicle in the entire thread. I really don’t know whether the production of the car and battery means more or less emissions and pollution than that of a regular car combined with the regular car’s gas emissions, but it doesn’t really matter either way as far as I’m concerned.

The benefit I see to this car is that it is simply the first new, successful American auto manufacturer to come along in almost a century. It’s an American company at the forefront of what I think is going to be a greatly expanding trend in the automotive world. I think this company is in perfect place to really take advantage of Google’s continued development of driverless cars as well. So in that respect, they are perfectly positioned to be at the forefront of a huge revolution in the way we transport ourselves. I think it’s wonderful that an American car company is positioned so, rather than some Jap company.

134

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Cars are really nothing more than status symbols and for whatever reason…[/quote]

Nothing more than status symbols? Gee and all this time I though people used them from transportation.

Telsa is a status symbols for the lefty celebrities who cannot be seen in a prius. Otherwise they are transportation for people who do need to go very far and can afford to spend several hours between recharges.
The electric car fad will pass, just as it has done before. It’s inherent flaws are to great to be sustainable. They may be ok city cars, but if you live in Texas, or Nevada or Georgia where commutes tend to be long, they are not viable alternatives to a real car.
Hybrids will probably be around, but I figure their market will always be somewhat marginal. They are not achieving MPG milestones that haven’t been reached by conventional methods. In 1990 Honda came out with the CRX HF which got 50 MPG hwy, a lot of people reported exceeding that. It didn’t have 20 batteries and electric motors hooked up to a very complex drive train that would have to switch between conventional and electric, it was a small efficient motor hooked up to a high-geared tranny.
I had the CRX Si, it regularly got 36 MPG, in the '90’s with a mixture of city and highway driving.

There are many viable alternatives to the electric motor that are far more compelling and efficient. The key is to make create efficiency, not transfer the energy losses to a place you cannot see outside your bedroom window.
Ideas of using more combustible fuels, infusing current fuels with things like O2 and N2O, forced induction are all better ways of creating efficiency rather than transferring energy loss to a lossy power grid.

The only way they are going to be able to make electric cars a fully viable alternative is to have someway of generating electricity in short order. Waiting for the piece of shit to charge isn’t going to work long term. The day the industry is going to take a hit is when the batteries start to go bad and people have to pay $5000 dollars (and that’s cheap for litium-ion) to replace them. The what do you do with the high caustic battery contents? Stick them in a barrel and bury them under a mountain? Sure they can recycle the battery…shell, but the shit that stores and expels energy is just a toxic soup.
[/quote]

It’s great to hear that you’re actively rooting for the failure of an American company that provides thousands of jobs and who knows how much money to shareholders here in this country, all because you don’t like electric cars. What a patriot you are.[/quote]

I don’t root for them to fail. Only their product. You cannot compel me to like electric cars under the banner of patriotism. If they want me to like them, then they need to make something I like. If they don’t care if I like them or not, then we’re both satisfied. I don’t like their products and they don’t care. I like lot’s of American cars. And the car I like the most is 100% made in America, if I had the cash, I’d have it in a second.
My next car will be an American car because they now make things I want were previously they did not. The market will decide on the fate of Tesla, not me. I damn sure won’t buy one.
The electric car is always going to be a marginal product as it always has been. It’s not a product for the masses. It’s inherent flaws will not allow it to be viable. Electric cars have created a new phenomenon called ‘range anxiety’. Because it takes so long charge, it’s not going to be a mainstream product, people rely on their cars to much for that.
I don’t see an advancement were stored power can be restored in minutes. Sure they will come up with fast charging methods, but it’s still quicker to fill up your tank with gas.[/quote]

What does its mass availability have to do with anything? There are all sorts of products that are not available to the masses which are still doing well. I would argue that the electric car has always been a marginal product at best in the past because there was virtually no market for one. Now there is a market, however small, and Tesla is dominating that market, as evidenced by the imminent demise of companies like Fisker while Tesla’s stock continues to explode.

You also assume that the current drawback to electric cars, range of drivability and battery capacity, will continue to be a problem. I think one of the beneficial byproducts of Tesla’s popularity is that more and more researchers, scientists, engineers, investors and so forth are realizing the huge untapped potential of longer-lived batteries, and will race to get into that market as fast as possible. It’s the holy grail of the future of energy independence for this country, along with expanded natural gas acquisitions and nuclear fusion power. It’s part of the trifecta of energy breakthroughs that could really change the economy of this country and the way we go about everyday things.

Think about it: if we could store enough energy in a battery for an electric car to drive even 1000 miles per charge, at an average speed of 75mph, that would RADICALLY alter the market for electric cars. Correspondingly, in the future that technology would naturally miniaturize to the point where we could use our phones for months without charging them, perhaps use batteries to power our homes, or certain appliances within it and so on. As society becomes more and more technology-centric with our iPhones and iPods and iPads and electric, driverless cars, electric jets (an electric plane just made a trip recently from California to Texas), electric trains (trains are STILL an extremely “green” mode of shipping) and so forth, longer-lived batteries will become a necessity that a smart entrepreneur is going to want to get in on the ground floor of. I think that Tesla could be a catalyst of sorts that sparks this revolution in energy usage and storage. I’m sure they are already working on new, safer ways to store energy in their batteries for longer and longer. A company that is smart enough to turn huge profits in such a short time in a market like the electric car market, while all of their competitors fail left and right, is surely smart enough to know that they need to do whatever it takes to realize this new technology.[/quote]

I don’t disagree that battery technology will improve. How much is debatable and the charging time is a problem that won’t improve significantly. No matter the capacity of the battery the charging of them still take hours and the larger the capacity of the battery the longer the charge. That’s an inherent flaw that won’t go away. The idea of instant charge sounds wonderful in theory, but the only way to make that work is to be able to mix chemicals that produce lots of energy. The problem with that is we’re back to square one, pollution.
No matter the capacity of the battery, it will always be less than the source of it’s charge. No matter the capability of the battery, the grid, or source of the charge can only pump a certain amount of wattage over a period of time. The only way to make them widely viable is an entire infrastructure overhaul, which is not cheap as well as the fact that doing so will mitigate the ‘green’ aspect of the car.
Tesla is doing well, for now. I don’t expect it to continue. They will level off and likely decline. It’s those batteries. The majority of the cost of the car is the batteries. Replacing lithium-ion is very expensive.
The biggest factor in making these type of vehicle viable for a large market is limited mostly by the laws of physics. Energy loss during the transfer of energy states is inevitable. There are many losses in the transfer of energy from the grid to the road. And that’s only half the equation.
And if said grid is powered by coal-fired plants (which is still the most popular type of power plant unfortunately. Thank Jimmy Carter for that), plugging in is not very green.

Powering an electrical devices with no mechanical moving parts is way different then powering electric motors that need to generate enough torque to move something heavy. It takes way more energy to power the latter.

Currently and for the foreseeable future, internal combustion is still the most efficient (by way of least energy loss) way to power an object as heavy as a car, even a light car.

135

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Bert, maybe I’ve missed your reply but have you convinced yourself that electric cars do not use fossil fuels?[/quote]

Fuck no, I haven’t convinced myself of that. I don’t think I’ve touted any sort of environmental benefit of this vehicle in the entire thread. I really don’t know whether the production of the car and battery means more or less emissions and pollution than that of a regular car combined with the regular car’s gas emissions, but it doesn’t really matter either way as far as I’m concerned.

The benefit I see to this car is that it is simply the first new, successful American auto manufacturer to come along in almost a century. It’s an American company at the forefront of what I think is going to be a greatly expanding trend in the automotive world. I think this company is in perfect place to really take advantage of Google’s continued development of driverless cars as well. So in that respect, they are perfectly positioned to be at the forefront of a huge revolution in the way we transport ourselves. I think it’s wonderful that an American car company is positioned so, rather than some Jap company.[/quote]

Driverless cars are not new. That concept and technology has been around for a while. What’s new is using sat-nav for it. That shit will never take off. If you don’t want to drive, take the subway, or a trolly, or something. When I lived in Italy, I never drove.

136

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Bert, maybe I’ve missed your reply but have you convinced yourself that electric cars do not use fossil fuels?[/quote]

Fuck no, I haven’t convinced myself of that. I don’t think I’ve touted any sort of environmental benefit of this vehicle in the entire thread. I really don’t know whether the production of the car and battery means more or less emissions and pollution than that of a regular car combined with the regular car’s gas emissions, but it doesn’t really matter either way as far as I’m concerned.

The benefit I see to this car is that it is simply the first new, successful American auto manufacturer to come along in almost a century. It’s an American company at the forefront of what I think is going to be a greatly expanding trend in the automotive world. I think this company is in perfect place to really take advantage of Google’s continued development of driverless cars as well. So in that respect, they are perfectly positioned to be at the forefront of a huge revolution in the way we transport ourselves. I think it’s wonderful that an American car company is positioned so, rather than some Jap company.[/quote]

Driverless cars are not new. That concept and technology has been around for a while. What’s new is using sat-nav for it. That shit will never take off. If you don’t want to drive, take the subway, or a trolly, or something. When I lived in Italy, I never drove.[/quote]

We don’t really have the greatest public transportation system here in America, so driving is still the best option in most cases. Also, there is a pretty big social stigma about public transportation. It just isn’t “cool” to take the bus anywhere and the only people on it are a bunch of psychopaths and losers.

I disagree that it will never take off. Again, the way kids are these days is different than when you and I were kids. They are increasingly buried in their little iGadgets and are becoming more and more into the sort of multi-tasking that having these gadgets allows for. I think the next generation or two will probably LOVE the idea of being able to go from point A to point B without having to put down the phone or whatever. I also think that older people will love the idea of a driverless car.

For instance, many members of my family own vacation homes in Lake Almanor and they all live in the Bay Area, which is about a 5 hour drive away. Aside from work, the only thing that keeps them from going to the lake more often is the drive time. But if they could just get in a car, take a nap, have a few cocktails, do some work, whatever, they would go much more often. People who have long commutes to and from work each day would also love the idea of a driverless car, as would insurance companies and car companies.

Think about it: what causes virtually all car accidents? Human error. Car companies spend billions on developing new ways to essentially save drivers from themselves. With a road filled with driverless cars all linked together via computer, the potential to drastically reduce accidents is huge. By taking the driver out of the equation it will save tons of money for the insurance companies AND the car companies.

I think what will happen is that driverless cars will become very popular within the next 20 years or so, but that it will take much longer, barring some sort of legislation, before “traditional” driving becomes a thing of the past. I think what will happen is that people will have one of each car, one for everyday driving and taking trips and one simply for the experience of driving the car themselves. I think the latter type will slowly disappear over the course of several generations.

138

[quote]pushharder wrote:
No joke, I actually predicted this, navsat driverless cars, over 30 years ago.[/quote]

That’s because you’re prescient and clairvoyant. It’s the wave of the future! I like driving fast just like any other red-blooded American male. I like big cars with big engines. My first car was a 1967 Impala with a 396 Turbojet. I’ve owned a '78 Cadillac Seville, a 1972 Pontiac Grand Prix and a 1995 Impala. I like fast, sporty cars too. I used to have a 1999 Camaro SS, a 2003 Ford Focus SVT with the Cosworth racing kit and a turbocharged 1984 Nissan 300ZX with aftermarket exhaust, fuel pump, intake, fuel injector, clutch and headers on a lowered frame.

But let’s face it. Sometimes, driving sucks and if they were affordable and readily available, I would jump at the chance to have a vehicle that takes me wherever I want to go without me having to really pay attention to where it’s going. I only live about an hour or so from Lake Almanor, but when I lived in the Bay Area the only thing that kept me from going every weekend in the summertime was the 5-hour drive each way, along with the possibility of nasty traffic between San Jose and the 80/505 interchange adding another hour or so. Driverless cars would change all of that.

How many times have we all been willing to go somewhere, save for the fact that we happen to be shitfaced drunk, or close to it? I know back in the day that was always a major roadblock for me. When I was still drinking I loved to go floating down the Sacramento River with a twelve-pack of Sierra Nevada and a few high-octane blunts. Except that the area around the river is usually crawling with cops looking for drunkards on their way to or from the river, so there were all sorts of times when it was 100 degrees out and it just wasn’t feasible to go because no one was sober enough to risk the drive to and from the river. I could go on and on.

I think what will happen is that driverless cars become very popular once they are easily available, but it will take much, much longer for “traditional” cars to disappear, if ever. I think they’ll be more like motorcycles are now, relegated to a niche crowd that tends to hang out together and that sort of thing.

They simply make too much sense to not become an eventuality. Young people will love them because young people tend to be much more accepting of technological advances like that, and older people will love them because they simply aren’t into the long drives to their vacation homes and whatnot anymore.

139

[quote]pat wrote:
How much is debatable and the charging time is a problem that won’t improve significantly. No matter the capacity of the battery the charging of them still take hours and the larger the capacity of the battery the longer the charge. That’s an inherent flaw that won’t go away. The idea of instant charge sounds wonderful in theory, but the only way to make that work is to be able to mix chemicals that produce lots of energy. The problem with that is we’re back to square one, pollution.
[/quote]

http://feministing.com/2013/05/23/brilliant-teen-creates-device-that-charges-cell-in-30-seconds/

LOL I love listening to people that know next to nothing about science actually try to talk about it…

140

[quote]VTBalla34 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
How much is debatable and the charging time is a problem that won’t improve significantly. No matter the capacity of the battery the charging of them still take hours and the larger the capacity of the battery the longer the charge. That’s an inherent flaw that won’t go away. The idea of instant charge sounds wonderful in theory, but the only way to make that work is to be able to mix chemicals that produce lots of energy. The problem with that is we’re back to square one, pollution.
[/quote]

http://feministing.com/2013/05/23/brilliant-teen-creates-device-that-charges-cell-in-30-seconds/

LOL I love listening to people that know next to nothing about science actually try to talk about it…[/quote]

So you admit to talking to yourself?