JulianWilliams

This would be funny if it weren't so sad. I'm wondering what they expect will happen? Gays to stop being gay to be able to drive? How are they going to determine if a person is gay or not if they don't come out themselves?

Have any of you tried shorting their stock? Is anyone lending stock or is the market pretty much in agreeent that the price will continue to go down? I think a realistic value of their stock should be somewhere around 30$ but the Silican Valley IT hippies have pored so much money into Tesla they've seriously denaturated its true value.

Yeah, they're supposed to double the global lithium-ion battery production which should bring the cost of such batteries down, but if that would prove to be such a profitable venture there'd soon be a lot of competitors from China getting in as well. Batteries are more likely to be commodities rather than premium products IMO and the US can't really compete in such a market with producers from countries wil much lower workforce costs.

I'd love to see some F1 cars go head to head against some of these electric cars for a short-ish race because the electric cars can't race for as long as the F1 ones can. I can see what you mean about the engine noise, but I suppose that's what the future holds for us long term anyway.

No, they should be on reasonable wages. The ones in Dublin only managed to get such high wages because they have a very strong workers' union and they managed to strong arm the local leaders into giving them a lot of what they were asking for.

Well they do make a lot more sales in the US, most of them probably to Silicon Vally IT types and executives trying to be hip, so it does make sense for them to invest more in the US network but one has to wonder, if they'd manage to sell huge numbers of them, would they be able to keep up with building charging stations?

I'm not sure what to make of them. They've spent a lot of cash and time to develop their cars but does that mean they're now technologically ahead of other manufacturers or does that mean that they had no clue what they were doing in the first place which meant it took them a lot of time to achieve what they've achieved. I mean if the car giants would really get into EVs they'd probably swipe the floor with Tesla. I'm not sure a small manufacturer like them really has much of a chance long term going head to head with the big boys.

The fundamental issue is what we would need to do in order to make fully autonomous cars possible. Do we need to fully segregate self driving cars from the rest of the traffic (including pedestrian traffic) or can they be made smart enough to navigate through the traffic we currently have? From what I can tell Google's cars are able to "read" the roads as they currently are instead of them needing some sort of expensive technology to be embedded into the roads or something like that.

What can be done to get rid of this scourge on our roads? Seriously, you can see whenever a driver in front of you is texting and driving simply by the erratic way their car moves. How many people die as a result of this a year? Way too many IMO.

Once people realize the benefits, it will catch on. The system has to have critical density for people to want to use it. The Port Authority in Pittsburgh is an example of a death by a thousand cuts. Every 6 months they cut routes and cut runs citing declining ridership and lack of funds from the state, but the problem of declining ridership just keeps accelerating. My bus route in to work was standing room only years ago. Today, on the rare occasion I take the bus in, it is not unusual for half the seats to be open. The problem? They've cut the frequency multiple times over the years. During rush hour, it used to be every 15 minutes, then it increased to every 20 minutes, then it increased to every 30 minutes, today it is every 40 minutes. If you miss your bus at the time you intended to take it, you're sunk, walk back to your car and drive in. If you're trying to take a bus outside of rush hour, better not miss it because it could be an hour or more wait. Furthermore, because of the Corbett administration choking off funds in an attempt to break the union, they don't even have enough operational buses to run every scheduled route on most days. There have been reports of up to 20% of the scheduled runs during the day system wide not happen due to lack of running equipment. That level of unreliability scares people away from using the system. Here I am, someone who wants to use public transit yet no longer able to due to lack of system density and reliability. I have been stranded waiting for buses out of the city more than once due to my bus simply not showing up. The problem is that certain political mindsets think that everything everywhere should always always always turn a profit on the books. Something like public transit doesn't operate in that way. The profit to the taxpayers comes in the form of savings elsewhere and off the books. It comes from not sitting in traffic jams and killing your MPG, it comes from lower road maintenance costs, it comes in lower environmental costs, lower accident rates, etc etc. If you build it, they will come. While I have no problem using PT, I agree that business should be profitable but the PT at least should be break even. The system in Seattle is a perfect example of stupidity. They only charge $1.25 for 1 zone, $2.50 for 2 zones and if you cross counties then it is $4.50 and yet non of this is break even. Worse is the Socialist idiots that feel the PT system should be free for street people and people who can prove they make less than $50K a year. This costs city of Seattle 38 million last year alone. They finally are killing off the free ride program as the tax dollars do not support it. Worse yet is that the free program was scaring riders due to assaults by street people and other crazy people. PT needs to be break even and safe for it to work. Nothing wrong with having $5 one way fares so that for the average person, you are looking at $50 a week, $200 a month. If you choose to use it and not have a car you will get ahead due to gas savings, insurance cost, car payments, etc. But right now biggest problem is PT not being run as a break even system. Then you also have the Unions with their seniority based jobs that does not mean you get the best worker and then you have pay issues. Some bus drivers have been sited earning 100K or more a year due to no limit on over time. I would think better to hire more drivers than control it and pay OT. Political mess that does not promise that if you build it they will use it. One Solution is the Fed's paid the bulk for HOV Lanes. If they want to get people out of their auto's then convert the HOV lanes into Lite Rail now fast quick and have the stations over the freeway systems so people walk out to the lite rail get on and zoom off. Public transit is socialist... its right there in the name... get OVER it. Public transit does NOT need to break even on the accounting books to be a net positive to the cities they serve. You have the EXACTLY WRONG mentality about public transit. The benefits of which will never ever be seen in accounting software. Every single run of of a bus route can take 25 - 50 Toyota Corollas off the road. Multiply that by thousands of bus runs (not routes, but runs) and you're talking some real numbers in terms of traffic and congestion avoided. That can mean the difference between 12mpg and 18mpg in your Suburban, every day. Even if you never ever take a bus, tram, trolley, train, etc, it is in your interest to strongly support public transit and using tax dollars to do it. Most public transit system lose money because of overpaid unions and all surt of subsidies for the old and children, etc.. mayors give in order to gather votes when election time comes. I just read about bus drivers in Dublin, Ireland making 50k euro / year That's just ridiculous.

Why should I be taxed for using my brain on how to get around Idiot City planning of not building the major roads big enough and I know the side streets so I take a short cut to get home or to where I need to go faster. Transit is not efficient and bike riding is not either. Slow and way to long and not something useful during fall, winter or spring. Heck why not charge the bike riders and motorcycle/ scooter riders a fair tax for dedicated roads or covered protected lanes for their use. Why should I a driver who has earned the privilege to drive a car have to pay for bike riders and scooters? Bicycles produce vastly less wear and tear to the surface of the roads. You can get away without doing much to bike lanes for many years. Also, how are pedestrians being taxed for walking? Pedestrian sidewalks are being paid by the building owners who construct and are required to supply sidewalks around their buildings butting up against the street. The business wants people to come in they supply sidewalks. Yes Bikes produce less wear, but they are also random and all over causing many problems and are less efficient in getting from point A to B fast. Yes this is more of an American culture thing. Having gone to college in Japan I have first hand experience on how especially in the Asian rim they incorporate public transportation in small areas. Yet the US was never small and as such, getting around in cold, freezing or raining areas especially when you work 40 miles in each direction from home to work makes Bike riding a non-starter. Not going to waste my hours riding a bike to and from work. Rather work out in the gym with the wife or go skiing than to waste hours riding a bike. Well having a bicycle culture is dependent on having lots of people living in densely populated areas, because, as you say, if you have to ride for 40 miles every day just to get to work then that's a non starter, but anything under 7-8 miles should be comfortably doable.

Why should I be taxed for using my brain on how to get around Idiot City planning of not building the major roads big enough and I know the side streets so I take a short cut to get home or to where I need to go faster. Transit is not efficient and bike riding is not either. Slow and way to long and not something useful during fall, winter or spring. Heck why not charge the bike riders and motorcycle/ scooter riders a fair tax for dedicated roads or covered protected lanes for their use. Why should I a driver who has earned the privilege to drive a car have to pay for bike riders and scooters? Bicycles produce vastly less wear and tear to the surface of the roads. You can get away without doing much to bike lanes for many years. Also, how are pedestrians being taxed for walking?

If you're driving an old beat up Corolla, you probably can't afford a self driving car anyway. Most new cars don't exactly provide some sort of thrills to their drivers while they're doing their regular commute either. I'm also not sure they'd be that expensive either afther people start buying them in large numbers. Then why do you need a Self Driving car? For the same reason I need a non self driving car.... to always have it my disposal and to be able to hop in it whenever I want to go to somehwere.

I like it. I find these cars with almost the entire roof letting the light in to be really attractive for some reason. It looks a little chunky maybe but it'd do its job just fine as a city driving car. If they'd sell them for a reasonable car they'd have quite a bit of success i reckon.

How good a driver are you? Can you properly control your car? Do you pay attention when driving? Are you good at avoiding potential dangers?

Cars are polluting, the take up a lot of space, they damage the roads, they kill / injure a lot of people every year and they damage our health by reducing the amound of exercise we get and they're also fairly expensive to buy and operate. Bicyclists however have a really hard time riding through cities because there's not much infrastructure available for them. Should cities turn a lot of the infrastructure destined for car trafic into infrastructure for bicycle traffic? I mean if there's a road with two lanes on each direction they would turn one lane on each sides into a bicycle path. Or if the road only has one lane per direction they'd turn one lane into a bicycle path and the onther lane would remain in use for cars as a one way road. I think it's a great idea and I hope it will happen soon.

Why? If you're driving some s****y car like the vast majority of people do it's not like driving is bringing you some sort of joy. It's not a particularly pleasant activity for the most majority of time and I think if they (SD cars) were available and people wouldn't be affraid of the idea of letting the car drive itself they would soon become the majority. Riding in a SD car would be no different to taking a taxi.

How big is the Chinese market and how much of it is it held by local producers? Are the local producers focusing on the cheap car section of the market or are they making luxury cars as well?

I'd buy the version that has a bed instead of seats so I can take a nap while being driven to work. If the GF wants to share a ride that could get even more interesting

There are millions of truck drivers (about 3.5 million ) in the US getting paid over a hundred billions of dollars / year. That's a gargantuan cost that's just begging to be cut from the trucking companies' perspective.

What for? Well, for starters you'd have more time to simply relax or work or look around or do some other pleasant activity. Secondly they'd probably be safer by removing you from the ecuation. Let's face it, none of us is a perfect driver and we do all sort of distracting things,

IIRC they just swap the cars. I suppose it'd be difficult do swap the batteries really quickly due to them being built for speed rather than practicality therefore they probably have batteries stuck into every nook and cranny. I also understand it's a very expensive competition to run due to them always renting cities to organize their races rather than using already existing racing tracks. i suppose they're also looking to promote the idea of electric car = performance to the masses.

http://www.fiaformulae.com/en.aspx Is the competition any good? It's basically F1-ish cars but with electric engines. I haven't had the chance to watch any races yet but it does sound interesting. I wonder how the cars compare with F1cars.

Sooner or later self driving cars are going to come on the market IMO, with some companies like Google already investing in developing them. The million question however is whether people will buy them or not. So, what about you, would you buy one if some manufacturer were selling them already?

My main worry would be their safety. Then there's the issue of reliability. Do any Chinese companies really have the know-how to produce safe reliable cars? I've see they also like to produce a lot of clones... a bunch of cars that are very clearly a copy of some European or American car.