Too true

The most hopeful part about those other chemistries is we already have nmc demonstrated to last beyond the average life expectancy of a vehicle…. And most of those newer chemistries should last significantly longer

I don’t know whether that is currently a bottleneck or will be any time soon. I only know we’re “20 years away” from using it regularly, just like we have been my entire life

I suppose it’s good science to figure out if we can do it, just like it’s good science to see if we can establish more access to space

NASA as a whole is a tiny fraction of the federal budget but has always generated outsized contributions to humanity. It’s an easy argument that money spent on nasa is money earned elsewhere. It’s a good investment

SpaceX Falcon has revolutionized space launches and I don’t believe that is government supported at all. It does fill government launch contracts but more cheaply than they could have done so themselves, and reliably enough to capture most of the world’s market. This does not add to the deficit and the early investments have been handsomely rewarded

Both SpaceX and blue origin, as well as other new generation space companies have been much much cheaper than old style projects. Just look at Artemis for example. Huge developments costs, continually More expensive, and $1B-$2B per launch. Yet I believe the total nasa funding for the entire starship program is around not like $2B. That is a very good use of our money. Heck, it’s probably cheaper than our little tantrum in Iran and certainly for a better purpose

For sure it was over-hyped and jumping the gun on what’s possible. But if we ever do live off earth, mars is more likely than the moon

Mars is also an inspirational challenge - doing something that has never been possible. Going to the moon is something we already could to half a century ago. What’s the point of doing that again?

Assuming we do go to the moon, it had better be noticeably more than what we did 50 years ago. Personally I’m looking for a permanent moon station, similar to what ISS did for human presence in orbit

In one hand, the moon is smarter because you can have Interaction and any change takes only a week or two. While we can’t harvest local resources, the cost to location is relatively low. You could even completely run out of food and still have everyone survive

We can’t afford to screw up anything to mars when there is no Interaction and it takes 18 months or more to make a change. Imagine if there’s a medical Emergency or the garden dies: 18 months is a really long time. Everything you send there is correspondingly more expensive and everything needs to much more stock in case anything goes wrong. There are many more possible issues to plan and prepare for. This will be especially expensive until we develop in-situ resource usage

And we don’t even know if people could survive that long

• mars has no magnetic field so both moon and mars are fully exposed to radiation, but an astronaut needs to survive like 3 years of it to goto mars
• we know that microgravity causes long term health issues limiting long term presence in orbit. But we don’t know how much gravity is enough to prevent those issues. Going to the moon is short enough to not worry and gives us a second data point. Going to mars is long enough to be a serious problem if it’s gravity is not enough

But in the other hand mars is smarter because more gravity and more resources. If you believe we should eventually have colonies in space, that will never happen on the moon but might on mars

The huge potential of helium-3 is for nuclear fusion. Yet we don’t have fusion reactors that use helium-3 and fusion is “20 years away”. We could get to mars before needing this is any quantity

That’s tough.

My Costco doesn’t have gas: back when I drove a car that ran on dead dinosaurs I wished it did. My town has been refusing to let them put gas pumps in unless they can figure something to do with traffic, but it’s a pretty congested area so they just don’t have any room or road access

The problem is I do think it’s a good idea (but retro “space invaders” sounds). There’s a good argument that cars moving walking speed near a pedestrian’s ought to make enough noise to ensure the pedestrians are aware of them. I’d rather be annoyed by the noisy eenvironment than run over

Once it’s intentional to do this then yes, why not pick your own?

Yeah normal seems to have taken a vacation

In either case it’s all tied to supply and demand. When teslas kept their value it was because huge growth they couldn’t keep up with. Now their value used is horrible but a big part of that is demand dropped, so they can make too many.

And yes it is not a good thing that in both cases too much was driven by a personality.

Personally I’m annoyed because teslas still are the most compelling EV available to me, but they always had the shadow of over-hype and now they’re toxic

I especially don’t get why some people are rude enough to turn their carts sideways like this. That’s never acceptable and seems like it would be less concern them as well.

It does make it easier to block a wider aisle but that implies it’s intentional

Similar strategy works for parking, at least with mine. The parking layout is bad and there is consistently a line of cars trying to handle it … as they all go straight or left to get to the front half of the lot. I turn right and get out of the traffic for a quick parking spot.

Yeah it’s a huge lot and I’m parked pretty far away, but the mess in the front half means I do save time by going for the first available spot rather than a “good” spot

While true, especially having to maneuver around stockers …… people manage to block Costco aisles that are like 15’ wide. I can’t even conceive how one person and one cart can do this but they manage

Yeah, I’ve partly given up with that. All too often I just move their cart and continue on my way. If they’re offended, I’m gone before they even think of a response

I know it’s rude and some day some one will become angry but I can hope they feel a sense of shame that teaches a lesson

temperatures hovering around +5…-15 °C

We’ve just come off a cold streak like this and I have to say it was no big deal.

Obviously I don’t know of there are long term effects on the battery but

• most/all EVs have active thermal management now so will maintain a healthy temperate while in use
• my decision point on technology maturity was when they started using heat pumps rather than resistive heat. That’s still too rare but makes a huge impact on cold weather range

The depreciation is real

It’s not though, or it is currently. It wasn’t too many years ago that teslas kept their value more than any other car. I’d argue this is a temporary market condition that is only valid for decisions now but is not predictably valid

have a 10% battery remaining and then you recieve an emergency call and have to leave immediately

I actually have been in similar scenario, but one hour charging at home will get me to any such place (or I could have, you know, hit up a supercharger on my way)

The complaint may be that it’s an emergency but how often can you not even wait an hour? Especially since it’s half gone by the time I unload the car, use the rest room, etc

A friend of mine did it. Parked at his condo then went to a supercharger every weekend. It can be done. I’m not that dedicated but some people are.

Unfortunately charging at work may not be the answer if there are not enough. My office has 8 chargers, so I can charge for free. However there are more than 8 people who want to use them. In theory we can share so 16 cars get half a day each but it can be tough to get a turn.

Chargers, both high speed and destination, really need to scale a lot for this to become convenient and reliable. It’s unfortunate that this also has become political and attempts to improve this have been blocked

Being able to charge at home is a game changer, and I live on the east coast where superchargers are commonly available but sometimes it’s easy to get discouraged at this infrastructure being so delayed

My Tesla trip planner did something I never would have thought of but it works. It planned for at most 20 minutes at superchargers. It meant I never had to wait long at the cost of my next leg of the trip being a bit shorter. But I imagine it does optimize overall trip time, not just individual charging time. Remember batteries can’t charge linearly: there’s always a curve and charging always slows down as it gets full. Charging to 80% or similar takes advantage of the steep part of the curve to save you time

My biggest charging delay on trips is my own fault, always looking for a supercharger rather than destination chargers

• I’ve always given up pretty fast trying to find hotels with chargers
• when visiting family I never asked to plug in because I wasn’t sure whether they would make a big deal about it

Every once in a while I want the sound effects for my EV. Some of the most iconic “muscle” cars are just sound effect so it’s the same thing.

• if a mustang is all sound effect, my EV should be able to sound d the same
• if a Subaru has fake shift points with its CVT to help the car bros feel more comfortable, why can’t my EV

I want to come up to a red light in my EV and out-rev the corvette next to me