NickM

54 ms·

541.
by NickM 13y ago
Sporty behavior not on a highway is still going to get better consumption than extremely high speed driving, because wind resistance rises as the square of the velocity. If you double your velocity, then air drag increases by 4x, so if user
542.
by NickM 13y ago
If you're going that fast, you'll have to stop every 1-2h to refuel in just about any car, ICE or EV. On the one hand, yeah you might have to stop for a little longer in a Tesla, but on the other hand you're going to save shi
543.
by NickM 13y ago
I'm not familiar with the exact numbers, but I would be extremely surprised if a solar panel or wind turbine took that much fresh water to manufacture and install. I suspect that the argument you're referencing is more likely gear
544.
by NickM 13y ago
In most parts of the US it costs less than a tenth of a cent to charge an iPhone. I think it would be extremely rare that any business or organization would choose saving the minuscule cost of electricity over allowing people who need a cha
545.
by NickM 13y ago
I agree with your general point, but as an aside I wouldn't call Teflon perfectly safe...it's fine as long as you don't heat it up too much, but at higher temperatures it releases toxic gasses (and we're talking temperat
546.
by NickM 13y ago
There's a lot of good information on this particular phenomenon in the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car". It's a bit dated by now, but still relevant in my opinion. Car companies make a lot of their profits off o
547.
by NickM 13y ago
They can't seem to make money on high-margin luxury vehicles This is incorrect. They've been profitable since Q1 of this year and their profit margins are continuing to rise, even discounting the ZEV regulatory credits (which ha
548.
by NickM 13y ago
I think your complaints are pretty well addressed in first few paragraphs of Elon's blog post. The goal of the company from the outset has always been to create an affordable mass-market car, but until they have economies of scale and
549.
by NickM 13y ago
Something not answered by the FAQ: when the battery starts to die, do you get some kind of a warning? If so, great. If not, I'd be worried that one day my battery would die without warning while I'm out of town and I'd be stu
550.
by NickM 13y ago
I feel like this is a bit overblown. If I stop paying lease payments for my car, it will get repossessed, and rightly so. If it's not my car, then I don't have some special rights that say I should be able to do whatever I want wi
551.
by NickM 13y ago
Are you suggesting markets are not efficient? In that case, when can we expect you to become extremely wealthy from your inefficiency-proving strategy? (Claiming the EMH is false is equivalent to claiming that such a strategy exists.) Wha
552.
by NickM 13y ago
I'd say it's better to be in a car that is more likely to save your life (e.g. a Model S), and is also less likely to burst into flames in an accident (e.g. any electric vehicle on the market). In a major accident, gasoline ca
553.
by NickM 13y ago
This is a fascinating approach to solving one of the greatest problems charities face: negative public perception of "overhead". People react extremely negatively when a charity has any significant percentage of donations going to
554.
by NickM 13y ago
With the right voltages, you can get 1.21 gigawatts out of a capacitor no problem! Just not for very long ;-)
555.
by NickM 13y ago
I've read that as well, but it's hard to imagine that it can really be that much of a secret. If a competitor wanted to find out how it's put together, all they'd have to do is buy one and take it apart, no?
556.
by NickM 13y ago
Typical US electricity rates are around $0.10/kWh, and a baseline Model S having a 60kWh battery, so if I totally guess at a charging efficiency of 50% then a full charge should cost somewhere in the vicinity of $12. On the 60kWh model, it
557.
by NickM 13y ago
More likely I'd expect such a tax to be imposed in the form of additional taxes/fees on EV purchase/registration. Most EV charging is done at home, and it'd be logistically impractical to try to measure and tax only the electricity used to
558.
by NickM 13y ago
Even without regulatory credits included, they made a profit. Check the filing: total profit for the quarter was $96.3 million, and revenue from ZEV and other regulatory credits was only about $85M.
559.
by NickM 13y ago
Your $68M number on the ZEV credits is correct, but I checked the financial results and they actually made $96.3M in profit for Q1 2013.
560.
by NickM 13y ago
Tesla are already profitable without selling ZEV credits though, and they're are expecting that source of income to phase out over the next few quarters anyway. It might hurt them a tiny bit, but it shouldn't have much of an impact in the l
561.
by NickM 13y ago
Ah, good catch! I did miss that note about the $17.1 million. Also, the $11.3M is partly from other stuff - selling drivetrains for the RAV4 EV, selling apparel, etc - not just selling cars. However, it would seem my main point still stands
562.
by NickM 13y ago
Note that they are still selling each car at a material loss; and only managed to show a profitable quarter by trading green credits they gained from their manufacturing. I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. I'm looking at their quarter
563.
by NickM 13y ago
Why do people use really inefficient dirty open fires to cook? Why aren't they using better stoves? It's not as if a stove requires huge amounts of resources. Or better still, why not just let them eat cake? Then they won't need stoves or
564.
by NickM 13y ago
This would possibly interest me, but including nootropics without listing them seems incredibly scary. It's one thing to include all the normal vitamins and minerals your body needs, but to take it a step further and include mind-altering
565.
by NickM 13y ago
It's not clear whether it was actually a short squeeze, or just a normal value increase caused by the shorts covering their positions. Shorting a stock always has a negative impact on its price, so now that Tesla has a much lower short inte
566.
by NickM 13y ago
The base model will have just one motor though, and the batteries are actually the same as Model S (60kWh or 85kWh). Given that they've had time to refine their manufacturing techniques and such, it could be cheaper than Model S. However
567.
by NickM 13y ago
What country do you live in?
568.
by NickM 13y ago
Well, actually not all our encryption methods: there are asymmetric encryption algorithms that provide strong encryption even in the face of quantum computers. Unfortunately, the whole world is using RSA which is vulnerable. I don't know
569.
by NickM 14y ago
Oh, and none of the prices include the home charger required to charge it in a reasonable amount of time. The car has a built in charger that can add 31 miles of range per hour off a standard 240V outlet. The base model has 160 miles of r
570.
by NickM 14y ago
Even if they derived 100% of their electricity from coal, it would be a huge win for the environment. There have been multiple studies done on this, and power plants and electric motors are massively more efficient and clean than gasoline c

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