Tesla magic running low

[Avocet]

And basically reliable things as well .. my two have a combined age of 63 years & still going strong.
Will be a different story for the disposable items, sorry cars, produced today. Legislation will likely kill the old 'uns long before they die naturally

You can keep a horse and cart on the road indefinitely too - just need to replace the horse whenever it dies, and replace bits of cart as required. However, whether you'd want to use one for day-to-day transport, is a different story. We can all get misty-eyed about how "they'll never make them like the used to", but the reality is very different for most people. 10 years / 100,000 miles was a good innings for a car in the '70s. Hell, it was unusual to get more than 12,000 miles or a year's warranty!

I have a 35 year old car, which I'm very fond of, but I'm under no illusions about "saving the planet" with it. It's absolutely filthy, emissions-wise, and by today's standards, about as crashworthy as a wet cardboard box.

 

[Avocet]

Introducing the Xpeng AeroHT:

I want one.

I want to put on a pair of bug-eye shades and vape like a steamer, leaving the rush hour far below.

Look at it! Cool as f...

I know a guy who went off to work for one of these flying car startups. I think it was this one:

 

[Odds]

I know a guy who went off to work for one of these flying car startups. I think it was this one:

It's a cool design but hardly able to fit alongside other road users - neither is the Chinese version, really.
If they're going to do it than some form of jet propulsion would be necessary, i think...like a Harrier. But that'd fail the green energy spec. Compressed air?

 

[JohnD]

"Elon Musk has shut down the division that runs Tesla’s Supercharger business, dismissed two senior executives and fired hundreds more staff as the electric-car maker continues its restructuring amid a sharp downturn in the EV market.

Musk announced internally on Monday that the head of the superchargers group, Rebecca Tinucci, and Daniel Ho, head of new products, would be leaving along with their entire teams. About 500 people were in the supercharger group, the memo said."

FT.com

 

[Avocet]

It's a cool design but hardly able to fit alongside other road users - neither is the Chinese version, really.
If they're going to do it than some form of jet propulsion would be necessary, i think...like a Harrier. But that'd fail the green energy spec. Compressed air?

No, the wings all fold up so that it's more or less car-sized on the road. Did you watch to the end? However, it still needs a runway to take off and land, so I think this sort of design is doomed. If we do ever get flying cars, I think they'll be the "quadcopter" type of design.

 

[Avocet]

"Elon Musk has shut down the division that runs Tesla’s Supercharger business, dismissed two senior executives and fired hundreds more staff as the electric-car maker continues its restructuring amid a sharp downturn in the EV market.

Musk announced internally on Monday that the head of the superchargers group, Rebecca Tinucci, and Daniel Ho, head of new products, would be leaving along with their entire teams. About 500 people were in the supercharger group, the memo said."

FT.com

Certainly not the kind of guy I'd want to work for. Clearly a visionary who has done much to get EVs into the mainstream, but he underestimates the size (and capability) of the competition. He won't starve though...

 

[Odds]

No, the wings all fold up so that it's more or less car-sized on the road. Did you watch to the end? However, it still needs a runway to take off and land, so I think this sort of design is doomed. If we do ever get flying cars, I think they'll be the "quadcopter" type of design.

Yes, i watched it through but the design still requires a runway and for a wider market such a car would not be a commercial success - more of a rich mans toy or a track day car, like the Atom.
I'm thinking of a more advanced tech using a development of anti-grav field around the craft that can be activated when the driver wants to take to the air, like using a quantum field theory. Obviously years in the future but there's no reason to think it couldn't happen - in 1900 flight was still a theory but less than 70 years later America put a man on the moon.

 

[IT Minion]

in 1900 flight was still a theory but less than 70 years later America put a man on the moon.

At the moment we don't have a theory of Gravity, let alone a theory of anti-gravity. But who knows.

 

[Odds]

At the moment we don't have a theory of Gravity, let alone a theory of anti-gravity. But who knows.

A recent CERN experiment proved Einstein was right but there is a notion that there's a chance of using gravity with quantum vacuum effects, in which energy and particles and anti-particles appear out of nowhere....then it all goes sub-atomic and well weird.

 

[norseman]

I have a 35 year old car, which I'm very fond of, but I'm under no illusions about "saving the planet" with it. It's absolutely filthy, emissions-wise, and by today's standards, about as crashworthy as a wet cardboard box.

I like the horse 'n cart analogy
As for crash resistance my old BMW comes out pretty well when viewed on Utube crash tests & an identical example of my Range Rover classic totally obliterated a Renault Clio in a head-on a few years back, in return for a smashed light unit a bent wing & front bumper.
Saving the planet? At only 6k miles PA total for both cars I'm more concerned about the lack of effort on the part of far eastern countries.

 

[Avocet]

I like the horse 'n cart analogy
As for crash resistance my old BMW comes out pretty well when viewed on Utube crash tests & an identical example of my Range Rover classic totally obliterated a Renault Clio in a head-on a few years back, in return for a smashed light unit a bent wing & front bumper.
Saving the planet? At only 6k miles PA total for both cars I'm more concerned about the lack of effort on the part of far eastern countries.

Hold the front page! Range Rover tops Clio in crash! Yes, well, you'd kind of expect that, wouldn't you? Try driving it into a current Range Rover and let us know how you get on...

As for pointing the finger at Far Eastern countries, that's maybe a bit unfair. We export a lot of our emissions there, by buying stuff they make, and then feel good about ourselves because the CO2 didn't come out of our factory chimneys. It's always easier to point the finger at other folk than it is to take the lead.

 

[Mottie]

sharp downturn in the EV market.

Brother in law is fairly high up in Ford and he tells me they are gearing up to increase diesel engine production at Dagenham.

 

[Avocet]

Brother in law is fairly high up in Ford and he tells me they are gearing up to increase diesel engine production at Dagenham.

Ford are licking their wounds at present. They've rushed some (pretty lacklustre) EVs to market and they haven't sold at all well. If they want to stay in the game, they're going to have to whack out some more ICEs while they re-group and re-develop some more competitive EVs.

 

[Notch7]

Tesla, by far the country’s top maker of electric vehicles, is riding the wave of EV adoption. Its vehicles and technology offer a way to tackle climate change. Such a cutting-edge company is attractive to plenty of people looking for meaningful work. Not to mention that a position as a production associate, an entry-level factory floor job, currently pays around $25 per hour—less than what unionized autoworkers can expect, though much more than what most service-sector workers make. But a review by The Nation of more than 50 legal documents, government records at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Labor Relations Board, along with interviews with workers and their lawyers, paints a picture of a company whose factory floors are stuck in another century.

Dozens of Black workers have alleged that racism is not only rampant but tolerated at the company’s factories, from menacing white-power graffiti to Black workers being shunted to the most grueling jobs with no chance of getting a promotion. At least a dozen women have described a work environment thick with sexual innuendo and complain of inappropriate touching and catcalls hurled at them daily.

“There’s an atmosphere on the line that allows for mistreatment,” said J. Bernard Alexander III, an attorney at Alexander Morrison&Fehr, who has represented some of the workers at the Fremont plant. When workers feel desperate enough to complain, he continued, “there’s no responsiveness. As long as the line is moving, progress is being made, they can’t care less.”

The Nation.com

A long read that highlights explicit sexism and racism on the shop floor of Tesla factories in the US. A toxic culture that stems from the top down.

I cant say Im surprised, Elon Musk seems like a total c**t

 

[Notch7]

Brother in law is fairly high up in Ford and he tells me they are gearing up to increase diesel engine production at Dagenham.

Ive been around Dagenham Ford, it is a massive building