People that finance literally will pay less each month for the car. I don’t understand the semantics game here to avoid calling this a “discount”. If you pay less each month it’s ok to call it a discount. I’d argue neither scenario justifies a news story, but the Tesla demand cliff is trendy (justifiably so of course, fuck Nazis) so here we are.

The 18" deadlift is an entirely different lift from regular DL because it starts higher off the ground. These are just not comparable. Starting higher is much easier.

Also me! I’m not buying anything if I can avoid it. I’m going to ride my bike and not participate in this scam economy as best I can.

It’s not a “feel good statement”, it’s reality. Gas is terrible. It’s responsible for a significant portion of climate change and gas stoves cause myriad health issues. This is basic stuff. Of course the transition isn’t all sunshine and rainbows but electrification is far from some insurmountable ideal, and it can be quite cost effective.

The vast majority of HVAC equipment will be replaced on burnout, and when you do the economics of a new gas furnace (and almost certainly AC these days) vs an ASHP, it’s simply not $30-50k extra. There are state and local incentives, the federal tax credits, utility incentives etc., but I agree the IRA programs are on thin ice (even though Biden awarded funds before leaving). I bought a high end cold climate heat pump for just a few grand more than my neighbor who bought a furnace/AC with similar operating costs. You can get a cheaper ASHP and furnace for something in between cost wise. My state has tripled cold climate heat pump incentives and they are now very competitive with gas systems. I work in the industry and live this every day, it’s not some boondoggle, the grid updates necessary aren’t as dramatic as headlines imply and are already well underway to support vehicle electrification and load growth/resiliency. The PNW is quite mild and people are willing to pay for AC anyway due to heat waves (and wildfire smoke), so going straight to heat pumps is a very cost effective solution. Folks are cancelling gas service left and right and the remaining users will be left with rising fixed costs. Plus as I led with, gas is terrible for your family and the climate (and locally where the wells are).

It’s always the right time to switch to heat pumps and induction stoves. Gas is terrible.

Seems like that would make things easier by skipping a few steps. If the egg already has the bird flu virus, then you just inactivate it and you’re done. Insert egg anally and you’re protected, easy peasy.

Your experience is fine and I’m not denying it, but none of what you said is unique to Tesla at this point (except possibly some of the software). An Ioniq 5 charges faster, can use the superchargers and EA and everyone else’s chargers, rides better, has a heat pump, has better lease deals, etc. You can easily find anecdotes just like yours from former Tesla owners that bought other EVs. Of course you can buy cars that charge slower, or don’t have heat pumps, or other features of the Y, but you seem to be just ignoring competing vehicles that do things as well or better than Tesla.

If you’re in the EU or have access to Chinese EVs, the competition is even more compelling vs the Tesla offerings.

There are tons of Y competitors, just not yet from Lucid. It’s the most popular segment with the most competition. Regarding dealers, it’s not a universal benefit. Service and location matter. Rivian for example is really struggling with this. And ask the folks that spent $70k on a model Y a few years ago during the peak squeeze how great they feel about totally not paying a dealer markup. Software is interesting, Tesla does a good job at OTA but in general everyone I talk to seems to want less tech, fewer subscriptions, less invasive tracking, and manual buttons. Half the people I know want to just drive old Toyotas because of privacy. The tech stack and the software mean nothing to me personally. I do care about ride quality and road noise, and last time I was in a Tesla both were awful. Most folks charge at home and the supercharger network is less of an advantage every day. The people that need to cannonball run in subzero temps will drive ICE for another 5+ years anyway. Heat pumps are helpful but not that much. When it’s actually really cold the COP isn’t much better than 1-1.5, and when it’s mild and COP improves you don’t need much capacity anyway. I remember years ago before Tesla put in heat pumps everyone saying it didn’t matter. Sorry for the meandering rant here, the point here is that the Y is by no means a superior vehicle anymore. I personally value nothing that a Y has over an Ioniq 5, and that’s even ignoring that Musk is a Nazi that deserves universal boycotting.

I totally agree with your take other than that their cars are anything special at this point - what features are unmatched by competitors? Yes they were innovative at the time but they currently don’t lead in efficiency, range, charging, ride quality, interior quality, and FSD was/is an absolute grift.

Didn’t he die just today trying to suck on his own penis? Hard to keep up with the news these days.

Marginal cost is never zero though. That would imply truly free unlimited energy. There is a cost to build solar, wind, storage, etc. that needs to be amortized. We also want to incentivize folks to not waste energy, so a reasonably strong link between usage and price is helpful.

It’s going to be interesting to see how this all plays out for gas infrastructure as folks electrify and cut their gas service. Once the spiral starts, fixed costs will grow for the remaining customers and push more people to cancel their service.

But the size of the array, and therefore the cost of the array, are intimately tied to the production of said array. So there can’t be flat rate unless consumption never surpasses production, which is of course will when you have zero marginal cost.

Of course, and that’s part of the charm. They bag out like a pair of leather slippers. I read something recently about them using a shit ton more adhesive in the new Forester so maybe it’s improving? My 2015 isn’t that bad, but I hate driving in general so basic appliance standards is fine by me.

What does this even mean? What TV shows are you even talking about? Indiana is a US state.

I’m too lazy to look this up, but I believe death rates were higher out of cities vs in cities. Half the reason hospitals were packed in cities is because rural people went where the ventilators were. Everywhere had all the covid waves, they just hit cities first.

Elderly tend to be more R, and D folks were more likely to mask and vaccinate. But elderly vaccinated pretty well across the board and the divide was bigger in the young. Lots of factors, but my money is on D making out slightly better as a broad cohort. Tragic all around though.

Ok I did some searching and excess mortality points to higher rural impact, but official cause of death data is mixed (too lazy to link though).

https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/penn-sas-comparing-urban-and-rural-excess-mortality-during-covid-19-pandemic

Unless the plan is something more like Terminator. If you “unshackle” AI and give them a mandate to get CO2 back to 250 ppm things are going to get real.

That’s entirely the wrong denominator for this comparison. IRS doesn’t write the budget nor do they write tax law, they just collect.

The original post I responded to was someone talking about how starlink lets them game in a rural RV. What about carbon emissions from thousands of rocket launches? What about atmospheric damage? What about astronomy? I’m saying the downsides don’t appear to be worth the upsides for these niche scenarios. Humanity survived just fine for quite some time before ultra remote Internet became a thing.

I’m not trying to alienate anyone, I’m trying to understand why low latency gaming needs for digital nomads is worth the real downsides of providing such a service (scientific, GHG, atmospheric tinkering, etc). I also believe that we should leave a lot more of the earth alone and that nature matters. I’m not trying to put people anywhere, just recognizing there are pros and cons to different living schemes, humans are social creatures, and population of 2 areas don’t warrant large societal investments. I’m similarly against a hypothetical drone sushi delivery service for rural Canadadian boreal forests if that happens to have real downsides too.

Scientists doing science > tech bro nomads cosplaying as explorers but actually just playing fortnite in a van. You’re also ignoring the other downsides besides spectral emissions. Read the article I linked.