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Shoutout to the guy at a park who exclaimed “Somebody stole your engine!”

One of the arguments that needs to be retired ASAP is that “Airbus is fly-by-wire, so it is a safe technology for cars“. There appears to be a huge difference between the way that aerospace develops software and the way that the automotive industry does. The Airbus software took decades to...

Ford needs to go in for the kill now. Offer $2k off for Cybertruck reservation holders (of course the only color they are allowed is “unpainted”). Tesla could have been a serious threat if they had not succumbed to the most classic “Founder’s Syndrome” experience that I have ever seen. (I...

“EVs are not for everyday use” I love my Lightning but it is a glutton like my previous gas Lariat. I can get around 2 miles/KW. My Kia EV6 regularly hits 4.2 and my e-Golf often gets 5. The Kia is often driven on the freeway at 65-70.

If you can get the government to pay for redoing your panel then do so, just because it is probably a good thing to do in general. There are a lot of subpar 100A panels out there that won’t meet current code and might be questionable with the continuous draw of EVs and the subsequent heat build...

Adding a 240v/50A outlet for each unit’s parking space would basically be a rounding error in a large (new construction) electrical contract. It wouldn’t really be the right thing to do - prewiring for a group of smaller amperage EVSEs that can load share and possibly be managed by a third...

Copart.com or your local scrapyard - you can probably get a whole new mirror for very little. I think it is a standard F-150 mirror so there should be good availability.

Every ranch is different I suppose but in my experience the farm/ranch trucks never tow anything all that far - maybe the next town over where there is a train depot or the local Co-Op. You don’t really have time to be doing a whole bunch of driving. The people with show horses drive a lot...

The gas F-150 has a GVWR of 8500 pounds with the max tow package. Unladen the gas truck weighs 4705 pounds which is 2.3 tons. For comparison my Kia EV6 AWD (270 EPA range) weighs 4795 pounds (2.3 tons) so it would have no problem on the bridge — it basically weighs as much as the gas...

The government banned the sale of leaded gas and there was no significant pushback.

Lithium prices are high! Bad news for EVs, they will never be affordable. Lithium prices are low! Bad news for EVs, nobody will mine lithium. Lithium prices are stagnant! Bad news for EVs, nobody is buying them.

I think the media is trying to read too much into the tea leaves when with small numbers forces unrelated to EV adoption skew the results. There was a Platinum that sat on the lot near me for a couple of months, but it could not even be test driven because it was waiting for a light bar fix...

It is just as safe as leaving your electric dryer circuit on when you vacation. The reasons for turning it off may be to save electricity (I’m sure it has some parasitic load) and to protect it from power surges. If, for example, you were in the midwest and heard of a major lightning storm...

They figured out how to fix it with an over the air update (whew!) kudos to the engineer who figured out how to resolve this SNAFU. This used to be my job. In general this is a pretty scary issue, when I was an engineer several of our really big customers would be running software that was...

Ah, so not as bad as we first thought - I didn’t see the video in that link. At first they were telling some people not to drive. It certainly raises the possibility of bad actors in the future bricking a whole bunch of cars and demanding a ransom to fix it, or using it to screw up the...

Well, the nightmare scenario that I imagined way back when we first started pushing software updates automatically has happened. Rivian did an over the air update with a bad security certificate and now the displays are bricked. This will apparently require a service center visit somehow...

Speaking of leaking, those outlets are in the bed? Exposed to the elements and whatever the owner puts into the bed? That cover does not look very watertight or dirt resistant.

It is really unethical for dealers to say that they can fix it without carfax getting involved. The diminution of value that the dealer caused you can be calculated by insurance companies, as well as loss of use. The dealer’s insurance company owes you whatever it takes to make you whole...

Call your agent, Insurance companies have good lawyers. A good insurance agent has seen about everything so they can advise you. They will get an estimate for repair which will be quite a lot, and things will start moving once actual money is getting talked about. Ultimately it is going...

Don’t play with aluminum wire unless you really know what you are doing and have the proper tools to torque it exactly right, along with the grease and all that jazz. I do a lot of stuff (and get it inspected) as a fairly knowledgeable homeowner with a lot of marine wiring experience but I...