The transition

Upway Certified Pre-Owned E-Bikes Upway E-Bikes Mobile
We Americans sure screwed up the transition. Outside of my tractor and hedge trimmer I have given up on ICE, though I await a suitable electric vehicle to be sold in the USA.

That suitable electric vehicle for me would be a capable pickup at a reasonable price. The electric pickup trucks American carmakers have produced were overpriced showboats. Now it looks like two potential PUs, one from Slate and one from Ford, are to hit the market later this year, and I might finally get what I want.
 
gromike said:
We Americans sure screwed up the transition. Outside of my tractor and hedge trimmer I have given up on ICE, though I await a suitable electric vehicle to be sold in the USA.

That suitable electric vehicle for me would be a capable pickup at a reasonable price. The electric pickup trucks American carmakers have produced were overpriced showboats. Now it looks like two potential PUs, one from Slate and one from Ford, are to hit the market later this year, and I might finally get what I want.
Click to expand...
It is important to remember that most pickups in the Untied States don't work for a living. The reality is that most of them are about lifestyle and cultural branding. Which when you think about it is bizarre. Kind of like those primitive cultures that elongate their lips, earlobes, or necks.
 
Urtopia E-Bikes Urtopia E-Bikes Mobile
Gionnirocket said:
The Chinese are methodically playing the long game and the a_hole we have in charge is serving up instant gratification to the ignorant
We deserve everything that's going to happen.
Click to expand...
The "sudden rise of Chinese tech" took them 30 or more years of hard work, government investment, and narrow focus... while the west slacked off on everything except finance.
The Chinese people deserve more credit than they get, and their leaders, although probably better than ours (a low bar Indeed), deserve a lot less credit than they claim.
 
Mr. Coffee said:
It is important to remember that most pickups in the Untied States don't work for a living. The reality is that most of them are about lifestyle and cultural branding. Which when you think about it is bizarre. Kind of like those primitive cultures that elongate their lips, earlobes, or necks.
Click to expand...
This is from AI but I needed to ask the right question with the correct details: Oh, Mike was low status then...

Jane Goodall famously wrote about a clever chimpanzee named Mike from Gombe, who rose to become the alpha male by integrating empty kerosene cans into his dominance displays. By clashing the metal tins together, Mike created a deafening, intimidating racket that frightened higher-ranking rivals and secured his top rank for years. [1, 2, 3]

1779924844856.png


The Story of Mike the Chimp
  • The Underdog: Mike was a low-ranking male in the Gombe group with two broken canines. He had eleven other males ahead of him in the dominance hierarchy.
  • The Discovery: Mike found empty 4-gallon kerosene cans left at the research camp and realized the incredible noise they produced when banged together.
  • The Display: Mike would charge straight at the dominant males (including the previous alpha, Goliath) while dragging and hitting the tin cans.
  • The Result: The booming metal sound terrified the other chimps. This intimidation tactic allowed Mike to assert his superiority without fighting, pushing him to alpha male status. [1, 2, 3]
This is not from AI. The reason animals such as male peacocks have things that you would be a hindrance to survival is that females want to see who best surves with that burden/hinderance. Just like some suburban guy who drives a Cyber truck.


Here is one final one: Human females tend to be sexually attracted to confident males. But the thing is, confidence has an inverse relationship to competence. It is called Dunning/Kruger and proven.
 
Last edited:
Rás Cnoic said:
That AI shite is the worlds greatest ponzi scheme and they're all diggin' in. Greed baby greed.
Click to expand...
It's indeed a huge bubble and if you're an insider you'll make a killing. Just like all the insiders from the EV bubble. The average man in the street still hasn't twigged that that industry has collapsed because the media is hiding the sales collapse behind the rebranding of hybrid cars as EVs. But you only have to look at all the collapsed companies, like a trillion dollars worth that have vanished from the stock market.

For example Canoo was $9000 a share at the beginning of 2021. Prior to the 2025 reverse stock split, the number of outstanding shares was roughly 289.7 million. Today it's worth nothing so whoever still held the shares as it went down was the bag hodlers, pension funds probably as they are in on these rackets. Fisker was another, it's worth Zero a share today but it's 1.5 Billion shares were once worth $42 Billion. Come in sucker. Tesla will be the last to fall, either with the merger currently under consideration or not. Something has to be done there as the Dream has died and along with it the *Robot* in every house dream. That was so patently stupid I can't believe anyone would fall for it, but they'd seen the movie iRobot and that would be enough "science" to convince them 😄
 
Indeed a huuuge bubble...but one of those many attempts will actually mature... into something we the people don't want...
 
Kind of interesting how someone can argue that EVs are a scam when 98 percent of new vehicles in some countries are EVs. You all need to remember that the Untied States is not the whole world and at this point not even the most advanced part of the world.

There were a long list of personal computer companies that failed before they finally caught on and got enough traction. I don't suppose many people here remember Processor Technology, Exidy, Kaypro, or Osborne,

Similarly, even though there is currently a bubble in AI investment doesn't mean that at least some of the underlying science and technology isn't sound. I have my doubts we can create a superintelligent computer with existing technology but there are a pile of non-creepy world-changing applications that would be at least worthwhile and wouldn't cause mass unemployment either. There are a lot of enormously labor-intensive tasks that just don't get done or don't get done adequately and that existing AI tech can do well enough and at reasonable cost.
 
Last edited:
The new Electric Ferrari designed to be polarising..
The Guardian being the Guardian by claiming right wingers dont like it.
Which is of course a subtle warning to the liberals who dare raise an eyebrow.

I havent worked out their approach yet.
Is it the classic make it ugly because we dont want to make them or a company befuddled by the modern world and letting the genzzz design it for them.
www.theguardian.com

Why is Ferrari facing such a backlash to its first electric car?

The Italian marque has broken with the past with its four-door, €550,000 Luce and traditionalists are furious
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
Chargeride said:
The new Electric Ferrari designed to be polarising..
Click to expand...
I don't think you can draw many conclusions about society or culture from a car that probably is only going to be sold to about 100 people.

The Cadillac Celestiq is priced in the low 400s. No matter what they charge for it I'll always see it as just another POS from General Motors.

The average price of a new car in the Untied States is around $50k. And it won't take many years of our New Inflation to get that average into the six figures. Most large diesel pickups are already in that price range.

Much of what drives new cars being so expensive is messed up market forces and incentives. Basically, it costs just as much to keep a $100k vehicle on a dealer lot as it does a $30k vehicle, and takes approximately the same number of salesperson hours to sell that $100k vehicle. You don't need to be a genius economist to realize that the commission and markup on that $100k vehicle is likely much more than it is on the $30k vehicle, so they are making much more money for about the same amount of overhead and actual work.
 
Chargeride said:
The new Electric Ferrari designed to be polarising..
Click to expand...

I'm an architect in the real world and have done several garages for car collectors. It kinda doesn't matter if its any good or not, because Ferrari (and some other exotic mfgs) basically function as rich person lifestyle brands more than anything. The last garage/clubhouse I did, when I met with the client he had a few Ferraris in the garage, and he commented offhand that he didn't like or drive them. He had them because, as a collector, he wants to keep up "Ferrari ownership" so if they release something he does want he can be on the list to actually get one.

The question is not "will they sell them" (they will sell every one they make), its more what will its value be on the secondhand exotic market in 5-20 years.
 
My friends dad had a three Ferrari collection in his house, two real ones and a fake Dino.
He ran a container cleaning business.
The walls were covered in posters and Ferrari race suits, with those glass display cabinets containing original manuals and stuff.
He was a nice bloke, worked up from an apprentice in engineering.

Its not for me, but why not.
 
Chargeride said:
Its not for me, but why not.
Click to expand...

Its far from the weirdest rich person passtime I've come across. Most of them IME are at least passionate car people of some stripe, but they rarely seem to drive most of their collection all that much. When it was first explained to me though, I definitely found it bizarre that someone would buy a Ferrari they don't even want so they can be on the list to buy a theoretical future Ferrari that they may want.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back