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Not manufacturers, dealers. A legally required middleman in most of the US. They'll take your $10k car for $7k and try to resell it for $12k. Even if it gets negotiated to a fair price, they still get the opportunity to upsell used car buyers into extended warranties and maintenance plans.

Tesla is a little different in that they do not have dealers, so they instead do no-negotiatiation sales on their used cars. It's good for them because they can do the same buy low sell high deal. But when the model is not selling, they'll have to buy it and sit on that asset for months or dump it at auction.

While the Texas Plate 'HAIT 88' seems like it's fake, I feel that is implied by driving a Cyber Truck. He didn't need to go through the trouble paying extra for that.

I studied this a bit in my MS and the answer is... probably not. "The grid will collapse" has been an anti-technology or pro fossil fuel talking point for a very long time, whether* its arguing against renewables or against personal computers or against AC units. The most recent was solar. Grid operators were adamant that solar would crash the grid if it accounted for more than 10%, then 20%, then 30% and so on and it never happened. Now it's onto EVs being the grid destroyer.

The reality is that production and use is not all that hard to predict. Ultrafast charging will eat some power, but that isn't going to be the norm for wide EV adoption. Public charging will cost more money and be less convenient than charging at home or work over a longer duration. Home chargers are capping around 30-35 amps, generally overnight when grid demand is low. Couple this with the combined low cost for residential solar to change at even lower rates depending on your state/nation's hostility to solar.

Now, if every car was replaced with an EV tomorrow, the grid would struggle. But that's not going to happen. Adoption will be a long slow process and energy producers will increase output on pace as demand forecasts increase. A good parallel to this is Air Conditioning adoption. That's another high demand appliance that went from rare to common. The grid has its challenges, but now the AC usage is forcastable and rarely challenges the grid.

Is it a challenge, especially with higher renewable mixtures, yes. Can utilities fumble? Of course. Will it be a widespread brownout every day during commute hours? Not likely.

Remember, the longest shutdown in US history was in 2019, GOP held the Presidency, Senate, and House (by a much wider margin.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%80%932019_United_States_federal_government_shutdown

Trump restarted it last term too. They only managed to build 8 percent of it before Biden revoked the approval again. The company then abandoned the project officially. It's just a political football at this point. Why bother putting money into something that will stall again in 2-4 years. That's not even considering the 25% tariff on the oil it would carry, if it were ever finished.

Thanks friend

GOP reps "lol, no thanks, I only care to visit you in August -September every 4 years because your votes overwhelmingly prove that is literally all that is required of me"

I highly doubt this bill goes anywhere. Democrats have a Trifecta in MN. Slim, but still. They were able to narrowly get it out of committee, but getting it to pass on the floor, or even brought to a vote at all, is a heavy lift. Id bet it never makes it to a floor vote and the Rs can say they tried. Committee votes are a very easy and non-significant way to "vote for something" without actually doing anything. Mainly because the overwhelming majority of Americans have no idea how government works and will take it at face value.

Even if it did somehow pass, no way Gov Walz signs it into law. That sends it back for a 2/3rds vote to overcome the veto and that certainly won't happen.

Yep. I work in a government office and the contracting companies have been out in force recruiting. "Resign, we'll hire you for six-figures. double dip pay till September" best part is, due to limited office space, all the contractors kept their telework status.

It takes forever to hire people, even without the current freeze. That gap has always been filled with well paid contractors who trade long term job security for lucrative 4- year contracts.

Should have thought about that before he selected these beauties

Not to mention triggering Article 5 for the rest of NATO and shattering every defense agreement at once. You know, Putin's wet dream.

Unfortunately impeachment is also meaningless. I don't see a circumstance where 67 senators would ever vote to convict.

The only thing that might work is to be barred from public office and placing the secret service under congressional control to enforce it. But since presidents are untouchable kings now, 2/3rds of Congress and state legislatures are never going to give that up when they could be the king one day themselves.