Which of you are going to buy a Tesla?
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I thought it was a joke, but it seemed to be true. I sure hope that it wasn't and I was fooled, it's not hard to do, ask country!
I just got the RocketballZ driver a couple years ago, and then got the RBZ2 3wood the year after that. I also have the RBZ 5 wood, and then my old Ping I3 irons. I really like the RBZ's, I did get more distance out of them than I was getting before. Down at the Raven everything flies like crazy, I was pin high on a 330 yard par 4. Probably still bogeyed it though. LOL
I just googled it, it is what I was led to beleive, a lady bought her new Winnebago, took it on the road, put on cruise control and got up to make a sandwich. She wrecked, jury awarded her 1.7 mill. At least that's what the article said.
This year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski , of Oklahoma City, who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, from an OU football game, having driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich.
"Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually leave the driver's seat while the cruise control was set.
"The Oklahoma jury awarded her – are you sitting down? – $1,750,000 plus a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home."
No way! Seriously Airport? That is just insane if true. What language did the Jury speak "stupid"?
lmao. Link the site you got that from? I suspect you are leaving off a few paragraphs. It's clearly made up. Do you even Google, brah?
http://www.snopes.com/autos/techno/cruise.asp
http://www.chron.com/news/casey/article/Incredible-lawsuit-tales-1826357.php
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/LK/20050203/News/605209362/SH/
This is not true. Clean coal technology is promising much greater uses of coal which is still the cheapest most abundant energy source we have in North America, and most US power generating stations can and do burn coal. It's use has only been restricted by Federal regulations which hopefully Trump will relax or eliminate since clean coal technology is so readily deployable now which reduces both energy costs and pollution concerns.
It's almost the perfect fuel to fire our power plants now. Much more efficient than oil and cheaper! Now with modern scrubbers and emissions capture filters, and furnaces that burn much hotter so the coal is transferred to heat much more efficiently, the costs of electricity can go down, and be made much more abundantly with less environmental pollution.
Win-win for our economy because we need more energy, cheaper.
I checked Snopes and they list it as "Legend" with multiple examples starting in the 70's. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if somebody tried suing over something that stupid. Just recently somebody was trying to sue Apple because somebody was face-timing while driving and caused an accident.
Me? No. I think politicians should be held to what they say, but that doesn't mean I believe them. Then again I wasn't duped by ridiculously fake lawsuit that took 2 seconds to Google.
Twice, it was from the Houston Chronicle. I posted it as it was. I certainly hope it's false but wouldn't surprise me. There was some people here who ran a day care. The owner was mowing grass, mower was about 20 years old, it rolled back and killed a toddler they were taking care of. The mower did not have auto cutoff, which wasn't available when it was made. The jury held MTD liable even though that feature wasn't available then and the people had reconditioned it. Settlement was huge and my best friend was the Hr manager for MTD and they were watching the lawsuit. So don't tell me you can't have stupid lawsuits. The day care people had no insurance.
You know, I went back and looked and there was more to it. I wasn;t the only one who fell for it. A lot of news outlets did to. However, the lawsuit I mentioned really did affect MTD and it's business and they had absolutely nothing to do with the toddlers death. The jury awarded a multi million dollar judgement agaisnt someone with no culpability. Roanoke civil juries have a history just like some other areas of giving judgments not based on facts.
It wasn't true and I want to set the record straight. Of course, Cnn and many news outlets fell for it.
Oh sure, I understand that. I can't believe that a court/jury would actually award a judgment in a case like that, but can totally believe somebody tried.
The Roanoke jury awarded the family 2 million for safety features that weren't available at the time the mower was built. MTD appealed but I cannpt find anything on teh appeal. The lawsuit was in 2004 and the mower was made in late 1980's. No cutoff was available then
This is a concern and also very true. Additionally, there is no stable of qualified service repair facilities or parts availability with enough trained service technicians available who can perform repairs. It's a real problem because it is a machine, and it still needs maintenance as well as occasional repairs along with replacement parts and accessories.
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I was fooled. But there was a judgement here in Roanoke for 2 mill for a lawnmower that wouldn't shut down when it rolled backwards and killed a toddler.. Trouble was, when it was built, that feature wasn't available. Sad, people ran a day care with no insurance so the jury held MTD liable for something they had nothing to do with.
I had a '70 VW Beetle when I was a Senior in High school (1974). First Winter with that thing I noticed it didn't need snow tires...in Buffalo New York!
With the engine in the back, it had a built-in "pusher" to get out of high snow drifts or banks that heavier rear wheel drive cars couldn't get out of. That thing was just like a little tank in the snow. Heater wasn't worth a crap, so I'd freeze my gonads off in there, but it never got stuck not even in the deepest ridges.
Drop it into 2nd gear, release the clutch and plow right along!
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That's a Catch-22. By that reasoning nothing could ever change unless the change in question was instant and wholesale. We could never have changed from horses to cars because when the change was coming about you could list all day the problem with cars...whose going to repair them, whose going to build the roads, how will the cars get fuel, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Here are the current Tesla service centers (red in operation, gray soon to come). Yeah, it's not a lot for 330 million people but they haven't had a lot of sales yet and it's just getting ramped up. Are they supposed to have service centers that could satisfy millions of cars all over the country before they start selling cars just to they can be sure that no matter where a person lives that buys one has easy access? The car industry already requires a huge amount of capital.
https://www.tesla.com/findus#/bound...50409641841986,-93.147704175,d?search=service
Here's the larger reality. Car companies require a ton of capital, thus not to many big ones exist. Since not many exist they don't have much competition. Since they don't have much competition they get flabby and lazy. And since it requires a ton of capital to start a car company, the existing companies can stay flabby and lazy without repercussion. Tesla is hopefully in the process of changing that.
Have you followed SpaceX at all? We have the Russian government launching satellites for decades. And we have a couple big American companies doing it for the US Gov't for decades. And we have the Chinese government doing it now. And it's all really expensive. And then what happens? A relatively small private company...not a giant company with decades of expertise like Lockheed Martin or a government like Russia or China, but a relatively small private company, SpaceX...comes along and does it better.
SpaceX is now able to do satellite launches for tens of millions of dollars less than these other entities who you would have thought were unchallengeable by all but the biggest companies or governments. That tells me the Emperor was wearing no clothes when it comes to rocket making. And I think/hope the same is true with the car industry. It's 2017 and the best we can do is a gasoline fleet averaging 20-25 mpg or whatever? Really? Maybe, just maybe, that's complete nonsense and all we need to prove it is to allow real competition.
I'm with you on competition (Tesla, Space X etc) and I agree we need more choices for automotive consumers not less. However Tesla's appeal to consumers is for environmentally friendly, efficient transportation at over all less cost. Operationally that so far is not the case. We still need many more power generating stations as well as electricity to power them which requires more uses of fossil fuel energy in most cases, and they are not cheap to build or buy!
There remain problems training technicians to service them, and as I also pointed out obtaining replacement parts and maintaining service records on them are difficult and will complicate legacy credentials once owners engage to trade their cars or sell them as they age.
As I also mentioned, their battery performance while certainly impressive, cannot compete across all market segments with demands from today's consumers for convenience along with fuel efficiency. No one wants to ride in a 4HP lawnmower, no matter how many miles per gallon it gets!
Tesla is impressive. It's a car that performs nicely. It is nearly as practical to operate as a gasoline powered automobile. But it's drawbacks which I have explained both in its operation, as well as it long term costs regarding service, maintenance, resale, and insurance are not the overall low cost effective answers being presented to consumers.
We currently have other choices which are equally as cost effective or in some cases superior (hybrids) and as I mentioned Tesla does not build nor has it developed an alternative to compete with the preferred vehicles of choice for most consumers in today's marketplace...light trucks and/or cross over multi-passenger sport utility vehicles.
But I share your excitement over Tesla's promise. As the technology continues to develop either from Tesla or from competitors, I have no doubt that very soon its concept will be a very cost effective alternative to gasoline powered passenger vehicles.
The heater control cables would get moisture in them and sometimes freeze in the open or closed position. The only problem I had was in deep snow since the underneath was like a pan. The front would sometimes get elevated and plane atop the snow.
Yep, the heater in that thing sucked....I'd get frostbite driving it to work.
Know what I did? I kept a burlap sack full of bricks up in the trunk during Winter. There was probably close to an extra 300-to-400 pounds I had weighting down the front, and I swear that little car would just plow through 8 or 9 inches of snow like it was cotton!
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As I mentioned to you in this thread, I'm in the Automotive industry, and I can assure you it is probably more competitive now than it's ever been in the 20 years I've been involved in it. You are correct in that it requires a tremendous amount of operating capital to run a car company, but despite that there is still plenty of competition among vehicle manufacturers.
Europeans, Japanese, Koreans, and Americans are all competing aggressively against each other for market share with a wide variety of vehicles designed for very specific and often times very demanding yet constantly changing consumer tastes.
New models are developed and introduced every year, franchised Dealerships fight off new competition into their customer bases from the internet or independent marketers, consumers demand lower prices, more features and higher value for their vehicles, and you also have Uncle Sam placing added costs to production plans through unfunded mandates and safety requirements which further squeezes profits per vehicle.
Then you just have the competitive marketplace itself. You've mentioned the competition from Tesla, but now there are other challenges from transportation services like Uber and Lyft, automation technologies from "driver-less" cars, as well as urban planning for mixed use developments & mass transportation options that are also threatening to make vehicle ownership in many areas virtually obsolete.
The car business is extremely competitive--lead times to develop, produce, market, and successfully sell new models are getting shorter and shorter, and there is not much latency between the product development & marketing cycles for new models to show immediate profits or face cuts in their future production schedules.
However Americans still prefer personal mobility to almost any other option currently being offered, but they still prefer to travel in comfort, conveniently, and hopefully with a little "style"...so automotive manufacturers who are able to meet those demands and beat their competitors who are also attempting to capture the same customers profitably...will survive.
There is a seat for every ***!
(old sales slang)
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0:57 to 2:10 of this video addresses the question someone had of, since electric cars use electricity generated by fossil fuels, how is it any better? He makes two points and the first one makes sense (assuming his numbers are right) and the second short point I don't understand.