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Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

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Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

dxmnkd316 said:
220 miles. Lol. You can probably cut that by a third for cold weather.
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Getting there, though. Weren't the initial prototypes of this tech something like 90 miles?

Dumb question: can miniaturization solve this someday? Seems like the inevitable tech curve is to squeeze more and more into smaller and smaller boxes. Not just information, but real useful power and energy. If Elon's current batteries only store 220 miles, then in 10 years won't it be 10x that in which case problem solved?

Let me know if I'm violating a physical law or two with my optimism.

I think the huge jump is between being unable to do something and being able to do it at all, even on a risible scale. Once you've made that jump then all of our tools and tricks for improvement kick in -- the difference between a matter of existence (quality) and efficiency (quantity).
 
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Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Kepler said:
Knowing nothing at all about the specifics I gotta say this is my knee jerk reaction, too. I hope I'm wrong.

It's a rare day when Rover and I can even agree on the diagnosis of a problem, let alone the prescription.
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Dems need to decisively win the battle for much higher tax rates on the rich. They've made tremendous gains since Ronbo's time of winning over the general public on this issue, but now they need to move beyond that into getting this to motivate voters to come out and vote Dem. I don't want to do a head fake on this issue. Last two Dem Presidents have already successfully raised top level tax rates and were re-elected so there should be no qualms about doing that again. Implementing a wealth tax would be a tremendous victory and step forward.
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Rover said:
Dems need to decisively win the battle for much higher tax rates on the rich. They've made tremendous gains since Ronbo's time of winning over the general public on this issue, but now they need to move beyond that into getting this to motivate voters to come out and vote Dem. I don't want to do a head fake on this issue. Last two Dem Presidents have already successfully raised top level tax rates and were re-elected so there should be no qualms about doing that again. Implementing a wealth tax would be a tremendous victory and step forward.
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Agree completely. Similar to what I said below about the difference between existence and efficiency, it is vital to get a wealth tax started even if it's 0.1%. The political difference between 0 and 0.1% is larger than 0.1% and 2% (Rover).

Or 20% (Kepler). :)
 
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Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

aparch said:
30 to 40% loss on the regular in very cold weather.

Here's an interesting real world test drive article I found, but it's for the Chevy Bolt.

The thing is, Tesla's (or any EV) arent quite made for you, I, or anyone who does long distance driving with any frequency. We would need to much more plentiful supercharger stations as frequent as gas stations. EV's will continue to get better, and they're going to become much more popular short distance cars: mostly in cities or suburbs where you don't travel far often.
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It's too bad they discontinued it, but the Chevy Volt seems like the perfect vehicle for bridging the electric/petro engine divide.
 
St. Clown said:
It's too bad they discontinued it, but the Chevy Volt seems like the perfect vehicle for bridging the electric/petro engine divide.
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Yep, and I loved that premise of the car and really wanted one (but couldn't afford it). The problem was it only had a 50+ range on battery only. The gas powered generator gave it the oomph for 400 miles and change. Plus, since the generator was only used as a generator* it only had a nine gallon tank (giving it ~45 MPG when it depleated the battery).

(*It did have a kick-in-the-*** feature where if you really needed to move the vehicle from point A to point B on the highway (sudden lane shift/acceleration) it would act like a traditional car.)

But it got mocked by car enthusiasts as not knowing what type of car it was, mocked by IC Engine users for being a wimpy electric car, and mocked by EV purists for still needing gas.


I would rather have a gas/electric hybrid like this for long distance travelling/Upper Midwest living versus an all electric Tesla or Bolt. The safety fallback of "just get me a gallon of gas to get to the station" is nice to have.


Maybe soon they can put that hybrid technology and increased battery capacity into the Malibu...
 
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Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

aparch said:
30 to 40% loss on the regular in very cold weather.

Here's an interesting real world test drive article I found, but it's for the Chevy Bolt.

The thing is, Tesla's (or any EV) arent quite made for you, I, or anyone who does long distance driving with any frequency. We would need to much more plentiful supercharger stations as frequent as gas stations. EV's will continue to get better, and they're going to become much more popular short distance cars: mostly in cities or suburbs where you don't travel far often.
Click to expand...
Aye - There's the rub. They only pay for themselves in terms of energy efficiency if you drive a lot of miles, but they are not time efficient if you have to spend a lot of time driving to and from the widely spaced charging stations and sitting there to charge them.

Kepler said:
Getting there, though. Weren't the initial prototypes of this tech something like 90 miles?

Dumb question: can miniaturization solve this someday? Seems like the inevitable tech curve is to squeeze more and more into smaller and smaller boxes. Not just information, but real useful power and energy. If Elon's current batteries only store 220 miles, then in 10 years won't it be 10x that in which case problem solved?

Let me know if I'm violating a physical law or two with my optimism.
Click to expand...
Yes. Lithium ion battery density has only doubled in a decade. But look at the curves for NiCad and NiMH - went up pretty linearly, then stopped. Lithium is going to do the same thing, so we're probably almost done.
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

LynahFan said:
Yes. Lithium ion battery density has only doubled in a decade. But look at the curves for NiCad and NiMH - went up pretty linearly, then stopped. Lithium is going to do the same thing, so we're probably almost done.
Click to expand...

There's nothing beyond Lithium? I'm not snarky, just ignorant.
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Kepler said:
There's nothing beyond Lithium? I'm not snarky, just ignorant.
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Do you need it not to explode occasionally? (I am snarky)

There are 10s of thousands of researchers across industry and academia spending billions of dollars every year working on this - literally everyone knows that energy storage is the key to a fossil-free future. The result of all that effort is the curve that I linked before. Maybe one of them will get lucky and find something revolutionary under a rock that hadn't been turned, but for now, incremental improvement to lithium is the best we have for the foreseeable future.
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

aparch said:
Yep, and I loved that premise of the car and really wanted one (but couldn't afford it). The problem was it only had a 50+ range on battery only. The gas powered generator gave it the oomph for 400 miles and change. Plus, since the generator was only used as a generator* it only had a nine gallon tank (giving it ~45 MPG when it depleated the battery).

(*It did have a kick-in-the-*** feature where if you really needed to move the vehicle from point A to point B on the highway (sudden lane shift/acceleration) it would act like a traditional car.)

But it got mocked by car enthusiasts as not knowing what type of car it was, mocked by IC Engine users for being a wimpy electric car, and mocked by EV purists for still needing gas.


I would rather have a gas/electric hybrid like this for long distance travelling/Upper Midwest living versus an all electric Tesla or Bolt. The safety fallback of "just get me a gallon of gas to get to the station" is nice to have.


Maybe soon they can put that hybrid technology and increased battery capacity into the Malibu...
Click to expand...

I ha-ha-only-serioused a used Model S a while back. Come to find out Denver has one Supercharger and it's way out by the airport (supposedly 3-4 more are coming,) and I don't feel like dealing with running 240V for fast charging at my house. Then Tesla announced they were focusing away from the S and onto the 3.

Ultimately decided a 3 would be a great idea if it was 3-4 years from now, but not today.
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

dxmnkd316 said:
Tesla can't even be bothered to attach a vanity mirror properly. When's the last time you had a mirror in your car just fall off in a parking lot?
Click to expand...

I had that happen once, but there were extenuating circumstances.
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

dxmnkd316 said:
It's probably worth mentioning again, Teslas are basically expensive Tatas. They're absolute horsesh-t for reliability.

https://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model...la-model-3-monthly-update-for-april-2018.html

Tesla can't even be bothered to attach a vanity mirror properly. When's the last time you had a mirror in your car just fall off in a parking lot?
Click to expand...

I remember the S being pretty solid, and then they started cranking out 3's at warp speed and all the build quality problems started.
 
Rover said:
. Lizzy Warren has the right idea. Start taxing wealth every year in addition to raising the top level tax rates. You don't need to resort to smoke and mirrors to find the $$$ needed to put some of these programs in place.
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Mookie loves when rover compliments mookie’s genius ;)
 
dxmnkd316 said:
It's probably worth mentioning again, Teslas are basically expensive Tatas. They're absolute horsesh-t for reliability.

https://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model...la-model-3-monthly-update-for-april-2018.html

Tesla can't even be bothered to attach a vanity mirror properly. When's the last time you had a mirror in your car just fall off in a parking lot?
Click to expand...

I we’re being totally fair, it would be more like early Tesla model 3’s were basically expensive Tata's in terms of build quality.
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

My buddy has a model 3, so far he loves it. But it isn't his primary driver. I doubt he has driven it this winter. I know he has 5000 miles on it since he got last year. Took a year to get it. I haven't ridden in it yet but I will.
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Huh. Gutting corporate spending, freezing employee pay and hiring, and focusing solely on returning capital to shareholders via stock buy-back is backfiring spectacularly for Heinz causing other businesses and local governments to sh** their pants in concern.


Of note: the article eludes that local governments are cut so thin right now that their options are to either: A) accept fate and tell residents "sorry, we can't offer the same level of police/fire/medical/transportation/construction we have been due to finances," or B) raise taxes.
 
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Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

aparch said:
Huh. Gutting corporate spending, freezing employee pay and hiring, and focusing solely on returning capital to shareholders via stock buy-back is backfiring spectacularly for Heinz causing other businesses and local governments to sh** their pants in concern.


Of note: the article eludes that local governments are cut so thin right now that their options are to either: A) accept fate and tell residents "sorry, we can't offer the same level of police/fire/medical/transportation/construction we have been due to finances," or B) raise taxes.
Click to expand...

Yet people still voted for a 1.5 trillion dollar tax cut for stock buybacks. Why? Cause they might win the lottery some day.
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

aparch said:
Huh. Gutting corporate spending, freezing employee pay and hiring, and focusing solely on returning capital to shareholders via stock buy-back is backfiring spectacularly for Heinz causing other businesses and local governments to sh** their pants in concern.


Of note: the article eludes that local governments are cut so thin right now that their options are to either: A) accept fate and tell residents "sorry, we can't offer the same level of police/fire/medical/transportation/construction we have been due to finances," or B) raise taxes.
Click to expand...

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Click to expand...


No schit?
 
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