Most EVs can have the battery swapped in less time than it takes to drop in a new engine. The real issue IMO is reliable availability of refurb batteries at a reasonable price, and reliability at least on par with an engine.

It’s an attempt to get revenue that would otherwise be collected as gas tax. In practice it’s usually about twice as much as a gas car would generate in tax proceeds. Even in EV friendly states like the PNW.

Ah, I think I understand the difference: we pay taxes for electricity (it's ~35ct/kWh atm) and so there's plenty of proceeds for electric cars as well. Afaik for you it's normal to pay less than half, but then this flat fee for EV owners seems strange when everyone else (in the world, and those driving combustion vehicles) pays per actual usage

We’ve already had some experiences with this in Florida after a hurricane. EVs do quite well, turns out, better in many cases than gas cars. The grid is a very high priority for fixing, more so even than gas supplies.

IIRC the morons line was ad libbed by Gene Wilder, not scripted.

Given the reaction from Cleavon Little I could fully buy that it was an ad-libbed line.

Then again, they are actors. It might have started as ad-libbed, but entirely possible it had multiple takes still to get it "just right".

I love onions, but never tried a Vidalia. We have Walla Walla sweet onions out here and I suspect they’re pretty similar.

They’re similar enough that my aunt, who has lived in the PNW for ages, but grew up in the South, described Walla Wallas as “basically just like a Vidalia, but grown here”.

There’s nothing particularly special about the onion variety - it’s just a mild yellow onion. It’s the soil.

That would drive me insane, they have my sympathy.

How it can be legal for Waymo to operate a noisy lot like this right in a residential area is absolutely beyond me. Also, did Waymo really not consider the neighbors before setting up the lot? That sounds hardly credible to me.

These days even regular cars are getting quite good at it. A couple cars ago I owned a 2018 Camaro SS 1LE. One day I was out dorking around on some twisty rural backroads -- and no, I do not break the lane markings, there are some limits to my madness -- and happened to glance down and notice that I was getting to the point where I was entering tight corners at 80 mph. That car had phenomenal handling, especially at that price point, but it scared me. The amount of potential energy that is being held in check between the suspension, tires, and road is pretty ridiculous at that pace. An unexpected patch of gravel on the road, an animal darting out, or some other asshat coming the other direction who is over the lane divider, and your odds of dying are remarkably high.

I settled for a much more sedate pace after that. And decided to focus on buying slower fun cars that aren't so inherently capable. Harder to get them up into that area of the physics equation where one unexpected variable becomes life threatening.

That's a great car.

We lie to adults all the time for the same reason.

> It's also downhill

Going downhill is usually when I'm most conservative. The margin for error is a lot lower than when you're driving uphill. Get a little loose and gravity makes the whole situation much worse instead of helping bleed off speed.