I was talking about efficiency and range, which typically falls pretty short of cars intended to be EVs. But there are also other changes like wheels being closer to the front ends of the vehicles and not needing the transmission hump in the floor, giving more passenger and cargo space.

All new cars are terrible for privacy, EV or not. Small shops doing conversions on older cars will absolutely be better in that regard. But as soon as you make it a mass market thing, the same incentives to invade the privacy of their consumers will end up with the same result. Better privacy and data protection laws are the only way to stop that, I think.

Well, a car ICE car converted to an EV will typically not be as good a vehicle as one built as an EV in the first place. But the real issue is the same one behind not seeing small cheap EVs in the US, lower profit margins.

Tiles are great, I’d love to have a roof last 100 years. But they don’t get as much use here because of issues with ice damning up the bottom edge and pooling water up under the tile, which then freezes and expands and dislodges or damags the tile. That can be overcome, but it’s easier and cheaper to use shingles.

A fiberglass mat core with asphalt around it and grit stuck in the asphalt on the top.

And the person who found it isn’t doing a good job either, putting new shingles over old. The old should be removed.

Very true. Unfortunately, this process just pulls gold from dilute sources and gathers it into nuggets, from small ones to very very large. No gold is being made new though, that would be great.

Well, that is the amount gold that is mined or recycled every year that is used in electronics. The thing is though, a lot of the gold used in electronics is never recovered. So a considerable amount of the gold used in electronics is removed from from circulation in a way the gold in jewelry or bullion or coins isn’t. It isn’t the primary driver of gold’s price increase, but it is a significant factor.

Gold prices have risen steadily for a long time, partly because of its use in electronics. Over $2500/ounce now. But another quirk of gold is the ease with which we can make very thin coatings of it over other materials, sometimes only a few atoms thick. So it is commonly used, but in very very small amounts per device.

I believe they are kei cars. I looked up the safety ratings on them when I heard about them, and the D.O.T. equivalent board that rated them gave them 5 stars. But it could be that was a kei car specific rating. It did show diagrams with front and side air bags, and all the electronic crash avoidance systems. It’s bigger and seems like it would be safer than a smart car. I honestly think the hold up is that if we had options like that in the US fewer bigger, more expensive, cars would be sold. Maybe not a lot fewer, but enough fewer that it is overall more profitable not to offer them.

Nissan Sakura and Mitsubishi eK X EV are $14-16k, but are only for sale in Japan. Nissan closed orders for the Sakura because they already had more orders than capacity to make them. We need vehicles like that everywhere! That would drive EV adoption far, far more than another “affordable” $45k SUV.