I have no need for a truck, and I still considered getting one. The Lightning is very impressive all around.

It makes more sense if you start from the other side - EVs are a niche market, and an electric truck is a small subset of that.

The Cybertruck sold 38,965 units last year, vs 33,510 for the Ford F150 Lightning.

One of the biggest problems with this country is that most of them aren’t unconstitutional. Sure there are exceptions (which others will name), but we’ve been building up the president to be a king for a very long time. We’ve counted on elections and Congress to prevent that, which is amazing that it didn’t implode sooner.

These have their place, though. The obvious example is public charging cables, which at least have had PoC for exploits.

This is also the reason why you frequently see the phrases “These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA” and "Not intended to “diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease”

I had one of those power bank cases, and it was absolutely awesome for extended battery life. It was always there with the phone, it was just a bulky case (which did not bother me), it tripled or quadrupled my battery life, and it was about $20.

Sorely missing that it’s not available for my current phone (Pixel 8a).

You’re both right. It’s important to note that this classification only applies to botany. Botanically, it’s a fruit. Just like a peanut is botanically a bean.

Culinarally, tomatoes are a vegetable.

And for the purposes of tariffs, taxes, and customs, according to Nix v Hedden, it’s a vegetable.

There are many ways to classify an item. This just happens to cross boundaries depending on context.

There’s almost some truth to it. Certain foods, like salts and carbs, in certain situations, like low salt/carb diets, can have a ripple effect. 100g of carbs, or a few grams of salt, can cause your body to retain water. The effect being that you gained several pounds from eating just a few (hundred) grams of certain foods.

However, for your body to retain that water, you must also consume said water.

If the entire Internet/power grid just shut down permanently, it probably wouldn’t take very long until you (and everyone around you) died. It’s not just your entertainment anymore.

Electricity obviously keeps your electric appliances going, including HVAC. Even if it’s gas, it probably needs electricity to work (e.g. fans on the furnace).

Electricity at a grid level keeps the natural gas flowing. Any backup options would quickly deplete.

It’s also necessary for gasoline, since it all stops flowing if it can’t be billed. Remember the gas shortage because of a ransomware attack? Those systems won’t have power very long.

You won’t have tap water, nor would there be clean/treated water at the source.

Now, what if you had electricity, but there was no longer any Internet? Well, that’s a little better. It’s possible that emergency operations could be implemented (using the military) to keep you barely alive, until things could be fixed. But let’s just assume the Internet is completely gone. Then what happens?

Remember when I mentioned the ransomware attack? Those systems probably don’t have an offline mode. If they can’t bill for it, the gas stops flowing.

No credit cards, no bank transfers, no phones. The public Internet is now the medium for nearly all communication outside of an org.

You can’t buy food at the grocery store, but it won’t matter for long because they can’t order anything more, and the trucks can’t deliver it.

Most people would be dead in about a week, maybe 2.

The delay on USB was to let the industry standardize on its own. The EU hinted to all manufacturers that they needed to standardize. Then it outright stated. Then because Apple was run by pricks, the EU had to legislate USB-C to force it.

Now, when something better comes along (like when mini USB gave way to micro USB, then to USB-C), there will need to be new legislation to allow that connector.

These are all design constraints that need to be taken into account. Most EVs these days have heating and cooling on the battery pack, for the reasons you mention. Adequate protection for it is also certainly solvable.

Extended use is a more challenging need. I’ll assume for a moment that the machinery uses as much power as an EV at highway speed, although I’m pulling that assumption out of nowhere. That would mean a comparable battery only lasts ~5 hours, and you need it to last 15+ (with a full charge happening overnight). Farm machinery is already very heavy - would the extra 4,000lbs for a triple-size battery be a solution? What about a battery trailer that is easily swapped? That could also create a different form of vendor lock-in, just like your power tools. I really doubt the same machinery is used all year long. Branded batteries are an effective way to keep customers from jumping ship on their next purchase.

Does the same machinery have to run all at once, or is this just how things have always been done?

These ideas obviously have problems, not the least of which is running enough electricity to the farms. But it’s just engineering a design to meet the needs/use cases. I’m sure that John Deere, CAT, etc have all had conversations on the matter. I haven’t seen them announce anything yet, though. That could mean they can’t do it yet, they aren’t ready to announce anything yet, or simply that they don’t feel it to be more profitable.

Given Deere’s infamous lock-in and the repairs needed for ICE, that doesn’t surprise me.

This sounds great until you’ve had to repair an old car.

Everything rusts, warps, etc. The same things that make it hard to change your brakes will make it hard to change the battery pack, and you’re expecting a robot to do it for you (and fast!).

There were companies built on this idea. I think they’ve all gone under at this point.

The batteries don’t live in isolation. There are other pieces that are dependent, whether for basic function or for calibration.

Example: Chevy issued a recall for mislabeling some Bolts as N2.1 vs N2.2. The fix is a sharpie to fix the label, and “reprogramming the Hybrid Powertrain Control Module 2”. I could find no information on either of these chemistries. Dropping in a LiFePO4 would require at least the same, and possibly more.

Now, if you’re suggesting simply swapping a matching replacement part (obsolete as it might be), then I’m on board with that

This is sometimes known as thinking past the sale, and works exactly for the reasons you said. A similar trick is to ask about the accessories they want for the phone they haven’t yet decided to buy.

Mixing brands is fine, assuming one of two things is true:

1. They are following the same defined standard (e.g. 802.11ax, not “mesh Wi-Fi”)

2. The proprietary feature you are looking for is contained within devices for that brand. IOW, that feature doesn’t need to interoperate with other brands.

Most mesh systems are proprietary, so everything within that must match (for the back haul connection). But you can also just setup another WAP, following the 802.11 and 802.3 standards. Similarly, your point to point devices can connect to other devices using 802.11 or .3, but not to the mesh back haul.

It would be interesting to see how that plays out in court. That clip shows that the CEO himself is aware of the concerns, and refuses to address them. It also implicitly acknowledges that the reasoning was because of those issues, and not a conspiracy to harm ex-Twitter.

Presumably, “other places” refers to other insurance companies. IOW, GEICO is (allegedly) denying them coverage. OP is hoping that Allstate, Progressive, etc will also deny coverage.