A link to these "claims" would be a good start.

Thanks for sharing that article. +1 informative.

To refine the models. To improve the error bars in the predictions. To try and work out how to help the billions of stupid humans adapt to the changing climate.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

This is merely one anecdote, but I rented an EV in Colorado last year and drove from Denver Airport to Buena Vista for the weekend. I should have been able to do the whole round trip on a single charge, but Hertz gave me the car with only 45% charge. I don't have a smartphone, hell, I didn't have a phone that worked in the USA at all. I had no trouble using the car's inbuilt satnav (i.e, not some "extra cost" add-on from Hertz) to find a charger on my route. In Fairplay, to be precise. Not a big town, and nowhere near the freeway. There were two charging points at the station in Fairplay, of which one was available. I plugged in, tapped my (foreign) debit card and started charging. Walked over to buy a coffee, drank the coffee, then had enough charge to get to my destination and all the way back to Denver the next day.

In summary, Hertz are pricks (all car rental companies seem to be). If Hertz had handed over the vehicle with a full battery, or there was a simple 110V extension cable in the glove compartment, I wouldn't have needed a public charger at all. So, the fact that I needed a public charger was because of two failures from the rental company - if it was my own car, I would have left home with a full charge, and I would keep a charging cable in the vehicle. Even so, the charging infrastructure was adequate for my needs, and no smartphone, app, or account was required. I concur that cash would be ideal, but for an automated charging station I can see why handling cash is problematic.

I could say the same about driving. My point about public transport is that I can do something else at the same time. Like catching up on email. browsing the web, watching TV, reading a book (or non-fiction if we're trying to be productive) or loads of other things that would be irresponsible to attempt while driving.

Most people do have something better to do. If they weren't stuck driving a car, they could start doing it.

It takes triple the time for me to get into the city on the bus instead of driving. But if I ride the bus, I can read a book, play with my phone, have a nap, hell I can even be drunk if I want to. It's cheaper than driving and I don't have to think about parking when I get there.

I seem to remember reading an article on Slashdot about a different rental company delivering cars with a human driver and an e-scooter in the trunk. The delivery driver would ride away on the scooter. I haven't heard anything since then, presumably it didn't work out?

I would prefer to sleep in my house than my car :-)

Good point. The headline is hyperbole: "car ownership will be redundant." Of course it won't and sites like Slashdot will be full of (perfectly reasonable) reasons why this rental outfit won't make car ownership "redundant." But, as you point out, there may still be enough of a use case to reduce car ownership, especially the ownership of a second car. And this niche may well be enough for this rental company to make a good profit. They probably aren't doing themselves any favours by exaggerating, but that seems to be the case in marketing these days. A business isn't allowed to just make a good product that fills a niche, they all want to claim "disruption."

If more people DO give random commands to these stupid glasses, maybe the new glassholes will stop wearing them. Seems like a net win to me.

Hm, quality management skills right there. Glad I never worked for him.

Great battery life, survives being dropped on the floor, survives getting wet, new pages can be bought (or recycled) from generic sources, used media is recyclable and compostable, the list goes on....

I think you're onto something here. If the fridge provided an easily-cleaned dock that could hold a tablet, maybe interface with the sensors and a camera in the fridge, that could be the best of both worlds. I'd never buy one, but the older I get the more I realise that my purchasing decisions are not like the decisions of most other consumers.

Cheap laptop on the bench. This also has the advantage that you can close the lid and/or move it around. After dinner it will serve as the internet device while we are watching TV (because smartphones/touchscreens suck.)