ob disc: I used to work for nio usa.

batt swap is a great idea and its been done well. tesla tried it for a very short while and gave up. too bad.

one use case not always mentioned: you run out of juice and you are too far from a charging station or maybe you are in a hurry or just dont mind paying the convenience fee for a local drive-up swap. yes, they can do that. you can be on your way with a 'full tank' in very short order. no idea how common it is; usually you drive to one of the swap garages and it guides you in, you stay in your car the whole time, robots lower the old batt and raise up the new one.

the kinks are worked out.

dont bash on this cause its china. it IS and will continue to be a good idea.

china pulled it off since it was NOT adverse to ev's. in fact, they see ev's as their future, so the gov was eager to install all the infra they could.

during the very early T days, we still, as a country (usa) were going full speed ahead. car companies were doing well and we, the workers, did well.

then, the presidency changed and all went to hell after that. he picked his gas buddies over ev tech and the country is now suffering for it.

I'm 99% batt swap will never hit consumer cars in the US. monied interests dont want it. they know its their demise. their argument of '30 minute fillups' goes away with this. and you buy the car sans batt and so you always have a rental batt. you get used to it. upside: you never have a long-term battery that gets bad and bad. all swap batts are maintained so that no one gets a truly bad batt.

when you read the comments, you can see who has an open mind and who is a paid shill for a certain viewpoint.

is less work than building the house.

The odd general fascination with cosmetics is not utilitarian, but piddling with cosmetics gives the illusion of accomplishment as if change were progress.

In the vast majority of military careers pols matter little. Careers outlast multiple POTUS and mostly take place far away from them. When you're chilling at a NATO base, Japan or South Korea what happens in DC is of nil interest unless you have or want orders there.

Why would anyone care what the President of the US thinks of their job so long as their pay shows up? I don't value the respect of those I hold in contempt nor grudge their indifference to me. We owe each other nothing not spelt out in law.

From a .mil perspective the HMFIC is doing his thing and you do yours. Your co-workers and assignments are far more relevant to your life than distant politicians you'll likely never interact with. Every few years there will be a different hack in the Oval Office. They're just another transient boss and don't follow you out the gate when you retire.

Vesting a reliable recession-resistant retirement is absolutely worth killing for, especially after a mere twenty years which leaves time to enjoy the second half of your life. Retiring in your forties frees you to pursue a second career or whatever steams your Speedos. The armed forces need younger, deployable troops capable of expeditionary warfare. When those troops age out and retire their accumulated experience remains valuable to support the same hardware and missions differently.

The point of all those Stanford degrees was to get money. Lack of jobs suggests using those credentials elsewhere, preferably in careers resistant to economic downturns and inconvenient to outsource.

American rewards with money what it truly values, and it truly values war.

A stint in the Space Force, Air Force etc can open DoD and many other doors via the human network officers naturally acquire. It's an instant career or a useful stepping stone. The security clearance won't hurt either.

The Guard and Reserve are options for those wanting to hold civilian employment but active duty retires much sooner. An officer makes enough to fully retire at twenty years and never need to work again.

Games are mere toys freely adopted and freely abandoned. There is no "prison" and such hyperbole is absurd.

Of course your comment on Palladium is correct, but games are mere trifling amusement with no involuntary physical constraints like a prison cell.

Maybe we'll finally see a return to real film. I'll dig up my ole, trusty 500C/M from the basement just in case.

I dunno about you, but I still scan my film negatives out of my Hasselbland 500 CM.....so even with shooting on film, it ends up on the computer in the end....

So, what would be wrong with an actor or actress selling their scanned image WITH contractual obligations to be PAID whenever the image was used in a film or when used as source to generate a new digital actor?

Wouldn't continuing pay and residuals help make the argument here?

Many U.S. states have "right-to-charge" laws, but they only apply if you have a private parking space, not street parking. Choosing an apartment with a private parking space is a good idea anyway.

Most normal apartment competexes I've ever seen in the US do NOT have private or assigned parking spots....they are all big parking lots with first come, first serve....

On long trips abroad, EVs need to charge about three times more often, but you just plug in, go to the restroom or restaurant, and then unplug. With a petrol car, you stand at a smelly pump for five-plus minutes filling the tank, and then stand in a queue to pay

I"m guessing you're not familiar with how it works in the US.

I can't rambler last time (decades ago) that I paid for gas inside....everyone pays at the pump with a credit card.

And on a long trip....or say a mildly long trip of 400 or so miles. I stop half way for about 5-10 minutes total to gas up and hit the restroom.

Most of the time that is my ONLY stop....I want to get to my destination I'm not out to hang out at truck stops, pee, leisurely eat or drink while recharging a car....

At most I might pull off and pee one other time on that trip but that's only 5 minutes max.....

I've never met people like you EV'ers that seem to just stop 4 or so times on a trip and spend 30-45 minutes to lounge around, rest, eat, refuel....when I'm on the road...I'm trying to make the BEST time I possibly can at all times.....I'm all about the destination, not the journey....

The best numbers I've been able to find put that number at about 25% of car owners

In the US, I thought I'd seen the number being closer to fully 1/3 of the population that did not have offstreet private parking where they could recharge every day....

I'm not in favor of the govt intervening....I'm ok with them maybe helping to get charging infrastructure going a bit more, but I don't want taxes or incentives on EV or ICE....let the market work that out. When the EVs are truly beating out the ICE vehicles.....the public will switch....if they don't, then they don't...but the govt shouldn't be choosing winners and losers here.

Before leaving the charger, you can see your next charging stop and the expected arrival SoC (state of charge). Only an idiot would leave a charger without having enough battery. You can also choose to charge more and skip the next charger - for example, if youÃ(TM)re stopping for lunch.

Sounds like a pain in the ass to me.

With my normal car (ICE), I don't have to 'plan' my trip based on where I have to fuel up....with the few exceptions of extremity, like crossing a few desert areas in the US, but for the majority of the US....there's a gas station on every corner in a city and all long the highways....you don't have to know where...they're just there whenever you need them.

And...gas is getting so cheap again too.....