A good portion of my career involved designing industrial ammonia refrigeration systems and equipment.  Ammonia is a good refrigerant.  Its COP is good. The physical size of equipment is relatively small for its large heat transfer capacity. A small leak is readily detectable by its odor. You can depressure equipment for maintenance with a hose bubbling through a pail of water to absorb the vapor. In the event that the vapor catches fire, it produces more of a “woof” than an explosion. The LEL, lower explosive limit of ammonia in air is 15% compared to hydrocarbons at around 2%.  The ammonia / air flame velocity is about 0.07 m/s compared with fundamental flame velocities of about 0.4 – 0.5 m/s for the majority of hydrocarbons; Its Minimum Ignition Energy is 680 MJ compared to .015 MJ for hydrogen, so static electricity sparks are not a source of combustion, nor glowing cigarettes, and actually trying to set ammonia vapor alight with a match is not very likely to result in success, although it can happen from welding arcs for example. 

On the first exposure to a high concentration of ammonia vapor, inexperienced people may panic and drop to the floor, where unfortunately the concentration is likely higher, and the stinging caused by ammonia absorption by mucous membranes at high concentrations will induce complete panic in the inexperienced…while experienced industrial refrigeration mechanics will hold their breathe, squint their eyes and leave the area ASAP to find an air pack. This is, of course, a stressful situation compared to the peaceful death by asphyxiation one might experience with the same size of fluorocarbon refrigerant leak in the same size of enclosed space.  So good ventilation in mechanical rooms and suitably located egress doors are mandated by regulations.

Mostly, the dangers of ammonia as a refrigerant are over hyped by the over zealous and it is very safe 99.995% of the time.  But that .005% requires experienced personnel to fix….so household air conditioning or grocery store or beer cooler refrigeration use, possible full time occupancy by families with potential mobility issues or maybe Saturday mechanic repair jobs are not a good applications for ammonia refrigeration.  Basically the same safety concept as required for steam boilers….

The Corolla has excellent resale value retention and if taken care of will easily reach 200,000 miles or more.

Musk put a lot of recent Tesla buyers way underwater with his price cuts.

” Assembly lines can be configured to accommodate front-wheel-drive, rear-wheel-drive, unitized body and body-on-frame vehicles.”

And the change from one configuration to another will not take the line off production for weeks or cost any other expenses, right??

Just because a line CAN do whatever, doesn’t change what Playing Nice said, which is probably true.

You’re a hero! Greta will be swooning.

YoY, Tesla’s revenue is up 9%, but earnings are down 44% and net operating income is down 52% with operating margin in the single digits. Their price cuts, while maintaining sales volume have hurt profitability.

Fisker on the other hand is heading for a second (final?) bankruptcy.

And thus TRUMP!’s mistake. He thought he didn’t need to fill a bunch of appointive positions because he thought they were useless.

He missed that when he left all those departments under the control of lifetime federal employees, he left them in charge of activist liberals.

17K buys a LOT of gas, while paying the gas taxes.

The Tesla owner still needs a charger at home or to pay a bunch for electrons away from home. All while not contributing a penny toward road maintenance of improvements.

“Of course high prices were always an ongoing criticism of EVs… but now they are high no longer. That is the thing about free markets…”

Free markets my @ss. When the government  provides for the transfer of 10 to 20 thousand dollars from the purchasers of ICE vehicles to the purchaser of a EV, along with CAFE standards that force ICE manufacturers to make smaller and smaller vehicles, and you require ICE fuel purchases to fund ALL road maintenance and improvements with NO cost to EV owners, then you are not talking about a free market.

But Duane, you have shown repeatedly that your leftist ideology approves of the grossly tilted playing field for not just EVs, but for bird choppers killing eagles and migratory birds and the environmental blight of millions of acres covered with solar panels.

What an @sshat!!

If I skip a payment can I have my Biden REPOSESSED?

It seems very easy to discover a Democrat.

Competition can’t lower prices when the cost of manufacturing remains high.

And they don’t seem to be having any trouble making those sales either

Tesla 3 $38,990 (are they building the under $45,000 version yet?)
Toyota Corolla $21,900 ($17,000 less)

They’re still 50%-100% higher than ICE equivalents

It will be sad to see them go, it was sad to see Plymouth go though the ’72 Fury was a POS

As PT Barnum is often attributed as saying, “There’s sucker born every minute”

Proverb. (US, slang) There’s a great number of fools in the world who can easily be swindled, and there always will be.

” buyouts, which have cost GM about $1 billion thus far“

That’s $1,000,000,000 – – – hardly an irrelevant amount.
The list price of a Silverado will have to go up!

When dealing with equivalents in size, capability and passenger capacity EVs are still overpriced compared to ICE equivalents.

Full size SUV
Tesla X $79,990 6-7 passenger
Dodge Durango $38,495 8 passenger ($41,000 less)

Impact sedan
Tesla 3 $38,990 (are they building the under $45,000 version yet?)
Toyota Corolla $21,900 ($17,000 less)

Tesla S $74,990
Nissan Maxims $38,340 ($36,500 less)

Tesla Y $43,990
Nissan Rogue $27,910 ($16,000 less)

They depreciate faster losing almost 50% of their value in 5 years (Tesla S P85 was $80,080 new…
How much is a 2013 Tesla S worth?
The value of a used 2013 Tesla Model S ranges from $9,274 to $20,072, based on vehicle condition, mileage, and options.

They use up tires faster needing replacement every 20,000 miles or so (from fuel tank weight…the fuel weighs nothing but the tank weighs 1100 lbs)

“The manufacturers blew it from the outset by pricing EVs too high…”

????

They are priced high because they are expensive to make!!!

Even with the genius level of manufacturing innovation going on at Tesla, the battle to costs comes up hard against the stone wall of battery chemical and material science.

?????

Almost every single site has annoying cookie pop-ups and the rest I think might not show it because my browser logs me in automatically so the settings for cookies are remembered.

The EU tries to impose it’s will on any site visited by Europeans, and those sites comply to avoid legal issues or possibly the threat of getting blocked by EU internet providers.