I think that’s just in the US. They also have franchisees elsewhere that still have to pay for the franchise rights. They’re for sure not in the restaurant business though, at least not big time. That’s risky and costly so the franchisees get to take that risk.
McDonald’s was happy to do it because they’re not really in the restaurant owning business. They force their franchisees to use the exact ice cream machine they get paid by Taylor to enforce. It’s a literal racket
Now the military part… Yeah, that’s fucked up, I always thought Uncle Sam got the right to repair their own shit but apparently not.
Only if you want to be left waiting
I have a toddler. Takes me half an hour just to get out of the house. A diaper and clothes change alone with a 1 year old with the strength of Atlas and the personality of Sheogorath is pretty much like one of those sped up Benny Hill scenes.
If I ever get to fly again, I’m packing a damn week in advance and arriving at the airport 4 hours early.
Do people… go back to the tabs they leave open?
I find that the error messages themselves are a great tool for learning when it comes to Rust.
I reckon Rare must have given him a lot of creative freedom that he felt he might not get elsewhere. There’s ways to keep your employees for decades even in the modern software and games industries and it’s not pizza parties and calling your company a family. It’s letting long-time employees be decision-makers and rewarding them for the company’s successes.
Fair enough. Though in such a case (zero aftermarket parts availability), you’re better off getting a used part IMO, unless it’s a wear item. But that’s just my opinion of course.
Tl;dr: you’re technically right, but BEVs aren’t sustainable if you need to pay up front for the battery.
A 10-20k battery replacement on a car worth 30-40k used, for an example, is not “regular maintenance” though. And presumably it would come with a new 8 year warranty like the original battery does in every BEV, if you’re paying (financing) an OEM battery at the main dealer. Once the vehicle is older and worth less, there will hopefully be cheaper solutions
If BEVs and HEVs can’t easily do 20 years of service, we should just stop building them and go back to internal combustion full time. Fuck planned obsolescence.
To be clear I meant there should be government-backed low-interest credit programs for replacing expensive EV parts that would render the car scrap metal when they fail after 8 years and one month. Similar to how you can get student loans with a next-to-nothing interest rate because it’s government backed and they mandate a maximum interest rate and payment term. Because otherwise I’m going to trust a 25 year old pollution machine over an 8 year old BEV and that’s why there depreciating at a record rate.
You can have an Audi E-Tron for no money at all just a few years after it launched because nobody wants to be left holding the bag. I’ve owned ICE Audis, Mercs and BMWs with between 300k and 600k on the clock and had no issues that would leave me stranded, except for serpentine belts a couple of times because most of those were bought as poorly maintained vehicles in the first place. I have an easier time trusting a 20 year old car with 500k on it than a 5 year old BEV with 100k or even only 50k on it because I know if I can’t sell the 5 year old car before the battery warranty expires, I’m cooked. I’ve looked at BMW i5, MB EQE, Audi E-Tron, even the Porsche Taycan because they’ve all nicely depreciated now and I could justify them as a company car (saves me damn near 70% in pretax income compared to buying as a private person), but instead I’m keeping my privately owned 18 year old Diesel A6 because even on a company car I don’t want to be hit by a massive battery replacement cost and even if it’s a company car, I don’t want to buy new because fuck being hit by all that depreciation the first owner gets. But if I could get it at 4% APR for a year or 2, I’d be happy to replace an EV battery to keep it going if the rest of the car is solid and I get a good warranty.
Depends on the model. When my first car was having alternator trouble, I replaced the regulator which required me to remove a whopping two bolts. Of course it’s not possible on all alternators, but it was the first example I could think of. Similarly, if you’ve got a bad valve body in your auto transmission, most main dealers would tell you that you need to replace the entire transmission. Etc.
Tesla still makes the best EVs out of the American manufacturers I believe. They make really horrible cars though.
The big 3 are no better, but if Tesla had merged with a Japanese or European manufacturer that actually knows how to build great cars, it could’ve been something spectacular. A ridiculous market advantage.
Glad you no longer have it, but next time, regardless of manufacturer, if you have a minor issue that isn’t covered by warranty, don’t bother taking it to the dealer. They all scam you based on the hourly pricing (not competitive to independent shops, even specialists of the marque) and replacement policy (replace as big a part as possible because more money + less chance of customer coming back. Example for ICE based cars: Friend did his apprenticeship at a Toyota dealer. Car came in with a bad alternator voltage regulator (probably 20-30 euros for an aftermarket part, Toyota would obviously ask more for a genuine Toyota branded part), his boss told him it’s going to have to be a full alternator replacement, they won’t replace the regulator itself. This policy is great under warranty (you get more parts renewed, yay), but not so much when it’s an out of pocket repair.
I could see battery packs and motors being financable at a sensible interest rate being a good thing for people who can’t afford such expenses out of pocket - it would make it possible for slightly less well off people to buy used EVs instead of used ICE cars.
This though? Fuck everything about this.
Canada has its own problems for sure, but Ted Cruz’s family moved to Texas when he was 4. He’s definitely more a product of American culture than Canadian culture.
Jesus the GSMArena comment section is exhausting to read. What does MAGA have to do with any of this?
If Apple doesn’t stop this “EU is making us remove features” nonsense soon, my next phone is going to be whatever Android has a healthy update life guarantee and easily unlockable bootloader.
Okay, fair enough, I thought you meant just the user agent. Trouble with having a bot make it look like an actual user is looking at the data, is that it’s slow and inefficient. Trouble with paying humans to scrape the data is that it’s slow and inefficient. These companies want to ingest data ridiculously fast because there’s so much of it. If all else fails, they’ll resort to paying the content creators. But only if it’s data they really do think gives their model a competitive edge in some metric and they can’t pirate it. E.g I can see them paying for scientific research they can’t get from libgen, but not some rando’s blog post or local news website.
Does cloudflare still look at the agent? I thought they have more reliable data points.
You can if you’re Cloudflare.
Hey, I agree that Thanos was stupid as hell. If he really wanted to save the universe, as an all powerful god at the point where he’s got all the infinity stones, he could’ve done something about reproduction rates, or resources being regeneratable… I just meant he’s the only one I’ve been able to empathize with recently. There’s so many villains who just want power for the sake of it, or to end the world. Thanos wanted to do what he thought would save the world. Was it stupid? Sure. But his goal was not.
They will, just not in the US lol