>Car prices have increased well above the rate of inflation over the last decade
This is a fair concern, but also, looking at the rise of average car prices is like looking at the rise of average iPhone prices. That is to say, cars (and iPhones) are providing increasingly premium offerings that didn’t exist decades ago. If you look at the entry levels of both these things, you find that the bottom-line price broadly keeps pace with inflation. And for cars, that’s with the addition of now-standard safety and convenience features. When you match cars feature-for-feature (an unrealistic comparison, as there aren’t really bare-bones cars on offer anymore), you’d see that cars are increasing in price much more slowly than inflation, and in other words, are effectively cheaper. Ultimately, whether car prices are rising or falling depends a lot on how you calculate things.
I’ll also add that EV pricing doesn’t have to mean insane car costs. The US market has the Chevy Bolt and Nissan Leaf each selling for about $30k new and can be readily bought for half that with used inventory.
Intent is of course tricky to prove, but there is overwhelming evidence that’s Chinese government views the role of Chinese companies in the consumer electronics supply chain as a strategic, exploitable asset.
> Huawei has a history of IP theft and security incidents related to backdoors and malware going back nearly 20 years.
> ZTE has been accused of including unusual backdoors in some products and was caught selling equipment containing U.S. technology
to Iran and North Korea, in violation of trade agreements. … Security researchers, however, noted that the backdoors were “highly unusual” and appeared intentional because they were supporting software updates.
- One of the key factors in powder over pods in his prior videos was cost. Cheap powder runs about 6.6¢/oz. The brand he’s promoting is $1.11/oz, nearly 17x more expensive than traditional powder. When comparing per-load costs, Cascade pods are about 39.5¢ per load and the promoted powder is 58.5¢ per load, or 48% more costly than pods. The price to performance is terrible and could only be justified if you also consider external factors like their sustainability practices and the donation of all profits to coral reef restoration. Not discussing price seems like a huge gap to me.
- I was disappointed that he only personally compared and tested washing performance against a pod and the promoted powder, rather than also evaluating a traditional powder. Could he have replicated and compared the subpar performance reported by others?
- I would have assumed that, if the pre-rinse is supposed to get hot, the heater would run until it reaches the temperature target. Is it normal for a unit to simply not care? Last I had done reading on this, whether to attach to the hot or cold side is actually a contentious issue, mostly around the gas vs. induction-based heating costs in water heaters, in addition to temperature losses in the pipes. If the pre-wash expects hot water, then that’s an extra point for the hot side backers. I guess one should always check their manual to determine best-practice on the purge and line placement.
The price was also an immediate turn-off for me, and I really don't like he's advertising it. It feels like a product that is marked up crazy amounts, greenwashed with "profits get donated" (profits AFTER the people involved get their salaries, obviously).
It feels like his channel suddenly changed to go into "let's make some money", carefully packaged in a "non-profit / charity" deal.
A 2.8x price increase (compared to what I pay per tablet) for a product made and packaged in the US compared to a mass manufactured product made in a cheaper country by companies with thousands of other products and massive marketing departments seems completely normal.
The thing about Hank Green is that he has been doing this sort of stuff (good things) for long enough time that I don't have trouble believing that this stuff a: pays fair and not over inflated salaries, and b: all the profits really do go to charitable causes.
I also don't think Alec is getting paid per sale, maybe he got some kickback for the consultancy, no idea. He would be obligates to disclose if he was getting a kickback, so I guess well see. If he is lying about such an affiliation, these things have a good chance of bubbling up especially for a channel the size of his.
That’s pretty wild, since the energy needed to get it up to temp would still need to be expended on the water heater side. There are no real energy efficiency gains unless they can somehow engineer an effective cold water cleaning.
Many hot water heaters use gas which may be cheaper than resistive heating depending on where you live. Additionally, there are now water heaters that use a heat pump which will be more efficient than either.
And of course they'll be setups that use solar heating or are programmed to heat by time of day.
This is all down in the weeds though because a dishwasher does not use very much water.
Space and weight are serious constraints in the car space, but not such a big deal on the side of a house. That’s how they retain their usefulness.
80% could indeed be plenty of usable life for your EV use cases, but it strongly depends on usage patterns. More degradation means more trips to the charger on a road trip. It means trips that you’d regularly make just charging at home at the end of day now require you to plug in at the destination too. It means more range anxiety as a whole.
> They didn't seem to appreciate me telling them that they'd asked this question the last time.
Most places will appreciate if you tell them before you work on the problem. That gives them a chance to give you a different problem instead. Likewise, they won't appreciate if you tell them afterwards since it makes it harder for them to judge any semblance of problem solving skill.
This is a fair concern, but also, looking at the rise of average car prices is like looking at the rise of average iPhone prices. That is to say, cars (and iPhones) are providing increasingly premium offerings that didn’t exist decades ago. If you look at the entry levels of both these things, you find that the bottom-line price broadly keeps pace with inflation. And for cars, that’s with the addition of now-standard safety and convenience features. When you match cars feature-for-feature (an unrealistic comparison, as there aren’t really bare-bones cars on offer anymore), you’d see that cars are increasing in price much more slowly than inflation, and in other words, are effectively cheaper. Ultimately, whether car prices are rising or falling depends a lot on how you calculate things.
I’ll also add that EV pricing doesn’t have to mean insane car costs. The US market has the Chevy Bolt and Nissan Leaf each selling for about $30k new and can be readily bought for half that with used inventory.
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