nathannecro

Yeah, it turns out that in very specific and controlled situations, using a fan to make downforce is great. It's also a very obvious thing to do in those situations and doesn't do much for you otherwise.

Imagine a normal car having to carry around the added weight of fans, COPVs, and the plumbing to make it work. And only being able to use those only if the track is clean and there are no other cars nearby.

This is not actually the first time that this idea of using a fan to create downforce. It's been something that's been talked about and modeled for a long while and I think a few years ago, the McMurtury Speirling was released. That set the lap record at Laguna Seca among other achievements. The car is about a million dollars, and the fans are basically completely useless anywhere that's not a curated track (think stones, dust, wood, other FOD going through the fans).

The new roadster is obviously cool, but it looks like a practically useless vehicle for 99.9999% of the population. It's purely going to be a track princess -- with lots of extra weight for frankly pointless (but very cool) thrusters.

I happen to agree with you that individual companies hoarding high-performers and keeping them useless is a dumb strategy and that it should have been targeted by anti-trust.

I was more pointing out that hoarding high-performers as a country is desirable since geopolitics prioritizes different outcomes than pure capitalism.

Optimally, the US would attract the cream of the crop, the top 5% of the world and let them roam freely inside of the American system with plenty of capital (both money and labor). I'd venture and point out that many of America's greatest technological leaps were a direct result of this kind of strategy (think WWII, the space program, computing, etc, etc).

Yeah, that's been my experience as well.

I never really understood the idea of gatekeeping jobs -- especially those at the very high or the very low end.

On the very high end, wouldn't you want to poach the most intelligent folks from around the world and bring them into the US? That pool of high-performers is not a big one and you're directly removing competition and silo-ing all the best people under your control.

On the very low end, those are jobs that are non-competitive and enable the low-mid-high level jobs to exist (and for those workers to be compensated better and so on). If you're looking at the US right now, a great example is to look at the agriculture industry. Farm bankruptcies increased by almost 50% in 2025 and 2026 is looking even worse. These bankruptcies in 2025 happened before diesel prices spiked by 30-40% and tariffs killed international ag-trade. A lot of those bankruptcies can be attributed to the the lack of farm workers which either cause farms to not be able to generate revenue and/or have dramatically reduced margins.

Edit: Wow, in the few minutes it took me to write my comment, there have been quite a few comments that are making the point that:

1. Companies need to pay more to get better talent.

2. The hiring process is broken and not surfacing high-quality domestic workers.

I guess my response is that I've offered and been offered compensation packages that seem to be quite strong. I worked with and know folks who have received similar or better packages and the quality of work seemed to be a bit of a crapshoot. Just "paying more" doesn't guarantee better workers (if that's even feasible or doable for the company). I'm sure that there is some sort of correlation between higher pay and better/more efficient productivity, but I don't work HR for Google or whatever so I don't have the data to specifically make a point. Empirically, my experience has been that there is a weak correlation and when factoring in $$ per work product, it becomes inefficient.

The hiring process being broken is very true. I'm not smart enough nor knowledgeable enough to even offer a fix to the problem. All I can say is that employers spend a lot of money trying to hire the best people and they still get burned/can't find a good candidate.

As mentioned, I had a few teething issues with the Rivian (mostly car noise and a leaky AC) so I was able to try out some other EVs while the truck was in the shop. I'll say that companies like Hyundai, Ford, and Mercedes have really come a long way in building EVs and all three of those are at least as good as Tesla if not better.

In my area, I can lease an entry-level Mercedes EV (I forget what they're called) something like 20-30% cheaper than I can get a Model 3. The entry-level Mercedes is decidedly worse than the Model 3, but you can't beat the pricing for what is still a very solid car (with more space and better sound quality to boot).

It's really unfortunate that Rivian hasn't scaled. To me, their struggles really show how difficult of an industry it is and how small mistakes can really ruin an otherwise solid showing.

Gotta give kudos to Elon for dragging Tesla through the same hurdles and coming out on top with a profitable vehicle.

Ah yes, I forgot about that. The windshield spontaneously cracking was also something I forgot to mention.

I guess I made that statement partially looking directly at the Cybertruck's actual performance and partially looking at the Cybertruck relative to other offroading vehicles.

The reality of the situation for the Cybertruck is that it's a pretty heavy vehicle (with as you mention) not great stock tires -- but everyone knows that. The absolute biggest issue with it though is that the tie rods for all 4 wheels don't seem to be adequate -- especially if you're coming down pretty hard on a single corner. There are countless videos out there where you see Cybertrucks with floppy wheels -- especially out offroading.

Secondly, the Cybertruck has sub-par departure angles where the hitch just gets dragged along the ground. Combined with the realization that the hitch is only rated for 160lbs of vertical load (and it's structurally attached to the frame with aluminum -- which cracks, not bends). I'm not sure if I'd be comfortable doing much beyond just bumpy roads with the truck.

Finally, the breakover angle is just not good at all either. Ground clearance doesn't mean much when the wheelbase is so long. The Rivian sits at about 15 inches of clearance with stock wheels and the Cybertruck comes in about 5% shorter at 14.4 inches. Not only that, but the Cybertruck also has a 5% longer wheelbase than the Rivian and its suspension does not articulate as much -- especially at full lift.

Real world, this means that the Rivian's departure angle in the truck is 30 degrees (plus a little more). The Cybertruck sits at 24.7 degrees in its drivable mode (it goes up to ~27 degrees if you have it in the crawl "extract" mode). There's also a 3.5ish difference in breakover angle as well.

Relative to other "standard" offroading 4x4s like the Rubicon/Wrangler or Land Cruisers, the Rivian is at best average and the Cybertruck is decidedly worse. Couple that with the R1T being able to independently power each wheel, the Cybertruck is IMO more recreational than proper off-road.

I'm not here to gatekeep so I will point out the obvious and say that the Cybertruck is for sure, a better offroading vehicle compared to most recreational/luxury vehicles out there. I'm just not sure that I'd qualify it as anything better than "okay?".

I'll say this, I preordered both a Rivian and a Cybertruck when they announced and I purchased the Rivian because it was available roughly 2 years before the Cybertruck even started deliveries.

I've had some small teething problems with the truck but it has been the best vehicle I've ever driven. It works perfectly as a regular daily driver but I can load my SCUBA gear and tanks into the back, and go off-road, get a bunch of dives in, and be back to my truck that I've outfitted with fresh water for a shower, a fridge in the frunk for snacks and drinks, and a gear tunnel with dry and warm clothes.

Now that I can charge on the Supercharger network, the truck has just gotten even better since I no longer have to plan out my charging as carefully. The Rivian is built like a tank, it's handled everything I've thrown at it in stride, and the Rivian software folks have been making progress month after month.

I'm so glad that I bought a Rivian but really, I'm even more glad that I didn't buy a Cybertruck given the absolutely disastrous launch that its had. Just off the top of my head, I've heard of wheels falling off, trim falling off, tonneau cover nonfunctional and non removable, 20% less range than marketed, accelerator pedal falling off and sticking, PRNDL falling off, seats that creak and wiggle, poor offroading capabilities, red screen of death, FSD driving the truck into the wrong lanes, and I'm sure there are many other issues that I've not even heard about.

As a long time Tesla owner (I was an early adopter of the first gen Model S), I expected the overpromise and underdelivery of their products, but I'm pretty sure I'm never going back to Tesla if Rivian and other auto companies deliver better value and quality EVs.

Tmobile is $10

I've had to deal with my fair share of frivolous lawsuits (the ADA is a well meaning, poorly implemented set of rules).

However, in this case, I wouldn't classify Sheehan's work as being parasitic. Companies are obviously being misleading and deceitful in order to sell more of their product. It makes sense to me that someone is out there holding their feet to the fire and forces them accurately market what they make.

I thought the exact same thing when I saw their second trailer.

Probably in the sense that at a slower speed, op would have been able to avoid the bad driving from the other driver. Assuming that OP was driving at 60kph originally, a 15kph slower speed equates to a roughly 0.75 extra seconds of reaction time (assuming braking acceleration is roughly 7.5m/s2). Given that an average humans reaction time is somewhere between 0.25-0.5 seconds, that means 15kph speed difference would have allowed OP to react and affect the situation. Even at higher initial speeds, 15kph gives your more than half a second extra time.