Are you gonna get an electric car anytime soon? (Or do you already have one?)

[Lyle Romer]

I've been to Delray before, have friends that live just inland from there, so next time I'm down that way I might check that out. I'd love to say that I was blown away by that sound system rather than eh... why did I bother.

Hopefully Paragon has maintained it. Last time I was there it was still a Frank theatre. The theatre is inland just west of Florida's Turnpike.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I've been to Delray before, have friends that live just inland from there, so next time I'm down that way I might check that out. I'd love to say that I was blown away by that sound system rather than eh... why did I bother.

[Lyle Romer]

Martin - Can't you upgrade the system in your Hyundai? If that was my vehicle, I'd be doing that rather than end up with a tacky Atmos system. I'm still driving my Hyundai... Have had it way longer than I thought I would, but it actually been extremely reliable, and it has a very acceptable sound system in it.

Personally, I have still yet to be impressed by any theatrical Atmos system, but there was finally a pretty good one in Park City, UT shortly before I moved to Nashville. There are none in Tennessee that I'd bother with, or pay extra for. Looking at it from my perspective, it's just another gimmick to sell movie tickets, and a lot of other audio gear. And most of the systems out there are bare bones systems just so they meet minimum requirements

As far as at home or in the car...Why? Now it's just another gimmick to sell cars. Another gimmick to sell home theater systems... What's next? Atmos sneakers, jeans? Seriously! I'm holding out for the Atmos blender that will mix all those channels properly once and for all and restore it back to the way it was intended to be heard...

Also, have you done any long distance, multi-state drives yet? Was just curious about how things are going at Charge stations, like are there more charge stations, are existing stations being expanded, and how crowded are they. Apparently Tesla has a Charge Station along I-80 out in no where land that is running off a big diesel generator that has a gigantic above ground fuel storage tank. I found that to be hilarious, but it also may have been the only cost effective way to do it. Hold on...! Why aren't there Atmos Car Charge Stations yet? Dolby is really missing out on those sites...

I'm not really sure what Atmos does for you in a vehicle environment (or a home environment for that matter). I've been impressed with a few Dolby Atmos systems. The Paragon Delray Marketplace which was installed very early in the existence of Atmos (when the theatre was a Frank theatre), the Dolby Cinema @ AMC Disney Springs and Dolby Cinema @ AMC Pembroke Pines have all impressed me. All of them have a high density of surround speakers installed and have the surround channel subwoofers. Those three sound really good and have plenty of power.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Martin - Can't you upgrade the system in your Hyundai? If that was my vehicle, I'd be doing that rather than end up with a tacky Atmos system. I'm still driving my Hyundai... Have had it way longer than I thought I would, but it actually been extremely reliable, and it has a very acceptable sound system in it.

Personally, I have still yet to be impressed by any theatrical Atmos system, but there was finally a pretty good one in Park City, UT shortly before I moved to Nashville. There are none in Tennessee that I'd bother with, or pay extra for. Looking at it from my perspective, it's just another gimmick to sell movie tickets, and a lot of other audio gear. And most of the systems out there are bare bones systems just so they meet minimum requirements

As far as at home or in the car...Why? Now it's just another gimmick to sell cars. Another gimmick to sell home theater systems... What's next? Atmos sneakers, jeans? Seriously! I'm holding out for the Atmos blender that will mix all those channels properly once and for all and restore it back to the way it was intended to be heard...

Also, have you done any long distance, multi-state drives yet? Was just curious about how things are going at Charge stations, like are there more charge stations, are existing stations being expanded, and how crowded are they. Apparently Tesla has a Charge Station along I-80 out in no where land that is running off a big diesel generator that has a gigantic above ground fuel storage tank. I found that to be hilarious, but it also may have been the only cost effective way to do it. Hold on...! Why aren't there Atmos Car Charge Stations yet? Dolby is really missing out on those sites...

[Martin Brooks]

Marcel, Our Govt saw the Chinese EV's as a threat to our own EV industry. As a result, they recently imposed taxes as high as 100% on some of the Chinese cars coming in to curtail US interest in them. But frankly, the US EV stuff is generally pretty pathetic anyway, and there are lots of new cars just sitting around in storage unsold.

There's a 25% tariff on Chinese EV's, not "up to 100%" and of course they also wouldn't be entitled to any government incentives. But even with a 25% tariff, they still could be less expensive if they chose to export those cars here although they would probably have to raise prices to accommodate building a dealer network, service network and marketing. But the Chinese are doing some really interesting stuff.
There's a Chinese EV called the Zeekr007. Five trims ranging from $29,386 to $41,986 (assuming 1 ¥ = $0.1400). The four lower trims use a Lithium Iron (not Ion) Phosphate battery, which have lower environmental impact and they claim a 428 mile range and 311 miles with a 15 minute DC charge. The upper trim uses Qilin batteries from CATL and claims a 540 mile range.

The cars have a LIDAR sensor, 12 HD cameras and 5 millimeter-wave radars. And all the safety features that the best of other EVs have.

Except for the lowest trim, the cars are equipped with a 21 speaker Dolby Atmos sound system. I would love to get a listen to that because the one big complaint I have with my Hyundai EV is that the sound system is not good enough for the class of the car.

The Chinese spec sounds pretty impressive to me.

CATL has a new LFP battery for which they're claiming a 621 mile range. And Chinese EV Brand Hyper (GAC Aion) claims that in the 2026 model year they're going to be using solid state batteries that also get a claimed 621 mile range.

Some brands, especially American brands, do have EVs sitting on lots and Tesla sales are having issues, but that's to be expected as there's more competition. Hyundai's Ioniq line are breaking sales records every month and the cars, especially the upper trims, are actually pretty hard to get. Last summer, dealers were asking $thousands above sticker. They're still hard to get, but I don't think the dealers are trying to get above sticker these days and some of the lease deals are quite competitive with ICE cars.

[Leo Enticknap]

This has lead to quite some commotion and an absolute freeze on new solar panel installations. The only ones now installing solar panels are those that are sufficiently fortunate to be able to install a battery system alongside their solar panels.

That is precisely the cause and effect that has happened in California, too. What makes it even worse (if you genuinely believe in photovoltaic power as a means of saving the planet) is that if you modify an existing rooftop solar installation, e.g. by adding more panels or a battery system to it, you lose the pre-2022 net metering benefits that you will otherwise continue to have until 20 years after the initial installation. So if I or my wife decides to buy an EV, we can't add a few more panels to our existing rooftop solar array to help charge it without losing most of the tax/fee benefits that came with the original installation.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Marcel, Our Govt saw the Chinese EV's as a threat to our own EV industry. As a result, they recently imposed taxes as high as 100% on some of the Chinese cars coming in to curtail US interest in them. But frankly, the US EV stuff is generally pretty pathetic anyway, and there are lots of new cars just sitting around in storage unsold.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Around here, depending on the kind of contract you have, they can pay you up to something about 11 eurocent for every kW/hr you consume during peak production times. Additionally, if you have solar panels and you don't consume the energy yourself, you'll soon have to pay that same 11 eurocent for every kW/hr you deliver into the power grid... This has lead to quite some commotion and an absolute freeze on new solar panel installations. The only ones now installing solar panels are those that are sufficiently fortunate to be able to install a battery system alongside their solar panels.

As for LFP based batteries: The solution is rather simple, if you want to get more range out of them, you need an even bigger battery pack.
The good thing: Those batteries run less hot than Li-ion batteries, due to the reduced energy density, so you may need less cooling infrastructure.

But you can otherwise optimize in weight. Keep in mind that those range figures also are Geely's marketing numbers. But their 800V charging system is interesting, even though there are no charging stations around that will fully support it for a while, it promises even faster charging than current technology. The problem though, with all this technology in constant motion is that there is little room for standardization.

China has had their focus on producing cheap EVs for a while now and they have seriously ramped up production capacity, that's going to hurt the bottom-line of Tesla and other car makers in the EV business. Tesla seems to have cancelled their "cheap" Model 2 entirely, at least for now...

[Martin Brooks]

In the U.S., many electric companies rebate if you charge off-peak. I get a 10 cent a kW/hr rebate if I charge between midnight and 8am, plus some bonuses.
If LFP is so less energy dense, then how are they pulling substantially more range out of them?

[Marcel Birgelen]

Even over here in Europe, EV adoption is stagnating, since many government incentives have run out and the power grid has serious capacity issues in many places, after many people invested into renewables like solar. This leads to serious imbalances when production of electricity is high due to sunny weather and requirements are low at that time of day. So much even, that nowadays, you can get paid for using electricity.
This also negatively impacts the deployment of new EV chargers. The lack of charging points is the main reason for me not to use an EV, but a hybrid instead for my daily commute. I've started to embrace an electric bike though, which can be charged at a normwal wall outlet.

As for EVs based on LFP batteries: To me this sounds like a typical Chinese "solution". LFP is about 30% less energy-dense than pure Li-ion and also lasts about 30% shorter than Li-ion, even further ramping up the dreaded deprecation curve of EVs, while not solving the essential problem at hand: The shortage of lithium and the environmental impact its mining and refining activities are causing.

[Martin Brooks]

Agreed; therefore, mass EV adoption is not going to happen until Type 2 people feel confident enough to buy in; because Type 2 people are, I would guess, around 70-80% of the overall consumer market.

Mass EV adoption is already happening in Europe because gas is priced so much higher there ($6.79/gallon typically at last check). 24% of new cars sold in California are already zero-emission vehicles (mostly EVs). As range increases and prices drop (EV's on leases are already as inexpensive as ICE cars), EV sales will increase over time, but it's going to be slow no matter what because the average car is on the road in the U.S. for over 12 years.
As people see their neighbors get EV's they will get over their fears. People who own their own houses and can install their own Level 2 chargers, will adopt first. Obviously, it will be slower with apartment dwellers unless their garages install multiple chargers (mine has - one charger for every two cars).

There are some very interesting things going on in China. There's an EV called the Zeekr_007. The four lower trims use a Lithium Iron battery (not Lithium Ion) the production of which has less negative impact on the environment and they're claiming a 428 mile range and 311 miles of range in 15 minutes at a DC fast charger. The upper trim gets a Qilin battery from CATL and claims 540 miles of range. The cars have a LIDAR sensor, 12 HD cameras and five millimeter-wave radars. All but the lowest trim have a 21-speaker Dolby Atmos sound system. (I'd love to hear that!). Translated to USD$, they're priced from $29,386 to $41,986, but if they were ever exported here, they'd obviously be a lot more due to transportation costs, modification to meet U.S. regulations and the cost of setting up a dealer and repair network.

CATL has another Lithium Iron Phosphate battery that they're claiming 621 miles of range and 4 car models already used it now and they claim 50 models by end of year. And the Chinese EV brand Hyper is claiming they'll be using solid state batteries for the 2026 model year cars that also get 621 miles of range.

I own a Hyundai Ioniq 6. I love the car. Do I wish it had another 100 miles of range? Sure.

[Marcel Birgelen]

They've had the monorail there for 20 years (current route). The issue is that the stations are so far back off of the strip that you can be half way to your destination before you finally trudge all the way back there. That, and it doesn't go to the airport or allow easy access to the west side of the strip.

Even though the current route of the thing is rather convoluted, I'm pretty sure the thing would start instantly making a profit, the moment they'd connect it to the airport. I remember it took me about 20 minutes to walk there from the lobby of the MGM to the station all the way at the back, but at least that was in the shade. I guess this kind of poor urban planning makes monorails look bad.

A light rail tunnel under the strip would solve a lot of problems, especially if it connected to the airport. With underground stations in front of the hotels it would be very convenient and eliminate the need for 80% of Taxis and Ubers (which is probably why it will never happen and why the monorail doesn't go to the airport).

A rail-based public transport scheme, connecting the airport to the strip and the strip to downtown simply makes too much sense for Las Vegas. I guess any such proposal would gain more traction if you'd propose to dig a canal alongside that same route...

Last time I was there, I sometimes waited more than an hour for an Uber to become available. In that same time, I could actually walk all the way from Mandalay Bay up to somewhere around Bellagio. We usually ended up taking the Deuce, which, for some reason, was almost always completely empty. I guess nobody wants to be seen taking the bus?

The reason for the upright rocket landings is that adding wings to land on a runway is very heavy and those are the only two options to actually have a reusable rocket. You can't let them take a swim in the ocean and fish them out and actually reuse them. The space shuttle solid rocket boosters were only "reusable" in that they basically recovered a big pipe and cleaned it out and filled it with solid rocket fuel.

The Solid Rocket Boosters of the space shuttle were pretty effective though, and by far the cheapest component of the launch system. The same for the fuel tank. The expensive part was indeed the orbiter itself, which needed extensive refurbishments after every mission. But the current SLS configuration essentially replaces the winged orbiter with a more traditional spacecraft that simply splashes down in the ocean, the way we did it before and the way the Russians have kept doing it all the while.

While those vertical landing rockets may look extremely cool and futuristic, I'm not convinced by the necessity of such a feat. It costs a lot of extra fuel to pull this off and the maneuver is still pretty dangerous. Would you want to sit on top of such a rocket? If the thing topples over, you're certified toast...

Also, imagine the practicality of landing such a tall thing on the moon. How do you get the relevant payload, including yourself down to the surface or the other way around? Even in low gravity situations, you'll need a serious lift or crane for any serious equipment, which needs to be operated in such way, it doesn't topple over the lander.

While the 220k lbs figure of Starship sounds impressive, remember that Saturn V in full configuration could put up to 310k lbs into LEO. But we really need rockets that can deliver considerable payloads beyond LEO if we ever want to go back to the moon or even aspire as much as send humans to Mars. You need a heck of a lot of stuff to keep a bunch of humans alive up there for a few months or even years and nobody knows for sure if the radiation will not kill you before you even get there.

[Lyle Romer]

Elon seems to get stuck on certain ideas that often don't make sense.

Why does a rocket need to land upright? Sure, you can do it but why? It doesn't need to land like rockets do in the movies. It's a lot more expensive and difficult but it doesn't do the job at hand very well. The rocket only needs to come down in such a way that it can be recovered and reused or recycled.

What about the Vegas Loop? Why do we need autonomous vehicles to move people around? It's not efficient because you can only put so many people into one car. It's expensive because you have to build whole cars. You can use a conveyor belt system like theme park rides. You can use vehicles on tracks like they use in other venues. Conveyors and tracks can move people continuously instead of in small groups. It's more efficient and isn't such a waste of money.

The reason for the upright rocket landings is that adding wings to land on a runway is very heavy and those are the only two options to actually have a reusable rocket. You can't let them take a swim in the ocean and fish them out and actually reuse them. The space shuttle solid rocket boosters were only "reusable" in that they basically recovered a big pipe and cleaned it out and filled it with solid rocket fuel.

The space shuttle orbiter weighed 240,000 lbs and, due in large part to carrying wings into orbit, could only put 53,590 lbs in LEO. Using 2021 numbers, the Starship second stage which, unlike the Space Shuttle, includes the fuel tanks, weighs 220,000 lbs and can put (using the low end estimate) 220,000 lbs in LEO. Vertical dry landing is actually the "simple" way to reuse a rocket. The Space Shuttle was more like "refurbishable" than "reusable."

Agree on the Vegas Loop. It's a tunnel. The least space efficient method of moving people through a tunnel is to put them in road vehicles. It would be much better to use a trackless version of the Peoplemover at Disney World so that every person doesn't need to make every stop. Each vehicle can just pop out of line into a station. You can even eliminate the batteries and power them like a bumper car.

[Randy Stankey]

Elon seems to get stuck on certain ideas that often don't make sense.

Why does a rocket need to land upright? Sure, you can do it but why? It doesn't need to land like rockets do in the movies. It's a lot more expensive and difficult but it doesn't do the job at hand very well. The rocket only needs to come down in such a way that it can be recovered and reused or recycled.

What about the Vegas Loop? Why do we need autonomous vehicles to move people around? It's not efficient because you can only put so many people into one car. It's expensive because you have to build whole cars. You can use a conveyor belt system like theme park rides. You can use vehicles on tracks like they use in other venues. Conveyors and tracks can move people continuously instead of in small groups. It's more efficient and isn't such a waste of money.

At the same time, Elon often says that he wants to do things in the simplest way possible. It makes him look like he's talking out of both sides of his mouth or, worse, he seems like he's lying.

If Elon really wants to push the envelope on technology he should have his people spend some time looking into how to do the job the best way it can be done then match the technology to that method. The way he does things, it seems like he's just figuring out novel ways to use existing technology without thought as to whether it's really the right thing to do.

The way Elon does things he uses technology to search for a problem to solve instead of the other way around.

[Lyle Romer]

The solution for the Las Vegas Loop is simple: Put in a bunch of light rail and put a bunch of trams on it. Autonomous people-mover and tram systems have been around for decades. Of course, then it would just 've been an ordinary metro system. But hey, those thingws have been proven to work for over 100 years now.

They've had the monorail there for 20 years (current route). The issue is that the stations are so far back off of the strip that you can be half way to your destination before you finally trudge all the way back there. That, and it doesn't go to the airport or allow easy access to the west side of the strip.

A light rail tunnel under the strip would solve a lot of problems, especially if it connected to the airport. With underground stations in front of the hotels it would be very convenient and eliminate the need for 80% of Taxis and Ubers (which is probably why it will never happen and why the monorail doesn't go to the airport).

Touching back on the Artemis flaws, Film-Tech Forums I agree with the video that I have absolutely no idea why there is even a mission to return humans to the moon. There's nothing useful to do there. Even if they found an infinity stone or similar magical energy source WWIII would wipe out humanity fighting to get it. To me, it would make more sense to expend resources on exploring asteroids for resources. At least I can understand Musk's desire to colonize Mars for the long term survival of humans. However, doing so at a cost that can make it somewhat realistic is HIGHLY UNLIKELY to be achieved in my lifetime, let alone the next two decades.

On the one launch vs. dozens, it can make sense to go with the latter IF the cost per launch can be made extremely low (relative to normal rocketry). They build 13 Saturn V rockets at a cost (including engines) of around $84 billion in 2024 dollars. That's about $6.4 billion per launch (if they had launched them all) not including fuel and whatever operational overhead there was. As a swag, if Starship could cost (including R&D amortization) $230 million or less per launch then it would be cheaper to go with the 28 launch plan. I have no idea if that is achievable but, if it was, at least that aspect of the Artemis program can make financial sense.

One of the points I will agree with in the video is the part about the ability to relight the engines after they've been shut down in space for a long period of time being a critical component which should have already been tested and proven. They could have designed a very simple spacecraft, attached a raptor engine to it and launched it into orbit on a Falcon 9 where the engine could be put through its paces and proven one way or another. It is not intelligent program management to have to wait to get those results until after they finally get a Starship into orbit.

Realistically, the entire Artemis program is a "make work" subsidy program for all of the contractors involved, SpaceX included. Essentially, the government is subsidizing the development of Starship which will eventually be able to launch payload into earth orbit at a lower cost than is possible with current rockets so SpaceX will have a profitable launch business for commercial satellites.