That’s my experience as well. My non-techy potential EV buyer friends are split on Tesla. Group A thinks the range and specs are industry leading, for now. Group B wants nothing to do with Tesla regardless of how good or bad the cars are because of Elon.
The best selling specific vehicles in the USA are first pickups (F150, RAM,Silverado), then SUVs (RAV4, Model Y, CR-V).
Ford is doing the right thing with the F150 lightning but they really missed with the Mustang Mach-E. All they had to do was make an electric Escape or Edge with decent range and it would compete with the Model Y.
My family is in the market for an AWD electric SUV with reasonable cargo space and actual buttons for major controls. These don’t really exist and if a manufacturer cared enough to push this they’d make a killing. The Mach-E, Ariya, Model Y, EV6, Ioniq5 don’t have much cargo space. The Honda Prologue/Chevy Blazer EV are closer to the RAV4 CR-V so we’ll see. The VW ID4 is also bigger but the touchscreen has gotten terrible reviews.
Model Ys are catching up to the RAV4 because they were the only option with decent range and charging infra while looking decent and being a reasonable size. Good for Tesla but Detroit still hasn’t learned the right lessons.
Can’t wait for more competition in this space where regular vehicles are available in electric versions. The old guard could easily build a nicer interior than a Tesla and lean into tactile controls and their dealer network. Instead they co-opt the tablet and focus on the wrong things like autopilot, sportbacks, and “futuristic” designs.
Interestingly, the Mach-E is just about the only electric vehicle that the "Big 3" have largely done right. It's visually appealing, has loads of power, and is a bit more versatile than a regular Mustang.
It’s a decent vehicle but the look is subjective. I’m not a fan of the mustang SUV look. Unfortunately the trunk is just too small for my needs and we need something with the cargo space of a midsize SUV (but not as big as the EV9/R1S). Electric vehicles that come close: Q8 E-tron/ID4, Prologue/Blazer, Lyriq. And those still don’t match the cheaper RAV4, CR-V, Sportage, Tucson, Rogue in terms of cargo space while being similarly sized vehicles.
The first EV midsize SUV comparable to the RAV4 in size and functionality with decent range will sell like hot cakes. Assuming the manufacturer puts a little effort behind it and doesn’t do what GM did with the Bolt/Volt.
And no Honda, I don’t want a hydrogen powered CR-V.
>Incidentally, all of these things tend to lead to anxiety and adhd.
I’m curious - are you saying the Alexander method leads to anxiety/adhd? Or that the original postures the Alexander method potentially fixes lead to anxiety/adhd (and thus it could treat anxiety/adhd).
I’ve struggled with posture and seen the Alexander method but never given it a fair try. I’m curious to learn more.
>I’m curious - are you saying the Alexander method leads to anxiety/adhd? Or that the original postures the Alexander method potentially fixes lead to anxiety/adhd (and thus it could treat anxiety/adhd).
Sorry, I thought my wording was poor but lost ability to edit.
In my opinion it treats anxiety, fixes it. When your posture is bad you are compressing your chest, this leaves your heart compressed a bit. Your heart has to work harder and faster to pump. This leads to anxiety and similar stress like ailments.
By doing all the links, your heart can relax, your muscles relax.
>I’ve struggled with posture and seen the Alexander method but never given it a fair try. I’m curious to learn more.
Apparently its something you cant do for yourself but I generally find given all the other instructions you can get there.
I really really should. I want to un-abandon my home page and maybe start writing about it there. FWIW the code is here: https://github.com/ablakey/kestrel
This. I come from a family of dentists and they are very hesitant to drill unless absolutely necessary. Their rationale as I understand it is that all fillings, crowns, bridges, etc fail eventually. That anytime you attach something to a tooth you add a failure point and potential for infection.
The problem is their businesses can’t compete with the ones that play the insurance game. Insurance reimbursement rates haven’t kept up with overhead and so conservative dentistry is losing marketshare to ones willing to push treatment. We know multiple dentists that have filed bankruptcy in the last couple years.
Keep in mind that many people are very reluctant to pay out of pocket for dentistry. Until insurance reimbursement rates favor conservative dentistry, nothing will change. More responsible dentists will lose their practices or turn to over treatment.
Maybe the HN crowd wisdom has some ideas on how we can improve this situation.
> Maybe the HN crowd wisdom has some ideas on how we can improve this situation.
HMO / Capitation dentistry is the obvious answer here, where your dentist gets paid X per patient per year, to focus on preventive instead of pushing unnecessary care.
It’s really hard to implement in the US though because people push for a lot of unnecessary stuff.
Well sure, but in the universe where capitation rules the world, we have people clamoring for services that they say they need, but professionals refuse to provide.
And there are probably HN threads there explaining why we need to go to a fee-for-service model.
>It’s really hard to implement in the US though because people push for a lot of unnecessary stuff.
"Unnecessary" is in the eye of the beholder to a certain degree. Extracting a molar is pretty cheap. Root canals, implants, and crowns much less so. But, depending upon the circumstances, more expensive procedures may make sense.
There’s a dentist near where I live in a wealthy neighborhood that I went to once and was great. Problem is, she’s expensive and doesn’t take insurance. She doesn’t need to push anything extra because everything is already priced where she needs it to be. Obviously that won’t work generally, but something to think about.
This is spot on. I think there is a nuance across industries that is often missed here too. Certain industries really can’t raise prices or wages without tanking the business. Restaurants, mechanics, doctors, etc are often operating on razor thin margins with prices set by the market. For medical/dental/therapy their prices are often set by insurance reimbursement rates that haven’t kept up with inflation.
The flip side is like you said, companies raking in record profits with massive cash on hand. They could easily afford to share more with employees and would probably benefit from a happier and more invested work force. The stratification between C-level and everyone else is higher than it’s ever been.
Hm - interesting theory. The landlord does have some expenses, though: upkeep on the property and taxes, as well as some bit of "float" for times when the property is vacant. There's a definable "margin" there, too, but I wouldn't know where to look to find out what.
> There's a definable "margin" there, too, but I wouldn't know where to look to find out what.
Not enough of one to make becoming a landlord a guaranteed way to earn an easy profit, or everyone would do it. Lack of startup capital wouldn't be an issue either—banks would be happy to front the cost if you can prove the venture will succeed well enough to pay them back with interest.
* Quick and customizable bill pay for onetime or recurring payments
* Integration with peer-to-peer transfer systems (Zelle, Venmo, Paypal, etc.)
* Simple budgeting tools and analytics. Doesn't have to be mint, just have something.
* No ATM fees
* Easy and fast transfers to other banking institutions
* API to allow for devs and other apps to integrate basic functions
* Good customer service - let me talk to a real person
* All the functionality available from an app. Don't make me log into a desktop browser to access certain features.
* Clear descriptions of different types of accounts
* Credit reporting
That's all I can think of right now but there are probably a ton of other issues we hit daily that could be solved. Though I have no idea of the regulatory hurdles of implementing these and other solutions.
Interesting how a lot of these problems don't seem to exist in Europe. (I lived in Scotland, then moved to Finland. Of course I appreciate "Europe" is full of diverse companies, regulations, and facilities. Still I think it would be wierd to find people in Europe paying rent by mailing physical checks, etc.)
Specifically "ATM Fees" are something I've never had to deal with, fast transfers were the norm, simple analytics were common-place. (Things like pie-charts showing where your money had been spent from your "checking account".)
The only thing that has always been missing from companies I've used has been easy-to-automate-exports of data. You could login and export manually to CSV, etc, but you couldn't easily script that. That seems to be changing at the moment, and EU-wide there are provisions being made for exporting and API-usage (though I suspect it'll all be terrible.)
The Nordea bank I use in Finland has a very nice little mobile app for showing my my accounts, mortgages, and investments. It also lets me schedule appointments, or call customer-support.
Customer service is hard though; much like delivery companies there are only so many banks to choose from. Name any name and ten people will say "Worst. Bank. Ever". I've used maybe five banks in my life-time, and none were terrible, even if some were better than average.
> "ATM Fees" are something I've never had to deal with
Really? There are lots of little independent ATMs around the UK that charge a fee, and if you use a UK card abroad, there's a fee. They're not huge, but they're not zero.
Right. I avoid the corner shop ATMs when i can, but i can't always, because there aren't proper cash machines everywhere. I'd be surprised if someone else had a different experience.
Regarding APIs: Let us use access keys that limit what the API can see/do. I don't like that Mint can do almost anything to my account by virtue of having a password. I just want to be able to reliably collect transaction and/or balance information, nothing more (which is already a lot, but I manually or semi-automatically collect this at the moment rather than using an API).
Let the user generate an API key that is (somehow) transmitted to the application with limited access. Then the user, at the bank's site, can revoke these authentications at any time. Stopped using YNAB? Revoke its key. Stopped using Mint? Revoke its key. Started using gnucash? Add a key.
I was just thinking this exact thing. It's reckless to provide a third party your direct banking credentials. I feel unsafe entering those credentials into my browser as it is - but to share it with a third party product gives me the creeps. It's so stupidly easy to generate an access token that can be shared with third parties and restrict access to read-only. Why they didn't think of that is beyond me; the tech has been available for a very long time.
Want to know something really annoying? I bank with multiple banks. One institution uses access tokens. I can link them to my primary bank (the primary has a better "whole picture" view). But does my primary bank offer access tokens of their own? No. They understand the concept, but don't use it themselves.
Of course, I know why. Different teams. There's no cohesive vision to their IT work, same as every other enterprise out there.
EDIT: Cleaned up language. Removed some info I didn't really want here but really botched the posted version when I did.
In Europe, PSD2 and the Open Banking initiatives provide this. All retail and commercial banks are required to provide open APIs to Account Information Service Providers or Payment Initiation Service Providers (the former being read-only, the latter read and write). Essentially you're talking about a delegated access / OAuth-style universe for banks and technology companies. It'd be great to see the US adopt something similar.
> API to allow for devs and other apps to integrate basic functions
If the API is sufficiently standardized, that could turn banks into commodities: let third-party software figure out the best bank to store your money at any given time, and do all the accounting for you; no need to actually deal with any specific bank manually.
I've been looking at Simple.com as it seems to check off some of those features.
If anyone has any feedback about their service, I'd love to hear about it. From what I understand they don't support checks; only debit cards. But that allows them to not charge any fees since all the transactions happen online.
Ok (for checking) interest rates. Haven't used them for billing yet (I don't think they do proper e-billing, instead they'll send a check for you). I won't say 0 fees. They have fees (like most banks) if you use the card outside the US, but that's why I have my two travel credit cards (AMEX and Visa because not everyone accepts the former, but it gives me the best rewards).
The budgeting is neat, though they added a new "expense" budgeting thing that I haven't quite figured out yet. Previously they had "goals" which you'd set up one at a time, burn through. Like "August Lunch Money" with $200 in the account by 31 August (give me a little to spend each day, not all at once). Now you can make a "Lunch Money" expense that'll get replenished each month, but it's only been around for a couple weeks and I think I set it up wrong.
They still have goals, which are effectively digital envelopes. But if you use other budgeting tools it's somewhat redundant.
Deposits happen quickly, typically within 24 hours of sending the money from my primary checking account (I set up Simple to try and bring some more financial discipline to my life, not to be my sole account).
They don't offer any better API access than anyone else. The joint accounts are neat (3 accounts, one for each person and one shared). But only works for US citizens, my fiancee will have her green card but not qualify until they change that policy or she becomes a citizen (late next decade). Instant transfers between other Simple account holders, which is nice if you have other people you know who use it but the same is true for most banks (near instant intrabank transfers).
Responsive customer service. I've had maybe 3 or 4 issues or questions over the years, and I've always gotten a response (conducted over email) within 24 hours, probably faster but I only check my home email a couple times a day.
Zelle is one of those things that is great but I apparently live in the corner case of everything...
For instance, I have accounts at three different credit unions but I only have one mobile phone number (and Zelle insists on having that phone number). So far as I can tell, I can't register with Zelle at all three credit unions, only one. And leaving the first and signing up at the second requires manual intervention.
Also, I apparently can't use Zelle to transfer money to myself. (This seems to be a limitation of all person-to-person systems, where I can't be the owner of the source and destination accounts.) So, right now, the fastest way for me to move money between two credit union accounts is to go stand at an ATM, withdraw cash with one card, and deposit it with another.
As others have pointed out, there's a lot to be exited about. I definitely see this as a big step forward.
That said, I think the connector shape is flawed. I've seen too many micro USB connectors break off in phones because it's hard to make something that small strong enough for movement from the cable. I wish they would have chosen something closer to the lightning connector or magnetic for durability. I'd hate to have to replace the main point of connectivity of an ultra-thin laptop.
I'm sure, and there's probably a ton of other considerations that went into this design e.g. space savings in laptops, manufacturing costs, etc. I just really like not worrying about connectors breaking after replacing laptops and cellphones early because of broken power/micro-USB jacks.
