They will need a network of places to buy and repair. There are something like 15 showrooms in the whole of UK, half of them in London. 7 Service Centers.
A then Tesla.com lists the BlueWater as a showroom. It had 2 cars last time I was there, both in the same colour.
That's not nearly enough to sell a popular car in the premium segment.
note: I understand that Dealer is something special in the US. I use the term liberally to mean "Some places that sells Tesla car". I believe that the hate of Dealer in the US is not so fundamental that they would buy a 30K car online only. Hell Apple is doing great with Apple Store with the opposite approach and nothing they sell is close to the same level of financial commitment.
Interesting. I do volunteer work at a videogame museum and I was just about to propose a system for preserving videogame art assets and enabling presenting them outside the context of the original game. There is a problem with the content of old games being lost due to only existing in idiosyncratic formats in hardware ROMs. Also, it poses a curatorial challenge to present the visual art at the end of a game with a 50 hour play time.
I guess the industry doesn't want us to do that!
(Disclosure: I work with the Oakland museum mentioned.)
Serious question: how often do you approach the publisher and ask for their help with this? Have you developed an administrative system that could present these requests in a standardized and actionable way to the publishers' legal departments, or just the technical system?
As far as help goes, we actually don't need technical help. (I won't expand on this, of course.) It is mostly a matter of getting permission. As far as an administrative system for asking, there isn't such a system. My understanding is that permission comes most reliably through personal contacts with company insiders. Asking legal departments is usually counterproductive -- after all, if you worked in a legal department, what motivation would there be for you to say anything but "no?" Saying "yes" has all the possible downsides and no apparent upside.
> I'm a 26 y.o. software dev working on going indie...Every morning, I take tally of my age.
26 is a fantastic age. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise! I would literally part with my right testicle if I could be 26 again, knowing what I know now. The chances are very, very good that you are more attractive, intelligent, and energetic than you realize. Most 20-somethings don't have the life experience to put these things in proper perspective. Just as sure that you're not as good a driver as you think, you've got a lot more going for you than you realize.
> Whenever I encounter a technical article, I immediately and compulsively investigate the author's age.
There are so many ways of being awesome, just like there are so many ways of making money. You don't have to be what other people are.
> Mentally, I've resigned to the fact that I've procrastinated away a decade of valuable time, and it just endlessly haunts me.
That doesn't exist, except in people's minds, especially yours. Just do something now.
> But I can't help but feel that if I had started in earnest at 25, at 21, at 19
Late 40's here. I know how you feel. Take it from me: You have no business feeling like that!
Most non-chemical propulsive mechanisms considered for space travel do not have the ISP necessary to launch from the bottom of a deep gravity well.
You don't need much ISP to launch from the bottom of a deep gravity well and thick atmosphere. What you need more of is thrust. Ion engines have orders of magnitude more ISP than chemical rockets, but you can't launch off of many things larger than an asteroid with one.
