> Tesla are a sideshow and we desperately need to stop talking about them, because they're harming efforts to improve energy efficiency.

Completely disagree. Tesla is, I think, unquestionably the most impactful company in the game, including GE and Nissan. For two reasons.

First, before Tesla people thought of electric vehicles as ridiculous DIY golf carts driven by treehuggers. They were utterly uncool and stupid. Post-Tesla, electric cars are among the very coolest cars in the world. GE didn't do that. Nissan didn't do that. Toyota didn't do that. Tesla did. I think fundamentally changing people's perceptions of what an electric car is and what it can do is the single most impactful action in the industry so far.

Second, Tesla's critical product isn't their cars. Their critical product is their battery technology. It is second to none, in a business where the battery is everything. This is the reason that both Daimler and Toyota have invested in the company. I think you are seriously underestimating how important this is.

As to the article proper: it seems to me that running down your car is a pretty simple problem to engineer away. This might be an issue, perhaps a burp that Tesla has to get fixed pronto. But it's hardly, to use the breathless headline, devastating.

There are over 70 patents and licensed libraries in Flash. It would basically be impossible to get those companies to agree to open source and give away all their IP. For a while, Adobe was paying over a dollar per Android Flash install because some of their licenses only applied to desktop.

So one might say they should open source the core of Flash, the JIT compiler and virtual machine, and not the parts that are licensed. And you're right, that would be the correct move! They did that in 2006: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamarin_%28software%29

They also open sourced the Flex SDK: http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Flex+SDK

What Adobe needs is a completely new product that is available to consumers for free, has it's source code public and free from patents. This way, Adobe tools can still be sold and used to develop, while the player is ubiquitous and as widely spread as possible. And that's what they're trying to do with HTML5: http://www.adobe.com/solutions/html5.html

Adobe's communication to developers is bad. No one knows about any this. Technology isn't their problem, marketing is.

Could this really not be prevented by a $10 microcontroller and a big-ass relay to just disconnect the battery if it reaches a certain discharge state?

Even my iPhone can turn turtle to protect its battery when it gets too low.

Also how much power does it take to keep the damn thing plugged in? The article indicates that a 100 foot extension cord isn't enough just to break even and the car discharges even when plugged in. A 100 foot cord of cheap 16 gauge wire can still supply almost 900 watts before the voltage drops below 100v. So it uses a kilowatt just to stand-by without even charging? That's one hell of a power vampire.

I think maybe they should spend a bit more time on the fundamentals and a bit less time on fancy bird-wing doors if they want to have a real product. The real car of the future is just a big dumb tray full of indestructible nickle-iron batteries and 4 wheel-hub motors bolted to the corners.