Well hell, I've never welded anything and I struggle with those things in my daily life anyway.

You need a suitable welder for that with pulse feed so that it kinda-sorta acts like square wave AC. With your average hobbyist garage welder it's going to be a real pain in the ass.

technically, it's an accelerator, but I've taken to calling it the "go pedal"

Yea, just like the save icon is still a floppy disk.

I refuse to call it a "go pedal" like Tesla tried to create, lol. I guess it's like "footage" for film, or "rewind."

Maybe we can call it an accelerator?

He was an early investor, it is not his idea. He is not the majority owner.

It was absolutely rigged. You could pass or fail it depending on how you drove. I agree they were high center of gravity and didn't handle well. So were many other vehicles they passed.

I don't agree with a test that is dependent on the driver. They could have easily failed the Ford Explorer if they had driven it like the Trooper.

It's a shady organization.

Yes, because unibody designs will all have this problem, where it's extremely expensive to repair damage to the frame.

Body-on-frame is generally better for repairability because you don't have this problem - you can just remove the damaged panel and replace it.

In both slate and rivian's case (I think), they seem to use a hybrid of both. So, it's probably around the same expense as repairing a Rivian in regard to labor (and possibly materials).

The point is that Slate might not resolve this problem either.

I know, I know...

Uncle had a truck, I dont remember what brand or what year. But I do remember him climbing into the engine bay and sitting on the front tire well to work on the engine, because I was on the other tire well watching him. and we both had absolutely loads of room to move around. more so me, being a kid, but he was a big man and he still could slither around everywhere in that engine bay to get at what needed got at.

vehicles, especially trucks, used to have an insane amount of space under the hood for working on the engine.

I'm getting annoyed at hearing this "they made them better in the old days" trope.

Modern cars are pushing 200-300,000 miles of life. They don't rust like they used to, and complex, efficient engines can be diagnosed with a read from a computer screen, as can the entire car electric system. Sure, older vehicles had more room to do repairs, but they always needed repairs. Lots of rose colored glasses being worn here.

Vehicles like giga cast Teslas are almost like hot wheels cars, one large casting of aluminum, which is often too expensive to fix so the car gets written off. Rivian and Tesla didn't give a shit about collision repair...until sales are being choked when people get insurance quotes. Tesla setup their own insurance and it's losing money. Poor design means Teslas crash more than any other brands, and get written off more than any other brand, which sets actuarial tables on fire.

Now Rivian CEO cares because bad design is affecting sales.

I used to think that until I worked on a friends 70s muscle car. The spark plugs on the drivers aide are a pain because the steering shaft runs directly down beside plug 5 and 7. But overall all the plugs and boots suck because they are tucked under the exhaust manifold.