Caterpillar Ships Diesel-Electric Tractor

Diesel over electric works great in locomotives. For huge torque needs, this is the only way to go. I'm surprised they haven't tried this in mid-sized earth moving equipment before (the really big stuff already uses diesel electric).

As for consumer demands for too much functionality, without consumers wanting better vehicles we would still be driving cars the same as those made in 1976. If you didn't live (and drive) through that era, it is hard to imagine how truely horrible those cars were. Barely functional.

What if we were satisfied with the safety record of airplanes from the 1920's? Or medicine before WW I? We would still be drinking radium-laced water as a "cure-all" prescribed by doctors (which they actually did back then).

Time, and technology, marches on. Consumers should demand perfection, but not expect to get it. Also, people should take responsibility for their own actions. I want Toyota to recall my 2006 and give it new software, because I definitely experience the brake loss over bumps almost daily on the horrible Denver streets. But I get by with braking technique to mitigate the problem.

If my throttle stuck open, I would expect Toyota to fix that, but I wouldn't expect them to reimburse me for an accident because I was too poor of a driver to not simply turn the thing off (or shift it to neutral). I had a car stick wide open once, and I reached down and turned off the key. No panic, no drama, no crash (and that was a hot rod 1966 Corvair with a Olds 455 where the back seat should have been - enough torque to move a house and considerably more acceleration than most Toyotas with a stuck throttle).