5 ms·

Or just don't buy a car.

by gman83 7y ago

SEJeff 7y ago
That isn't an option for 90% of the country (in the US at least).
- lorenzobr 7y ago
  The real option is autonomous cars which you can call with a Uber-like app when you need it. That way we would have less cars but we would maximize the utilization rate of the ones we'd keep on the roads.
- gman83 7y ago
  Don't something like 80% of Americans live in urban or sub-urban areas? I live in a suburban area in Europe and have no problems getting around with public transportation. I get my groceries delivered by the shop.
  - colanderman 7y ago
    Most American suburbs are not well served by public transportation. Personally, I've lived in many cities, suburbs, and rural areas in the northeast US (population-dense, relatively friendly toward ecological initiatives) and tried to use public transit whenever possible. My experience is that public transport outside cities is practically nonexistent. In cities, there are only buses and they're annoying/slow/don't go where you need them. Only now that I live in the immediate vicinity of Boston do I have useful public transit options, yet still, owning a car is a necessity to get to anything outside the city.
  - AgloeDreams 7y ago
    Sub-urban America is not 'no car' America, lacking public transport, the downright scale of American cities, and a car-focused traffic/zoning design makes bikes, walking, and bussing simply just not practical.
  - ckuhl 7y ago
    The definition of what a suburban area is in North America vs. Europe are so different they really need different words. A typical suburb in the US will have no public transportation, and be so sprawled out that bicycling or walking between places would be impossible for a working adult.
    - WorldMaker 7y ago
      "Exurb" isn't used enough to describe American suburbs, but is certainly appropriate. Suburban sprawl got so bad that the original suburbs of a lot of cities, that were built with public transit in mind, today Americans think of as "city core" or "inner city" and don't even recognize as suburbs anymore. Meanwhile most of what Americans imagine suburbs to be are more accurately exurbs, and exurban living is seen as more normal than the traditional relationships between cities and their suburbs for a number of unhealthy reasons.
  - sp332 7y ago
    Yeah it's only 90% of the county by land area. If you count by people it's probably a lot lower. But keep in mind that public transportation is terrible even in dense places where it could make a huge difference in the US.
  - TulliusCicero 7y ago
    I'm an American in Munich, suburbs here are still walkable, bikeable, and often have a solid S-Bahn connection to the city center. In America, most suburbs are bad for walking, actively hostile to biking, and have either no public transit or nearly unusable public transit. The cities are usually not much better, either. Only a handful in the US have public transit that can even be called decent, let alone good.
    - SEJeff 7y ago
      This so much ^
- rplnt 7y ago
  > (in the US at least) In the US only.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  I suspect that HN User gman is trying to make exactly that point. (I could be wrong though.) I wonder if 30 to 40 years from now, we'll be having the same convo about electric cars that we are having about recycling plastic? Something that seemed good on the surface, but masked all kinds of externalities. I mean, at least electric should be a bit better than ICE in daily use. But will making these things at scale in the first place cost too much in the way of carbon production? Or other forms of pollution that we as consumers don't even know about yet? You may say, "well it was your job as a consumer to know the impact your purchases were having." But I'm just not that knowledgeable about that stuff. I don't know if a billion electric cars are bad or good? And it might not even be the cars, just the fact that we have to make the roads may be polluting somehow? Or whatever? It's just too much for a consumer to know. Should I be buying electric? Or supporting mass public transit? Which is better? Or is it just a question of which is worse? There's a lot to think about there. Or maybe it's just me?
  - lorenzobr 7y ago
    I bet you don't believe in climate change either, do you?
    - andyhmltn 7y ago
      That's a hell of an assumption to make
    - bilbo0s 7y ago
      Just for full disclosure, I believe in climate change. But I'm not sure I believe that having electric cars is better than having electric trains or buses? I honestly don't think it's stupid for me to ask whether or not having electric cars is the best strategy for dealing with climate change.
  - ljcn 7y ago
    It is an interesting question. The best option is almost certainly to not use a car (walk, cycle, or bus instead). The emissions are much lower[1] (absolute and per-distance) and you might get some health benefits. If a car is needed it depends how you're planning to power it. This answer[0] does a great job of looking at the energy inputs of building a car. I thought the up-front cost would be higher but the emissions from producing a car are comparable to the emissions of using the car for a few years. So if the choice is between a used ICE car and a new EV and charging it with renewable energy, it's (surprisingly) probably worth buying the new EV. If you're planning to charge it with power from a coal plant though you should probably get the used ICE car. [0] https://www.quora.com/How-much-energy-is-required-to-build-an-electric-car https://www.quora.com/How-much-energy-is-required-to-build-a... [1] https://ecf.com/news-and-events/news/how-much-co2-does-cycling-really-save https://ecf.com/news-and-events/news/how-much-co2-does-cycli...
- stephencanon 7y ago
  Meh. We live in a town of 12,000 people (big town for the area, but in a very rural part of the US). My wife and I share one car, and walk/bike/take transit more often than we drive--the car is mostly for getting our daughter to daycare in the winter and for when my wife is on call at the hospital. There are plenty of folks in the area who don't drive at all. There are certainly parts of the US where a car is necessary, but 90% is pushing it. It may well be that 90% of people think that they need a car, though.
  - pyromine 7y ago
    You may find that due to your socioeconomic status it may be more feasible to be a one car-transit using family, but for many americans who may work two jobs with a hour break between them (or situation similiar) they seriously may only manage to be able to make their schedule work with a car. (Just an example situation) Being car-less in America is hard, I lived in a the suburb of a main city and if I was to use transit options to get to work I would have spent 3 hours a day on commute alone. That's simply not feasible. Similarly I used to work a job from midnight to noon (and a year later noon to midnight) and there simply was no feasible transit option for such a schedule, and with the sprawling nature of the suburb carpooling wasn't much of an option either.
- neuronic 7y ago
  This is the real problem that needs to be addressed instead of churning out different cars.

Or just don't buy a car.

by gman83 7y ago

Or just don't buy a car.

SEJeff 7y ago

That isn't an option for 90% of the country (in the US at least).

lorenzobr 7y ago
The real option is autonomous cars which you can call with a Uber-like app when you need it. That way we would have less cars but we would maximize the utilization rate of the ones we'd keep on the roads.
gman83 7y ago
Don't something like 80% of Americans live in urban or sub-urban areas? I live in a suburban area in Europe and have no problems getting around with public transportation. I get my groceries delivered by the shop.
- colanderman 7y ago
  Most American suburbs are not well served by public transportation. Personally, I've lived in many cities, suburbs, and rural areas in the northeast US (population-dense, relatively friendly toward ecological initiatives) and tried to use public transit whenever possible. My experience is that public transport outside cities is practically nonexistent. In cities, there are only buses and they're annoying/slow/don't go where you need them. Only now that I live in the immediate vicinity of Boston do I have useful public transit options, yet still, owning a car is a necessity to get to anything outside the city.
- AgloeDreams 7y ago
  Sub-urban America is not 'no car' America, lacking public transport, the downright scale of American cities, and a car-focused traffic/zoning design makes bikes, walking, and bussing simply just not practical.
- ckuhl 7y ago
  The definition of what a suburban area is in North America vs. Europe are so different they really need different words. A typical suburb in the US will have no public transportation, and be so sprawled out that bicycling or walking between places would be impossible for a working adult.
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    "Exurb" isn't used enough to describe American suburbs, but is certainly appropriate. Suburban sprawl got so bad that the original suburbs of a lot of cities, that were built with public transit in mind, today Americans think of as "city core" or "inner city" and don't even recognize as suburbs anymore. Meanwhile most of what Americans imagine suburbs to be are more accurately exurbs, and exurban living is seen as more normal than the traditional relationships between cities and their suburbs for a number of unhealthy reasons.
- sp332 7y ago
  Yeah it's only 90% of the county by land area. If you count by people it's probably a lot lower. But keep in mind that public transportation is terrible even in dense places where it could make a huge difference in the US.
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  I'm an American in Munich, suburbs here are still walkable, bikeable, and often have a solid S-Bahn connection to the city center. In America, most suburbs are bad for walking, actively hostile to biking, and have either no public transit or nearly unusable public transit. The cities are usually not much better, either. Only a handful in the US have public transit that can even be called decent, let alone good.
  - SEJeff 7y ago
    This so much ^
rplnt 7y ago
> (in the US at least) In the US only.
bilbo0s 7y ago
I suspect that HN User gman is trying to make exactly that point. (I could be wrong though.) I wonder if 30 to 40 years from now, we'll be having the same convo about electric cars that we are having about recycling plastic? Something that seemed good on the surface, but masked all kinds of externalities. I mean, at least electric should be a bit better than ICE in daily use. But will making these things at scale in the first place cost too much in the way of carbon production? Or other forms of pollution that we as consumers don't even know about yet? You may say, "well it was your job as a consumer to know the impact your purchases were having." But I'm just not that knowledgeable about that stuff. I don't know if a billion electric cars are bad or good? And it might not even be the cars, just the fact that we have to make the roads may be polluting somehow? Or whatever? It's just too much for a consumer to know. Should I be buying electric? Or supporting mass public transit? Which is better? Or is it just a question of which is worse? There's a lot to think about there. Or maybe it's just me?
- lorenzobr 7y ago
  I bet you don't believe in climate change either, do you?
  - andyhmltn 7y ago
    That's a hell of an assumption to make
  - bilbo0s 7y ago
    Just for full disclosure, I believe in climate change. But I'm not sure I believe that having electric cars is better than having electric trains or buses? I honestly don't think it's stupid for me to ask whether or not having electric cars is the best strategy for dealing with climate change.
- ljcn 7y ago
  It is an interesting question. The best option is almost certainly to not use a car (walk, cycle, or bus instead). The emissions are much lower[1] (absolute and per-distance) and you might get some health benefits. If a car is needed it depends how you're planning to power it. This answer[0] does a great job of looking at the energy inputs of building a car. I thought the up-front cost would be higher but the emissions from producing a car are comparable to the emissions of using the car for a few years. So if the choice is between a used ICE car and a new EV and charging it with renewable energy, it's (surprisingly) probably worth buying the new EV. If you're planning to charge it with power from a coal plant though you should probably get the used ICE car. [0] https://www.quora.com/How-much-energy-is-required-to-build-an-electric-car https://www.quora.com/How-much-energy-is-required-to-build-a... [1] https://ecf.com/news-and-events/news/how-much-co2-does-cycling-really-save https://ecf.com/news-and-events/news/how-much-co2-does-cycli...
stephencanon 7y ago
Meh. We live in a town of 12,000 people (big town for the area, but in a very rural part of the US). My wife and I share one car, and walk/bike/take transit more often than we drive--the car is mostly for getting our daughter to daycare in the winter and for when my wife is on call at the hospital. There are plenty of folks in the area who don't drive at all. There are certainly parts of the US where a car is necessary, but 90% is pushing it. It may well be that 90% of people think that they need a car, though.
- pyromine 7y ago
  You may find that due to your socioeconomic status it may be more feasible to be a one car-transit using family, but for many americans who may work two jobs with a hour break between them (or situation similiar) they seriously may only manage to be able to make their schedule work with a car. (Just an example situation) Being car-less in America is hard, I lived in a the suburb of a main city and if I was to use transit options to get to work I would have spent 3 hours a day on commute alone. That's simply not feasible. Similarly I used to work a job from midnight to noon (and a year later noon to midnight) and there simply was no feasible transit option for such a schedule, and with the sprawling nature of the suburb carpooling wasn't much of an option either.
neuronic 7y ago
This is the real problem that needs to be addressed instead of churning out different cars.