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It sounds like you speak for the half of the population that lives near and in metro areas. I think if you were used to the scale of the less-populated areas, w
by ColanR 6y ago
It sounds like you speak for the half of the population that lives near and in metro areas. I think if you were used to the scale of the less-populated areas, where a 'short' drive is 30 minutes, you might realize that what you hope for is laughably out of touch with about half of the US.
- thatfrenchguy 6y agoHa the typical "but think of the country side". 80% of americans live in a urban area.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoAutomakers will still market to where the dollars are: people who buy cars (17 million/year in the US, 60 million/year globally). Outside of NYC, Chicago, and SF, there’s very little mass transit to speak of, even in urban areas. Texas and Florida have significant population centers where car ownership is required, and that’s where folks are moving to.
- Ericson2314 6y agoNothing but their own egos requires monster vehicles. It's not like Dallas and Orlando are full of unpaved roads.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoTrue! But they’re spending the dollars, so their preference is what will be built for (see: Ford’s vehicle lineup, all trucks and SUVs). And if you attempt to regulate against them, you’ll get voted out (just like NIMBYs).
- kennywinker 6y agoThere are a lot of personal preferences we regulate away. I prefer to drive drunk home from the bar, but that's illegal. I prefer to build buildings without obeying fire safety building codes, but apparently that's also illegal. 30k / year die in car accidents in the USA. This is a real problem with a huge human toll, akin to drunk driving or building codes. Step 1 is slow the vehicles down. As soon as they slow down, one of the main drivers of size - fear of an accident with a bigger vehicle - will be greatly decreased and we can do step 2: shrink them.
- valuearb 6y agoIf everyone rode all your straw horses we’d all be safe to sip from chocolate streams and eat from gumdrop trees. Driving has never been safer in this country. Slowing cars down is silly, interstates were built to drive 85 MPH on safely with cars without airbags, ABS, even seatbelts. We went through that with the 55 MPH federal mandate, which lowered death rates only a small percent at a large economic cost.
- kennywinker 6y agoYou are also right driving has never been safer. But you could have said that before airbags or abs or even seatbelts. and fyi, interstate driving is dangerous: > the fatality rate per 100 million miles traveled in 2015 was still 2.6 times higher in rural areas than in urban areas (1.84 in rural areas compared with 0.71 in urban areas) https://www.tariolaw.com/fatal-car-crashes-urban-car-accidents-vs-rural-car-accidents/ https://www.tariolaw.com/fatal-car-crashes-urban-car-acciden...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- rootusrootus 6y ago> Step 1 is slow the vehicles down I can't even imagine what that would do to traffic that is already pretty congested. Large swaths of suburban metros would just grind to a halt. > 30k / year die in car accidents in the USA Closer to 40K. Even then, that is compared with almost 3 million people who die for all reasons combined. It's actually sort of amazing how low the fatality rate is given just how much movement there is every day. One for every 100,000,000 miles driven. That's remarkable.
- Thlom 6y agoSlower speeds means cars drive closer together which means throughput increases (to a point). I think around 60km/h is generally considered the speed which yields the biggest throughput of cars.
- valuearb 6y agoUntil you need to haul 6 kids, or three bikes, or furniture, or hone remodeling supplies from Home Depot, etc. Cars aren’t sized to our average use case, they they are sized to frequent use cases. I’m getting tired of the “all I need is a tiny tin box thus so should you” crowd.
- stephencanon 6y agoThe only one of those that requires a large car is six kids (which is pretty rare). Bike racks work great on small cars. Home Depot delivers. I rent a van or truck to move furniture the one time a year I need to do it. Most people who drive a giant SUV absolutely do not need one.
- valuearb 6y agoNo one needs a car at all. We could live like hermits in the woods and go back to hunting and gathering. But if you live in the real world, why not drive a car that makes it easier to do all the things you want to do, if it’s easily affordable?
- Dylan16807 6y agoThanks for the slippery slope, but they're saying that it barely makes it easier. So the question is how much money you want to spend on that barely.
- stephencanon 6y agoOr alternatively, how much nicer of a car would you like to have for the same money? Most large SUVs are not well-constructed, nor are they much fun to drive. They’re just big. My smallish wagon does everything a typical family (2 adults, 2 kids, dog) has a regular need for (heck, I carry trees and 2x12s and gravel in it, which is more than most people need). On the rare occasion that I’m buying furniture and they don’t deliver or whatever, I rent a van. As a result, my day-to-day driving experience is infinitely more pleasant.
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- rsynnott 6y agoSure, but they don't necessarily need such big ones. Big cars are primarily a consumer preference thing in the US rather than an actual need, and consumer preferences can change, both organically and due to outside pressure (the 70s oil crisis did reduce the size of American cars significantly, for instance). Also, of course, bad mass transit is fixable. And potentially fairly cheaply; for the lowish density cities common in the US BRT systems would likely largely be fine.
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoThey might not need them but they like them and can afford them.
- jakear 6y agoWe can afford them for now. If oil prices go up significantly I’ll seriously reconsider my 18MPG suv... but I’ll reconsider to an alternative that can still support my lifestyle (perhaps Tesla truck, or something like RAV4 Prime/Hybrid but larger). Not a mini car that can’t go fast.
- dkdk8283 6y agoGoing fast is the fun in driving.
- Dylan16807 6y agoI like the sights, myself. The only time I go over 100kph is on the freeway, and it's not by much.
- jakear 6y agoBased on the metric I’m guessing you don’t live in USA? Here we have vast expanses of designated wilderness area (well over 1M sq km), where it can be really quite fun to get up to speed while enjoying the views.
- samfisher83 6y agoBay Area public transport is not good compared to East Coast or Chicago.
- ZanyProgrammer 6y agoThat’s not what his comment was really saying, only that those cities have much better transit than most of America.
- adventured 6y ago> 80% of americans live in a urban area. No they do not. Half of Americans live in the suburbs or equivalent, which are not urban environments and certainly nothing remotely compared to what qualifies as an urban environment in eg Europe. Having a Target, Costco, Home Depot, Whole Foods and Starbucks doesn't qualify a region as urban. 70%-75% of Americans don't live in urban environments: "America Really Is a Nation of Suburbs" "According to the newly released 2017 American Housing Survey (of nearly 76,000 households nationwide), about 52 percent of people in the United States describe their neighborhood as suburban, while about 27 percent describe their neighborhood as urban, and 21 percent as rural." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-14/u-s-is-majority-suburban-but-doesn-t-define-suburb https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-14/u-s-is-ma...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- maxerickson 6y agoTowns and suburbs are generally classed as urban. Maybe low density urban, but urban nonetheless. It probably makes sense. Having yards and trees and driving 2 miles to Target is more similar to not having trees and driving 2 miles to Target than it is similar to driving 200 miles to Target. Have sidewalks? Probably urban.
- mjevans 6y agoA better dividing line is: Given the choice, how would someone living there most often visit a grocery store? In an urban area walking might be the common mode. In a suburban area driving is OFTEN going to be the preferred mode, and even in small cities (particularly ones still small enough to have free parking at a nearby grocery store) driving there is still going to be preferred; at least in the US. In my experience Bellevue WA is a small, still suburban like city, while Seattle has crossed the anti-car (and expensive real-estate) line to 'big city'; but is neither old enough (pre-industrial grocery store layouts) nor big enough to be a healthy big urban city. Offhand, I would define rural as any area where a drive to the third closest typical grocery store is at least a one hour round trip (by car, at legal speeds, including delays at any traffic device or from commute volume).
- pmart123 6y agoUrban definitions are not consistent across countries.
- bleepblorp 6y agoOnly 20% of the US population lives in rural areas[0]. Pre-pandemic, the national average one-way commute time was half an hour[1]. Given typical (pre-pandemic) traffic in most cities, much of that commute time will be spent in traffic congestion and very little will be spent at high speeds. Rural areas, and locations with severe winter weather, have special needs for which higher speeds and more robust vehicles are appropriate, but smaller, lighter, and slower vehicles are a viable option for most Americans. It's laughably out of touch to believe the US is even half rural. That ship sailed a very long time ago. [0] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2016/cb16-210.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2016/cb16-210... [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/study-states-with-the-longest-and-shortest-commutes.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/study-states-with-the-longes...
- pubby 6y agoThe parent comment was presumably talking about the suburbs and sprawl, of which 55% of Americans live. These areas were designed for cars.
- mushbino 6y agoWe're talking about two types of car so we understand they were designed for cars. Is there something particularly interesting about electric cars with the suburban model?
- nine_k 6y agoOf course. Suburban environment is not so dense so you could expect the nearest fast charger be pretty far away. Driving in a city traffic involves a lot of acceleration and slowing down, where the electric recuperative braking shines, unlike on a highway. OTOH in suburban setting you have a good chance to be able to put a fast charger into your garage (and you have a garage!), and maybe even charge the car from solar panels on your roof (and the roof is yours!). In a city, chances are you park in a multi-level parking or on a street, and charging your car from an electric outlet of your third-floor apartment is not realistic. The parking garage has a higher chance to provide charging, though.
- TheBigSalad 6y agoHalf of America is still a pretty big market.
- valuearb 6y agoWay more than half. Even if you live in an urban area, you occasionally need to drive out of the urban area.
- kennywinker 6y agoI already solve this problem on the regular, since I live in an urban area but do not own a car. There are car coops and car share programs that make renting a vehicle incredibly painless. Not hard to imagine a world where there are in-the-city cars and inter-city cars that are designed quite differently.
- valuearb 6y agoI’m not borrowing cars from a dirty hippie co-op when I need to drive my kids somewhere.
- kennywinker 6y agoFrom your tone I can tell you're not listening, but the car coop in my city has clean well maintained cars that are all less than 5 years old. The car share app has a fleet of prius v's that are in even nicer shape than the coop's cars. But how often would you need a vehicle that goes +40mph to take your kids somewhere? It'd only be useful for drives where you'll be outside of the city for long enough to make the lower speed matter - since for city driving the limit is almost always traffic and stoplights not your vehicle's top speed.
- arcticbull 6y agoIndeed, there’re no more of a “dirty hippy car coop” than Enterprise is lol.
- kortilla 6y agoOp was being an asshole but not wanting to share cars with the population at large is a thing whether it’s “a dirty hippie coop”, a regular rental car, or the backseat of a Lyft.
- agumonkey 6y agomaybe migrating dense urban areas could finance long range EV design / research ?
- woah 6y agoThis is obviously a larger issue than what type of car etc, but there's no good reason for Americans to live in suburbs and exurbs and drive hours every day. The entire lifestyle is stupid, but you're right that just offering small electric vehicles won't change that.
- zhang_sage 6y agoThe lifestyle is attractive for many reasons, not helpful to dismiss something you don't like as "stupid".
- tjr225 6y agoWhat if it is in fact stupid, though?
- jacobr1 6y agoValue judgement need to be made against an agreed upon standard. I think you'd need to argue that that the the suburban lifestyle is a poor way to the achieve the values that that those who currently like a suburban lifestyle actually have. That might be possible, at least on a margin. I suspect many in the suburbs would actually prefer something more like a "small town."
- imtringued 6y agoThe closest hackerspace is 30km away from me. I'm not complaining but a world without single family homes would also mean that people can't have personal workshops and therefore there must be public workshops nearby to compensate. Each city would require multiple maker/hackerspaces.
- veilrap 6y agoHonestly, suburban lifestyle is relaxed, enjoyable, and affordable. It's pretty easy to see the appeal in it. Most people living in suburban areas do not drive for hours every day. In the time it takes me to cross Boston on public transit, I can drive between two suburban metropolitan areas and have access to a huge variety of people, places, and activites.
- monadic2 6y agoHalf the us geographically, not by population. You're really exaggerating the nation's dependency and how few people half the metro areas of the US can serve. That's a massive number.
- disown 6y ago> It sounds like you speak for the half of the population that lives near and in metro areas. The guy is canadian and he doesn't speak for anyone. I wish these people would talk about their own country rather than trying to pretend to be relevant by hiding behind "north america". Also, metro areas in the US are full of big cars - SUVs. It's not just the rural areas that love big cars, americans everywhere love big cars. Politicians, cops, firefighters, security guards, soccer moms, dads, grandparents, etc all like big cars. It's why the top 10 best selling cars are predominantly trucks and SUVs. > you might realize that what you hope for is laughably out of touch with about half of the US. He's laughably out of touch with most of america because he's canadian. The only people he is aligned with are the fringe who thinks everything is "toxic".
- tehabe 6y agocars made especially those rural areas worse, because cars made it possible for people to travel longer distances in a short amount of time. for this reason stores, schools, and other infrastructure centralised and became mostly only accessible by car.
- judge2020 6y agoI think the schools and other public places are just built around the center of it's surrounding population so it can serve everyone best - since everyone is already spread out in rural areas, the schools have to do their best to accommodate the most households they can so that no child is without education. I couldn't find anything about what happens if a school isn't available for someone that building a house in the middle of nowhere, but I imagine state education departments have to make an effort to service all households with public school.
- stefan_ 6y agoI don't get it, nothing in the parent comment means getting rid of cars. You made that up entirely. The point is simply that if a fucking 60 kW transporter can scale the alps, people can do their so necessary drives with something a whole lot less powerful, a lot less hefty than they likely are doing.
- philistine 6y agoI come from a very rural world, and I have to say you seem insecure about our common way of life. We are a minority of modern life, and our cars should become the exception due to their size, not the norm. Urban areas have access to deliveries up the wazoo, and their cars should become smaller and electric, to afford us the carbon footprint of our big cars.
- teslaberry 6y agothe u.s. populatino didn't used to be this way. teh invention of cheap oil big asphalt and big cars led to people living farther away in more spread out sprawaled areas. i'm not saying that's bad if you like it, i like rural or dense cities, but spread out suburbs, have a high cost in the end of the day. time, oil, accidents, traffic. thing is, it's not black or white, but a matter of degree. that's what makes it a tough discussion.
- bamboozled 6y agoYup and it’s about to get worse because many panicked and decided to abandon cities over COVID fears. Viva decentralisation!
- riffraff 6y agoI grew up in a town in Italy where half the population still worked in agriculture, and the FIAT Panda[0] was insanely popular in the '80s, '90s and somewhat even now. The '80s 4x4 version was basically perfect. This to say: you do not need a huge modern SUV for non-metropolitan area. Edit: I just realized there's an underlying issue: you can have more than one vehicle in a family, one larger for specific needs like long trips, and one small for daily usage. This seems to be the default in Europe these days. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_Panda https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_Panda
- C19is20 6y agoLooking at the gradual car-choice changes of the us forces in Italy, I see a slow adapt to smaller vehicles. Still too many huge trucks that seem to carry mostly air, though.
- tibbydudeza 6y agoAlso the trend of cars getting larger as well as to match the increasing girth of the population i.e my VW Polo (it slots in below the Golf) is now the same dimensions as my 1990 Golf Mk 3.
- publicola1990 6y agoI do think that that Americans are largely choosing to use bigger cars with bigger engines that they usually require. There should be a move to small engined, smaller and more efficient autos, but I don't see that in the US.
- vinay427 6y agoJust move to one of several cities where the combination of parking and environmental restrictions has had a noticeable impact. It has been done and it should and probably will be done to a greater extent over time. The city where I used to live in the US, which probably has small cars as US cities go, is very comparable (in this respect) to the city I currently live in across the pond, which probably has large cars as European cities go.
- michelb 6y agoI think those rural areas might be better served with public transportation.
- alexchantavy 6y agoHow though? Rural areas don't have the density necessary to make public transportation scale effectively.
- blueboo 6y ago(Half of the US in terms of geography, not population) 83% of US population is urban
- TLightful 6y agoMaybe half of the US laughably out of touch with this moment in global history. But do you.
- MuffinFlavored 6y ago> you might realize that what you hope for is laughably out of touch with about half of the US. Oddly enough, that's a really good summary of our two-party political system in my opinion. 60m voters on the left, 60m voters on the right. Pretty evenly split down the middle, very little common middleground.
- jasonv 6y agoSeems like a strategy could address both demographic needs. But people in rural areas don’t ALL need F350s and the like...