3 ms·

It would be very nice to be able to "link" my electric car into a convoy of other electric cars at say "San Diego" and allow the system to take said convoy to s

by bsder 4y ago

It would be very nice to be able to "link" my electric car into a convoy of other electric cars at say "San Diego" and allow the system to take said convoy to somewhere in "Los Angeles" and reassert control. This would solve a lot of the "last mile" problems that we currently have with train stations in the US (need to park at one terminus, need to get picked up at the other, can't deal with accidents on rails, etc.). When they are on water, we call them "ferries".

akira2501 4y ago
They have trains you can just drive your car into. It's quite popular in Europe.
- piaste 4y ago
  They are absolutely not popular. I've never heard of them, despite having both family and friends who went on yearly car trips across (one or more of) Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, and Denmark. Looking into it, it seems they were popular decades ago, but they've been all but shut down by the 2010s due to unprofitability, and only a handful of seasonal routes remain now. Though who knows, if gas prices keep increasing, they might enjoy a brief resurgence for a decade or so until enough people have switched to EV. But it will take quite a bit of an increase. I looked at the longest route, 1300km Hamburg-Verona (which would actually interest me!) and it costs 400 to 600€, depending on the date. That's well over twice as much as the current gas prices, even being generous; while I guess it includes sleeping arrangements, you could stay in a very fancy hotel with the money you saved.
  - _nalply 4y ago
    Huh? They are popular here. There's a high mountain pass with a glacier being in the way, the Lötschenpass. There's only a hiking path over it. A few kilometers to the west, there's another high mountain pass, the Gemmipass that has an extremely steep drop to the south such that in medieval times not even a mule track was possible. People avoided the rockfaces by going over an even higher saddle to which they got on by a steep grassy ridge. Today there's a cable car and hiking path blasted into the rocks, somewhat like the path to Angel's Landing in Zion National Park. Up to today there are no roads over that mountain range between the Cantons of Bern and Valais for about 100 km. Only the Lötschberg railroad tunnel. People from the eastern part of Valais "have trains you can just drive your car into". I myself have a customer card of the railroad operator because it's the most direct way to the south, and we go about once a month. They also offer transportation through a second mountain pass to Italy. After 35 minutes of driving and after one hour of relaxing we enjoy Italy's dolce vita. There are other railroad operators taking cars. I know one in the Canton of Grisons, and between France and England there's another one.
piva00 4y ago
It'd be even nicer to have investments in public transport infrastructure to allow large population centers to not depend on cars for the majority of A to B trips. The problems of last mile train stations in the US are completely self-inflicted, to cater for the current status quo of car-centric development, you don't need massive parking lots in central train stations for the majority of big population centres in Europe.
- bsder 4y ago
  > It'd be even nicer to have investments in public transport infrastructure to allow large population centers to not depend on cars for the majority of A to B trips. Your suggestion requires that we demolish and redo entire swathes of cities before we would gain any benefits. My suggestion can be implemented piecemeal on specific corridors and start gaining benefits immediately. Path dependence is a thing. Political will is finite with short time horizons. Something which can be implemented piecemeal is less optimal but more likely to gain enough momentum to deliver real benefits.
  - piva00 4y ago
    That's just kicking the can further down than what's been already kicked. If the only matter for political will is short-term gains then there's absolutely no possibility of revamping decrepit and inadequate structures such as the lack of public transportation in the US. At some point it'll be needed to do it, the longer the wait the more painful it will become. As you pointed out, it's already pretty fucking painful to achieve it, introducing new features unto an inadequate system is just compounding the issues in the long-term for just a small short-term gain, it's not really smart to do it. Instead of starting to properly address the issue of transportation at scale, your suggestion will just add a component of "smartness" to a system that is already overloaded and definitely not good for society. Car-dependency is not a net positive. I'm not against people using and having cars but depending on them for transportation between large population centres is an absurd waste of resources for a society... Simple and easy solutions have a tendency to create even larger problems, it's unfortunate there's no political will in the USA to revamp its transportation system because it's clear to not be the most efficient way for your society to move around.

by bsder 4y ago

akira2501 4y ago

They have trains you can just drive your car into. It's quite popular in Europe.

piaste 4y ago
They are absolutely not popular. I've never heard of them, despite having both family and friends who went on yearly car trips across (one or more of) Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, and Denmark. Looking into it, it seems they were popular decades ago, but they've been all but shut down by the 2010s due to unprofitability, and only a handful of seasonal routes remain now. Though who knows, if gas prices keep increasing, they might enjoy a brief resurgence for a decade or so until enough people have switched to EV. But it will take quite a bit of an increase. I looked at the longest route, 1300km Hamburg-Verona (which would actually interest me!) and it costs 400 to 600€, depending on the date. That's well over twice as much as the current gas prices, even being generous; while I guess it includes sleeping arrangements, you could stay in a very fancy hotel with the money you saved.
- _nalply 4y ago
  Huh? They are popular here. There's a high mountain pass with a glacier being in the way, the Lötschenpass. There's only a hiking path over it. A few kilometers to the west, there's another high mountain pass, the Gemmipass that has an extremely steep drop to the south such that in medieval times not even a mule track was possible. People avoided the rockfaces by going over an even higher saddle to which they got on by a steep grassy ridge. Today there's a cable car and hiking path blasted into the rocks, somewhat like the path to Angel's Landing in Zion National Park. Up to today there are no roads over that mountain range between the Cantons of Bern and Valais for about 100 km. Only the Lötschberg railroad tunnel. People from the eastern part of Valais "have trains you can just drive your car into". I myself have a customer card of the railroad operator because it's the most direct way to the south, and we go about once a month. They also offer transportation through a second mountain pass to Italy. After 35 minutes of driving and after one hour of relaxing we enjoy Italy's dolce vita. There are other railroad operators taking cars. I know one in the Canton of Grisons, and between France and England there's another one.

piva00 4y ago

It'd be even nicer to have investments in public transport infrastructure to allow large population centers to not depend on cars for the majority of A to B trips. The problems of last mile train stations in the US are completely self-inflicted, to cater for the current status quo of car-centric development, you don't need massive parking lots in central train stations for the majority of big population centres in Europe.

bsder 4y ago
> It'd be even nicer to have investments in public transport infrastructure to allow large population centers to not depend on cars for the majority of A to B trips. Your suggestion requires that we demolish and redo entire swathes of cities before we would gain any benefits. My suggestion can be implemented piecemeal on specific corridors and start gaining benefits immediately. Path dependence is a thing. Political will is finite with short time horizons. Something which can be implemented piecemeal is less optimal but more likely to gain enough momentum to deliver real benefits.
- piva00 4y ago
  That's just kicking the can further down than what's been already kicked. If the only matter for political will is short-term gains then there's absolutely no possibility of revamping decrepit and inadequate structures such as the lack of public transportation in the US. At some point it'll be needed to do it, the longer the wait the more painful it will become. As you pointed out, it's already pretty fucking painful to achieve it, introducing new features unto an inadequate system is just compounding the issues in the long-term for just a small short-term gain, it's not really smart to do it. Instead of starting to properly address the issue of transportation at scale, your suggestion will just add a component of "smartness" to a system that is already overloaded and definitely not good for society. Car-dependency is not a net positive. I'm not against people using and having cars but depending on them for transportation between large population centres is an absurd waste of resources for a society... Simple and easy solutions have a tendency to create even larger problems, it's unfortunate there's no political will in the USA to revamp its transportation system because it's clear to not be the most efficient way for your society to move around.