4 ms·

The "totally different set of activities" and much higher effort also means that it often just doesn't happen. The same problem happens with car sharing: If yo

The "totally different set of activities" and much higher effort also means that it often just doesn't happen. The same problem happens with car sharing: If you have the car in your driveway, using it is trivial. If you add booking a rental/shared car, going to the station, checking it for damage, ... a quick trip turns into a major chore. And even if it may be overall cheaper to rent as needed than owning the "overkill" solution the whole time, it won't be much cheaper, because renting is ridiculously expensive. Short time rentals and car sharing around here are typically $50-100 per day and/or not that expensive per time but $0.50 per km which makes it prohibitive for longer trips. You can get an OK used car for a couple thousand and it will cost you way less than that in maintenance. Self-delivering self-driving cars could alleviate at least the hassle (since you'd be able to reserve a fungible car from a citywide pool, for pickup and return at your door), although the cost aspect will likely remain.

potatolicious 3y ago
Exactly this! It's a bit frustrating that there seems to be no acknowledgment of friction being an issue, even though the vast majority of our industry is practically defined by it. Everyone who's ever worked on a website knows the value of being above the fold, the value of reducing a single click in a checkout, etc. I lived car-free for many years, and while I had carshares easily available to me and went through the high-friction bits already (had the apps downloaded, accounts signed up, license verified, everything ready to actually rent) - I rarely did it (in fact I did it exactly twice in about 10 years!) I sympathize with the argument here - having 4,000 lb steel boxes rolling around with a single person in them and no cargo is terribly wasteful, but a lot of the alternatives suggested assume a physics-experiment-like smooth frictionless surface that doesn't actually exist IRL.
- rizzom5000 3y ago
  Aren't you completely discounting the friction inherent in ownership of a vehicle? Humans tend to find clever ways to justify their irrational decisions, but there is absolutely more friction involved in owning a large truck that is used to haul cargo once a year versus having the same cargo delivered once a year.
  - fn-mote 3y ago
    Where is the friction in owning the large truck? Paying for gas?? Finding parking? (US-centric view.) If you live in a major urban center, sure. Paying hundreds of dollars a month for a parking spot would quickly convince me that car ownership was a bad idea. Otherwise, at least in the US, cities spread out to make room for the habits of their inhabitants. There's going to be easy parking where you live because that's what all of your neighbors want. Of course, I agree that you should just have the deliveries... but I'm not seeing this as an argument why. The costs are not great enough.
    - acdha 3y ago
      You’re paying considerably more all of the time – the vehicle is 2-3 times more expensive to buy, fuel costs are similar, every component will cost more to repair, and, yes, most buyers will have to worry about finding a parking spot on a regular basis. Insurance and, often, registration will cost more, too. Now, if you’re in the 20% of truck buyers who really need them those are necessary costs but most people are buying them as a lifestyle accessory. There’s also a fairly large group of people who live in urban settings who think they need all of that but are paying more than the cost of renting on the few times they actually do. Those people have been very good to the manufacturers’ profit margins but unfortunately all of the extra pollution and lowered safety affects their neighbors as well.
      - dnissley 3y ago
        Trucks aren't 2-3 times more expensive to buy (at least in the US). A toyota camry (sedan) starts at ~$26k, and a tacoma (truck) starts at ~$32k.
        bombcar 3y ago
        That's the key people are missing, it's classic upselling. You're not comparing "nothing" to "truck" you're comparing "ok I get this vehicle that does X" to "or I get this other one that does X+Y". This is the real reason the SUV has eaten everything, because the so-called "crossover SUVs" and other small ones are just fancy hatchbacks, and a car with a square butt will always be more useful than a similar sized car with a trunk.
- thsksbd 3y ago
  So address the fact that there are 4000 lb boxes doing 70 mph. Physics, to a first order approx, doesn't care about the car mass, btw. It does care about A*Cd*v^3 though. Especially the v. A lot of problems depends on that v.
jefftk 3y ago
> You can get an OK used car for a couple thousand While I agree with the rest of your comment, this sounds several years out of date.
- the_gastropod 3y ago
  A couple thousand is probably not enough. But I think people do tend to exaggerate how expensive used cars are. You can buy a ~10 year old Prius for around $5k, for example.
  - jefftk 3y ago
    That still seems a bit high to me, unless you mean older ones? A ten year old Prius is >$10k here [1] and I don't see $5k until I get back to the 2010 model year (14-15 years old, and starting to get a lot less reliable). [1] https://boston.craigslist.org/search/sss?query=2014%20prius https://boston.craigslist.org/search/sss?query=2014%20prius [2] https://boston.craigslist.org/search/sss?query=2010%20prius https://boston.craigslist.org/search/sss?query=2010%20prius
    - the_gastropod 3y ago
      Yea, location is definitely a factor. With my zip, kbb.com puts a 2012 Prius v Five Wagon with 120k miles in a private party sale at between $5900-$8200. A bit higher than I thought, tbh. I bought a 2008 Prius a couple years ago for $4,000. I'm thinking I may have just been a little lucky with that deal.
      - jefftk 3y ago
        I've found KBB valuses a bit low for used cars since the pandemic, FWIW. Did you buy your Prius at the beginning of the pandemic? There was a brief period when cars got super cheap (no one was buying anything, sellers were desperate) followed by one where they got very expensive (manufacturing was blocked on missing parts, more people were trying to buy used since they couldn't buy new).
Retric 3y ago
Car sharing is mostly about the 300+$/month you spend on a parking space and insurance not the minimum car you can own. I used to drive so rarely car sharing would have saved me several thousand per year and been less of a hassle because I could skip annual inspections, gas stabilization, etc. Driving weekly and owning a car is probably worth it but drive quarterly and it’s a hassle.

potatolicious 3y ago

Exactly this! It's a bit frustrating that there seems to be no acknowledgment of friction being an issue, even though the vast majority of our industry is practically defined by it. Everyone who's ever worked on a website knows the value of being above the fold, the value of reducing a single click in a checkout, etc. I lived car-free for many years, and while I had carshares easily available to me and went through the high-friction bits already (had the apps downloaded, accounts signed up, license verified, everything ready to actually rent) - I rarely did it (in fact I did it exactly twice in about 10 years!) I sympathize with the argument here - having 4,000 lb steel boxes rolling around with a single person in them and no cargo is terribly wasteful, but a lot of the alternatives suggested assume a physics-experiment-like smooth frictionless surface that doesn't actually exist IRL.

rizzom5000 3y ago
Aren't you completely discounting the friction inherent in ownership of a vehicle? Humans tend to find clever ways to justify their irrational decisions, but there is absolutely more friction involved in owning a large truck that is used to haul cargo once a year versus having the same cargo delivered once a year.
- fn-mote 3y ago
  Where is the friction in owning the large truck? Paying for gas?? Finding parking? (US-centric view.) If you live in a major urban center, sure. Paying hundreds of dollars a month for a parking spot would quickly convince me that car ownership was a bad idea. Otherwise, at least in the US, cities spread out to make room for the habits of their inhabitants. There's going to be easy parking where you live because that's what all of your neighbors want. Of course, I agree that you should just have the deliveries... but I'm not seeing this as an argument why. The costs are not great enough.
  - acdha 3y ago
    You’re paying considerably more all of the time – the vehicle is 2-3 times more expensive to buy, fuel costs are similar, every component will cost more to repair, and, yes, most buyers will have to worry about finding a parking spot on a regular basis. Insurance and, often, registration will cost more, too. Now, if you’re in the 20% of truck buyers who really need them those are necessary costs but most people are buying them as a lifestyle accessory. There’s also a fairly large group of people who live in urban settings who think they need all of that but are paying more than the cost of renting on the few times they actually do. Those people have been very good to the manufacturers’ profit margins but unfortunately all of the extra pollution and lowered safety affects their neighbors as well.
    - dnissley 3y ago
      Trucks aren't 2-3 times more expensive to buy (at least in the US). A toyota camry (sedan) starts at ~$26k, and a tacoma (truck) starts at ~$32k.
      - bombcar 3y ago
        That's the key people are missing, it's classic upselling. You're not comparing "nothing" to "truck" you're comparing "ok I get this vehicle that does X" to "or I get this other one that does X+Y". This is the real reason the SUV has eaten everything, because the so-called "crossover SUVs" and other small ones are just fancy hatchbacks, and a car with a square butt will always be more useful than a similar sized car with a trunk.
thsksbd 3y ago
So address the fact that there are 4000 lb boxes doing 70 mph. Physics, to a first order approx, doesn't care about the car mass, btw. It does care about A*Cd*v^3 though. Especially the v. A lot of problems depends on that v.

jefftk 3y ago

> You can get an OK used car for a couple thousand While I agree with the rest of your comment, this sounds several years out of date.

the_gastropod 3y ago
A couple thousand is probably not enough. But I think people do tend to exaggerate how expensive used cars are. You can buy a ~10 year old Prius for around $5k, for example.
- jefftk 3y ago
  That still seems a bit high to me, unless you mean older ones? A ten year old Prius is >$10k here [1] and I don't see $5k until I get back to the 2010 model year (14-15 years old, and starting to get a lot less reliable). [1] https://boston.craigslist.org/search/sss?query=2014%20prius https://boston.craigslist.org/search/sss?query=2014%20prius [2] https://boston.craigslist.org/search/sss?query=2010%20prius https://boston.craigslist.org/search/sss?query=2010%20prius
  - the_gastropod 3y ago
    Yea, location is definitely a factor. With my zip, kbb.com puts a 2012 Prius v Five Wagon with 120k miles in a private party sale at between $5900-$8200. A bit higher than I thought, tbh. I bought a 2008 Prius a couple years ago for $4,000. I'm thinking I may have just been a little lucky with that deal.
    - jefftk 3y ago
      I've found KBB valuses a bit low for used cars since the pandemic, FWIW. Did you buy your Prius at the beginning of the pandemic? There was a brief period when cars got super cheap (no one was buying anything, sellers were desperate) followed by one where they got very expensive (manufacturing was blocked on missing parts, more people were trying to buy used since they couldn't buy new).

Retric 3y ago

Car sharing is mostly about the 300+$/month you spend on a parking space and insurance not the minimum car you can own. I used to drive so rarely car sharing would have saved me several thousand per year and been less of a hassle because I could skip annual inspections, gas stabilization, etc. Driving weekly and owning a car is probably worth it but drive quarterly and it’s a hassle.