Teslas Aren't the Future
theweek.com
theweek.com
It's quite obvious that the author has not spent much time in the types of communities where most people actually live, nor does he seem to have much familiarity with the concept of child rearing.
I'm not going to load my young children and 12 bags of groceries onto some pay-by-the-mile micro scooter. I'm going to use my minivan.
Has the author ever even installed a carseat? If you have children under the age of 10 or 12 then things like Uber, Ridesharing, etc. are pretty much out of the question due to laws around car seats and child safety.
Urban planners have been trying all manner of sticks and carrots (mostly sticks) to get people out of their cars for over 30 years now with very little success, outside of a few very high density older metro areas like London or New York.
Cars are popular because they give people convenience and flexibility that the didn't have before. Very few people are going to give that up voluntarily. This is doubly true when you have children.
If the author is going to pontificate on the future of transportation, he may want to think about the giant chunk of the population living in the suburbs and raising children. Otherwise it's just an article about the future of transportation for childless professionals living in trendy cities built before WWII.
Buses and trains/trams don’t require child seats, so they can always be used. Some states also exempt taxis and passenger van services.
Uber offered car seats in a few markets once upon a time. Not sure if they still do, or how it would really work considering different kids require different seats.
So the situation of having 2 kids is pretty typical.
It's still a pain.
He prefers the bus anyways. No need for any seat belt at all.
Never mind. According to google, these are what we Americans call “high backed booster seats”.
Urbanisation around the world is rapidly increasing with the formation of urban areas in China or India that might include more than a hundred million people.
It's very ironic that you're accusing the author of not getting out of the city when the rest of the entire world is getting into the city, I'm sorry to say that the American suburbs are not the fulcrum of the world any more. By talking about the future of the American city the author is at least approaching what is going to be the most relevant living arrangement of the future.
And when we're talking about children the Dutch may be of some advice who manage to carry them around just fine. Even in Western Europe which is more comparable to the US, children do not automatically imply the need for a car.
Yeah, roaming around Toronto on a bicycle in summer is fun. In winter? Not so much. (I've done it, when I was younger, poorer and single.)
Riding a bicycle (or scooter/motorcycle) when there's ice/slush on the roads is uncomfortable and dangerous, which unsurprisingly is why very few people commute by bicycle year round in Toronto.
I'll believe governments are actually serious about combating climate change when they start offering serious tax incentives for people to work from home or local co-working spaces.
> move through cities
> cities populated with these vehicles
This article seems to be forgetting how many people don't live in cities.
> For long distance trips, inclement weather, or for the elderly or disabled, of course cars will still play a role.
In the part of the US I live in, about about 4 continuous months of the year could easily be described as "inclement weather" and many of my coworker's daily commutes would qualify as "long distance trips" (with no mass-transit alternatives). A more traditional vehicle is not an option, it's a requirement, and electric vehicles seem like the most intimidate route to meeting that requirement while reducing the environmental impact.
While I think focusing on alternatives to cars in urban areas is a great idea, and has potentially massive benefits beyond even the obvious environmental impact, any long-term view of the automotive industry has to take into consideration the needs of the roughly 50% of the population that doesn't live in urban centers.
A environment designed and built to make car-ownership a requirement (your word) has massive ecological and sociological downsides, and we should be doing what we can to shift away from it.
"Cities" don't necessarily mean "densely-packed sardine cans where people conduct their entire lives within a 2 mile radius of home".
That percentage is quite inflated though because they're using the legal definition of "city." Where I live just recently incorporated and is now a "city" but that doesn't mean people aren't still commuting 20+ miles to work in the winter.
That being said, I could easily imagine 40%-50% of people living in dense urban areas either now or in the near future, but there are always going to be a significant portion of people who don't. Given that, the article's premise that the future of transportation is just "personal electric vehicles like e-bikes, scooters, or micro-cars" makes little sense, even if these can replace traditional cars in dense urban settings, there are still going to be a huge number of people who will need a more traditional sized/styled vehicle. That being the case, traditionally sized electric (or other non-fossil fuel) vehicles (such as Teslas) need to be part of the future of transportation if we want to reduce the overall negative impacts we have on the environment.
I would also disagree that there are more "sociological downsides" to living outside of dense urban environments (there are pros and cons to each), but that feels like an entirely separate debate. =]
I also support denser city living, with walkability (and scootability and bikeability) between work, home, shops, and everything else. Let's get that started and start our cities evolving to support that as soon as possible.
However, it seems like everybody has forgotten that cars (especially if you aren't the one driving) are really a quite good user experience, and that's why people prefer them.
People are going to abandon a $200k investment to pay high rent in a city? Because if everyone has to leave the suburbs, no one will buy those houses.
I fully support increasing urbanization, but hate for electric cars (because it's not the "perfect" solution: public transit) like this is not well thought through.
Some simple alterations to zoning/planning regulations would lead to more mixed residential/commercial uses even in already-existing developments. And that would make working and commuting locally _within_ the suburbs themselves more feasible.
Put it this way, if we were to take all the _private_ capital being invested in advanced automobiles, self-driving tech, etc. and somehow have that invested in _public_ infrastructure -- the cost effectiveness of mass transit into suburbs would look entirely different.
I think this is hard for North Americans to really imagine, because it just runs contrary to all senses of pragmatism, not to mention a general ideological adherence to private enterprise as primary driver of development. But there are definitely places in Europe and Asia where this has been to some degree the case. On my last trip to visit family in Germany we were able to get out into very rural areas, villages, natural areas, etc. completely on public transit.
The infrastructure isn't there, and putting it in in 2019 is financially untenable.
I'd personally like to see a future in which housing in cities is much denser, public transportation much better and private automobiles are considered a nuisance to be born by the relatively few who need them. But, even though most people consider that an extreme position, there are a lot of ideas that are commonplace today that were previously considered extreme.
I DO see a future where the benefits of living in denser-packed cities outpace the downsides, encouraging more and more of the US population to live in areas that are (or become) population dense enough for car-free lifestyles to be viable.
E-motorcyles maybe, but they're not comfortable at all.
MicroCars (they already exist in india: The Tata) are completely illegal in the US. There's so much regulation on car companies these days, there's very little room to innovate, especially with smaller cars which are pretty much illegal these days.
I agree with the article that things can suddenly change in unpredictable ways once a new technology becomes massively available. But it seems to me that both of us are pretty much stating the obvious.
There may be some climates in the USA that allow year round commuting exposed to the elements, say San Diego, but in most of the country this isn’t practical. I’ve lived in places where it got to 13 degrees Fahrenheit below zero and in other places where it has been over 113 degrees above zero. Travel without the protection of a car for a couple of miles under these conditions is difficult.
For these reasons, people feel they need cars and once the sunken cost of such an investment is made it makes less sense to use public transportation or scooters. Someday, in the distant future, perhaps cities will have better, cleaner, safer, and more convenient public transportation and then the equation may change, but once you have a car in the garage already it’s often the easiest choice and having a Tesla might lessen the environmental impact.
Personally, I don't get pro-urbanization: it's crowded, loud, smelly, and for all that wondrous enjoyment (and more), crazy expensive. I like not being able to see/hear my neighbors and for them not to see/hear me. I like that my views are very pretty. I like that the noises I hear are nature, and not man/machines. I like that I get to spend more of my money on things other than rent (other things are cheaper in the 'burbs too). And to someone else's point -- I live in a city, but looking around, you'd never know it.
But maybe I'm just weird.
in the west we are used to and loath to give up these comforts. personal cars, large suburban homes.. look at places that have modernized more recently, like in east Asia. Density, verticality, public transportation, these are the name of the game. Of course they would prefer to have their own cars and large homes, but the reality is that it's too inefficient for society to support.
Wasteful? That's in the eye of the beholder. It all depends on what you value. Some people value things differently than you.
Worse for society? Is it better to have to have millions of people burn substantially more time of their lives to live in cities due to the added expense? Is that really better for the poor?
Density is not a virtue. Misery of crowded, smelly, noisy and expensive, cities is not a virtue to inflict. Some people prefer cities. Good for them. Many do not.
Too inefficient? For whom? Funny, it works really well for many millions.
If you're pro-misery, claim it and own it. I just find it ironic that people from smoggy smelly cities are judging people from the comparatively, beautiful, clean, and low crime suburbs.
Try exiting your bubble.
Our road networks (urban, AND suburban & rural) host an extremely wide range of vehicle types. While the "small personal vehicles" touted might become popular (with a tweaked road network) it's unlikely to be at the exclusion of all the other vehicle types.
Sometimes you want to put your family in a {thing} and go somewhere together. We still need to haul/move/ship/deliver things. Those requirements don't go away.