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Comment by calvinmorrison | Hacker News Reader

And yet people on hacker news or other high income forums seems to say "Just buy a EV".

It's the "Let them Eat Cake" of 2022. Poor people driving economy boxes and living in a 4th floor walkup apartment with 3 roommates aren't buying an EV... even if the savings are better long term.

It's the "Buy a better pair of boots they'll last longer".

And yet - people seem oblivious - like Marie Antoinette that the poor class can't simply upgrade to solar and use an EV and avoid the gas prices which hit their bottom line pay every week in the form of higher prices and higher costs to travel.

Who cares about bread when it costs so much to drive to the gas station? Let them get an EV

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> It's the "Let them Eat Cake" of 2022. Poor people driving economy boxes and living in a 4th floor walkup apartment with 3 roommates aren't buying an EV... even if the savings are better long term.

The people living in these situations likely rely on public transportation and don't even have an economy box. Gas prices will still hit their bottom line as transport costs rise for food and other goods.

It depends on the level of poverty we're talking about. A decently large percentage of undocumented migrants from Central America own cars, for example.

>undocumented migrants

I love this phrase, it's so deliciously orwellian. In other news, home invasions are down over 90% YoY. Sharp increase in undocumented roommates though.

I used it to avoid reflexive downvoting. I'm not sure how else to even have a conversation online these days....

That's certainly not true. Maybe in New York or DC. But there are lots of cities in this country that lack basic public transportation. Even in Philadelphia where we have a pretty good network of routes, a astounding number of people commute out of the city via car to work.

That people are arguing only implies you are bourgeoisie, and feel the need to explain how these poor people are really effected by X and Y and Z. I have people on my team where their weekly bill for travel to work has doubled in the last two years. It hits peoples bottom line quite clearly.

I think that we can agree that both groups exist, no?

I know people who don't own a car and share an apartment with others, and I also know people who struggle to keep their vehicles road-worthy. The latter usually have fewer room mates, though.

> Poor people driving economy boxes and living in a 4th floor walkup apartment with 3 roommates

People living in 4+ story apartment buildings have extensive options for transit that don't involve driving their personal "economy box" around. And to the extent they do, the "poor class" in the USA continues to pay lower prices for gas than any other industrial democracy, including in places like Australia and Canada with comparable per-capita driving statistics.

That argument seems like a canard. Yes, higher gas prices suck. They suck rather less than land wars in Europe though, so... what's the option here? I know there's a partisan angle there that says something about fracking, but needless to say short term inflation isn't well treated by half decade infrastructure projects. Gas is going up because Russia invaded Ukraine, and there's nothing anyone in the west can do about that right now regardless of whether they drive an EV or not.

(Won't lie though, that I'm totally loving the Tesla right now.)

I lived in an apartment in suburban Atlanta that was 4 stories in a county with no public transit whatsoever. Plenty of places in the U.S. have little or no public transit in the US but also have the density to support apartment buildings.

That's not "plenty", that's Fayette county[1]. It's very much an outlier, just like current fuel prices. The overwhelming majority of urban poor can (and do!) get by just fine without personal vehicles.

I have to say this debate is just exhausting. People just don't want to accomodate any solutions beyond "We Must Have Cheap Gas For Our Trucks In Perpetuity". I mean... that's just not the world we live in. And the rest of us (including and especially the urban poor!) have been looking at alternatives for decades.

[1] Here's Georgia's helpful site. Indeed Atlanta transit is sort of a mess, but it's there and it does work. No doubt you didn't take the bus when you lived there, but you almost certainly had options you weren't aware of. https://www.gatransit.org/page/TransitNearMe

I was in Henry County, GA, which has a lot of poor areas (including where I was living) with no MARTA in place. It's been over a decade since I lived there, but I'm not sure what's in place now.

Plenty of people live in in multi-story walk-up units in small and medium sized New England cities that have mediocre (if any) public transit that becomes nonexistent if you have to commute for work.

I think you'll find "plenty" of people in Worcester and Springfield and New London take that "mediocre (if any)" public transit every day. You didn't ride those buses, because you chose to have a car. Lots of people choose to have cars. People who have cars and don't take public transit nor prioritize transit policy, then complain about fuel price effects on the people who public transit is aimed at, are precisely the problem I was talking about.

Here are some other helpful tips. mustache twirl

Try forgoing expensive medical bills.

Try not eating.

You only need some organs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ssNtIvD5sc

You're the only one in this entire comment thread saying this.

Who are “people”?

“we can take advantage of the next generation of electric vehicles [so] that a typical driver will save about $80 a month from not having to pay gas at the pump.”

- President Joe Biden, March 31, 2022

I don’t think the president qualifies as “people on Hacker News”

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