This may be related as well, in a smaller way: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/would-...
I have a Tesla Model 3 right now and it's my favorite car ever, by far, but I also will be unlikely to buy another tesla. It's not the same company as six years ago.
Kia went to quite some work to make it feel like a regular car.
Let me guess, nothing that's part his core believes?
Kind of a confusing statement. Sure the current state doesn't work in the US, which is because it isn't designed to work and there is little to no investment or money spent on public transit. You can know that this is factually true by looking at your state department of highways budgets and examining how funds are allocated.
It does work in other countries, including countries that have parents with children. There is no logistical or cost-based reason it won't or couldn't work in the US. Nothing special about "spread out" - which is another choice we intentionally make or the size of the country. It's also mostly untrue since most of the population in the US lives in urban areas. Suburban areas can just continue to grow as is and become more dense while preserving SFHs.
It's a chicken and egg problem in the end. A government has it easier to just dump funds for 10-20 years onto public transit subsidies (and provide the guarantee to the third parties you mention that any investment they make isn't going to be in vain) than if it convinces and pays off all these third parties to change before there is a viable public transit system.
Retrofitting public transit into a city designed for cars at that same scale is unbelievably expensive before the costs of changing public opinion are factored in.
I say this as someone who dislikes what suburbs have become and would _love_ to see public transit proliferate throughout the US.
In my home state of Ohio and in my home town we are spending a billion dollars to build a new ramp and make some other changes to a highway that was built well after the city was founded to make it “easier” for car traffic. We have the money. We are just choosing to spend it only on car infrastructure.
I do agree about public opinion though. But fortunately attitudes amongst millennials and Gen Z seem to be strongly in favor of better transit and more dense development patterns.
The city named after me was also founded (1836) purposefully on undeveloped land and planned from the beginning to become an urban center and territory capital.
Within 3 decades of when Columbus got going, so I would have to say they both have a downtown layout that was originally designed for horses and horse-powered vehicles to begin with. And to accommodate a lot more horses in the future than there were in the area at the time.
Plus think of the gig workers. I can only imagine one of the blocks where people are waiting for an Uber today, is where early residents were once waiting for a Wells-Fargo coach. Once the Wells-Fargo startup was able to leverage being online 24/7, at your local telegraph office ;)
Streetcars came in the late 1800's and I would expect tracks were laid on what could be considered thoroughfares.
There was probably quite a bit of urban character by then and a good chance it was the rapid transit offered by the march of technology, rather than the mass transit aspect that was most appreciated by the riders. Houston already had horse-powered "buses" before this.
Next thing you know, a few decades later there's Model T's and you can really save tonnes of animal feed while helping the environment (at the time) at the same time. They all shared the roads even if it was not all horses and pedestrians as intended any more.
After years of mass-production, it would be like cars are reproducing faster than horses and taking over the place, car owners would have growing influence. Plus if for some reason older mass-transit hardware were deteriorating at a faster rate than the payer could justify reversing, there would be increasing incentive to eventually throw in the towel and let people drive themselves around.
It could happen ;)
Technology marches on but the mainstream beats the most heavily-trodden path.
Here in Munich, one of the densest cities in Europe, I took the subway alone at age 7. There's nothing preventing US kids from doing the same with a bus, no matter if driven by a human or by some sort of autonomous system - except that US infrastructure at large is completely focused on cars and has zero respect for anyone not in the safety shell of a car, so it will be a challenge for a kid to even get to a bus stop safely.
But that can change, even in the matter of a few years. All it needs is the political will, a bit of funding, and in larger cities to get the homeless and drug addicts in safe housing or, for those incompatible with society for mental health reasons, into institutions.
"We got $200M in federal money for improving transportation. Let's spend $50M on it adding a station to this light rail we built 20 years ago to win federal money _that_ time and spend $150M on adding five miles of express lanes to the interstate."
Perfect example. I lived in Dallas for five years. Denton, a city about 45 miles north of downtown Dallas, operates this "commuter rail" line called the A-Train. This line has existed since 2006.
Denton is one of the biggest college towns in Texas. It has two of the biggest universities in Texas (TWU, UNT).
The A-Train doesn't stop at _either college_.
The A-Train also doesn't stop anywhere near where people actually live unless you live in downtown Denton (few people do). So, to use it, you have to drive (or take the DCTA bus, which, lol, don't) to a station to take this train which terminates...
...about 20 miles from downtown Dallas. You need to connect in Carrollton (a station you _definitely_ have to drive to) to take the Dallas Area Regional Transit train, which has a larger network (that still doesn't bring you anywhere you want to go, at least not directly)
The entire system was set up this way because the A-Train runs along one of the busiest segments of Interstate 35E. It runs up this segment because that's where the pre-existing rail was.
This segment is 8 miles.
That rail network goes ALL THE WAY UP TO KANSAS AND ALL THE WAY DOWN TO GALVESTON.
So, to summarize, two of the biggest cities in Texas have a commuter rail that connects them, on a relatively super small segment of rail that was already laid down, but takes passengers to stations where they will need a car to complete their trip.
Oh, and the A-Train only has, like, six stations, operates every 30 minutes between 0600 and 2200 on weekdays and every hour on Saturday, and is closed on Sunday because Texas.
The crazy part about this is that DESPITE ALL OF THIS, this is _still_ better than the *zero* rail service we have in Houston (the biggest and most populated city in Texas).
_This_ is why public transit is an incredibly hard problem to solve here. It will take billions and billions of dollars to _just_ develop DART, Houston's METRO and Austin's Capital into anything closely resembling a real public transit network. Most folks will just vote for a new stadium or more lanes to get stuck in.
(The kicker? I just learned that a section of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas network that the A-Train rides on in Houston was scrapped in 1998 to become...part of Katy Freeway, the 12+ lane monstrosity that absolutely completely fills up every rush hour like clockwork.)
I’m sure you’ll appreciate the direct nature in which I communicated this, even if you disagree with it.
Your communication style is not direct enough for me I'm afraid, clearly you feel quite a bit more passionate about this than you let on. People must say what you permit, and never stray from the approved narratives, or else. Be careful to not mention that in job interviews.
Me either, but in this context what would that have to do with Elon Musk or Tesla? Are you suggesting that other automobile manufacturers or their CEOs try to dictate what other people say?
I'm trying to understand this in the context of musk's behavior, did you mean "I'm also a big fan of saying that I'm a big fan of not dictating what other people should say"? Or "I'm also a big fan of dictating what other people say"? I think either of those would make more sense in this context.
When it comes to Tesla technology... it's actually really good.
And that's before all the bad decisions in the direction of the product over the past six years. Musk's made a great product far worse by being so involved and making boldly bad decisions left and right.
What? Tesla's controls are ass. They're infotainment responsiveness is great, but the turn signal steering wheel buttons, windshield wipers, drive mode select, etc... are all absolutely horrible.
It's literally the reason we passed on the Model 3 & S when shopping for an EV. The extra 20-60 miles of range wasn't worth it to put up with that nonsense.
https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_eu/GUID-A5F2B9D...
This. I really like Tesla as a brand, but Musk should really stop over-promising and under-delivering.
Their technology is really good, but far away from the promises of their CEO.
Speak all you want about Tesla’s efficiency, but it’s hardly a meaningful USP against the absolute bad taste left in one’s mouth after hypeman Elon yet again under-delivers.
You probably know this, but FYI it’s per kilowatt-hour.
Anecdote: my Model S Plaid’s efficiency over 23,000 miles is 305 Watt-hours per mile.
I'm looking to buy a Hyundai later this year.
Drug addict? You mean his ketamine for depression?
And when you buy a car are you "representing" the CEO's views?
What are the CEO of Hyundai's personal beliefs? Do you even know?
I think that's the point?
Unlike Musk, the CEO of Hyundai doesn't go out of their way to make sure I'm aware of their opinions. I don't even know the name of Hyundai's CEO, and we bought an Ioniq 5 last year. One might argue such a dichotomy is one of the reasons we didn't buy a Tesla (well, that and the crap build quality).