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Comment by nikanj | Hacker News Reader

Look at the average car payment in the US, and the average car sale price

The ”americans can’t afford EVs” argument falls totally apart when the average(!) sale price is over $50k and you can get a perfectly good Leaf for $25k

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You need to compare apples to apples in that 50k sale price. People are not buying Versas that are 50k

Good point but that can be explained by familiarity inertia. People who have 50k to blow on a new car are anything but young buyers, with the average age of a new car buyer in the US is around 53 years old.

And boomers and gen-X are used to owning ICEs, so there you go.

Millennials and Zoomers would be more open to EV adoption but they have a lot less disposable income to buy new cars.

Meanwhile, bicycles and e-bikes cost a fraction of a car.

Yes, and? They're different tools for different purposes. Such a disingenuous comment.

Disingenuous? Plenty of people live without a car.

By choice?

Life is short enough, I don’t need to waste it providing power to travel to work and back when I can save 1.5 hours per work day driving. (And more if I go to lunch.)

Yes, plenty of people choose active transportation. Once they give it a try they see that not only it is about as fast as driving, but it feels great, too.

I don't know your particular circumstances, but unless you have tried riding a bike to work you probably don't have a good sense of how long it would take you.

Many people realize that they'd rather spend an hour biking every day instead of half an hour driving each day, because they enjoy riding a bike. "Providing power to travel" is such a weird way to describe using your own body and enjoying the outdoors

> I can save 1.5 hours per work day driving. (And more if I go to lunch.)

That’s going to depend where you live. Commuting by bike is half to one third the time it takes to drive for my commute. One work location is 8km away, the other is 15km.

>Disingenuous?

Yes, it's disingenuous to insinuate through that comparison as if bicycles are replacements for cars, or that all car trips can be replaced by bike trips. Both are good for different kinds of trips. Hence why cars still have a place, even in bike dominated Netherlands, and why your comment was in bad faith and why Ic alled you out for it.

>Plenty of people live without a car.

Plenty of people also live without a home, that doesn't mean it's a good situation to be in.

> They're different tools for different purposes.

Getting to work and running local errands?

Yes one is for getting to work and running local errands, the other is for showing that you are a successful alpha hustler who can afford a big truck.

What a childish troll comment.

Not everyone's work commute can be done by bicycle. I can't cycle 40+ km each way on the highway.

And not everyone who buys a car to get to work buys a pickup truck. Sensible cars exist. Ignoramus.

ANother disingenuous comment.

One for commuting long distances versus one for commuting short distance. ignoramus

Not sure if you are familiar with the built-environment in America, but there’s effectively no biking infrastructure and people are openly hostile towards cyclists who try.

Barely any bike infrastructure where I live, either. You can make it work. Give it a try someday.

I'd love to but would rather not be road splatter, which is a frequent outcome:

https://news.google.com/search?q=cyclist+run+over&hl=en-US&g...

If you ever get the chance to try a bike radar like the garmin Varia, knowing what’s behind you is a game changer.

I feel naked on the rare occasion I don’t have it.

Do you use the same logic to avoid driving a car to work: https://news.google.com/search?q=driver+dies+in+crash&hl=en-...

How do you suggest you get to work by bike when work is 50 km away?

Moving closer. It is a shitty commute by any means of transport.

It is no wonder that you are jumping at everybody offering suggestions.

Same here in New Zealand. Around town a bike is quicker and you learn to adapt to the danger. I about 1000k per month.

The main issues for me are small load capacity and whether or not there is a shower at the destination.

We've been overtaken by minibikes and ATVs on the roads, it's weird.

Depends on where you live. There are a lot of cities in North America that have biking infrastructure. As a general rule, the worse the winters the better the biking infrastructure. (you need to get to Minneapolis or Canada to see it)

There's a lot of bike accidents in my city in Europe too. Yearly deaths too. Still only commute by bike if the trip is through the city center since it's the only way to bypass city traffic and without dying of old age from waiting on public transport.

>e-bikes cost a fraction of a car.

Don't worry, there are people scheming up ways to change that. And it's (mostly) not even the auto lobby.

I don't think being used to buying ICE cars is an excuse. Or probably even true.

More likely they stay popular because America has extremely cheap petrol/gas and poor electric car charging infrastructure.

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