One thing that is not mentioned in the article at all, other than the existence of scooters, is that specifically a huge number of them are 2-stroke gasoline engines which are incredibly polluting. It's worth having a discussion about the environmental implications of a growing middle class in south asia buying cars, but at least if scooters are replaced with cars such as this on a 1:1 basis, the air will be a LOT cleaner. The air in Lahore or New Delhi on a typical day is a blue-gray haze full of two stroke engine exhaust. The typical two stroke scooter pollutes more than a giant american gas guzzling SUV from 20 years ago.
$4k Renault compared to Tesla Model 3
161–170 of 264 posts
Re: $4k Renault compared to Tesla Model 3
#162I was just watching on ViceLand an episode about the Indian (non-existent) sewage system. Millions of people there have no sanitation facilities and deficate anywhere, where possible. And are living of a few dollars a month. It's really worthwhile watching, btw. So talking about "quality cars" for $4000 here seems totally surreal. And that that would be disruptive is even more of a strange observation. The author sur…
> deficate anywhere, where possible. And are living of a few dollars a month.
Yes, both of those are real problems but if you look at the economic data from India there is a rapidly growing middle class that can now afford something better than a $600 two stroke engine scooter. When you have a population of 1.2 billion, even if a large majority remain in relative poverty, the disposable income and buying power of the new middle class is not something companies are going to ignore. India is a fascinating study in contrasts, the gap between rich and poor is incredibly huge. There's a domestic space program that was capable of sending a probe to Mars, yet designated defecation streets are a real thing. It seems surreal because it is, but that's been the status quo there for a very, very long time.
Re: $4k Renault compared to Tesla Model 3
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
> One of the reasons why the Renault Kwid is $4000 is because, well, it uses cheap materials, and with that comes a very bad safety rating. Still, better safety rating than a scooter, and that's the most important part (next to way better emission control, as scooters generally use nasty 2-stroke engines).
Can you name a 2-stroke model scooter being sold new in India? Everything I can find currently being sold is 4-stroke. In fact AFAICT 2-strokes are illegal to sell new in India. (Personally I'd rather ride a scooter than drive a tiny car in a dense urban area, because my awareness is much higher on a scooter, and also I've ridden scooters around London for a decade.)
As an India staying in Bangalore, this is spot on.
There is one more important thing its urban parking spaces. You can never build enough car parking for India's urban population density. This is apart from the fact that scooters give better mileage(Motorcycles even better).
My Bajaj discover 150cc gives 60-70 kilometers/litre.
Re: $4k Renault compared to Tesla Model 3
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There's an obliviousness to the fact that they're driving thousands of pounds of steel and nobody else on the road is protected in the same way. I think they are, they just don't care in that part of the world. I remember in Cambodia seeing the Lexus SUVs constantly almost running pedestrians and riders over, if you can afford a Lexus in Cambodia, you can afford to get out of trouble for running someone over (altho…
Do you imagine this is different in any other part of the world? In the West, if you run someone down and even kill them, you will often escape any serious penalty.
You can't bribe a cop to make a problem go away in the West. Money will get you almost anything in South East Asia, especially in Indochina.
Re: $4k Renault compared to Tesla Model 3
#165Anyone else feeling slightly uneasy with the exciting and "disruptive" plan of ushering a population of 1.3 billion into the glorious era of the fossil-fuelled car ? Seems exactly what the world needs right now.
The efficiency of the free market at work.
Re: $4k Renault compared to Tesla Model 3
#166Anyone else feeling slightly uneasy with the exciting and "disruptive" plan of ushering a population of 1.3 billion into the glorious era of the fossil-fuelled car ? Seems exactly what the world needs right now.
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Re: $4k Renault compared to Tesla Model 3
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
I drive both, and any car is much safer than the scooter. But the scooter beats traffic jams.
A car is much safer to the DRIVER but it's likely less safe to everyone else on the road.
Not necessarily true.
In my experience, motorcycle riders are much less attentive to blinkers and take a lot more risks on the road.
This affects all drivers.
However, AFAIK, in most of the USA (that's it, not in California) motorcycle riding is a lot more strict, with regard to lane-splitting. Only where lane-splitting is banned I can agree with your point.
In most of the world, where lane-splitting is the norm, my point stands.
Re: $4k Renault compared to Tesla Model 3
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
You may find this interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... Sorting by the second column gives a good picture about which country has more dangerous drivers. And Thailand is #2... so your claim tracks well against this reality.
Those statistics aren't a reflection of who has the better drivers. If you looked at the page, the road fatalities per 100,000 motor vehicles ranks Thailand somewhere in the middle out of all countries.
I was considering the first column, which does list Thailand as second highest in terms of road fatalities per 100k inhabitants. By second column, I didn't mean to say skip the column with country names -- that may be the mixup. Here's the source data too: http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_st.... I think considering the number of road fatalities and accounting for population seems like a good enough comparative measure.
Re: $4k Renault compared to Tesla Model 3
#169One of the reasons why the Renault Kwid is $4000 is because, well, it uses cheap materials, and with that comes a very bad safety rating. This is enabled by India's nearly non-existent car safety regulations. Everything has a "price".
Almost every month, I think about William Gibson's talk of cardboard car bodies in The Peripheral, and wait to see it eventuate. If the cars drive themselves and we are then less rushed as we can entertain/work during a drive, will lower speeds be accepted? And if they're safer as a result of the self-driving and lower speed, could a cheaper shell work? And even more so if price is a primary consideration and you don…
It is extremely variable in Europe - in Italy most of the cars seem scraped where as in Germany it's more like how you make Australia sound.
Re: $4k Renault compared to Tesla Model 3
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
Comparing fatalities per 100k people seems like a pretty useless statistic when we're talking about safety standards. If you look at fatalities per 100,000 motor vehicles it's 12.9 compared to 130. So 10x as much. An even better statistic to use would be fatalities per 1 billion vehicle miles. But that data isn't available for India.
Non-motorized transportation options aren't counted in vehicle miles. So accidents involving pedastrians, bicycles and other bystanders would skew this some. Since car accidents don't just hurt other motorists it's useful to measure this against the total population.
Is it not useful to look at both the statistic you mention along with the ones you responded to? They may not be equal in importance, but merit some consideration, no?