The road to electric is filled with tiny cars • Hacker News Board

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#211

Post by mattbk1 » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

rank0 wrote: post #188

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are definite cultural problems to blame for this. A significant number of drivers get angry or offended at any non-car vehicle on "their" roads, because they see them as a threat or an impediment them. There are probably many reasons for this that are not directly related to cars or traffic, but rather to general worldviews, politics, prejudices, aspiration and many others, including seeing bicycles in particul…

People don't like bicyclists because they are observably more dangerous. I think cyclists should have their own paths where possible. But honestly, I think the cyclists are the ones being selfish by disrupting traffic, endangering themselves and others so they can feel "green" or workout or whatever.

They aren't disrupting traffic, they are traffic.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#212

Post by rank0 » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

mattbk1 wrote: post #211

rank0 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't like bicyclists because they are observably more dangerous. I think cyclists should have their own paths where possible. But honestly, I think the cyclists are the ones being selfish by disrupting traffic, endangering themselves and others so they can feel "green" or workout or whatever.

They aren't disrupting traffic, they are traffic.

Sure. Just like how a reckless driver is traffic too. Doesn't mean cyclists or the reckless drivers are automatically justified.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#213

Post by filoleg » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

leoedin wrote: post #89

filoleg wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair, but you didn't address the part about the cars themselves costing more + the fact that the gasoline is still significantly more expensive per gallon (UK people just seem to drive much less miles per year than those in the US). In that second link you posted, it lists the starting price of base VW Golf as £38k (around $53k), while in the US the same model costs about $23k. Even if you tack on all the taxes and r…

I think that statistic is a mistake, or skewed by high spec versions. The starting price of a VW golf in the UK is about £22k - no where near that £38k. Cars are more expensive, but not _that_ much more expensive. https://www.carwow.co.uk/volkswagen/golf/specifications#nav

Thanks for pointing it out.

I assumed those stats would be correct, but after being prompted to look into it by your reply, they were not. It even says in those stats "starting OTR cost of popular models", so not a beefed up maxed out version. But nope, I checked the official VW website for UK, and the prices are along the lines of what you were saying, £22k-24k.

Now I don't know if I can even trust the rest of the stats on that page.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#214

Post by WorldMaker » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

jordanbeiber wrote: post #154

rorykoehler wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think I ever drove above 40kmh in an Indian city if I wasn’t off the expressway or whatever they are called in India. It’s the perfect solution for everyday life. Hopefully they become pervasive and help reduce air pollution dramatically.

Where I live 50km/h is the speed limit in urban areas. In city centers it id often 40 or 30. The effects of air pollution has just begun to dawn I reckon - it is indeed a welcome solution. Also the frickin' grid is there! Transporting oil and refined gasoline around the world seems like a crazy proposition in comparison.

I'm still surprised how hard that perspective shift seems to be for people: Everywhere there is an outlet is a potential place to charge a vehicle. (Maybe not quickly, but that's a different matter, and people greatly underestimate what you can do with a steady trickle.) Everywhere there is a street lamp or grid-powered parking meter or stop light is a place that maybe doesn't have easy to access outlets today, but potentially could quite easily.

Meanwhile we've been driven to think that the incredibly complicated logistics dance of liquids being shipped and trucked all around the world to pumps is a "simple" supply chain that is easy to run and will be around forever. Gas stations run on very low margins, the supply chain is ripe for disruption (in the bad way) and we've seen in the past (for instance, the 70s oil crisis) how quickly stations and pumps will close at the slightest disruption, and how easily that can snowball. ICE range anxiety will return, the gambles right now are on when and how quickly/how bad. (My money is on "surprisingly soon" and "very quickly, a lot quicker than most people seem to think".)

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#215

Post by WorldMaker » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 6:07 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #75

brainless wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a software engineer and I am not crazy enough to build a minimal ICE vehicle. But after spending decent teenage and college years in battery and small motors, I am actually confident enough to build a 3 people mover, slow and all, but it will go. There really is an order of magnitude difference in the complexity. The typical ICE already has electric batteries and motors. But the EV does not have the ICE parts. N…

Yet every yokel with a garage, builds an ICE car for fun. Not even college educated. Some disconnect here?

It's a bit of a sunk "skill" fallacy isn't it? The world is full of "yokels" that have (for reasons of convenience/necessity) already built the skill base to (re)build an ICE vehicle "for fun" by doing mechanic work on previous vehicles. That lots of people have learned such skills does nothing to diminish the complexity of them. If anything it probably further shows the imbalance (class divide) in society's value of the skills that rarely are degrees awarded for learning them and people think of highly skilled practitioners of such skills sometimes still as "yokels with a garage".

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#216

Post by WorldMaker » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 6:12 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #191

K0balt wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people buid airplanes and helicopters too.. Established templates and parts compatibility make it possible for people without a great deal of engineering knowledge but a high level of technical skill (which apparently many yokels posess) to build things. Building an ice vs electric vehicle in the discussion context means design plus build, not a kit or retrofit. It's a bit different.

In 1900 people designed built their ICE and their car at the same time. It isn't hard to design an ICE. What is hard is designing an ICE that will run for years and meets modern emissions standards. Note that in 1900 the electric car was also seen as viable and people were building it. For "reasons" the ICE took off, while the electric car remained as mostly a thing people did in their garage.

The "reasons" had nothing to do with simplicity of building one yourself, however: neither of the two biggest trends were "simple", from the industrialization of a complex process into an assembly line (notably Ford, but then competitors) to the logistics of setting up a fuel supply chain versus battery chemistry efforts of the time.

(Most diaries and reports at the time seemed to imply that the DIY car people of the early 1900s much preferred the simplicity of the electric car and had some miracle happened at the time in battery chemistry the world would have shifted a much different direction.)

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#217

Post by WorldMaker » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 6:23 PM UTC

jgilias wrote: post #157

virgo_eye wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true that the design of ICE vehicles is not arbitrary, but depends on weight/power/size/speed tradeoffs. However, there's no reason that these tradeoffs should be the same for EVs. Drivers in city traffic can't go fast, but they like to accelerate quickly. This means a big engine, which means a big car, which means more weight so the engine has to be even bigger to keep the car accelerating 0-30 quickly. For EV…

I for one believe that the weight/power/size/speed tradeoffs have a lot more to do with: - the need to have place for kids with safety seats in the back - the need to have place for a stroller/a snowboard/a few suitcases/something else in the trunk - the need to use the car to travel at highway speeds and dynamics at least occasionally. I don't see any of this being changed by having an EV. Even as a second car. Espe…

Some of that last point will be based on how you define "occasionally". If it's a once a year trip down a highway (for a vacation, for instance), you can make the intentional trade-off in your planning to use a short term rental or other mode of travel (plane, train) for that once a year trip to save the cost/wear/tear on your "primary" vehicle [1].

Sure, a lot of American cities in particular are not built very conveniently and often have lots of "necessary" trips on/across "highways" or roads that run at highway speeds that probably shouldn't if you were to intelligently (re)plan those neighborhoods. But that's a somewhat unique worst case to American (lack of) imagination and decades of profit-motivated dismantling of public transit options.

[1] Most accountants and engineers will even suggest that you should already be doing that even with ICE vehicle primaries that are capable of such trips, the associated costs of wear/tear add up on a primary vehicle and it often is far more cost effective for short-term rentals.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#218

Post by KozmoNau7 » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 6:34 PM UTC

iggldiggl wrote: post #190

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are definite cultural problems to blame for this. A significant number of drivers get angry or offended at any non-car vehicle on "their" roads, because they see them as a threat or an impediment them. There are probably many reasons for this that are not directly related to cars or traffic, but rather to general worldviews, politics, prejudices, aspiration and many others, including seeing bicycles in particul…

> making hook turns[4] the mandated method for left-turning cyclists We might admittedly not have the same kinds of roads in mind, but from the perspective of the city I'm living in (where most city streets have just one or at most two lanes per direction excluding turning lanes, which I guess might shape my perspective, as it naturally makes reaching the left turning lane easier) – please, no! Every hook turn means…

That is exactly the same situation with the streets in my city, primarily one lane in each direction, sometimes with turn lanes.

Cyclists have to ride on the bike paths where present, and keep to the right in the rightmost lane anywhere else. The reasoning is that you want different types of traffic to mix as little as possible, because of the size and speed differential.

Even reaching the left turn lane means crossing a lane of car traffic, which is basically impossible in moderate to heavy traffic, which is why the hook turn is prescribed.

In practice it works quite well. Cyclists don't have to shoulder check for traffic that is potentially closing very fast from behind, and drivers don't have to worry about slow traffic cutting across their lane.

The light cycles usually aren't overly long, so by the time it takes to go across from sitting at a red light to the opposite corner, you'll only have to wait a few seconds for the light to turn green in the other direction. If you roll through a green light to the corner, the wait is even shorter.

Compared to sitting exposed in the middle of the intersection waiting for oncoming traffic to let up or stop at the red light, I would much rather take the 2-3 seconds extra and do a hook turn.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#219

Post by adrianN » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 6:46 PM UTC

kps wrote: post #187

haspok wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point of "cars" that can't do at least 50mph/80kmh? You can't really use them in the city, because you get stuck in traffic just like everybody else. Here, a bicycle or a scooter / moped is the way to go - or public transport. You can't really use them on city speedways or circular roads, because you are too slow and hold everyone else up. And you can't use the cycle paths either. And motorways - just forg…

> Here, a bicycle or a scooter / moped is the way to go This is the street outside my window this morning: https://i.imgur.com/ObMrzMn.jpeg

That street is perfectly fine if you have studded tires on your bike. I've ridden in those conditions. A car is more comfortable of course.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#220

Post by toss1 » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 7:07 PM UTC

CyberDildonics wrote: post #207

wil421 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of those cheap Alibaba vehicles look like what we would call golf carts in the US.

In many communities people don't need more than a golf cart or scooter the vast majority of the time.

Plus, many communities actually use them to get around, e.g., communities around golf courses, retirement communities, etc.

I know someone who bought a house in a community near a golf course in SoCal, and it came with an extra garage door and nook just sized for a golf cart (he didn't have or use a cart, but the house was built with that feature).