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280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

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Re: 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

#341

Post by slothtrop »

ska wrote: post #318
tfrutuoso wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very elitist. Not everyone lives in large cities with whole mass transit systems or works the usual 9-5. Even in large urban areas it's tricky to get around past a certain time. I remember working unexpected shifts and later staring at closed metro stations, having to walk in the rain to get home. No thanks. Also, some people like cars. Deal with it, i'm not ditching for an e-bike or whatever. An electric moto…

> No thanks. Also, some people like cars. Deal with it, i'm not ditching for an e-bike or whatever. I don't think it's really about taking away peoples choices, just mostly about policy impacts. Currently car ownership and sub/exurban housing are subsidized in various direct and indirect ways. If policies changed and other things were emphasized instead, you could still choose to live in the same way, it would just b…

> I don't think it's really about taking away peoples choices

OP of this comment tree is explicit that it is about taking away choice. But I think it should suffice to make the alternatives more attractive. People are open to renewables, but not a drastic reduction in their quality of life. We should not demand a reduction or stagnation in quality-of-life for developing countries either as it's inhumane. Ostensibly they would be just as interested in pursuing renewable tech if it can help them grow.

Re: 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

#342

Post by Muromec »

cbozeman wrote: post #306
estebank wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've identified a problem: public transport in some places sucks. But then veered away from the obvious solution: invest in it to make it not suck.

Public transit does not work in a place like Montana or Wyoming. Sorry. Too large, too sparsely populated. Same reason it won't work for most of Texas either. It's fine in Dallas or Austin, parts of Fort Worth... it doesn't scale to Lubbock or New Braunfels. A lot of people have no interest in living in your concrete jungle... myself included.

I though you are talking about a village with 200 residents, so I had to look it up and oops, it's quarter million city? You gotta be kidding.

Re: 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

#343

Post by bluGill »

josefresco wrote: post #65

What's soured me on electric scooters and bikes is the complete lack of repair infrastructure. My electric scooter was not cheap and when it broke (out of warranty) my local bike shop wouldn't touch it.

Which is why you buy from the local bike shop of the brand they sell.

My local bike shop will work on my ebike even though they didn't sell it, but it is a big brand that other bike shops in town sell so they see it enough and it is standard enough they can work on it. (I was given it for free, otherwise I'd have bought from the local bike shop). Bike shops will never work on the junk you buy at a big box store - the quality means it isn't worth it.

Re: 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

#344

Post by michpoch »

smt88 wrote: post #89
dublinben wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How inefficient is it that your grocery store is 5 miles away? Everyone should have a grocery store within a 5 minute walk of where they live.

A very tiny number of people in the US live a 5 min walk from a grocery store. Many people live within 5 miles of one, but usually in denser areas where 5 miles could easily take 30-60 min of travel.

So how does it work? How do you e.g. get your fresh bread in the morning? Are there some local community bakieries instead?

Re: 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

#345

Post by kikokikokiko »

houseatrielah wrote: post #229
dv_dt wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such an interesting comment to me because it gets so much right on how to motivate ditching cars. If you were funding a campaign to eliminate cars to reduce carbon emissions I think you would meet with widespread resistance. If you promote an idea of a higher quality life that is possible w/o cars and explore that - in the end I think you'd end up removing many more cars than the first approach.

I think the root cause is further up the chain of casuality. People need cars because they live in the suburbs, they live in the suburbs because they have children, they want to raise children in more square footage than the urban housing stock offers. Notable exception being Tokyo Ironically, if you look NYC in the 1910s, kids used to play baseball in the street because it wasn't yet overrun by cars, suddenly not en…

"Notable exception being Tokyo"

The fact that the japanese in general have no children at all makes this notable exception not be one at all. Humans are not meant to live on top of one another. To me the correlation between fertility and urbanization is a clear sign that living on the burbs is a plus for quality of life and the perpetuation of the human race. Cars are just a necessary tool for being a human in 2023.

Re: 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

#346

Post by lepus »

vbeeaz wrote: post #289
lepus wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If even discussing that some people may begin to prefer alternatives to cars in some situations is equivalent to a declaring war on cars, then I really underestimated how insecure the pro-car argument is.

My man, the post explicitly says "Banning gas/diesel cars gets there".

But my man, there's a thing called an electric car and you said a "war on cars". Be more specific if you're actually saying there's a "war on GAS cars".

Re: 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

#347

Post by JAlexoid »

cbozeman wrote: post #306
estebank wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've identified a problem: public transport in some places sucks. But then veered away from the obvious solution: invest in it to make it not suck.

Public transit does not work in a place like Montana or Wyoming. Sorry. Too large, too sparsely populated. Same reason it won't work for most of Texas either. It's fine in Dallas or Austin, parts of Fort Worth... it doesn't scale to Lubbock or New Braunfels. A lot of people have no interest in living in your concrete jungle... myself included.

No one is asking you to live there or not have a vehicle.

What makes it a problem is the financially unsustainable suburban sprawl(single family zoning laws or covenants with the same effect) and people's expectations of car owners being catered to primarily.

I mean... why else would high density cities like Atlanta and DFW have massive X+Y lane interstates cut through the city? In so many places in the US it's straight up impossible to walk 1000ft.

Re: 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

#348

Post by mattlondon »

uneekname wrote: post #228
radium3d wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha fun, hey I snowboard for entire days so I do know that snow clothing is fantastic now, so I believe it. But still doesn't solve for the distance problem in our area. A lot of people commute a very long way and not everyone can work 5, or even 20 miles from their home with cost of living so high sadly. EV cars are fantastic for them.

Honest question, is an EV really less expensive than living closer to work for most people? I live in a city where rent is fairly high, and I'm fortunate enough to afford a comfortable apartment with a roommate. To buy an EV though (if I wanted one...), would be completely out of my budget. If the math works out for some people, they should do what's best for them. But I don't really think that is the case most of th…

Are you serious? It's like hundreds of thousands more for every "zone" you get closer to the center of London. Surely in your city everyone would just live slap bang in the center if the price difference was less than that if an EV? Wow.

In London a basic 3 or 4 bed house on the outskirts will be perhaps £700-1,000,000. Same thing half way in will be £1.5-2mil, anything within a short walk or bike ride of any central office will be £3 or £4 million at least (assuming you can even find anything "normal" in terms of housing). An entry-level Tesla is £40k, and a "good" non-FAANG SWE salary might be £75-100k.

Sure you can get a smaller apartment in central London for less, but then the same apartment in central London will still be 3x 4x 5x the equivalent on the outskirts.

Either way there is no parking in central London anyway so driving to work is not viable.

Re: 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

#349

Post by estebank »

cbozeman wrote: post #306
estebank wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've identified a problem: public transport in some places sucks. But then veered away from the obvious solution: invest in it to make it not suck.

Public transit does not work in a place like Montana or Wyoming. Sorry. Too large, too sparsely populated. Same reason it won't work for most of Texas either. It's fine in Dallas or Austin, parts of Fort Worth... it doesn't scale to Lubbock or New Braunfels. A lot of people have no interest in living in your concrete jungle... myself included.

> urban areas, defined as densely developed residential, commercial, and other nonresidential areas, now account for 80.0% of the U.S. population

> (as of 2018) 31% of the U.S. population lives in urban core counties

Improving public transportation in cities, makes those cities better for those who live and/or work in them. In downtown SF I counted the number of people in cars backed up in a single city block. The traffic looked miserable. It was ~30 people, less than a single bus' ridership that passed by. The only way reducing the supremacy of cars in cities affects people who don't live in "concrete jungles" is that they either have to pay for the externalities of their chosen transportation mode when they visit cities, or "park and ride" from the periphery into the the city proper.

No one wants someone in a Montana ranch to take the bus. That's either a misunderstanding or a purposeful straw man.

Re: 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

#350

Post by JAlexoid »

slothtrop wrote: post #341
ska wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No thanks. Also, some people like cars. Deal with it, i'm not ditching for an e-bike or whatever. I don't think it's really about taking away peoples choices, just mostly about policy impacts. Currently car ownership and sub/exurban housing are subsidized in various direct and indirect ways. If policies changed and other things were emphasized instead, you could still choose to live in the same way, it would just b…

> I don't think it's really about taking away peoples choices OP of this comment tree is explicit that it is about taking away choice. But I think it should suffice to make the alternatives more attractive. People are open to renewables, but not a drastic reduction in their quality of life. We should not demand a reduction or stagnation in quality-of-life for developing countries either as it's inhumane. Ostensibly t…

Suburban sprawl is both ecologically and financially unsustainable, with city dwellers subsidizing suburban living.
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