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

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

#561

Post by Moldoteck » Fri, Nov 17, 2023, 8:53 PM UTC

ravenstine wrote: post #391

Moldoteck wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evidence like total cost of car infra vs taxes that ppl pay? Evidence that low density areas are subsidized by high density? All this info is freely available online. Difference is US can afford to be in debt, other countries - not so much

Those may be serious problems, but nothing about that says that "mass catastrophe" necessarily follows. Language like that is implying something approaching apocalyptic. > All this info is freely available online. Given that the internet is full of conflicting information, and that you seem to know far more about this issue than I do, perhaps you could share a link to some of this information from a source you find c…

The guy in this thread provided a link to strongtowns, there are other sources too, but I suggest starting with it since they cover most of what I'we written.

For me, mass catastrophe is not just referring to economic side(imo failing to maintain car infra bc it costs too much at some point bc of low density of population & high wear of the roads is pretty bad) but also the time lost on travel compounded over years for all ppl bc of the spread, the isolation of the ppl from each other, limited mobility options for old ppl or ppl with disabilities, higher pollution (even if we replace all cars with electro, it doesn't solve pollution fully, bc of tire wear particles, tonns of asphalt that should be renewed bc of many cars, etc...). When added all together, the image is not looking good. Us can 'afford' this bc of usd/dollar, loans and their economic position globally(when I write afford I mean they can afford to ignore the problem, at least for some time) but for other countries it may result in an economic suicide

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

#562

Post by aidenn0 » Fri, Nov 17, 2023, 8:54 PM UTC

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…

> 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.

Modern suburbs were created by central policy in many ways; the FHA wouldn't underwrite loans for properties with small lots or in mixed-use areas.

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

#563

Post by houseatrielah » Fri, Nov 17, 2023, 9:04 PM UTC

kikokikokiko wrote: post #345

houseatrielah wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How an Average Family in Tokyo Can Buy a New (detacted single-family) Home (for about $300k in Tokyo Proper) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGbC5j4pG9w

There's more urban dwelling options than just skyscraper.

Low Japanese fertility appears to be a product of their work culture; you don't have time to go on dates if you leave the office at 10pm.

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

#564

Post by xnx » Fri, Nov 17, 2023, 9:07 PM UTC

enqk wrote: post #542

xnx wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buses and trains are extremely heavy

per passenger? trains also have less friction

This is exactly the right type of thinking and questions to be asking. We should be looking at cost (dollar and/or carbon) per unit of useful work (e.g. passenger-mile). On those terms commuter busses and trains often aren't a clear improvement over cars because of how often buses and trains are running at less than 25% capacity.

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

#565

Post by galangalalgol » Fri, Nov 17, 2023, 9:12 PM UTC

teemur wrote: post #533

galangalalgol wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On another HN thread it was discussed that because road wear and tire wear and hence micro plastics, scale to the fourth with vehicle weight, a few large delivery vehicles are far worse than many lighter ones. It is better for us all to use the lightest vehicle we can to go get groceries and take our garbage to the recycling facility (or landfill) than to have trahs trucks, delivery trucks, or busses move us about. T…

> road wear and tire wear and hence micro plastics, scale to the fourth with vehicle weight , (Emphasis mine) Do you have a source for this? I do not see how this specific claim could be true, and I am not sure how exactly that needs to be modified to make it true. I mean, if you take a vehicle that weights one ton and double the number of wheels, that specific claim says that the road/tire wear would not change, as…

The original fourth power law relates to axle loads, which as you point out is not the same as what I said. So we should get rivian to add a lot more wheels on those amazon trucks. But even if they put as many on as they could fit, the capacity and load is so much higher than what each person getting a delivery would use, you are still in the hole vs a normal ev not to mention a trike just big enough to pop over to the warehouse at the train station to pick up your packages.

Edit: forgot to paste link https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law

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

#566

Post by ars » Fri, Nov 17, 2023, 9:16 PM UTC

willio58 wrote: post #506

ars wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loath walking more than any other activity. Your utopia sounds like hell of earth for me. I don't want any of those things you mentioned. I don't want to waste tons of time just getting places, I want to live in an area that is not so congested that traffic is a problem, I want space to live. I do NOT want to be near other people just to get somewhere, or worse live very close to others.

I'm actually on board for this! If you want to live that way you should be able to. But, you should be held responsible for paying your share of the infrastructure required to support such living. As long as that is understood, I don't really think there's anything inherently bad with what you describe. But I doubt people who love living the suburban car-centric life would like to see their taxes for infrastructure d…

Those costs aren't really all that high, and are easily outweighed by the dramatically lower costs in the suburbs. Everything is cheaper there, land, buildings, repairs, goods and services.

Cities might look good in this narrow measure, but costs are higher and wages are higher, which means cities consume far more goods.

Suburbs also tend to produce more thing in real (i.e. not monetary) terms. They have far more manufacturing, more farms, more backyard experimenters who go on to invent things.

You can't learn, on your own, to be a mechanic in a city, in a suburb you can simply get an old car and mess with it. Same with tons of other fields, in a suburb you can just try it out, in a city you don't have room for that.

Without suburbs cities would fall apart - but the cities don't really realize that. Cities have higher income so they suck in everything suburbs produce, but cities don't really produce anything of their own, it's all internal services.

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

#567

Post by ryukafalz » Fri, Nov 17, 2023, 9:18 PM UTC

jodrellblank wrote: post #312

estebank wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow the argument against more money for infrastructure is never levied against freeway expansions.

Haha, but it is though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds-v2-qyCc8 "Throwing Good Money After Bad Car Infrastructure - Wonderland Road" - on the road widening project of Wonderland Road in Toronto.

It is in urbanist circles; it's not by mass media and by the elected officials who can actually do something about it.

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

#568

Post by ryukafalz » Fri, Nov 17, 2023, 9:23 PM UTC

FredPret wrote: post #511

bluGill wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those problems you name are inherent in a bus though. Those are common problems with buses, but they don't have to be. A bus should not "chugs along circuitously to a point that is not quite at your destination" - design a better network. A bus should stop so close to where you shop that it is easier than carting that stuff to your car. A bus stop should not be so far away that bad weather is a problem. You s…

These problems are inherent in buses. Buses will always be open to the entire public. If "the public" includes raving lunatics, then they will find their way onto the buses. To build a better network, you need to either throw a vast amount of money at it, or have a super-dense city. The public transit in London & NYC is merely OK. In other cities, it will always be prohibitively expensive. And to say that "the bus sh…

> And to say that "the bus should always come" is not exactly an argument in favour of transit. We all know the damn bus should come. But sometimes, it just doesn't.

A big reason that the bus doesn't come is that it's gotten stuck in traffic. As in, behind cars. Give the buses their own space so they don't get stuck behind cars and they can be a whole lot more reliable.

Of course, since we've handed over essentially all our street space to cars already, doing so involves taking some space away from them, and drivers will scream about that.

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

#569

Post by pastage » Fri, Nov 17, 2023, 9:23 PM UTC

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.

8km is about 20-35 minutes on a bike depending on infrastructure, I am sure it is zero minutes in many places due to lack of infrastructure. It is extremely cheap to build, and fast, look at Paris it is rapidly becoming a more bicycle friendly city, it is still carmagedon though.

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

#570

Post by hot_gril » Fri, Nov 17, 2023, 9:24 PM UTC

parl_match wrote: post #360

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…

> Not everyone lives in large cities with whole mass transit systems or works the usual 9-5. Have you been to the suburbs of Japan? Or France? Towns created before cars were invented. Lots of single family homes, and a smattering of small vehicles used for work. It can work, but we've built huge car-required cities and towns and lifestyles and it's a sunk cost fallacy. And it feels "normal" to us, but it's not. It's…

Right, I'm not sure exactly what it is, but car ownership in the US seems to have been subsidized. You should be allowed to have a car if you want and not be taxed unfairly for it, but it shouldn't be that almost every job basically requires one. And to get there, I don't think we have to ban things or restrict people's lives, just build new cities less around cars and let people choose that life if they want.