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Electric cars: The death of the internal combustion engine

economist.com

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Re: Electric cars: The death of the internal combustion engine

#141

Post by ghgggh5555 »

imchillyb wrote: post #103
toomuchtodo wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By reducing people's sunk cost in cars I love this conversation. The US new auto sales run rate is ~17 million vehicles/year, with an average price right around $35k. That's $595,000,000,000 per year in capital being allocated to automotive mobility alone . Think what better things we could do with that capital (or everyone could work far less!) if we only spent a fraction of that on automotive capital costs.

You may love that conversation, but how many Americans are willing to give up their vehicles? In America, the privately owned vehicle isn't just transportation, it's a status symbol. That's not going to change just because someone crunched some numbers.

I have a hard time believing this will be as big an issue as many believe.

The biggest reason is generational die off.

We're already seeing younger people forgoing even getting a license. Urban population growth is rendering it less valuable.

The only cohort that licensing is up is boomers. 55-75 are more likely to have a license than they were a generation ago.

Licensed 16 year drivers is way down. Something like half the number are licensed versus a generation ago.

Some of it is "blamed" on cost of owning a car. Those that can afford it but don't buy say they just don't need it. Rides are readily available; friends, Uber/Lyft, and pub trans are enough for a lot of folks as urban density increases.

I'd post references but this is easily Googled from multiple sources. And I'm on a slow mobile connection right now.

Younger folks tend to see cars as noisey, smelly, expensive, and passé already. Not sure that status symbol thesis holds up

Re: Electric cars: The death of the internal combustion engine

#142

Post by closeparen »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #25
ghaff wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be Econ 101 but a lot of people (aka voters) tend not to like fee schemes that make it blindingly obvious that the wealthy are effectively allowed to use public infrastructure in ways that they are not.

We already subsidize roads over public transportation so the subsidies to the wealthy are already there. We're just attempting to internalize externalities of a resource with physical limits.

The convenience of a public transportation systems is priced into the housing near its stations, meaning it mostly benefits the wealthy. The road network, on the other hand, reaches into neighborhoods which are far enough away from the center to be affordable to working-class families.

The people who end up driving despite the tolls, parking elimination, etc. are those who can't afford the rent near the public transit system. Cars are a significant cost for them, but not as much as the rent premium they'd have to pay for a well-connected location.

Re: Electric cars: The death of the internal combustion engine

#143

Post by overcast »

Aron wrote: post #137
overcast wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Difference here is that transportation is a daily requirement. Smoking is not. It's just a disgusting habit.

Sure, but most people will assume the person made the choice to pick an ICE and treat it like a disgusting habit\decision that's ruining their environment, even if many hold off judgement.

Difference being they won't necessarily be able to afford a new fancy electric vehicle. Just like there are people today driving old clunkers. Smoking is a choice, buying a new vehicle sometimes isn't.

Re: Electric cars: The death of the internal combustion engine

#144

Post by Aron »

overcast wrote: post #143
Aron wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but most people will assume the person made the choice to pick an ICE and treat it like a disgusting habit\decision that's ruining their environment, even if many hold off judgement.

Difference being they won't necessarily be able to afford a new fancy electric vehicle. Just like there are people today driving old clunkers. Smoking is a choice, buying a new vehicle sometimes isn't.

The testable prediction I am making here is that people will exert social force quite similar to the mini-shamings applied to smokers. Your point is that smokers and ICE drivers have different reasons to be those things, and they may color how things play out, but the mini-shamings will continue to exist both because not all ICE drivers do so without a choice, and not all mini-shamers will care one way or another about the underlying facts.

Anyway, it's just an idea. I guess I'm bored. Cheers!

Re: Electric cars: The death of the internal combustion engine

#145

Post by danans »

ghaff wrote: post #35
lightedman wrote: post #8

As if ICEs are going to be replaced for emergency power generation any time soon. And with new tech coming out where regular gasoline engines can be as efficient as diesels (in fact using the Diesel cycle to a degree) if not more, you're going to find a resurgence of them in hybrid-electric vehicles. I doubt you're going to be rolling around with a solar-powered weed-eater to do your yardwork. I can guarantee you are…

Weed-whackers are probably not the best example. Apparently the current battery-powered ones are pretty good for typical personal home use. But absolutely for anything bigger or with a higher duty cycle (e.g. that lawn services would use).

I was at a beach resort recently and the grounds crew were mowing the lawn with battery powered commercial electric riding lawn mowers. Apparently the guests appreciate not breathing the exhaust fumes and they are much cheaper to operate. The future is here.

Re: Electric cars: The death of the internal combustion engine

#146

Post by r00fus »

inostia wrote: post #128
mywittyname wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully Uber/Lyft start a van/bulk transit service. This would help reduce traffic by combining trips while being more efficient than buses because the server can dynamically route the driver to optimize pickups and departures. Perhaps even adding discounts for riders willing to trek the last mile on foot.

https://www.lyft.com/shuttle

Only for SF and CHI. I'd love this but I'm not in their zone.

Re: Electric cars: The death of the internal combustion engine

#147

Post by Tempest1981 »

Zelizz wrote: post #130
flexie wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forget charging at home. There are currently around 100M home charging stations in the US, most of them completely underused :-) So every home is a charging station and if the range for EVs keep increasing 10 percent per year we will reach 400 miles in 2 years, 500 miles in less than 5 years. By then, road side charging stations will be for people driving more than 7 hours in a day and for the very forgetful. I d…

I wonder if someone could come along and make an app to connect people possessing home chargers with people traveling long distances in EVs, like a mixture between GasBuddy and AirBnB.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/electric-car-char...

Re: Electric cars: The death of the internal combustion engine

#148

Post by nercht12 »

maxsilver wrote: post #129
imchillyb wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... we start building new cities ... I hope that you realize that cities are not just begun and built up (like the ghost-cities of China), but are built up over time because the area was desirable and people migrated to those areas. The US isn't in the habit of just building a city somewhere. That just doesn't happen. That -new city building- is something that happens when a country's GDP is slipping so low they ha…

I don't think that's a fair representation of what's happening. It's like judging a movie theater based on it's attendance the day before the movie opens. For China, planned cities look like a "ghost town" for a while... until the people start moving in, and suddenly it's not a ghost town anymore. I'm not claiming their approach is perfect, but I do like that they tried to plan ahead , something the US does not do of…

Someone has to front the money though, and there have to be developers who believe that they are going to make their money back. sigh The US is profit-driven, so developers go where the money is at. No promise? No money.

Re: Electric cars: The death of the internal combustion engine

#149

Post by PeanutCurry »

skybrian wrote: post #114
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I don't understand this enthusiasm for autonomous cars. It seems like the HN-crowd seems to wax enthusiasm for solutions that don't yet exist, and absolutely reject alternatives (bikes, public transit) that already exist and work. With new solutions comes new problems, and I can see congestion being a big one. I guess it's not sexy to implement the tried-and-true, but it's a lot more sexy to dream.

"Absolutely reject" seems a bit much. The same people can be enthusiasts for driverless cars and also take public transit and/or biking. Also, it's easy to see how driverless cars could be used along with public transit or biking for different parts of a trip.

I'd argue that the most useful aspect of driverless cars is going to be as short-range taxis. I live in San Diego. We're not LA but we're not tiny. I'd take the trolley basically everywhere if I could but that would increase my ride time by somewhere around an hour and a half. The VAST majority of that time isn't waiting for the trolley. It's sitting on a bus and waiting for it to take me to the trolley station which is only two miles away from where I live. If I drive to the trolley station, my A-to-B ride time becomes about fourty minutes total. If I could just buy a bus pass that included autonomous pickup that shuttled me quickly to the trolley station then I would give up my car in a heartbeat.

Re: Electric cars: The death of the internal combustion engine

#150

Post by honestoHeminway »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #75
bryanlarsen wrote: post #2

Anytime you make something cheaper, easier to use, more useful and/or more efficient you get an increase in usage. Autonomous electric cars are all 4, and will lead to a dramatic increase in the number of miles driven. Some of those miles we can imagine (for instance sending your car on a dead-head journey somewhere for somebody else to use it), but most of the increase will probably be from new usage models that we…

Yeah I don't understand this enthusiasm for autonomous cars. It seems like the HN-crowd seems to wax enthusiasm for solutions that don't yet exist, and absolutely reject alternatives (bikes, public transit) that already exist and work. With new solutions comes new problems, and I can see congestion being a big one. I guess it's not sexy to implement the tried-and-true, but it's a lot more sexy to dream.

The tried and true has no possibility to transform society. Carriage gets from A to B. Car gets from A to B.

More of the same, should have stayed wit the eco-friendly solution back then, shouldnt we? And yet, its not the same society we would have had.

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