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Global sales of combustion engine cars have peaked

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Re: Global sales of combustion engine cars have peaked

#341

"ice car engines peaked?" likely wrong there is no charging infrastructur, and no way to retrofit into housing on a mass scale that will deal with the threat of a whole apartment building parking garage going up in flames, resulting in mass casualties. So until there are non flamable solid state batteries at the right price point, electrificationof the transport grid will stall, while demand for mobility will continu…

> a whole apartment building parking garage going up in flames, resulting in mass casualties Good thing ICE vehicles don't use any explosive components. Any evidence of these "mass casualty" events?

no argument, let me expand slightly. gasoline is exceptionaly flamable, but (and crusialy) is known, and almost never self ignites. the "electrolight" in lithium batteries is in fact a liquid hydrocarbon that would run an ICE engine. this fact coupled with the very real issue of lithium batteries, self shorting, and then experiencing thermal runaway, causing the exceptionaly flamable electrolight to burn in.an inextinguasishable, and re igniting fashion, is new. And new is hard to evaluate, as building code,insurance, product standard, and end user perspective. Insurers will just balk, and say no, building and fire code people are trepedatios. We need true solid state, non flamible batteries, and THEN, we can just get on.with a general electrification of everything........but should there be a "HINDENBURG" level event.....then watch out for extream push back, is what I am getting at!

Re: Global sales of combustion engine cars have peaked

#342
post #293
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with electric cars is that you're still taking a heavy metal box, a large storage chest, a couch, and two recliners with you whether you need them or not. That's always going to be a problem, no matter how well charging works.

I agree. I'm all for phasing out cars completely, but I don't think it is realistic even if there would be support for it. Next best thing is to move cars to the edges of districts in urban areas. Create big parking spaces, covered in solar panels and equip them with chargers. Design them in such a way that everybody can walk in 5-10 minutes to their home from these parking spaces. In the space that we save this way…

Phasing out cars completely would be a bit much.

But I think they should be completely removed from some very common actions, anyone capable of walking/cycling/using public transit going for non-essential trips of less than say, 5km, should not be allowed to use a car.

Definitely anything under 1km should not be allowed. Those distances are easily walkable or bikeable. Of course, this will require that the built environment allows walking or biking (guess what, that makes for amazingly liveable environments, so it needs to be done anyway).

Anything between 1-5km is debatable, but those distance are easily bikeable and it takes about the same time, especially in a city. Similar problem with walkability/bikeability. At these distances public transit also becomes a solid option.

Anything between 5-10km requires either great bike lanes or at least decent public transit.

Anything over 10km is fair game for cars. Though for good to great public transit corridors, that's definitely a very viable option.

I think if we somehow manage to enforce this, we'd be in an amazing place, including for drivers. Because a huge chunk of the non-essential traffic would be just taken off the roads, leaving roads MUCH emptier, so whoever is still driving would get to where they need to a lot faster.

Re: Global sales of combustion engine cars have peaked

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Electric self-driving taxis are going to be big in the medium-term. This claim has been made for years now and a number of big companies like Google, Uber and Tesla have tried to jump into this market, but does this hold up? I vaguely recall a self driving taxi service being active in some areas, but how are they doing? Anyway, static routes and stations work fine for big parts of e.g. the Netherlands, but you need…

In my regional UK city, most of my trips look something like: X minutes by car/taxi (although driving you need to park, and taxi you need to wait), 1.5-2X to cycle (direct but need to contend with hills, rain and much increased risk), and 2-4X to use public transport (total time, door-to-door, need to rush to get the thing and wait outdoors for 5-10 minutes) (2X being the ideal case of home to centre, 4X for point-to…

> 1.5-2X to cycle (direct but need to contend with hills, rain and much increased risk)

I think a lot of what you're saying can be solved with cheaper ebikes and better bike infrastructure. Even the rain :-)

If it rains a lot you put on a big bike poncho, which turns you into a big sail and slows you down, and that's where the >bike part of ebike comes in, since you pump up the assist and still go fast.

Re: Global sales of combustion engine cars have peaked

#344
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cities shouldn't have to mandate carparks, let alone charging in them. Having no car at all should be viable and we should build toward that. Pre-empting, obviously many places still require cars, but we shouldn't codify cars into the building code. It makes everything that bit more expensive, and it's a waste of valuable city real estate. At the moment the cost per square meter in Melbourne and my city means a singl…

"Having no car at all should be viable and we should build toward that." Yeah its sounds great until you need mass transport system to support this idea which means only mega cities can benefit the most when tier 2 and tier 3 cities is having a hard time investment see: japan

See: the Netherlands. Or Switzerland, for counterexamples.

If anything, properly built small cities and towns are actually even better for public transit, since they're small. You don't need to cover a lot of ground.

Heck, everyone talks about self-driving taxis. Self-driving trains and buses, that's where it's at, actually. A decent chunk of the cost (and limitations) for public transit is the need for human drivers. Self-driving buses could have longer routes, could drive around the clock, etc, etc.

Ah, forgot, they could also be much smaller, but still cost effective. Think 10-15 places for smaller routes. That would do wonders for connectivity in more remote places.

Re: Global sales of combustion engine cars have peaked

#345
post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the long run, society goes to 100% electric transportation due to global warming. Any analysis that treats this as a simple matter of consumer choice is going to miss the biggest driver of adoption. Maybe some alternate carbon-neutral fuel for combustion is possible, but all the ones we’ve tried so far have lost out to electric.

>In the long run, society goes to 100% electric transportation due to global warming. This is Western-centrism. In the long run 4 billion people do not go electric because poverty problem solving more important for them, then the global warming problem solving, and another 4 billion people do not consider global warming as a problem at all, the wormer - the better. And under this conditions what the remaining 2 billi…

Pretty much every sentence in this comment doesn't correspond to reality. You should first go look at some real world data before commenting on this issue.

Re: Global sales of combustion engine cars have peaked

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want an electric bike but I want to go places with it and I’m worried about it getting stolen when I lock it up outside a shop. Do you have one?

I typically use a heavy cargo bike. I only use its built in front wheel lock, it's so heavy, it can't be easily stolen, so I never lock it against posts and such. I always lock and secure my road bike against street furniture, though.

Yeah, a lot of the cargo e-bikes are closer in size to a moped than to an acoustic bike, which makes them much more difficult to steal. A heavy-duty chain and a keyed ignition are typically an effective deterrent.

Re: Global sales of combustion engine cars have peaked

#347
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very strange to see a grayed out comment on top of a thread that has about 160 non-grayed out comments. I thought that highest rated comments go to the top and grayed out comments are rated below zero. Regarding your points. First the thing about used evs not selling has more to do with the rapid pace of innovation of evs rather than lack of demand. In the 90s it was very difficult to sell a used PC because PCs…

> It is very strange to see a grayed out comment on top of a thread that has about 160 non-grayed out comments. I thought that highest rated comments go to the top and grayed out comments are rated below zero. I don't mind, I have internet points to spare. I think it's more important we have a proper discussion in this place. > Regarding your points. First the thing about used evs not selling has more to do with the…

What internet points do you have to spare? What are these points that let your posts be on the top even though everyone is voting you down. I always had doubts that HN is taking some sort of bribe to force disliked and false posts into people's attention, I did not know they made it so obvious.

So where do you pay to get your HN posts to the top? Let me know, I have some ludicrous opinions I would like to promote too!

I will not respond to the rest of your post, your arguments have deteriorated from being simply false to being incomprehensible.

Re: Global sales of combustion engine cars have peaked

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BEV manufactured in 2023 and driven for 250,000km would be 27-71 per cent lower than those of equivalent ICE vehicles. (Disclaimer: I know little about cars ...) My country, New Zealand, is awash with new BEV brands, some also offering ICE, from China and South East Asia. Compared with traditional SEA manufacturers (Japan, Korea) that supply most of our new cars, the prices are apparently ridiculously competitive a…

Japan and Korea are not South East Asia [1]... Are there well known SEA car manufacturers, or exporters? Proton of Malaysia is (or was?) probably the biggest, they owned the legendary Lotus brand at one point. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Asia

Vinfast? Not super well known though

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VinFast

Re: Global sales of combustion engine cars have peaked

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As horrible as the 41’000 that die year from cars in the US? and almost zero percent of that happens in cities.

Where did you get that idea?

i was referring to drivers&occupants only

Re: Global sales of combustion engine cars have peaked

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Electric self-driving taxis are going to be big in the medium-term. This claim has been made for years now and a number of big companies like Google, Uber and Tesla have tried to jump into this market, but does this hold up? I vaguely recall a self driving taxi service being active in some areas, but how are they doing? Anyway, static routes and stations work fine for big parts of e.g. the Netherlands, but you need…

In my regional UK city, most of my trips look something like: X minutes by car/taxi (although driving you need to park, and taxi you need to wait), 1.5-2X to cycle (direct but need to contend with hills, rain and much increased risk), and 2-4X to use public transport (total time, door-to-door, need to rush to get the thing and wait outdoors for 5-10 minutes) (2X being the ideal case of home to centre, 4X for point-to…

Your experience matches mine here in Australia, and it's fine justification for why we don't take public transport, but not why there shouldn't be more and better public transport. I would much much prefer to be taking a train from nearby into the CBD as it is faster point to point, more predictable and less stressful. The trouble is I live too far away from a station so every train journy starts with 30 minutes of car travel in the wrong direction.

The consensus seems to be on my side in spite of lower share of total commutes, because housing near stations is significantly more expensive. From that I infer two things, public transport is desired, and there's not enough of it to support demand.

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