Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

621–630 of 835 posts

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#621

Post by micromacrofoot »

BizarreByte wrote: post #98
micromacrofoot wrote: post #21

of course they are, cars are expensive, dangerous, and dirty… traffic is miserable, maintenance is expensive, you can’t trust anyone else on the road… a car might be the worst thing I own but I live in a place where I couldn’t eat or get to the doctor’s office without one

> maintenance is expensive This is largely just nonsense for a lot of modern cars. I’m at 80k in 4 years and have only done oil changes and tyres. My mother only had her first “big” repair on her car at 140k after 10 years. Cars are more reliable than they’ve ever been.

> My mother only had her first “big” repair on her car at 140k after 10 years.

A full set of tires generally costs more than the average american has in their emergency fund

> Cars are more reliable than they’ve ever been

Larger and more expensive too, gas prices are also higher than they have been historically.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#622

Post by dublinben »

mcv wrote: post #147
GiorgioG wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mass transit isn't without its own inconveniences: "In 2017, the average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in Toronto, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 96 minutes. 34% of public transit riders ride for more than two hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 14 minutes, while 10% of riders wait for over twenty minutes on aver…

Sounds like Toronto needs to invest in better public transit. 14 minutes average waiting time? How often do they come? Every 30 minutes? In a large city, that should be 10.

10 minutes is a pretty poor goal for a major city. The Paris metro has headways of 2-3 minutes. The Moscow metro has headways as short as 1-2 minutes. The busiest metro in the world, in Shanghai, has 2.8 billion rides per year with headways of between 1-3 minutes.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#623

Post by sokoloff »

ghaff wrote: post #608
sokoloff wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Akamai was founded there in 1995. Thinking Machines moved to that general area in 1984. Lotus Software was nearby since 1982. Infocom was there in the 1980s. Google opened Cambridge in 2003. Several other MIT-spinoff startups came and went, of course (Lisp Machines/Symbolics).

Akamai was probably the first really significant tech company to populate Kendall. Lotus was up in Fresh Pond. Infocom was on Wheeler Street as I recall. As you, there were a number of AI Lab and other MIT spinoffs in the general MIT area. But, to my original point, the vast majority of computer industry employment was out in the suburbs.

Oh, I thought Lotus was over by the Cambridgeside Galleria area. Indeed there was a lot in the suburbs, but it didn't feel difficult to me to work in tech on the subway in the early 90s when I started my career.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#624

Post by mariojv »

asciimov wrote: post #481
overthemoon wrote: post #174

I'm an aging millennial, but on a purely personal level, when I lived in a city with good public transit, I was a lot happier, most of the time. I really like stepping off the train and the bus and being on my own two feet, the walking exercise, not being chained to this thing I have to worry about. I hate driving, I hate parking, I hate owning a car--the maintenance, the ongoing cost of fuel and insurance, all of it…

As an aging millennial that grew up in West Texas, I have the exact opposite feelings. To me cars, equal freedom. I grew up in a small neighborhood, I rode bikes to my friends houses there but my neighborhood was so far removed from other places and stores that there was no other place to go. Getting my license at 16 opened so many doors for me. Now I could go hang out at my other friends houses that lived 10-15 mile…

Are you from El Paso? My husband is from there, and him and his younger sisters also love to drive. His parents have made a point of getting them all cars by the time they're in college at the latest. Part of it is that it's really hard to get around that city without a car, but they also take really good care of their cars and treasure them even after moving away to a city with slightly more transit options. It is interesting though that they seem to buck the trend of younger people not wanting to drive as much.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#625

Post by fragmede »

overthemoon wrote: post #174

I'm an aging millennial, but on a purely personal level, when I lived in a city with good public transit, I was a lot happier, most of the time. I really like stepping off the train and the bus and being on my own two feet, the walking exercise, not being chained to this thing I have to worry about. I hate driving, I hate parking, I hate owning a car--the maintenance, the ongoing cost of fuel and insurance, all of it…

We don't (and probably never will be able to) have to remove anything, we "just" have to densify downtown districts to have jobs, shops, and housing within convenient public transportation distance, so people can exist without cars.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#626

Post by nayuki »

yamtaddle wrote: post #568
zip1234 wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are a classic "tragedy of the commons" due to how much space they take up and the infrastructure they take up. The places where it might've been 'nice to go for a drive' are not that way anymore because they have changed by everyone having a car. The windy country roads without anyone living on them are now filled with people that 'want to live in the country' but ironically do not because everyone wanted that.

Yep. There was once an Ivan Illich (first I'd encountered him!) piece about cars linked on here some years back, which piece claimed that due to the effects of cars on infrastructure and cities they were only generally beneficial early on, when few had them, and later, if you can pay to have a driver (so, on average, they're now only net-beneficial to the rich). This is for city and suburb dwellers, mind you, not rur…

"Ivan's Car": https://www.deautovanivan.nl/eng.html

> We think that the car due to its speed saves time. But when you are traveling by car, you not only lose the time it takes to go from A to B. You also have to work many hours to pay your car tax, insurance, maintenance and fuel.

My addendum: Also the capital cost of the car, whether it was bought outright in cash or with a loan.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#627

Post by bbojan »

kensai wrote: post #27

I really wished this demonisation of the car stopped. Modern cars are way more climate friendly than merely 10-20 years ago and many climate-conscious persons do pool to commute. But we need to understand. There are cases where the car is a must. Unavoidable. Imagine having toddlers, having to do heavy groceries, and living in a place with difficult landscape or challenging weather. Imagine having a neurological dise…

> Imagine having toddlers, having to do heavy groceries, and living in a place with difficult landscape or challenging weather.

Here in Switzerland I see people biking with toddlers AND heavy groceries all the time. And the landscape and weather are definitely challenging.

I have a neighbor who drives her 3 small kids around on a bicycle (one in the rear child seat, two in a trailer). In her defence it's an e-bike.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#628

Post by mantas »

Xylakant wrote: post #510
mantas wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you MUST lease a brand new car and replace it every few years - probably. But driving a slightly older car is perfectly fine. There're a lot of other variables. Family/life situation, hobbies, health situation, visual (fuck video ads on public transit) and audio noise tolerance...

People upthread ran the numbers and arrived at 600 USD/month for a used car. Seems high to me, but I don't know how the math works out in the US. For Germany, this is a pretty good modeling of the costs https://financer.com/de/blog/was-kostet-ein-auto-im-monat/ and it still arrives at 240 EUR/month for a used car. That's maybe not 20 cab rides, but still a significant number. Obviously, the math I did for me works ou…

I've no idea for US either, but 600 USD/mo looks weird. For me here in Lithuania it was cheaper than that even while I was paying off my car. Now driving a paid-off-but-well-maintained car is more like €150/month for ~ 1k km a month with occasional maintenance, insurance and rare downtown parking. Obviously it is higher than that when including previous lease payments, but historical price is going down every month. So it could be pretty close to €240 after all, but buying a new car and then keeping it is not exactly a „used car“ budget...

„If they were honest“ is a bad argument to be honest. If everybody would change their preferences, they may have similar math to yours :)

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#629

Post by Xylakant »

hunter2_ wrote: post #616
Xylakant wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that helped me most is looking up the costs for owning a car and building that into my budget. I know that as long as the sum of all rides in a month is below that figure, I'm coming out ahead. (plus the added comfort of not actually being the one to drive)

> in a month It might make more sense to say "in a car ownership window" than "in a month" to prevent heavy months (say, holidays/vacations) from seeming problematic and lighter months (not doing much besides working) from implying that you're winning more than you really are. Assuming sufficient buffer of funds, that is.

Definitely, I do averages :)

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#630

Post by mcdonje »

tropicalbeach wrote: post #470
usrusr wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is a "the grass is bleaker on the other side" situation. As a public transport person I feel weirdly constrained by the idea that a day's itinerary will inevitably have to see me return to wherever the car is parked, impossible to do spontaneous things like walk a few stops, ride with an acquaintance or something like that that would eventually take me home, but not return to some previous stage. With a car…

You still have that freedom to walk anywhere after parking you know. I have done this 100’s of times. Just park then from there go anywhere you want then just take a taxi or lyft back to your car. Public transport sucks, not sure why so many people people like it. Driving is much better unless you live in a large city like NY or LA. My own climate control, radio for music and podcasts, plus driving is therapeutic. I…

>unless you live in a large city

Most people live in large cities

Post reply on HN