So much of what is toxic about cars and car culture could be fixed by downsizing and slowing them. Primarily, less injuries and deaths - but also lower overall energy consumption and less pedestrian and cyclist hostility. I wish north america would fully get on board with these small EVs
I don't have any family with a vested interested so perhaps I can be more impartial. ;) There is a very straightforward way to make cars both more efficient and safer - make them smaller and lighter. Then they'll require less energy to move around and they'll have less energy if they hit things.
The challenge to overcome is that driving a small and light car is actually more dangerous while big and heavy cars are still on the road. So we have to get rid of them. That's actually very easy too - ramp up taxes on fuel to the point where people actually give a damn.
It's what we're doing here in Europe, and the proliferation of small, light cars is very noticeable.
Yes and we need to end the weapons race of ever increasing car sizes. It makes accidents much more deadly, uses much more energy to move people and takes up unnecessarily large amounts of space in our cities.
It is a problem insofar as you trade more emissions for the next ten years at least for fewer emissions later and you cement in infrastructure for vehicles that are larger than needed. It seems better to me to encourage the use of smaller vehicles, public transport, and (electric-)cycling. For example I once owned a 1992 Renault Twingo. It needed about 5.5l/100km in the city. Why don't we slap a modern engine in a car of that weight class or build even smaller cars? It would be pretty hard to beat their lifetime emissions with an electric 3 ton SUV and they'd use less space in cities, allowing for denser neighborhoods where you need the car less.
Considering how modern, US society was built for cars perhaps it's only fair we dial that back a bit. The end result is likely to be more humane and ecologically sustainable.
What the world needs is fewer, smaller and slower cars. In that order. This is even more important than the fuel they run on. Better public transport would go a long way towards making that more viable, of course ...
Cars are a major cause of global warming, so there is a pressing need to curb their use. People don't inherently need cars (or big cars), we have to change our ways to drive less.
It would be great if we could end this arms race of bigger and bigger cars - they're less efficient, worse for pedestrians (bad sight lines and likeliness of injury if hit), take up more space and most of all - completely unnecessary in most cases!
Without a huge reduction in their use, it's really hard to square car use with human health. For example, most damaging air pollution, and the most microplastics in ocean near SF, comes from tires. EVs don't fix that. And then there are all the health problems that come from requiring people to use a car to visit friends, or get a loaf of bread, or really do anything. Cars are killing us in many ways.
Climate change reports are all pretty clear we need to move to smaller, less powerful cars to meet our climate pledges. And produce less of them.
I think starting to see cars as a simple mean to go from A to B instead of a symbol of freedom, status or virility would really be a huge win.
I also hope that on the long run it would help more city dwellers accept the idea of sharing cars instead of owning one. Collectively owned self driving cars could really help reshape our cities, reclame the insane amount of space we dedicate to roads and parking spots and funnel money into more public transit.
I wish we could have a conversation about smaller electric vehicles for the urban landscape rather than it be about bike vs large car, and bus vs large car, etc.
There is a middle ground for personal transportation that is hardly discussed. It's a chicken and egg issue. We need dedicated lanes for smaller, slower personal electronic vehicles.
For sure! Although this is a pipe dream in the real world. We should work towards solutions for today as well as advocating for fewer cars in the long-term.
EVs are the biggest false solution out there. We are looking at decimating larger and larger portions of the planet just to preserve our stubborn dependence on automobiles.
I like automobiles and don't want them banned, but the real problem that we have is that we're dependent on an unscalable transportation solution: cars.
Half of the problem with cars is a geometric one, they take up too much space. They give rise to sprawl and thus increase the demand for cars in a vicious cycle. Them being electric or self driving will not solve that.
A good next step to transition vehicles to reasonable energy economy would be to start regulating down their mass and size, and update accident liability to heavily favour small vehicles. like emissions have been so far. This would enable sanely sized vehicles to safely coexist in traffic.
Fewer car-miles would in fact reduce car-related deaths. Make cars less appealing for a lot of trips relative to e-bikes, bike, public transit, walking, or getting things delivered is perfectly rational. Especially when you look at the rest of this thread in which several people have good arguments that nothing else will work.
I look forward to electric (and autonomous) cars for air quality alone. As a dedicated pedestrian fewer cars on the street will directly translate into an improved quality of life. It would be amazing if heavily urban areas would dedicate even larger spaces as car free.
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