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I agree. We need every bit of war against fossil fuels, even if we burn with them!
Bring it, my preferred ride is a bicycle. I am usually bummed when I have to drive even though I have a fun car with manual and AWD.
I’m hoping for $200 a barrel
so everything can be more expensive! and the working poor can just die, amiright?
Do you have any other plan for preventing the literal extinction of the human race at the hands of runaway climate change?
Working people need to wake tf up to what is happening. They’ve been too comfortable to notice. Gas is a non thought in most of america, something you have to buy. They need to realize how utterly dependent they are on it.
My home town end to end was about five miles. Most people worked in town, and most people drove. Most of them could stand to learn that biking isn’t so bad.
You know whose hurt by high prices? Poor people. Guess whose not hurt by them? Rich people.
I’m hoping some of the poor people start to realize how dependent they are on gas though. They’ve been too comfortable with subsidized gas for too long, with us taxpayers all paying to lower gas prices artificially. It’s time they notice and start thinking that maybe it’s time to think about carpooling or buying smaller cars.
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Exactly. Based on this, and based on OP’s other responses, OP is basically saying “I want poor people to suffer so rich people can make more money” (off of new car sales with more efficient engines, or electric).
So my question for them is: is the income divide not great enough? If not, when will it be?
That’s mainly a problem for car-brained people. There are other modes of transportation, you know.
People in dense cities who only drive are car brained. People who live where there are zero other options are simply getting to the store or to work the only way they can.
People who live where there are [legitimately] zero other options – i.e., actually rural – are a negligible minority. 80% of the population has no excuse, and trying to “whatabout the other 20%” is a bad-faith argument.
The majority of the USA lives in what is considered rural suburbs. Aka the nearest place for work is more than 10 miles.
https://www.axios.com/2024/03/24/average-commute-distance-us-map
That’s a lie. Why are you lying?
Suburbs count as urban, not rural. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/urban-rural-populations.html
I literally provided you data that shows that the majority of workers drive more than 10+ miles…most people are not in the middle of cities. Period. Stop trying to make it sound like the majority of the usa is in dense cities.
I mean…the census can define whatever it wants to define, but the rest of us still have to live in the real world.
Sure, you can call my satellite suburban neighborhood “urban”. But it’s 3 miles of twisting, turning roads just to reach the nearest convenience store. The nearest bus stop would be at least 7 miles away.
Maybe we shouldn’t rely solely on the Census Bureau in this regard? Perhaps a transportation authority of some sort would be able to provide better measuring stick for this particular discussion?
There are many regions where alternative forms of transport aren’t very viable. Nearly non-existent public transit and bike infrastructure because everything was designed from the beginning with cars in mind. Zoning requirements that mean everything is spread out and impossible to walk between. Possibly even combined with terrible weather for much of the year.
Places where making changes to fix those issues, increase public options, etc. are met with stiff political backlash, not necessarily from the car people, but just simple conservatives or regressives that don’t think any money should be spent on that infrastructure, often simply because it’s not something they’d use.
but, and I realise this might be a bit utopian, the more people (have to) use alternative modes of transportation, the more the need for better infrastructure will grow. domino effect and all that
Oh definitely, but making those changes requires funding them. And that’s virtually impossible to get voters to approve in some places currently.
sometimes I’m really glad that I’m European
Much of Europe has the advantage here with simply existing before cars. Places that can’t fit car traffic, etc. so alternatives are either a requirement or already a higher priority than destroying existing infrastructure to make it fit.
Why?
Because of climate change and my hatred of breathing in diesel fumes when a truck passes by. I want to see more efficient electric vehicles. With gas prices high the alternative becomes more viable, and it exposes how volatile fossil fuels are.
I agree, but expecting change in the next 6 months, maybe up to five years, is unrealistic, particularly under a government that actively encourages the use of fossil fuels.
But it can be a waking call for many people that didn’t though about changing to EV and solar panels.
I can buy so much diesel for the price of an EV. Those are completely out of my price range and higer fuel prices aren’t going to change that.
While I don’t know your use case or required vehicle type, there are many EV’s around $35K and tons on the used market for way less. There are tons of things to calculate but assuming a diesel vehicle is driven about 10K miles a year, you’ll spend around $2K/year on that, yea? Every year you own the vehicle you can deduct that from the purchase price to get the Net Present Value of the vehicle as home-charging rates are negligible at around maybe $100 a year. If you own it for 5 years, that vehicle could be considered to have cost you roughly $25K, net. 10 years would be $15K net. Then there’s the lower maintenance cost on EV’s to consider, as well. In the long term, EV’s aren’t as expensive as people think but you have to have the funds to cover the high purchase price at the start and plan to own the vehicle for a long time. As gas prices rise, these calculations only improve for EV’s and worsen for gas-powered vehicles. A helpful metric to use is that gas vehicles cost about $0.30/mile to run and EV’s, when charged at home, cost about $0.03/mile.
35k is a completely outrageous price to pay for a vehicle. That covers my fuel for 17 years, but it wouldn’t even buy me an equivalent EV. Those are up from 50k used.
I don’t have anything against EVs on principle. I just can’t afford one - whereas I could total my work truck tomorrow and just buy a new (used) one. Or five.
There’s about 8k between the cheapest EV and the cheapest gas car. Whatever difference is overshadowed by the cost of gas.
You are looking for reasons.
Diesel vehicles are the same price range as electric vehicles if not more expensive. The cost of ownership on diesels is way way more than an EV.
That’s hilarious. I’m not even getting a handshake at the local EV dealership for the price that I paid for my 17 year old work truck with 300k km on it. The cheapest used EV pickup truck for sale here currently is 25k€ and is completely unfit for what I need it for and the size of those American monster trucks - no thanks.
The amount of money you would have to spend to keep a diesel on the road for 300k is more than the cost of a new EV.
If we don’t stop putting greenhouse gasses into the stratosphere today then we will be extinct by the end of the century.
