Future Cars: Electric and Autonomous Vehicles

[LakeCharles]

Good article in the NYTimes about how autonomous vehicles may end up increasing pedestrian fatalities:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... e=Homepage

[Multimodal]

I used to think these were the coolest thing, and a great answer.

But the more I learn about land use, transportation, and what we need to do for climate change, I think these will only be used in the very wealthiest areas, where people (1) refuse to bike in the open air, and (2) refuse to allow their neighborhoods to densify.

Of course, those are the very same areas where cul de sacs rule, and where any transportation is extremely inefficient. In which case those very well to do people may well stick to cars.

[David Greene]

Unfortunately accurate.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

[NickP]

I kind of view electric cars like vaping, in that I view neither as an ultimate solution, but I do see them as steps towards the ultimate goals of using lesser fossil fuels/lowering the over all carbon footprint, and decreasing the number of people who smoke.

[Bob Stinson's Ghost]

The potential scenarios for electric vehicles span a wide range of possibilities, from a car-to-go type sharing service using BEV Smartfortwo's, all the way up to Suburbans and Tahoes which are even heavier because they are carrying 2000 LB battery packs. The environmental impacts of these two scenarios would be drastically different.

Is there general agreement here that zero cars should be the goal?

[mister.shoes]

Zero cars, period? Or zero individually-owned cars?

[amiller92]

I kind of view electric cars like vaping, in that I view neither as an ultimate solution, but I do see them as steps towards the ultimate goals of using lesser fossil fuels/lowering the over all carbon footprint, and decreasing the number of people who smoke.

Meanwhile, vaping is how the tobacco industry got the number of people addicted to nicotine to grow again and electric vehicles will be the excuse used to ward off changes that might help decrease car dependence, so, yeah...

[talindsay]

Meanwhile, vaping is how the tobacco industry got the number of people addicted to nicotine to grow again and electric vehicles will be the excuse used to ward off changes that might help decrease car dependence, so, yeah...

It's the auto industry's dream future - people still moving in privately owned single-occupancy vehicles that need to be replaced regularly, with the added benefits of greenwashing and more expensive repairs.

[NickP]

I kind of view electric cars like vaping, in that I view neither as an ultimate solution, but I do see them as steps towards the ultimate goals of using lesser fossil fuels/lowering the over all carbon footprint, and decreasing the number of people who smoke.

Meanwhile, vaping is how the tobacco industry got the number of people addicted to nicotine to grow again and electric vehicles will be the excuse used to ward off changes that might help decrease car dependence, so, yeah...

As a said, not the end solution by any means. I also admit I’m setting a very low bar when I say “step in the right direction.” lol. In addition, for clarity’s sake, when I said ”smoke,” I specifically meant smoke cigarettes. While nicotine is not great, I remember being taught more about the other unhealthy chemicals in cigarettes, like arsenic, formaldehyde, acetone, etc. Since I wasn’t aware of those being used in vaping, I figured vaping was a slight improvement. It’s definitely a superficial view on my part and I’m sorry if I offended.

[talindsay]

According to Wired, the NTSB has determined, among other things, that the Uber self-driving cars weren't programmed to detect pedestrians outside crosswalks (!!!):
https://www.wired.com/story/ubers-self- ... ld-jaywalk

[Anondson]

California’s car regulations are election issue in Minnesota because Walz intends to adopt California’s standards for low emission and zero emission vehicles. https://www.minnpost.com/state-governme ... ion-issue/

[alexschief]

“Those decisions really belong in Minnesota, they don’t belong out in California,” Nelson said in a recent interview.

Except... that's not one of the options. The choices are California's rules or Washington D.C.'s rules. Minnesota gets a say in which they want to follow, and that's about it.

Hard to think about a less sympathetic interest group than the Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association. If they're concerned about the sticker price of new cars, wait until they hear about this group of middleman who provide no little to no value in 2020 but who significantly drive up the cost of a car.

[Mdcastle]

Hard to see why I would want to order a car of Amazon like I would a new HDMI rather than going to a dealership where I can test drive them, but new car sales are not where they make their money. If you ever paid their shop rates or bought a part you know that's where they make their money. The expense that dealers add pales by comparison to what EPA requirements and other government regulations cost.

[VacantLuxuries]

You can purchase a car however you prefer. Doesn't mean we need to protect people who solely exist to make vehicles more expensive anymore. If they truly provide a value, let's remove their state mandated place between me and the manufacturer and see if they can prove their value without regulatory capture.

[Mdcastle]

Sounds good to me, and while we're at it we can remove all the EPA mileage regulations that make cars more expensive too. I don't think that many people will want to spend $30,000 on a car without test driving it at a dealership, so the free market will keep them in business.

[kiliff75]

Unless we have a price on carbon, EPA mileage regulations actually help the price of the car more closely reflect the total cost to you and to society. Why should other people pay for your pollution? Seems like a more reasonable market if the full costs of the vehicle are included in the cost, and behavior changes to minimize things that have negative impacts on society (driving cars with low gas mileage and high carbon emissions).

[Mdcastle]

Because as a society everyone subsidizes everyone else. You don't see me complaining about subsidizing the people that live in Otsego instead of Bloomington, or that make the choice to have kids (by far and away the most carbon intensive thing you could ever do). Or about how people from the city go out to shop at car dealership in the suburbs instead of having that low value land use in the city for city people.

[VacantLuxuries]

The difference is capitalists never care about negative externalities that are created in the process of their profiteering. We need regulations to help fix the world from being one giant garbage dump at the convenience of Pepsico and Exxon.

Using regulation in order to preserve an obsolete business model is regulatory capture, and it's the sort of crony capitalism I thought capitalists hated.

[tmart]

Transportation is the largest sector of carbon emissions in Minnesota and may even have started to trend upwards again in recent years, so the state pretty obviously has an interest in acting to cut them. Based on the powers the state has, I can see a few options:

• Regulatory approach: adopt CARB regulations (since we're not allowed to write our own) to mandate manufacturers shift to EVs faster
• Market approach: put a price on carbon emissions (as a fuel tax, or a cap-and-trade system, or an increase in upfront or annual registration fees) to make EVs (and car-free options) become more cost-competitive with fossil-burning vehicles and incentivize private companies to invest more in zero-emission tech
• Subsidy approach: pay people to scrap their fossil-burning vehicles, and/or offer tax credits for buying new electric cars/bikes/etc
• Infrastructure approach: instead of focusing on reducing emissions per mile, reduce the total miles traveled, by building out more transit infrastructure, cutting transit fares, and reducing public infrastructure capacity for cars (removing urban highways and free parking, introducing filtered permeability in cities, turning general lanes into bus lanes, etc)
• Land use approach: focused on reducing total mileage, similar to the infrastructure approach, but instead achieves it by locating housing, businesses, and jobs in communities where getting around without a car is easy
• Denialist approach: prioritize cheap cars and cheap gas for the next few years, take no (or only token) action regarding transportation pollution's impact on the long-term stability of the state's climate and environment, and hope that someone else solves the problem for us

Obviously I'm not proposing the last one seriously but a whole lot of GOP and a handful of DFL state senators seem to be. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The others are not mutually exclusive by any means and while we each prefer some over others (not a fan of subsidizing new car purchases personally), the most effective plan probably involves a mix of all of them.

[Bob Stinson's Ghost]

The biggest obstacle to transitioning away from gasoline powered transportation is the fact that oil is priced and traded in dollars. This gives the US a lot of global clout which our leaders are unwilling to surrender. Protecting the the supply of oil provides a rationale for maintaining our gigantic military. In a post petroleum world it will be very difficult to justify maintaining 11 nuclear powered aircraft carriers.