You could say the same thing about why car makers haven't made electric cars. Big, established companies often have an inertia to doing things differently. The car companies also have considerable investments in tooling for ICE vehicles, plus they get kickbacks from oil companies. Given both those things, they had no interest in making electric cars until Tesla forced their hand. They still aren't making any mass-market electric vehicles.
The correct answer here is that we don't need Tesla to make electric buses. Foreign companies already have a major head-start in that area, and we have been buying from them.
Agreed. And eventually their EV cars will make it to our shores as well. China really has little choice here. Their cities make the air in places like LA look pristine. They need to move to electric vehicles in a big way, or face bankruptcy of their socialized health care system once large numbers of people get sick from the air pollution.
Yep. I get it that buying automobiles is associated with prosperity and conspicuous consumption but really bikes work much better in cities. That includes large American and European cities as well.
Well, I've little doubt battery tech will soon make range anxiety mostly moot. Add to this the development of on-the-fly recharging and the need for a small gas engine vanishes.
I live in NYC, home of the maniac driver.
Note here since we were talking about cities when we got on the topic of bikes and electric buses that buses and trains have plenty of shoulder room compared to any car. If someone doesn't care to ride a bike, then public transit is the second best way to get around.I want a solid and decently sized vehicle with shoulder room. I want to be comfortable and breathe.
I'm too old to drive some tiny POS.
I live in NYC, home of the maniac driver.
Note here since we were talking about cities when we got on the topic of bikes and electric buses that buses and trains have plenty of shoulder room compared to any car. If someone doesn't care to ride a bike, then public transit is the second best way to get around.
It's definitely a myth that big, heavy vehicles are safer overall. If they do offer any extra protection to their occupants in a collision, that protection comes at the expense of killing more people in smaller vehicles they collide with. Not so sure I'd feel all that great about myself if I survived a collision in a Hummer which killed 3 or 4 people in a compact car. SUVs started a silly arms race on our highways.
3200lbs, plenty roomy. And the big thing I notice old people complaining about is getting in and out; they seem to want to partially fall out as opposed to climbing up
So you're effectively taking both sides of this argument? They're simultaneously not safer while being safer?
Safer for the occupants doesn't translate into safer overall. Suppose hypothetically you have a collision between two vehicles of the same mass and 1 person dies in each vehicle. That's 2 deaths. Now let's say you do the same collision but one vehicle is much more massive. Nobody dies in vehicle A but 4 people die in vehicle B. Sure, vehicle A was indeed safer for its occupants but that safety came at the expense of increasing the number of people killed in vehicle B, and the total number of people killed.
Exactly. I recall reading something a number of years ago where a woman was so thrilled her SUV saved her in a collision (at the expense of everyone in the car she hit) that she vowed to buy an even larger SUV next time. This borders on sociopathic.
The reason for choosing a lighter vehicle is often to save money. Gas may be temporarily cheap, but it's still expensive enough that a small vehicle will save someone a significant amount of money if they drive 10K or 20K miles per year compared to a hulking SUV. And some people, like my sister, just may not like to drive large vehicles.
No such limitation. A heavier vehicle actually has more room and weight capacity for batteries than a lighter one. It has to do with basic physics. A good amount of a vehicle's energy is expended pushing air out of the way. A larger vehicle may have more frontal area, but a 40,000 pound bus doesn't have 20 times the frontal area of a 2,000 pound compact car. As a result, the large vehicle needs less power per pound at any given speed than a smaller vehicle. A 2,000 pound compact cruising at 60 mph might need 10 HP. A 40,000 pound bus might need 125 HP.
I'm pretty sure you have a typo in there. You meant insane gas tax right?
First, why is the Suburban automatically at fault? Maybe the Miata driver is out street racing and ran into a parked Suburban. Even if the Suburban driver is at fault in the accident, unless you can show the person who bought the Suburban intentionally bought it because it was more deadly to others you're living in a complete and utter fantasy land. By the way, why isn't Mazda at fault for making a car that was unsafe for the conditions a driver of one would find themselves in?
Not too many really poor can afford cars. If being regressive concerns you, you could always have a refundable gas tax credit which gradually phases out as income increases.I'm pretty sure you have a typo in there. You meant insane gas tax right?
There's nothing quite like a regressive tax on the poor.
I was figuring we got through $4+ per gallon gas once, so we're not jacking the price to levels which never existed before. Note here I mean the total of gas price plus the tax would equal $5, not that the tax itself would be $5. At current gas prices, a $2/gallon tax like you propose would probably more or less be the same thing I propose, except my tax would vary. It would fall to zero if gas prices hit $5 per gallon.
It really doesn't bother me. I could do with less traffic on the road.
