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Top-level
 ~42,000 Americans die on our roads every year Other tremendous costs of our car culture are the anomie, alienation, environmental destruction and mass impoverishment of Americans brought on by the perceived necessity of buying ever-larger, ever-pricier vehicles just to keep from being slaughtered on our roads. The average weight of American vehicles goes up every year. This was true even before people started buying EVs which tend to be heavier on account of batteries. 2/ 11 comments
Did you know the sole priority of the average transportation engineer is shaving a couple minutes off of the average car journey? In 4 of 5 jurisdictions across the U.S., there is almost nothing on the books saying streets should seek to be safer and more accessible to all. These policies haven't accomplished their stated goals -- by forcing everyone into cars, they create *more* traffic, which leads to average speeds low enough they could be matched with a more diverse mix of transit. 5/ Here's the thing -- we have the technology to move people around in more ways than ever. And a lot of it is personal transport which, like it or not, is what a lot of Americans prefer. But we can't unlock all this stuff without changing another technology, one which is controlled by tens of thousands of towns, cities and regional transit agencies -- safer, aka "complete" streets. The goal is simple: make people feel safe traveling on 2 wheels, 3, 4 (in a smaller vehicle) or on foot. 6/6 @mimsical My late father-in-law bought three Reva vehicles when they were first produced in India in 2001. All of them still work. They don't have great range but he figured for tootling around in traffic in Bangalore and Chennai, they would more than suffice. I had hopes when I heard Reva was going to open a plant in NY in 2009 but the initiative failed. What a shame. #electriccars #reva #india #smallvehicles #ev  @mimsical Why, it’s almost as if this is what you get when governments everywhere are completely, totally, utterly captured by the oil and gas industry, the richest most powerful industry in the world, for what, over a century. They want consumption of their product. So the world is designed to maximize consumption of their product. And in the US, suburbs are designed as a network of roads connecting houses to distant retailers, instead of local shops/markets within walking distance.  @mimsical@mastodon.social I dunno about you, but I can't afford the several $1000s to have an "around town" car and also a car that lets me drive home for family holidays or drive to the next city over for special events. That said, since I have no plans to drive anywhere for ten, continuous (no stops for restrooms, snacks, etc.) hours, I also don't need any car, whether ICE or EV, with a 500mi range. |
Gregory's Server
Gigantic vehicles with hundreds of miles of range is a bizarre way to use EV technology in a world where most drivers commute around 20-30 miles a day.
The whole point of EVs is that they can be smaller, more compact, and do things no comparably-sized gas-powered vehicle can.
Take the Swiss/Italian Microlino:
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