Building the culture and reinforcing the planning paradigm of automobile dependence
I've written about this issue forever (i.e., "DC as a suburban agenda dominated city").
Sadly, even I'm imprinted with the paradigm of automobility privileging and dependence, because my first reaction to this New York Times article, "In This Atlanta Suburb, Teens Taste Freedom at 10 M.P.H: In Peachtree City, Ga., golf carts are everywhere, giving young people in particular an early chance to take life by the wheel.," was not why don't you encourage sustainable mobility instead, like "analog" bicycles or e-bicycles.
This photo is a pretty good juxtaposition of the different modes, private transportation versus mass transportation.
So since they allow 12 year olds to drive such vehicles, that puts DC's car jacking craze into perspective ("D.C. youth fatally shot in carjacking attempt had 9 prior charges," Washington Post).
According to the article "Peachtree City, Georgia, has roughly 13,000 households and some 11,000 registered golf carts."
Labels: car culture and automobility, sustainable mobility platform
posted by Richard Layman @ 10:15 PM&Permanent Link
2 Comments:
https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-280-million-electric-bikes-and-mopeds-are-cutting-demand-for-oil-far-more-than-electric-cars-213870
It's from a linked Bloomberg study, but that is about 1% of global oil demand.
The unlicensed 25cc and 50cc scooters sold here have been a disaster. Likewise with golf carts. Don't scale up well and create more traffic chaos even if the chances of being killed by crazed golf cart is minimal. Injury very likely.
David Zipper has been on the electric golf cart bandwagon as well. I just don't see it happening in the US.
One issue I've been looking at is Chinese adoption of EVs.
They've phased out direct subsidies to EV buyers. That has been a bad thing in the US as well. EV companies receive a lot of subsidies (free land, etc) and it's unclear to me on sales tax exemptions.
But the big driver has been allocating license plates. In 40+ cities, you have to buy into a lottery to get a plate. Might take 2-3 years. There is no wait on EV purchases, and the price for an ICE plate in some cities is $20,000.
That is a major stick.
Related to this is again the buyers tax credit in the US. That drove the idea that we can sell the EV as a premium and let the tax subsidy work. Not working out well and mostly benefiting Tesla. But with new labor deals, I don't see price of new cars going down under 50K again which suggests we need to break the oligogy and import cheap Chinese EV.
There are certainly some that meet Mr. Zipper's guides on small cheap EV, but looking a the best selling lists now its mostly Tesla, and BYD Songs (like a nissan rogue) that are best sellers.
Lots of e-bikes sales out there today.
First, electroautomobility is just next generation asphalt nation. Yes, it's better maybe than ICE.
But switching from car to other forms, like e bike, so much better.
2. WRT car pricing, yep, big problem. I wanted a Bolt... I thought the Bolt was going to be a big success.
But from the standpoint of Rogers and innovators and early adopters, they are more likely to be into the hot new brands not offerings from the legacy companies.
Yes the Chinese, if allowed in with the cheaper cars, could make a difference.
The key is if we are at the cusp of the late adopters, who may be less focused on pizzazz of the brand and therefore willing to buy off brands.
Again, it took 60 years to build a system to support ubiquitous automobility. Gasoline is a great energy product. Electricity charged cars pale by comparison.
Range anxiety, working chargers, etc.
Speaking of lost learning, reading all the stories, heavy batteries, etc. are factors that make adoption less efficient, and require a more complicated support system.
And diffusion theory. Lots of articles about fall off in sales. It's a classic Rogers thing.
A different writer, Geoffrey Moore, was big in Silicon Valley for a long time. His writings take off from Rogers, "Crossing the chasm" is moving from early adopters to late adopters, and late adopters to early majority.
The cost of electric vehicles and the pain points in using them hinder adoption.
Another example, with Rogers and Moore, of lost knowledge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm
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