At 272k plus taxes I don’t think we need to worry about this being a peoples car. I think that all manufacturers realize that ICE is on the way out. The new generation of electric cars on the horizon are very compelling and seem to be capable of even better performance than ICE vehicles. The Lucid Air and Rivian truck( along with Tesla and traditional car makers) are bringing prices down more quickly than I personally expected. I think that FCA(now stellantis) hellcatting all the cars was/is a great way to send off the old technology. Making high profit vehicles like this is also helping stellantis bankroll the transition to electric cars.

I say all of that to say that big gas guzzler vehicles are an easy target for judgement but in the scheme of things they’re about 29% of CO2 emissions. Cars are getting more fuel efficient and the average car is not a supercharged v8.

Also what’s wrong with the fetishization of cars? There is a lot to geek out to in vehicle engineering. Not all cars are a giant eff you to the planet. Just like not every computer is a 500gpu crypto miner.

"Making high profit vehicles like this is also helping stellantis bankroll the transition to electric cars."

And keeps regular people from affording an EV truck. Although, I also hate how much stupid tech they put in them.

"Cars are getting more fuel efficient and the average car is not a supercharged v8."

I was surprised that I recently got 20.5 mpg hauling 1200 lbs of lumber. That was almost double what I expected to get.

"There is a lot to geek out to in vehicle engineering."

I absolutely agree. Prior to computer (and phreaks, and ham, etc) hot rodders where hackers. There's still a lot of interesting tech and concepts to explore.

> > "Making high profit vehicles like this is also helping stellantis bankroll the transition to electric cars."

> And keeps regular people from affording an EV truck.

How, exactly?

AFAICS, if Stellantis didn't have the profits from stuff like this, they'd have to charge even more for other stuff... Like electric vehicles. Or go out of business -- and then they wouldn't sell any electric vehicles at all. Which would lower the overall supply-side of the EV market, lowering competitive pressure on other manufacturers so they all have less of a need to compete on price. Now that would keep people from being able to afford an electric truck!

The exact opposite of your thesis.

>And keeps regular people from affording an EV truck. Although, I also hate how much stupid tech they put in them.

They don't have the money to transition so they could either sell these high margin vehicles to fund the transition to EVs or sell off the business and dump all the non useful assets like the engine/transmission factories. Either way, you aren't getting your cheap truck until there is sufficient volume and the second approach will make it harder to get to that volume.

Not just volume, but also the scarcity/demand for inputs (battery materials mostly).

> And keeps regular people from affording an EV truck.

It's unlikely that many normal people will be able charge an EV, even if they can afford one. About 1/3 of houses lack a garage, and I highly doubt that apartments will offer chargers in their lots. Electrical generation may be an issue if large numbers of EVs are being charged every night. Lower repairability and the large costs associated with battery packs mean the used market won't be large. It's going to be very hard to live outside the city.

I don't think being charged at night is an issue when electricity use typically drops at night. Some searching shows that peak usage in the summers is about 2x the usage at 3-4 am: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42915 . You can also see this reflected in Time Of Use (TOU) plans power companies are switching to that de-incentivize electricity use during peak hours. For me this ends at 9pm, and my car (and my charger) already support delaying charging times to when prices are lower.

For a small number of cars, that's true. I wonder what that will look like as more of the grid switches to renewable, including solar, and adoption of EVs exceeds 50% of vehicles on the road.

I get where you're coming from, but this website is called Hacker News. Getting around limits is a primary part of the tradition.

Sure I just wish for ONCE the goal of the hacking zeitgeist on here would be “how do we get around limits to do something good for society” rather than “how do we use our cleverness to exempt ourselves from the rules that enable society?”

I'll probably get downvoted, but...

Maybe we also accept that some limits can't be surpassed, at least not at an acceptable cost. In my opinion, the world cannot sustainably support so many people. So artificial limits we like to defeat, natural limits are much tougher.

What do you mean by 'so many people'?

The carrying capacity of earth is likely hundreds of billions of humans, if we were to set our mind to it.

Just to concentrate on food alone: we are barely harvesting anything from the oceans. Even on land, using greenhouses everywhere would give us vastly more agricultural yield.

We are not using greenhouses everywhere right now, because that's a huge capital investment; and given current food prices, it's generally not worth it. But if push came to shove, we could totally do it. (Just like we _could_ totally get rid of fossil fuels, if we really had to and run everything on wind and solar. It's just not economically viable to do that right now.)

There's lots more techniques you can do to produce more calories. For example fusion power could help a lot to power lots of artificial lighting in vertical farms, and to purify sea water. (And even without fusion power, we could generate lots and lots of power from fission with current technology. It's just unpopular.)

> Maybe we also accept that some limits can't be surpassed, at least not at an acceptable cost.

I guess you would say that the suggestions I made above fall under the second clause of unacceptable costs?

Do you mean economic costs or some kind of ethical or moral or metaphysical costs?

I can see how some people might be queasy about putting fission reactors everywhere. But I don't really see anything against Dutch-style greenhouses apart from economic costs?

"The carrying capacity of earth is likely hundreds of billions of humans, if we were to set our mind to it."

I've never seen anything that states that. Link? UN and others estimate 8-12 billion. And none of those estimates are accounting for sustainable population. You say 100s of billions, but with what quality of life? With scare resources comes conflict.

"we are barely harvesting anything from the oceans."

Most major fish stocks are down more than 90%. Farm raised means feed and and antibiotics. Sure we can increase stuff like seaweed consumption, but that's not very significant.

"Even on land, using greenhouses everywhere would give us vastly more agricultural yield."

What are those greenhouses going to be made out of? Petroleum based plastics, glass (CO2 for melting), or cellulose/corn plastic (that requires chemicals that aren't environmentally friendly)? Where are we getting the nutrients? We already use a massive amount of petroleum based nitrogen.

"But if push came to shove, we could totally do it."

No, if push came to shove then people would start literally shoving in the form of a war.

"(Just like we _could_ totally get rid of fossil fuels, if we really had to and run everything on wind and solar. It's just not economically viable to do that right now.)"

That's another unsubstantiated claim. Even the EU says they cannot convert fast enough to get off of Russian gas. Let's see a link that says wind and solar are completely feasible to meet current power demands, including the energy storage required.

"I can see how some people might be queasy about putting fission reactors everywhere."

So are you changing from just the wind and solar mentioned earlier to include nuclear?

> Most major fish stocks are down more than 90%. Farm raised means feed and and antibiotics. Sure we can increase stuff like seaweed consumption, but that's not very significant.

I agree that hunter-gatherer tactics are beyond their limits.

What makes you think seaweed consumption has to stay insignificant? See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30648873 for slightly more.

> What are those greenhouses going to be made out of? Petroleum based plastics, glass (CO2 for melting), or cellulose/corn plastic (that requires chemicals that aren't environmentally friendly)? Where are we getting the nutrients? We already use a massive amount of petroleum based nitrogen.

I had mostly glass in mind. But whatever works, works. You can make your glass with any energy source, doesn't have to be CO2 producing.

You can take nitrogen out of the air. Also, the atoms that fertilizers are made of don't get destroyed.. so you can recycle them indefinitely (with some effort). We are also sitting on a huge ball of matter.

You can also use substantially less fertilizers and insecticides in a controlled greenhouse environment, perhaps with drip feeding.

I hope we both agree that those approaches take energy to pull off? So the question is whether humanity can get enough sustainable energy.

> Even the EU says they cannot convert fast enough to get off of Russian gas.

We seems to be talking about different time scales here? Getting off Russian gas is something they'd want to do in the next few months or years at most. I'm talking about decades at the least.

(And, the EU could totally get off Russian gas next month. It would 'just' make energy a lot more expensive at least in the short run, and likely put the EU into a severe recession for a while. That's a more painful than the shame of buying from Russia, so they keep buying from Russia.)

> No, if push came to shove then people would start literally shoving in the form of a war.

I don't think so. But for the sake of argument: a few wars here or there don't have much of an influence on carrying capacity. Unless, of course, the wars are bad enough to kill off a substantial fraction of humanity directly or even just destroy the economy badly enough to kill off indirectly.

(That's something we can argue about, if you want to. But we don't need to argue about a few minor wars.)

> So are you changing from just the wind and solar mentioned earlier to include nuclear?

Sorry for mixing examples. I used fission reactors as an example of non-monetary costs that someone might object to.

I suspect we _could_ run everything on wind and solar (especially if you also add solar in orbit via power satellites), if we really had to. But adding nuclear fission (or fusion) to the mix would allow us a higher standard of living.

> I've never seen anything that states that. Link? UN and others estimate 8-12 billion. And none of those estimates are accounting for sustainable population. You say 100s of billions, but with what quality of life? With scare resources comes conflict.

It's more than reasonable to ask for more background information. Sorry, it's a bit hard to Google for this stuff quickly.

So here are just two links that touch on the topics mentioned:

http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lJJ_QqIVnc

---

Also just to clarify: I am arguing that physically and technically we could support vastly more people on earth. I share your fear that people might blow each other up anyway.

I see the Stanford link talks about 15 billion, not hundreds of billions. It still does not mention the sustainability at that level.

I would recommend reading the HN guidelines if you plan on sticking around for long.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

There’s no way in the world voters will ever allow you to produce that much housing. There’s already a vast over population on this planet relative to number of shelters

I'm not sure about the latter. But I agree that political considerations are important, and I deliberately ignored them and only talked about technical feasibility.

>Just to concentrate on food alone: we are barely harvesting anything from the oceans.

Just to cite one of of your statements, the oceans have been decimated with countless species extinct and many more on their way there due to overfishing and habitat destruction. The oceans are also filled with industrial chemicals, plastics and have numerous massive "dead zones" due to nitrogen run off from the huge factory farms we run to sustain our massively overpopulated planet.

The suggestion that the earth isn't overpopulated, let alone the idea that the earth could support "hundreds of billions of people" is beyond absurd. We are losing biodiversity among animals, insects, fish and every other form of non human life due directly to massive overpopulation. Saying this ignores the decimation of our ecosystem and the food web that has left our planet teetering on the brink.

You are right that we are past what hunter-gatherer approaches can yield from the ocean. And that we are doing a bad job at protecting the habitat of wild-life.

However, there's vast patches out in the open ocean where almost nothing grows. Mostly because the areas with sunlight (at the top) are not where the minerals are that plants need to grow (mostly the sea floor). See eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization for an overview.

If you mind putting fertilizer directly into the open ocean, someone more clever than me can probably work out a scheme for enclosing some water in a giant floating bag, and growing your stuff in there. (Or something much better than this.)

> the oceans have been decimated with countless species extinct and many more on their way there due to overfishing

The Tragedy of the Commons. Note that cows and chickens are not endangered species, despite our vast consumption of them.

> The carrying capacity of earth is likely hundreds of billions of humans, if we were to set our mind to it.

At an absolute poverty level in a Warhammer like hive city perhaps.

According to Google, the land surface area of earth is about 510 million km^2.

Divided by a trillion people, that gives you 510 m^2 per person.

For comparison, Singapore has 128 m^2 per person.

Americans just don't understand if you say a 55 mph speed limit enables society.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law

   "From April to June 1982, speed was monitored on New 
   York's Interstate highways, and an 83% noncompliance rate 
   was found despite extreme penalties"

There was a legendary coast-to-coast race in the 70s, defying the national 55 mph limit:

   "Dan Gurney, winner of the 1967 24 hours of Le Mans...won 
   the second Cannonball in a Sunoco blue Ferrari 365 GTB/4 
   Daytona. Gurney said, "At no time did we exceed 175 mph"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannonball_Baker_Sea-To-Shinin...

While the races ended due to police crackdowns, people still do the coast to coast run individually and set records:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannonball_Run_challenge

   "In May 2020, Arne Toman, Doug Tabbutt, and spotter 
   Dunadel Daryoush set the new cannonball record of 25 
   hours and 39 minutes during the COVID-19 pandemic in a 
   modified 2016 Audi S6 disguised to look like a Ford 
   Taurus police interceptor. Police-evasion modifications 
   included brake light kill-switches, radar detectors, 
   laser diffusers, CB-radio, and a roof-mounted thermal 
   camera. Performance modifications included a trunk- 
   mounted 67-gallon auxiliary fuel cell..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cannonball_Run

A comedy where:

   "JJ McClure, a famous racing driver and team owner 
   (Reynolds), and Victor Prinzi, his chief mechanic and 
   sometime co-driver (DeLuise), drive a Dodge Tradesman 
   ambulance fitted with a NASCAR engine (Hal Needham and 
   Brock Yates used the same vehicle in the actual 1979 
   race)."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Can%27t_Drive_55

   "...it took two and a half hours to drive there from 
   Albany. And I was driving from Albany, New York at 2:00 
   in the morning, burnt from all the travel. Cop stopped me 
   for doing 62 on a four lane road when there was no one 
   else in sight. Then the guy gave me a ticket. I was doing 
   62. And he said, 'We give tickets around here for over- 
   60.' and I said, 'I can't drive 55.' I grabbed a paper 
   and a pen..."

Really, (and I just learned this) it says it all that there was a punk album titled as a reaction to "I can't drive 55" called "Double Nickels on the Dime". In Soviet America, the rebels drive 55!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Nickels_on_the_Dime

I don't think the commenter you replied to was particularly set on the specific example of a 55 mph speed limit?

In any case, from what you quote here, it seems Americans driving fast occasionally is worthy the stuff of legend? In Germany those speeds would be just another Tuesday.

About half of German Autobahnen famously don't have a speed limit. The recommended speed is 130 km/h (~80 mph).

Of course, petrol costs a lot more in Germany than in the US. In practice, that tends to limit driving much more.

> Of course, petrol costs a lot more in Germany than in the US. In practice, that tends to limit driving much more

Not really. People that drive a lot or like to save money just buy more fuel efficient cars - whenever I read about fuel efficiency of US cars (and bother to convert gallons and miles to units I understand) I am shocked how super inefficient many vehicles on the US market are, especially given that speed limit - likely due to much lower petrol cost.

What you describe is true; but petrol costs still limit driving. If driving was cheaper in Germany, more driving would happen. Especially more faster driving.

>I don't think the commenter you replied to was particularly set on the specific example of a 55 mph speed limit?

I was making a more general point too, and I'm sorry if you took my comment too literally.

In Germany it would be another Tuesday, because it would be legal. Driving fast according to the law doesn't represent the same thing, which is connected to that cultural difference I was observing.

>German Autobahn speed limit

Sadly its not that simple :( 'Czech millionaire investigated over alleged 417km/h motorway drive in Germany' https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60301705

Yes, you still have to drive safely. That's a lot more nebulous than just looking at velocity numbers.

Another thing to keep in mind, is that if you drive fast enough in Germany, and anything happens, the burden of proof shifts: the (extreme) speeder is presumed guilty of causing the accident until proven innocent.

Fun fact, the incident you linked to happened where I grew up.

But afaik there was no "incident", dude just drove fast on a road with no speed limit and some politicians decided to score few points?

Unsafe driving by itself is against the law in Germany. Even if no one was hurt.

You can argue that the law is bad and just be repealed, of course.

(Or like the guy in the article, you can have your lawyer try and argue in court that the law doesn't apply in this case. As a competent lawyer should in a fair trial.)

Not sure any politician was involved in the first place? Though of course politicians might utter opinions on the whole thing. As they should, so that voters can decide who to vote for, if they are in favour or against this law.

You will be happy to learn Cannonball Run movie script (also Smokey and the Bandit 2) was written by Brock Yates, original organizer of Cannonball Run :)

For more about the whole philosophy of the movement I recommend:

The Cannonball Run Countach: Supercar Legend | Full Documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b7erU_DOfE

That is the zeitgeist. If you think hackers are only selfish then you don’t know anything about the open source world.

You might be browsing a different HN than other people. "hacker" news workships FAANGs, VC money and VC/billionaires themselves.

The original https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_ethic is pretty incompatible with big companies & co.

The change has been notable in recent years. This has always been a very libertarian forum but it's been drifting to the left at an alarming speed. Very dark times for entrepreneurship and society advances indeed.

What examples of "drifting to the left" have you seen and how are those dark times for the future of society?

ITT and it’s criticism of vehicular personal transportation. And I hope that answers both questions you have.

I don't know how you are using ITT here nor is "criticism of vehicular personal transportation" all that common on this site. It does generate a decent amount of discussion but it isn't the prevailing attitude in my experience.

I also don't understand how that is "left" either.

He's saying that while we were once in the correct lane (right side for US drivers) we are drifting to the opposite lane.

He's probably also being intentionally inflammatory given the association of left and progressive politics.

“In this thread”

I should have know that, thank you.

The percentage of people that will do anything to their car that will negatively impact the emissions is so small that it's not even worth worrying about. The vast majority of people take their vehicle to an oil change chain so they can have the drain plug hole on their pan stripped out instead of just taking 30 minutes to do it themselves. I really don't think you need to worry about them pulling off emissions controls while they dyno tune their Camry.

"Fetishisation" is a word that is inching closer to being an instant giveaway for a ham-fisted or outright stupid take. Your average person driving a car in the US isn't "fetishizing" anything. They live in a big-ass country where a lot of things they care about are far away. Having a car allows them to get to their job, see their family, and so on. It's not some insidious plot to keep you from walking around your city.

> Your average person driving a car in the US isn't "fetishizing" anything. They live in a big-ass country where a lot of things they care about are far away. Having a car allows them to get to their job, see their family, and so on.

Americans are mocked worldwide for their ridiculous cars. Oversized, gas guzzling, ostentatious, and yes - fetishized cars are associated with Americans worldwide.

> It's not some insidious plot to keep you from walking around your city.

OP didn't say it is. However car manufacturers did in fact plot - conspired, even - to attack trams, public transport, trains, and anything else that could threaten their dominance. That's just well known fact, and I don't know why you're defending any of this.

Have you ever actually traveled outside America and seen how much nicer it is to be able to walk around a city that isn't designed completely around cars? It's a far, far superior daily experience.

So you can check my post history and I’m super pro-walkable city neighborhood, etc. My wife and I only own one car that we share and that’s even in the suburbs.

But remind me. Where are BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Jaguar, Rolls Royce, and others HQ’d?

While Americans have larger vehicles we also have more space and unfortunately a society designed around cars. I don’t get how we are “fetishizing” cars when almost all of the actual fetish vehicles are designed in other countries. Everyday people buying a giant SUV are almost certainly not fetishizing it. They just have 3 kids and it’s easy and they sit up high on the road.

I agree completely with the rest of your post, though. I’m experiencing some schadenfreude (not in a serious manner) with those multi-car households and giant gas-guzzling vehicles having to experience a bit of the costs for the world they advocate for when they typically do not. Problem is they vote, even against their (and my) long-term interests.

This is not to be read as a defense of car companies, or an attack on Americans:

Those cars are designed in other countries to be larger specifically for America taste.

Americans visit Europe and chuckle at the "tiny" cars, which are in fact perfectly appropriate for three children. And those cars were designed by the same companies for European standards.

To me, that reads as fetishization on a mass cultural level, and while you can point the finger anywhere you like that fact will remain at the core.

There is no justification, on a planet burning faster every year, for the ridiculously oversized cars Americans choose. None.

When you call it a fesithization that is definitely interpreted by me as an attack/insult and I don't think it adds any value, and probably strengthens convictions of people who drive large SUVs. Are Germans fetishzing Russian natural gas? No. It's incentives and economics, and poor government choices based on poor assumptions about the state of the world (same with America, gas, and the suburbs).

You're mixing up a preference based on no immediate negative repercussions with Pimp My Ride. Believe it or not, Americans are just regular people. Immigrants to the U.S. don't walk from point to point, they buy large SUVs too.

If Americans are burning the planet (and we are, to be clear, with bone-headed city and urban planning decisions) than auto manufacturers from other countries absolutely share the blame, including their employees (to the same extent you'd blame an American for buying a large SUV) for selling the fuel and matches and advertising how cool the fuel and matches are, especially when used together.

Most of those cities were designed when horses weren’t even an option. But some of us don’t consider that nicer.

> However car manufacturers did in fact plot - conspired, even - to attack trams, public transport, trains, and anything else that could threaten their dominance. That's just well known fact, and I don't know why you're defending any of this.

Which facts? Can you provide some sources?

Engaging with potential/probable sealions is just about my least favorite part of commenting.

You may be genuine, in which case I recommend using literally any search engine on the device of your choice to find sources which you like. Wikipedia, YouTube, or deeper - there is no shortage of sources - all you have to do is look.

>Americans are mocked worldwide for their ridiculous cars. Oversized, gas guzzling, ostentatious, and yes - fetishized cars are associated with Americans worldwide.

Americans mock other nations for all sorts of shit that isn't true, like French people not showering or Germans sounding/being angry all the time. Should we take those thoughts seriously because a lot of people think them?

Americans do buy a lot of pickups. Many of these get decent gas mileage. A lot of people use these for work. Crossovers are the biggest new sellers (over 50% of new sales, if my memory serves me correctly), which get marginally worse mileage than the cars they're directly descended from. The size of all of these vehicles is prodded along by "safety" regulations and ratings, where a higher hood height is correlated with the driver/passengers being safer in accidents (this has its own problems but it's a different discussion).

I think you have an exaggerated view of what US auto consumer preferences look like. This is really easy because the whole "the US is a shithole with no redeeming qualities" narrative is popular among some crowds, but it doesn't reflect the reality of what's happening.

>However car manufacturers did in fact plot - conspired, even - to attack trams, public transport, trains, and anything else that could threaten their dominance. That's just well known fact, and I don't know why you're defending any of this.

Those plots and attacks range from completely unverifiable conspiracy theories, to unintended consequences, to actions that one might reasonably argue were an attempt to interfere with public transit. It is nowhere near as cut and dry as you're making it out to be, and trying to claim that some unproven conspiracy by Big Car is the primary reason the US is so dependent on cars today is myopic. You've suggested that others in this thread "just Google it", but some of the first results you're going to see when researching this subject touch pretty heavily on what I've said above -- the person asking you for some sources probably wasn't a "sealion" (whatever that is), they probably already did what you told them to, and some of the highest ranking info directly contradicted your argument.

>Have you ever actually traveled outside America and seen how much nicer it is to be able to walk around a city that isn't designed completely around cars? It's a far, far superior daily experience.

Nobody is denying that it's nicer to be able to walk around a city without having to deal with cars and traffic. The discussion is whether or not it is even feasible to have that anywhere in the US to the extent that other places do.

> Americans mock other nations for all sorts of shit that isn't true, [etc.]

That's not an argument that applies here, because Americans actually do buy stupidly big cars.

> I think you have an exaggerated view of what US auto consumer preferences look like. This is really easy because [overly defensive strawman]

No, I don't. Here's some numbers, which you could have looked for yourself, with the search engine of your choice:

" According to data from IHS Automotive, larger vehicles accounted for 63 percent of total US sales in 2013. Meanwhile, large vehicles only accounted for 25.4 percent of all vehicles sold outside the US during the same year."

> Those plots and attacks range from completely unverifiable conspiracy theories, to unintended consequences, to actions that one might reasonably argue were an attempt to interfere with public transit.

The cars are bigger. The cities are less livable. The conspiracies are verifiable, there are entire books, documentaries, and Wikipedia pages about the various fuckeries involved.

You seem to be rather defensive about this though, so feel free to think whatever you like.

> The discussion is whether or not it is even feasible to have that anywhere in the US

That may be what you wish to discuss - fine. You can have that discussion somewhere else, with someone else. It is feasible though - and necessary. Again, the fucking planet is burning.

>That's not an argument that applies here, because Americans actually do buy stupidly big cars. >" According to data from IHS Automotive, larger vehicles accounted for 63 percent of total US sales in 2013. Meanwhile, large vehicles only accounted for 25.4 percent of all vehicles sold outside the US during the same year."

"Larger" is doing some really heavy lifting, and that data is not capturing the large market share gains crossovers have made in the last decade.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/276506/change-in-us-car-...

45% of all vehicles sold in the US in mid 2020 to mid 2021 were crossovers, which are almost without exception based on a "small car" platform and have similar fuel efficiency numbers. You're finding data that has some arbitrary definition of "large" -- from what I can tell, IHS would count an Impreza as "small" and a Forester as "large", and that is completely worthless for backing up a claim that Americans overwhelmingly drive gas-guzzling vehicles. The shift in focus to crossovers in the strategy of large auto manufacturers active in the US is glaringly obvious and you not realizing this is either a matter of you not paying attention or just willfully ignoring it.

>You seem to be rather defensive about this though, so feel free to think whatever you like.

I'm not even disagreeing with you that it happened in some circumstances, I'm just saying that you're massively overselling the importance of it. It's hard to even engage with this; you just keep saying that there's verifiable instances of it that are as impactful as you're claiming, but then refuse to provide specific examples that might make me reconsider my position. If it's so easy to find info about, just link it and we can be on the same page.

>That may be what you wish to discuss - fine. You can have that discussion somewhere else, with someone else. It is feasible though - and necessary. Again, the fucking planet is burning.

If you're just going to straight-up make very, very debatable assertions (like reducing American car dependence in favor of public transit being feasible) with nothing to back it up, there's no discussion to be had here. We get that America is car dependent, that we should reduce carbon emissions, that the climate apocalypse is imminent, etc. so if we're just going to go over that ad nauseam we're just wasting our time.

Take almost any car slogan - they aren't about getting from A to B, they're all about fetishising cars.

I assume they know how to sell, and that fetishisation works.

>It's not some insidious plot to keep you from walking around your city.

It's exactly that. "Jaywalking" was promoted by the US auto industry. It doesn't exist in most countries.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26073797

Your argument about car slogans could be applied to the advertisement of nearly anything. Computer ads aren't about how reliable and well built the parts are, it's about how it will "unlock creative potential" or make you a "pro gamer". That's just modern advertising and I don't think it's a reflection on people's day to day feelings about their objects. It gets a sale.

Cars are a fashion item though and that does allow car companies to push products that are not always ideal for how they are going to be used. I am not saying we should ban things neccesarily but some basic consumer protection is a good idea. And that should include sane emission levels in the same was as seatbelts.

Maybe that choice of word is ham-fisted, but there’s no doubt that personal automobiles enjoy a cultural and economic supremacy that should be challenged.

> that should be challenged

I'm still waiting for a coherent challenge that isn't 1) we need to completely change the economy and how geography works because climate change; or, 2) I don't like the people who really like cars.

People forget EVs were long seen as a useless literally-who-asked type of thing, until they weren't. All we need to do is have a train or bus beat an ICE supercar in a race.

them living far away from their jobs or preferred places to go were not values free choices made in a vacuum, and it is disingenuous to pretend otherwise to make some kind of point about how the status quo is a law of the universe.

$272,000 cars are not really serious road going vehicles. Emissions per mile travelled may be atrocious, but adjusted for how far it will actually travel in its lifetime, it's probably no worse than a Nissan Leaf.

If we're getting technical I think spending $272,000 on anything is going to have some environmental costs in line with spending $272,000.

Spending that much money on a truck probably generates no more emissions than a basic Ford F-150. Would an iPhone Pro Max produce much more emissions than a iPhone SE?

But from an environmental, not spending the money in the first place (not upgrading a car or phone) in both cases would be a net win for the environment.

What do you mean by not spending?

If you just take the money and bury it in your backyard forever, the central bank will just replace it after a while. (Assuming a typical inflation targeting central bank. And also in aggregate, because the central bank doesn't know exactly how much money is getting buried; but they do monitor total spending in the economy.)

If you leave the money in the bank, the bank invests it.

If you want to make a positive difference, you can use the money to contribute to eg carbon reduction efforts.

The rest of what you are saying is right: there's better and worse ways to spend that money. (In the worst case, you could buy a few tons of coal and just set them on fire.) I'm just saying that earning money and not spending it at all, doesn't automatically mean zero net emissions.

Loans create deposits, not the other way around. Your broader point that in a rational society money will never be a limiting factor is good though.

It's good we agree on the main point.

But since we are at it: loans create deposits only in some narrow technical sense, but not in practice.

You are right than in the logical second when a bank makes a loan, they just create a pair of accounting entries out of thin air. One entry in your checking account, and one entry to record the loan.

I hope you agree that most people don't take out loan to let the money just sit in their account: they spent it.

For simplicity, let's assume the common case that the people the debtor spends their money at, don't have an account with our bank.

Our bank loses reserves, when people spend deposits. It doesn't matter whether they spend via withdrawing as cash first or whether they make a bank transfer.

A bank can not operate with negative reserves.

They get more reserves by either accepting deposits or by borrowing them.

Does this make sense to you? If not, where am I going wrong? and why do you think banks accept deposits in the first place or issue bonds in their name etc?

(For simplicity, let's assume no (positive) legal minimum reserve requirements. But also let's assume that banks need a positive level of reserves to operate; eg to pay out withdrawals and net-settle interbank transfers.

If you want to challenge those assumptions, we can do that, too. But please say so explicitly. Thanks!)

In the UK there are no legal reserve requirements on lending. Similarly in the US for business lending.

Basel III makes no mention of reserves, but it does talk about liquidity. Liquidity can be and is met through interbank lending, with the center bank filling in as necessary.

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/m... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_III http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2009/01/31/therovingcaval... https://positivemoney.org/2011/04/monetary-reform-myths-1-10...

A nice bonus link on interest rates not necessarily controlling inflation in the expected way: https://new-wayland.com/blog/interest-price-spiral/

Why do you think banks accept deposits at all?

Mostly cheap liquidity: https://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-10-28/why-do-banks-w...

For the same reason they pay interest on deposits: https://new-wayland.com/blog/why-banks-pay-interest-on-depos...

Why wouldn't such a car get driven every day? If you can afford it, surely you'd want to drive it?

People with this much money don’t drive the same cars everyday. They have like 10 of these and don’t even drive them that often - instead going with their Mercedes or whatever instead because it’s more practical.

These are fun weekend/special occasions vehicles.

Even if you are not that rich, it's not impractical to have 2 cars if you have the space to park them and the need. A smaller everyday vehicle that is easy to park in the city and the family mover for weekend activities.

95E10 is well over 2 €/L (like 7.57 $/gallon?) everywhere now. If it keeps the same 125-litre tank as the normal TRX, it'll cost you >250 € to fill it completely up.

On that note we should ban everything recreational, inefficient, and made for comfort, except the things I like.

People would benefit from living in smaller houses when it comes to heating too. Should we legally mandate small rooms with claustrophobia-inducing celling heights?

People like different things. Some people like their pickups. Maybe they find their size more convenient and comfortable. We don't know that. We do know that people made that choice out of their free will.

It totally depends on the individual. I use my giant pick up truck every single day. I’ll also be the first to get a viable electric when there’s one available. I get groceries in a Nissan Leaf.

Cars and trucks aren’t the issue we should be arguing about. Nothing is being done about shipping, cruise lines, and big industry. It’s a classic tactic for corporations to focus the government on individuals instead of themselves. Here you are falling for it hook, line, and sinker.

> Nothing is being done about shipping, cruise lines, and big industry.

Not sure what you mean, there's plenty of regulation on those. Eg most of the world has just recently gotten much stricter about what fuels you can burn in ocean going vessels. Though maybe not as much regulation as you want? Or the wrong kind?

In any case, I mostly agree with you. And regulation shouldn't focus on micro-managing individual people or even individual industries: just tax emissions, and let people sort it out according to their own preferences.

Fair enough maybe not nothing, but very little. As someone who lives a rural lifestyle and uses my truck (along with literally everyone else I know), it's a bit infuriating that we get picked on for ruining the planet. Switching from a truck to a car isn't really going to do much to address global warming. I also wonder how many folks on this site realize just how good of gas mileage "giant" trucks actually get these days.

That's why I'm in favour of something simple like a carbon tax to sort this out.

No need for any politicized discussions about lifestyles that way.

(If other countries don't follow suit with the carbon tax, just do adjustments at the border like what countries do for VAT. That'll automatically also do the right thing for the other countries that do also have a carbon tax.)

I concede that personal vehicles aren't the bigger problem, and I agree that something should be done about shipping, cruise lines, cement, glass, coal power, etc., before we worry about the small fries. The situation is kind of ridiculous, as by now everyone knows what the problem is, and yet there is no control over our own interests to survive, and our elected government intervenes to allow a bunch of people that need jobs to work and a few to get rich off of something that is literally killing nearly everything slowly but no longer slowly enough.

Companies aren't informing anecdotal observations. I would have no issue if pickup ownership was regulated.

I do because it's arbitrary and senseless. Gas mileage is already regulated. It's the main reason my giant truck is a turbo v6 instead of a v8.

> We should be looking to reduce polluting vehicles like these and also the fetishisation of cars in general.

Eh, the former is pretty easy: just tax pollution and let people decide how much polluting they want to afford. But that's too boring to have long discussions about.

About the latter: it's not my business what people do in their bedroom.

This is problematic, because someone poor then can't drive at all, and someone rich just pays a bit more, to ride his private jet.

It's easy to say "just buy electric"... but that's 40k+ eur right now, and if you live in an apartment building, you have nowehere to charge it, unless you wait at a public charging station for hours every few days.

We have A LOT of people warning against climate change, eg obama:

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-record/climate

But we also have obama buying waterfront property, which will supposedly be underwater soon.

https://www.businessinsider.com/obamas-buy-home-on-marthas-v...

Same for the terminator:

https://www.schwarzeneggerclimateinitiative.com/about

But drives a monstrosity of an SUV:

https://www.tmz.com/2022/01/21/arnold-schwarzenegger-car-acc...

So yes... raise the taxes, the poor won't be able to drive at all, their houses will be cold all winter, and massive polluters will still pollute.

Give the poor person money, if you want to help her. Use an income tax (or land value tax or similar) on the rich guy to finance that.

No need to mix up your redistribution apparatus with your pigovian taxes. Both of them would be worse off for this double duty.

What's the difference between fetishisation and enjoyment? Are all hobbies fetishes? Is any non-productive interest a fetish?

Many people have hobbies that drive CO2 emissions. Should we ban all of these too?

The externalities should be internalized.

I agree! Add the cost of CO2 into the price of gas. But don't ban inefficient speciality cars. I happen to be someone who really enjoys driving performance cars that happen to get really poor fuel economy. I have no problem paying the cost of the CO2 I generate. But I find it very irritating when people say we need to ban these cars outright.

> Add the cost of CO2 into the price of gas.

Is there a cost? I would say it is priceless - because we do not have any mechanism to funnel that money into undoing the CO2. And no, planting trees are not the opposite of taking oil from deep underground. Once that oil is out it remains in the above-surface carbon cycle. While it is underground it would never even be part of it. So any price would be made up - and just funneled to some interest group. The "compensation" does not actually compensate anything. This is the danger of only thinking in "money". I paid, problem magically solved!

We have that mechanism: carbon sequestration. It's what taxes on gasoline should be directly funding.

I like performance cars. They're neat. I don't agree that poorer people should shoulder a greater burden for societal adaptation to threats. If you have a high polluting performance vehicle, maybe it can be restricted in a normalizing fashion when used for transportation or recreation within some arbitrary boundary, like speed limits to some extent (though I'm aware of the caveats), but then if you can throw money at it anyway, you should at least for some time be able to take it to a track where they can set their own rules. I don't think physical performance limiters should be placed on vehicles at all, especially ones that are grandfathered in, but some people shouldn't have the ability to just disregard things in daily in daily life that the place has democratically decided upon only because the money is available. Or maybe it could be a condition of licensing within a certain area. Great you get the car, but can only drive it where you don't need valid insurance. If you want to drive it anyway, you need to have a limiter, or the car is impounded

> I don't agree that poorer people should shoulder a greater burden for societal adaptation to threats.

I don't get that? If do adopt a carbon tax, then the rich guy who wants to drive a performance car pays a lot more, than the poor person who take the bus.

> If you have a high polluting performance vehicle, maybe it can be restricted in a normalizing fashion when used for transportation or recreation within some arbitrary boundary, like speed limits to some extent [...]

That sounds awfully intrusive and full of loopholes, that only people who can afford expensive lobbyists and lawyers can exploit.

> [...] but some people shouldn't have the ability to just disregard things in daily in daily life that the place has democratically decided upon only because the money is available.

How would paying your democratically-decided-on carbon tax be the same as disregarding anything?

I didn't say anything about a carbon tax. I was talking more about agreed upon restrictions that can't simply have money thrown at them to just keep doing what they're doing. This carries over to a number of different policy decisions that have naive approached to truly reducing them. Like the real estate market, noise pollution, other pollution. Put another way, would you be chill about the local high-polluting company continuing to dump sewage into water ways if they're paying some fee? Probably not. People driving performance cars around can already afford the extra expense of having them, either for status or fun or whatever, I don't necessarily want to make it even more exclusive. A different example would be those disgusting coal-rollers that fuckheads drive. Do I want them to be able to drive in the city because they can afford to sink the cost and do it anyway? No.

>I don't get that? If do adopt a carbon tax, then the rich guy who wants to drive a performance car pays a lot more, than the poor person who take the bus.

But the poor guy with a beat 20 year old car in a badly insulated rental pays more than the rich guy with his Tesla and energy neutral villa.

Good, do we care about the planet or cheap access to highly emitting vehicles.

“Who cares about all those poors, right?”

“Who cares about climate change when it means I’ll have to take the bus or apply for some electric car subsidy, right?”

Please don't argue in favour of electric car subsidies (or any other subsidies).

That's just needless paperwork, and never catches all use cases. Eg the guy who walks doesn't get an electric car subsidy. Or the guy who practices hypermiling on his ICE, vs the guy who drives his ICE like a maniac. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermiling

Much easier to just apply an emission tax (or a cap-and-trade program) and let people figure it out by themselves without extra paperwork and government favouritism.

Why not tax the rich more and use that money to help the poor emit less?

Eh, that's what eg income taxes are for.

If you want to do redistribution to help the poor, the impact of the overall tax system is important. You don't need to make every single tax progressive.

Individual taxes, especially sin taxes, should be designed to do their job as efficiently as possible.

That doesn’t work. As long as the cheap option is available that’s what people will use.

Unless you’re suggesting we tax the cheap option, in which case you’re saying the same thing.

I'm suggesting we tax the luxurious option and use that money to improve the cheap option.

I agree we cannot burden poorer people. I think the least-worst way to handle the whole situation is with a carbon-tax and dividend.

There are a lot of valid arguments against ethanol, but performance is not one of them. If performance is the primary virtue, all performance vehicles should be burning 100% ethanol, and if in a place where sugarcane can be turned into ethanol, being carbon neutral. In other places, pay a corn-carbon tax.

It sounds like you’re mad that it goes fast and don’t care about taxing actual emissions.

Making egregious polluting a rich-only club? Outright banning sounds more attractive.

This is accomplished via gas taxes. If you drive this car only 100 miles a year, you're still emitting a lot less CO2 than driving a Prius 10,000 miles a year.

It's not really accomplished unless the gas tax pulls that CO2 back down from the atmosphere.

Per the CDC, A typical passenger vehicle emits about 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year.

The weighted average price per ton for carbon credits from forestry and land-use projects that reduce emissions or remove carbon from the atmosphere has been on a steady upward path, rising from $4.33 per credit in 2019 to $4.73 per credit so far in 2021, with a spike to $5.60 per credit in 2020.

So, spend $35/year or if you want to get fancy, the cost of 1 tank of gas per year to offset your carbon footprint from driving and enjoy a guilt-free year.

Or we could fold that cost into gas, if you use 1 tank a week, 10/gallons a tank, that would be less than $0.02 as a carbon tax credit.

I would be all for that.

But, if you raised the price of gas $0.50 and funneled all of that money into funding carbon capture industries, I would also be all for that, and at that price point more people would search for public transportation or purchase EV's so that is a double win.

But then again, these taxes would disproportionately affect the middle and lower classes in suburban and rural communities so that would make life far more difficult on people who already have it tough enough and manufacturers would probably shovel any taxes you put on them directly to the consumers as well, so I would say it's almost as if there isn't a single simple fix to the issue and only a multipronged approach that takes into account dozens of moving variables rolled out over time is the only viable solution.

That closes the loop, for sure. But doesn't a carbon tax address your exact complaint, in that externalities should be internalised? It takes the externality (CO2 is bad because global warming) and makes it a cost for the person performing the activity (CO2 is bad because gas is expensive, and useage is therefore to be limited).

The cost of the pollution is it's effect on the environment and everyone living in it. Just collecting taxes does not address that. The tax would have to actually undue the pollution to eliminate the externality.

Then driving a Prius doesn’t accomplish anything either.

Driving a Prius for fun on the weekends is less damaging than driving a Viper. You might not get as much fun done though.

A pigovian tax works, even if the proceeds are not used to fight the externalities.

Pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere might or might not be a good idea. But that's a cost/benefit analysis that's independent of the carbon tax take.

Apples and oranges. Something being driven 10k miles a year is being used for daily life activities, something being driven 100 miles is not.

Consider what job it's doing, not what arbitrary market category it fits in.

What, exactly, is the car that's being driven for 100 miles doing? Is it something the 10k mile car couldn't do even better? Is it something that even legitimately needs to be done?

I agree this is a thing that can be done, but I disagree it's a job that it's doing - because stating its a job usually means there is some ultimate purpose to it.

I'm responding more to the point that gas taxes are some kind of effective solution and that category-based comparison is even relevant. Climate change demands we think outside categories and see what kinds of 'jobs to be done' we have to meet our needs and thrive, and then look at all available options to lower carbon footprint around those[1]. And look at some of these 'jobs' as less valuable than others, e.g. conspicuous consumption vs commuting to work to feed your family.

Also a more specific issue here is car manufacturing itself is like 25% of the carbon footprint of a vehicle, so regardless of use it's still doing damage.

[1] e.g. a solution may be that we take public transport, or micromobility, or relocate so we don't need to drive as far, or videoconference, or any number of other things that examine the full range of options we have to reach the goal.

> Climate change demands we think outside categories and see what kinds of 'jobs to be done' we have to meet our needs and thrive

No it doesn’t. That is what authoritarians do under the guise of climate change when they just want control.

Climate change demands we reduce CO2 in aggregate. It is better to tax all gas equally to force a reduction in its use and keep increasing the tax until its emissions are negligible. No exceptions, full stop.

Having bureaucrats look at 'jobs to be done' sounds awfully intrusive and inefficient, and needlessly morally arbitrary.

Just do a gas tax (or carbon tax) and be done with it. If you are worried about some specific use cases, just give those deserving people money so they can pay their taxes with that.

It's really, really, really common to have single purpose trucks that go about that far. Site-specific fuel trucks, plow trucks, etc.

"legitimately needs to be done" - who decides what is "legitimate"?

> What, exactly, is the car that's being driven for 100 miles doing? Is it something the 10k mile car couldn't do even better?

Being faster? Being more fun? Giving you social status in your in-group?

Can we at least be honest?

Come on. Gas taxes are hilariously regressive. The people—ALL the people—who can afford this kind of dumbass vehicle and who are willing to commit the offense of buying and operating it will never, ever be affected or restricted or motivated by any piddly gas taxes.

So, no. No. Of course it's not actually accomplished by gasoline taxes. That's a fantasy.

If you made gas taxes 1-2 orders of magnitude more progressive than they are right now, that would be a tiny start.

> The people—ALL the people—who can afford this kind of dumbass vehicle

The people who can afford 272k for a car are a vanishingly small percentage of the world population. In this category of people wasting money, this is one of the least impactful activities. For comparison, they might also consider chartering a jet to the Alps for skiing, renting a yacht for a week in the Mediterranean, going on African safari, etc.

> So, no. No. Of course it's not actually accomplished by gasoline taxes

You do know there is a point where gas taxes can be raised high enough that it just pays for full carbon offset/capture, right? At that point you’re just having a fit that rich people exist, which has nothing to do with solving climate change.

How are gas taxes regressive? They seem perfectly flat to me, at least in relation to amount of petrol bought and burned.

> How are gas taxes regressive?

As with most ad valorem (or fixed per unit) consumption taxes, because consumption as a share of income declines with increasing income, so total and marginal tax share drops with greater income.

Yes, like every sales tax, VAT, etc used everywhere around the world except for super liberal places like Montana.

Calling these taxes regressive just a socially acceptable way for people to say “I don’t want to shoulder any burden for this”.

> Yes, like every sales tax, VAT, etc used everywhere around the world except for super liberal places like Montana.

Yes, sales taxes and VATs are regressive, though in many cases that is made somewhat more nuanced by selective exclusion of basic necessities on which the poor focus a disproportionate share of consumption; when that's done, they are progressive at the low end shifting to regressive higher. This kind of tax that puts it's heaviest burden somewhere between the above average income segment of the working class and the petit bourgeois middle class is somewhat more popular than straight regressive taxation (when you take into account payroll taxes and favorable taxation on LTCG and certain other income disproportionately concentrated among the very rich, US taxes on income also largely break this way).

> Calling these taxes regressive just a socially acceptable way for people to say “I don’t want to shoulder any burden for this”.

Er, no. I actually favor heavier gas taxes (or carbon taxes) as a pigovian tax, but I think that the overall system of taxation should be asjusted so the net effect is not to to decrease progressivity (which, given that I have above average income, probably means I shoulder the burden of that as well as of the additional gas tax, so really the opposite of what you suggest). An individual tax desirable for other reasons being regressive is an addressivle issue.

Actually, they are regressive. Calling them regressive, therefore, is just a statement of fact.

If you want to project your biases against poor people onto others, fine, but let's be clear that that's what you are doing.

> Actually, they are regressive.

Read my comment again. I didn’t say they weren’t.

> If you want to project your biases against poor people onto others

Are you calling my criticism of armchair economists a bias against poor people? Do you know that most armchair economists are not poor people?

I'm not sure that's true about consumption in general?

But in any case, I don't think it matters too much whether individual taxes are progressive or regressive or flat. That consideration only really makes a difference for the overall tax system. Individual taxes can be designed to be as efficient as possible, as long as the overall system is as progressive/flat/regressive as desired.

Huh? Are gas taxes a priced in externality or a way to punish the rich?

Asking the rich to pay even a fraction of their fair share is not "punishing" the rich.

Just so we're clear, punishing them would involve, say, jailing them or confiscating all but $50k or so of their net worth and then making them work at Burger King for a month or two. That would be punishing.

Asking for a more progressive and fair tax system does not "punish" anyone.

Huh? What do externalities have to do with that?

There surely needs to be some incorporation of need into the calculations. The rich control enough of our resources that they are unlikely to be put off by a tax, whereas everyday people would be crippled by taxes high enough to make a difference.

Do you think this principle applies more generally? Tax incentives only work on poor people?

I think tax incentives (and indeed fines) proportional to wealth/income work on everyone. But if you make it flat then obviously they're going to have an outsized effect on the poor.

Whether tax incentives need to be larger to work on richer people is an empirical question we can look into.

We don't need to ban anything, just make it cost what it costs.

Agreed! Tax people according to their body fat percentage:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-food-climate-obesity/obes...

I'm not getting this one, could you dumb it down for me? (Not sure if it has something to do with not being a native speaker or not.)

In economics, an externality [0] is a cost that is not paid for by the buyer or the seller but generally society bears the cost. For example, when buying a pollution machine - the cost to the environment may not be factored into the purchase price despite it being there.

Internalizing the externalities refers adding an additional cost to the purchase price to cover for the externality. In the example above for the pollution machine, this could be a carbon tax or a carbon offset.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

Understood, thanks!

Talking about the individuals' personal choices first and foremost, instead of the state action and regulation that needs to occur is both alienating, and counterproductive. It's a tool used by corporations that benefit from lax regulation, to shift the blame for their negative externalities to the public. For example, the 'carbon footprint' is a marketing invention from BP.

Yes. Cars actively and provably harm other people with their emissions. Yet society tolerates them as a necessary evil (also due to the lobbying from car companies and big oil).

Hobbies that harm other people by polluting are not a "necessary evil". They are not necessary.

For example, in many cities in the world it's illegal to have a bonfire because it makes people (unwillingly) inhale toxic particulate.

What hobbies are you referring to specifically?

"travelling"

Travelling is most CO2 intensive when air travel is involved. It would be fine if faraway travel took more time. But yes, in any case, we need to reduce air travel.

Making sourdough.

Knitting

Existing

My favorite hobby is is inhaling O2 and exhaling CO2.

My teenage obsession with cars is what really got my interest in engineering going, and has had many knock-on advantages for me.

Why? We can still have a cleaner world even with polluting vehicles. There’s bigger targets to hit.

Yep. Can start by not making people drive to offices to sit on computers...

Exactly. Let’s start with planes

Planes and Cargo ships.

I strongly disagree and this kind of virtue signaling leaves a bad authoritarian taste. We used to look at amazing engineering in supercars, now all we hear about is woke fetish for reducing life quality, living in a pod and driving a scooter. The current trend is to ban all luxury and prevent people from excelling at craftsmanship. It gives people jobs, reduces income inequality (transfer of wealth from top to bottom) and propelling culture forward. Nevermind that.

All this is very perverse, like a race to the bottom with double-standards and contradictions everywhere. "For thee, not me".

Funny, living in cities that prioritize other modes of transport (biking, buses, trains, etc) has drastically improved my quality of life, as opposed to places that prioritize cars and inevitably end up being traffic-locked hellholes.

Living in cities that make you want to bike is good, you're choosing to bike and that means you're happier biking than driving. Living in a city based around driving when the government tries to ban ICEs is bad, because you wish you were allowed to drive. Good policy finds a way to align top-down directives with bottom-up preferences.

Cities that promote cycling can often be better for the remaining drivers.

I use public transportation as well. But I don't gawk at people that have Ferraris in disgust.

1) this isn't a Ferrari, the article literally describes this car as an anti-Prius

2) even the most polluting Ferrari, which according to this page (1) emits 385g/km , is still almost a quarter less polluting than this car (506 g/km according to the article)

(1) https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/cars/Car-CO2-and-fuel-economy-mp...

Wait until you hear about this that enables a $2 Trillion dollar company and probably 95% of everything you own in your living room: https://www.transportenvironment.org/discover/shipping-emiss...

But hey look! That one car! Fuck that in particular.

Yes? An individual can't choose to revolutionize the shipping industry themselves but they sure as hell can choose a car that's not as polluting and less of a hazard to pedestrians. That's very much a personal choice that I'm happy to judge.

> An individual can't choose to revolutionize the shipping industry

Yes, but this entire thread is about de-revolutionizing the car industry. People in China and India would like to have a word with us.

We should be working on sequestrating CO2 from the atmosphere using novel means (Solar, Nuclear), making breakthroughs in efficiency and promoting domestic manufacturing. I don't have the answers. I am just pointing out the double-standards that are hidden behind massive sweeping statements like "Ban all cars".

These discussions tend to be about one-upping each other instead of discussing fundamental issues and solving them. It is mostly political, not objective and shying away from confronting reality.

> Yes, but this entire thread is about de-revolutionizing the car industry

How is it de-revolutionizing to optimize away from massive, wasteful cars like this and towards more efficient cars -- or perhaps even systems where personal cars are done away with entirely as a necessity?

> People in China and India would like to have a word with us.

India has roughly half of the country not owning a car, and the US, Japan, and Mexico all manufacture more cars than them. Not sure what bone they'd have to pick in this fight other than you assuming they're invested in manufacturing cars?

> We should be working on sequestrating CO2 from the atmosphere using novel means (Solar, Nuclear), making breakthroughs in efficiency and promoting domestic manufacturing.

All true, but we can do all those while also disincentivizing wasteful cars like the one described in the article that serve as nothing more than dangerous, pedestrian-killing status symbols.

You quote those 95% as if it was a bad thing?

If anything, the more stuff they give everyone, the better their emissions look relatively.

Neat!

So you’re trying impose your lifestyle on others because it works for you?

No thanks!

Interestingly, when we live in a society where people disagree, this is exactly the way you can frame any policy you disagree with. Car owners have imposed their lifestyles on me my entire life. See? :)

Who is forcing you to drive a car? Didn’t you just say you didn’t?

Where did I say anyone was forcing me? I'm talking about the fact that most cities don't have car-less areas for pedestrians and bicyclists only, and that initiatives like the closure of JFK drive in SF to drivers being met with fierce resistance. Things like refusing to make protected bike lanes, refusing to build out adequate public transit, all in favor of... More highway lanes. More parking.

But sure, don't engage with the argument at hand, I guess.

What argument? You don't like cars, others do. You do you, don't try and tell others their choices are wrong.

lack of public transportation, sidewalks and bikepaths, making cars the only option to get around.

Right, but not forced since OP literally said "Funny, living in cities that prioritize other modes of transport (biking, buses, trains, etc) has drastically improved my quality of life"

it's forced since i need to live where the jobs are, and kids who can't drive need to live where their parents are.

we all need to be able live together, and just as a completely carless city is unrealistic, a car only city is no better, but the latter unfortunately is often the reality.

It’s certainly still an option. Just an option you’re not willing to trade off for.

I live without a car. Public transit suffices, I walk my kid to school.

same here, but i have also lived in places where this wasn't an option.

We still look in awe at the amazing engineering in supercars. it's just that now, low to no carbon emissions is part of being an admirable super car. A gas guzzler is bad engineering

> bad authoritarian taste

Imposing the emission of a 1000HP truck onto other people's lungs is a good example of bad taste.

Designing a car-centric society that denies access to good quality transit is authoritarian.

> excelling at craftsmanship. It gives people jobs, reduces income inequality (transfer of wealth from top to bottom) and propelling culture forward.

Citation desperately needed of all those claims.

> virtue signaling ... woke fetish

Spare us the dog whistles please.

What did you think the "hacker" in Hacker News meant? While the actual activities rarely match the "learning to understand and control systems" sense, it's 100% in line with that niche usage. That usage also frequently fails to consider or care about ordinary senses of law and morality.

Some people just like cars and there's nothing wrong with that. This is paternalistic nonsense.

I can see this kind of take in most areas were most people live: dense urban networks along coasts. But the rest of us really do need cars to get around and no amount of city planning/rebuilding or place to place public transport is going to change that.

Hi from Europe.

>We should be looking to reduce polluting vehicles like these and also the fetishisation of cars in general.

How many people here avoid flying out of principle?

There is a clear answer to - Do planes pollute a lot? (yes/no)

>How many people here avoid flying out of principle?

I'm not sure what you're expecting, but surely it's lots?

Yes, I didn't really expect an answer as nobody has those numbers. It was just rhetorical.

Many have drastically reduced it, I think you assume too much environmental cynicism.

Yes, it is quite possible that I am a bit jaded. I just get tired being lectured to on that - not by you or the OP, just randos IRL, who love flying all over the world on vacation, while driving a prius or tesla.

I thought the subject was cars right now. I see the point of bringing up something for a larger perspective, but this here is just whataboutism. With this "argument" it's useless to talk about any source of pollution - because there always is another one. Also, using a different car is very easy, it does not compare to not flying, so the comparison is more than just a little flawed to begin with.

My point was about being principled not whataboutism. Of the people telling others to not drive cars, how many people are avoiding flying for non-essential travel? Its easy to tell others to sacrifice, and I'm sure that everyone has at-least one cause they care about.

> Also, using a different car is very easy, it does not compare to not flying, so the comparison is more than just a little flawed to begin with.

What if one wants to drive a gas guzzler, but avoid airline travel? :)

> We should be looking to reduce polluting vehicles

Yep, absolutely!

> also the fetishisation of cars in general.

Aww come on! What's wrong with being a petrolhead? Appreciate a fine piece of engineering!

I'm into planes as well.

We are fortunate we have you to tell us what we should think.

Talk of car specs and removing limiters is disappointing you? This is “hacker news” after all?

Global warming is one thing. Supporting war criminals like Vladimir Putin or Mohammed Bin Salman is another. I don't want to subsidise them.

So the rare times I drive, I mostly use an electric. The even rarer times I drive a diesel car, I use HVO100 [0]. That is by choice. I consciously try to limit my fossil fuel consumption with the goal of reducing war subsidies and global warming. So what if that makes me a naive idiot.

And yes, I hope for more people to share those goals, eventually translating them into my government's energy policies.

But but but... am I a gas guzzler party pooper? Not at all! Museum workshops work wonderfully well for steam trains, historical agricultural tools and industrial archeology. They could work very well for this kind of historical vehicle propulsion too!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrotreated_vegetable_oil

Totally with you. Lets say 90km trip A to B in this car will get one there say 3,6 seconds faster 0,1% improvement in performance for about 3-4x the pollution.

Hackers are gonna hack.

Lol car go zoom

It's really disappointing that the woke-scolding comment is now the top one.

Since the comment in question is merely a normative opinion on what we should do, here's mine: We should banish the fun police, and stop believing all the hyperbolic things that activists tell us. [1]

We are under no obligation to align every aspect of our life (like interest in fancy cars) with the puritan values of anyone.

[1]: Things like "we only have 18 months to save the planet" (https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48964736.amp).