Yes, but yes actually. It’s not how the question exists in the world, it’s not and it’s never “more car-centrism with EV or less car-centrism with FFV”. It’s usually two related but very separate questions and you need to fight for right answers for both.
I’d argue that at least where I live, the amount of electric vehicles that has appeared over the precious decade is very clearly a majority bikes, scoots and other personal transport, instead of a car.
But yes I know for this conversation you meant EV as in electric cars.
And while the rent-a-scoots are pretty obnoxious at times, they do support the public transport insanely well in a city like mine, which has good bike paths and good public transport, but sometimes you’ll find yourself a few kilometres from the best connection or smth and take a scoot. (Although less so now, public transport just improved drastically last month, city started so many new cross-city routes, fking awesome for me.)
And while the rent-a-scoots are pretty obnoxious at times
The only reason they’re “obnoxious” to you is the lack of bicycle infrastructure in your city. Well, that, and maybe your innate inability to cope with change. They cause almost zero problems if there is a good infra supporting it, which basically means ubiquitous bike lanes and bike parking.
The only reason they’re “obnoxious” to you is the lack of bicycle infrastructure in your city.
Sorry, but that’s a hard miss. I live in Turku, Finland, and even by Finnish standards our bicycle infra is honestly pretty amazing.
The reason their obnoxious has nothing to do with the scoots themselves, but the fact that you can’t really regulated users that well, or at least capitalist companies aren’t that motivated to regulate it too well, so you end up with teenagers riding 3 people to a scooter, while drunk. And “drunk” here is the way Finnish people get drunk.
Installing breathalysers wouldn’t be cost effective because they’re somewhat expensive and all the on-board gear breaks all the time.
They do have a reaction test at night, which I’ve found a good extra. Definitely couldn’t do it blitzed out of your mind but after a few, yeah, easy. Then they also limit speeds to 16km/h at night which is pretty annoying when you’re not actually drunk yourself and just want to get from one place to another.
But the worst things the kids do is is be extremely disrespectful while driving them and then — despite the purpose made parking places for them not 10 meters away — they crash their scoots like this at the front door of a supermarket:
I saw that. Politely told the gang of three who’d arrived on it that “that’s not the proper place for it”. They started whining like teenagers do, taking it as some threat to their masculinity. Started telling me they’re gonna beat me. Yeah, right pencilnecks in front of security cams, bring on the slaps and then your daddies money after the court case, although the damages in Finland are much more moderate to like American cases. Also I think I honestly could’ve taken them, but I don’t want a conviction for beating up teenagers.
(So I just took a photo reported in the app and they “warned him”)
I’m a third generation taxi driver who chooses not to have a car, who utilises all public transport, especially those scoots, buses and my own ebike and literally the most exciting thing that’s happened to me this year has been the opening of the new bus lines in my city. Our public transport was on some scale the best in Europe btw. I think it was the performance of the route guide,accuracy, and live bus locations on map you can check on your phone etc. Oh and not just once. Five times. Consecutive. https://www.foli.fi/en/news/föli-was-the-best-in-the-european-best-survey-for-the-fifth-time
I fucking love change man. Honestly starved for it.
What I don’t like is kids being obnoxious with the new tech to the point that the tech is in danger of getting a bad image because of that, specifically.
So then the obnoxious nature of some hormonal douches (not all teens are irresponsible assholes and some non-teens are definitely still assholes but you know, generalising here) will slow down change.
I’d argue that at least where I live, the amount of electric vehicles that has appeared over the precious decade is very clearly a majority bikes, scoots and other personal transport, instead of a car.
Me too, and I love it! Just the number of private e-scooters out this year has blown my mind! I’m not sure if it’s due to accessibility (they are <$1000) or if our rental e-scooter program showed people the value in micromobility, so they invested in a personal e-device.
And while the rent-a-scoots are pretty obnoxious at times, they do support the public transport insanely well in a city like mine
My city does not have great public transportation, however, the data from our first year of rental e-scooters has shown that people are using them for trips that would be “car first” at any given time. This is positive, and that’s with an enormous amount of push-back, lacklustre infrastructure, and the growing-pains that come from such a new and highly regulated form of transportation.
people are using them for trips that would be “car first” at any given time
When my personal EV has been broken or I’ve not come from home or something, I used to used them to go to some large shops relatively nearby, but now I have a direct bus connection, which is faster and more pleasant in the winter.
This is positive, and that’s with an enormous amount of push-back, lacklustre infrastructure, and the growing-pains that come from such a new and highly regulated form of transportation.
Very true. They’re definitely here to stay. I’m just waiting on the day that they’ll progress to cars, with hopefully reasonable pricing. (Fucking capitalism ruining everything in the long run.) Some small electric cars, I’d just like to be able to lug a bit of stuff and perhaps have protection from the weather. Be able to drive to places a bit further away that buses don’t go to.
Although they would need breathalyser locks I think, but that’s not a massive added cost compared to the car.
I wish that happened. It’s very difficult to convince an EV owner to take a train or bus, even if they are electric.
The more convenient we make driving in cars, and the better drivers “feel” about driving an EV, the more difficult it is to move away from car dependency.
Here’s a survey from CAA (Insurance company in Canada, like AAA in the States):
Drivers were more likely to drive more in a battery-powered EV than even a Hybrid.
And this part kills me: “The majority of trips for both BEV and PHEV drivers are relatively short, typically staying within 10 kilometers of home. This pattern reflects the convenience of electric driving for routine commutes and local errands.”
UCDavis Institute of Transportation Studies also found that EVs are driven more than gas cars (SOURCE).
The majority of trips for both BEV and PHEV drivers are relatively short, typically staying within 10 kilometers of home.
As a side note, I’m especially annoyed that every BEV “needs” a 300 mile range when 50 miles would be more than enough for the average American (assuming they can charge at home). Those additional batteries make the vehicles larger, heavier, and more expensive, and the batteries could be better used elsewhere.
But still, electric cars were a gateway to electric bikes and scooters.
The 300-mile-range req is just ridiculous. However it’s easier to pad the margin on a 60K vehicle by adding this or that for another 5-10K. It’s harder to do that on cheap vehicles and they can’t sell a 100-mile-range EV for a lot of money. Am working in automotive and emphasizing big expensive models is key for creating shareholder value.
10 km is pretty far. Walking 1km isn’t bad, but 3 is a decent chunk of time and energy. 10 is a pain in the ass by bus and a relatively quick trip by light rail assuming you didn’t have to walk that far to the station.
Like, I’m not contesting that a lot of drivers should walk for errands more, or that evs encourage car focusing, but that metric fails to account for the fact that few people will walk 2 hours one way for an errand.
In that context, it’s going to be easier/faster to bike or take an e-scooter to your destination.
If it’s under 2km, then walking really shouldn’t be a problem.
And if public transportation is available for medium distance trips, that should be first (as it is in cities/countries that are not built around car-dependency).
but that metric fails to account for the fact that few people will walk 2 hours one way for an errand.
Look at the bigger picture. We should be walking a minimum 10,000 steps a day (something like 8,000 to 12,000, realistically). That’s 8km a day as a bare minimum for minimum basic health.
Driving costs more time, because you now have to allocate time to drive + time to get those steps in. Why not walk that 2km errand instead?
At those short distances, we aren’t talking about massive differences in time to destination. And I think anyone can use the mental health benefits of movement, too.
Not sure if you’re aware but we’ve had electric buses and trains for well over half a century. We don’t need them to carry long range batteries. We have them in Europe and even in some places in North America. Batteries haven’t been needed for electrifying public transit for a very long time. In fact some of the first public transit was electric. Some places just choose the cheapest upfront option instead of spending a bit more on infrastructure in order to realize environmental and efficiency benefits.
As for planes, yes probably. Although I’m not sure whether there’s a viable route to electric planes that goes through batteries or whether that use case would necessitate synthetic fuel.
Yes, but not if it promotes destructive behaviours such as increased car dependency.
EVs are like low-calorie sweeteners: they do nothing to stop obesity, and actually encourage more eating (and more obesity).
Yes, but yes actually. It’s not how the question exists in the world, it’s not and it’s never “more car-centrism with EV or less car-centrism with FFV”. It’s usually two related but very separate questions and you need to fight for right answers for both.
Also, not how that works.
I’d argue that at least where I live, the amount of electric vehicles that has appeared over the precious decade is very clearly a majority bikes, scoots and other personal transport, instead of a car.
But yes I know for this conversation you meant EV as in electric cars.
And while the rent-a-scoots are pretty obnoxious at times, they do support the public transport insanely well in a city like mine, which has good bike paths and good public transport, but sometimes you’ll find yourself a few kilometres from the best connection or smth and take a scoot. (Although less so now, public transport just improved drastically last month, city started so many new cross-city routes, fking awesome for me.)
The only reason they’re “obnoxious” to you is the lack of bicycle infrastructure in your city. Well, that, and maybe your innate inability to cope with change. They cause almost zero problems if there is a good infra supporting it, which basically means ubiquitous bike lanes and bike parking.
Sorry, but that’s a hard miss. I live in Turku, Finland, and even by Finnish standards our bicycle infra is honestly pretty amazing.
The reason their obnoxious has nothing to do with the scoots themselves, but the fact that you can’t really regulated users that well, or at least capitalist companies aren’t that motivated to regulate it too well, so you end up with teenagers riding 3 people to a scooter, while drunk. And “drunk” here is the way Finnish people get drunk.
Installing breathalysers wouldn’t be cost effective because they’re somewhat expensive and all the on-board gear breaks all the time.
They do have a reaction test at night, which I’ve found a good extra. Definitely couldn’t do it blitzed out of your mind but after a few, yeah, easy. Then they also limit speeds to 16km/h at night which is pretty annoying when you’re not actually drunk yourself and just want to get from one place to another.
But the worst things the kids do is is be extremely disrespectful while driving them and then — despite the purpose made parking places for them not 10 meters away — they crash their scoots like this at the front door of a supermarket:
I saw that. Politely told the gang of three who’d arrived on it that “that’s not the proper place for it”. They started whining like teenagers do, taking it as some threat to their masculinity. Started telling me they’re gonna beat me. Yeah, right pencilnecks in front of security cams, bring on the slaps and then your daddies money after the court case, although the damages in Finland are much more moderate to like American cases. Also I think I honestly could’ve taken them, but I don’t want a conviction for beating up teenagers.
(So I just took a photo reported in the app and they “warned him”)
I’m a third generation taxi driver who chooses not to have a car, who utilises all public transport, especially those scoots, buses and my own ebike and literally the most exciting thing that’s happened to me this year has been the opening of the new bus lines in my city. Our public transport was on some scale the best in Europe btw. I think it was the performance of the route guide,accuracy, and live bus locations on map you can check on your phone etc. Oh and not just once. Five times. Consecutive. https://www.foli.fi/en/news/föli-was-the-best-in-the-european-best-survey-for-the-fifth-time
I fucking love change man. Honestly starved for it.
What I don’t like is kids being obnoxious with the new tech to the point that the tech is in danger of getting a bad image because of that, specifically.
So then the obnoxious nature of some hormonal douches (not all teens are irresponsible assholes and some non-teens are definitely still assholes but you know, generalising here) will slow down change.
Which I wouldn’t like.
Me too, and I love it! Just the number of private e-scooters out this year has blown my mind! I’m not sure if it’s due to accessibility (they are <$1000) or if our rental e-scooter program showed people the value in micromobility, so they invested in a personal e-device.
My city does not have great public transportation, however, the data from our first year of rental e-scooters has shown that people are using them for trips that would be “car first” at any given time. This is positive, and that’s with an enormous amount of push-back, lacklustre infrastructure, and the growing-pains that come from such a new and highly regulated form of transportation.
When my personal EV has been broken or I’ve not come from home or something, I used to used them to go to some large shops relatively nearby, but now I have a direct bus connection, which is faster and more pleasant in the winter.
Very true. They’re definitely here to stay. I’m just waiting on the day that they’ll progress to cars, with hopefully reasonable pricing. (Fucking capitalism ruining everything in the long run.) Some small electric cars, I’d just like to be able to lug a bit of stuff and perhaps have protection from the weather. Be able to drive to places a bit further away that buses don’t go to.
Although they would need breathalyser locks I think, but that’s not a massive added cost compared to the car.
You want electric buses? You want battery electric trains? Electric airplanes?
Cars are your path to research and development for these modes of transportation.
I wish that happened. It’s very difficult to convince an EV owner to take a train or bus, even if they are electric.
The more convenient we make driving in cars, and the better drivers “feel” about driving an EV, the more difficult it is to move away from car dependency.
Here’s a survey from CAA (Insurance company in Canada, like AAA in the States):
Drivers were more likely to drive more in a battery-powered EV than even a Hybrid.
And this part kills me: “The majority of trips for both BEV and PHEV drivers are relatively short, typically staying within 10 kilometers of home. This pattern reflects the convenience of electric driving for routine commutes and local errands.”
UCDavis Institute of Transportation Studies also found that EVs are driven more than gas cars (SOURCE).
As a side note, I’m especially annoyed that every BEV “needs” a 300 mile range when 50 miles would be more than enough for the average American (assuming they can charge at home). Those additional batteries make the vehicles larger, heavier, and more expensive, and the batteries could be better used elsewhere.
But still, electric cars were a gateway to electric bikes and scooters.
The 300-mile-range req is just ridiculous. However it’s easier to pad the margin on a 60K vehicle by adding this or that for another 5-10K. It’s harder to do that on cheap vehicles and they can’t sell a 100-mile-range EV for a lot of money. Am working in automotive and emphasizing big expensive models is key for creating shareholder value.
10 km is pretty far. Walking 1km isn’t bad, but 3 is a decent chunk of time and energy. 10 is a pain in the ass by bus and a relatively quick trip by light rail assuming you didn’t have to walk that far to the station.
Like, I’m not contesting that a lot of drivers should walk for errands more, or that evs encourage car focusing, but that metric fails to account for the fact that few people will walk 2 hours one way for an errand.
That’s “up to 10km”, not that every trip is 10km.
In that context, it’s going to be easier/faster to bike or take an e-scooter to your destination.
If it’s under 2km, then walking really shouldn’t be a problem.
And if public transportation is available for medium distance trips, that should be first (as it is in cities/countries that are not built around car-dependency).
Look at the bigger picture. We should be walking a minimum 10,000 steps a day (something like 8,000 to 12,000, realistically). That’s 8km a day as a bare minimum for minimum basic health.
Driving costs more time, because you now have to allocate time to drive + time to get those steps in. Why not walk that 2km errand instead?
At those short distances, we aren’t talking about massive differences in time to destination. And I think anyone can use the mental health benefits of movement, too.
Not sure if you’re aware but we’ve had electric buses and trains for well over half a century. We don’t need them to carry long range batteries. We have them in Europe and even in some places in North America. Batteries haven’t been needed for electrifying public transit for a very long time. In fact some of the first public transit was electric. Some places just choose the cheapest upfront option instead of spending a bit more on infrastructure in order to realize environmental and efficiency benefits.
As for planes, yes probably. Although I’m not sure whether there’s a viable route to electric planes that goes through batteries or whether that use case would necessitate synthetic fuel.