"Cars and Independence" (Art by Sylvia Odhner)
"Cars and Independence" (Art by Sylvia Odhner)
cross-posted from: https://pawb.social/post/23351353
100 comments
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...i have slight beef with that.
- We made cars more complicated than they need to be due to electronic systems and all that. I don't say that we should simply go back, that's dumb. But I cannot help but wonder if a line of simple, less advanced ICE cars promoted on their ease of maintenance wouldn't get popular with, for example, rural folks. After all, being able to fix the beast yourself would lover your costs a lot.
- Walkable cities are great, I know cause I live in one. My city (or town?) has around 7 km length (at least the parts that matter). Distance an average person can go in ~70, maybe 80 minutes by foot. But if I wanted to hit the relatively nearby lake or beach, getting there by foot is another story. And yeah, bikes exists and make it easier but if I need to hit another city that is 60km from here...yeah.
- Author also forgot that these companies won't fail, because these are not "one and only" of each in the world. Each contry, hell, each county has multiple of them. It's highly unrealistic for them to all fail at the same time.
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But I cannot help but wonder if a line of simple, less advanced ICE cars promoted on their ease of maintenance wouldn’t get popular with, for example, rural folks. After all, being able to fix the beast yourself would lover your costs a lot
No car company will make a car which is maintainable by a common man because it affects their bottom line. We can dream of alternate concepts (open-source car design/metal 3D printing) but government regulations and lobbying will kill such concepts. We have to focus on the current scenario.
But if I wanted to hit the relatively nearby lake or beach, getting there by foot is another story
The majority of the anti-car people are not saying "destroy all cars. Nobody should have cars". We are just saying "please don't make our entire lives car-dependent. Please design cities/governments/social life in such a way so that it's accessible to non-car folks."
I also have a car, but I only use it for going to places which are not reachable by public transport. For traveling to work, I use public transport 5 days a week. Cars should be (IMO) a recreational mode of transport.
Author also forgot that these companies won’t fail, because these are not “one and only” of each in the world
I agree with you; they won't fail. However, they surely can make our lives hell if they want to. This is a power that I don't want them to have over me.
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- Are you saying the problem is cars are too expensive and too expensive to maintain because they are too complex?
Cheap cars are more dangerous. Simpler cars have higher emissions. I think the more complex ones are better. I would like to see legislation against the anti repair methods manufacturers use
- Cars let you take longer trips. One of the Australian capitals had a train to the beach towns. That right of way was taken by a highway and the railway now only runs a tourist route between the three or four beach towns but not to the city
With cars less needed other transit methods get built for popular trips
Failing all that, hire a car the few times of year you want an out of town holiday would be cheaper even than a very cheap car
- This one is completely correct. Last time I had a car problem I had a choice of tow companies and mechanics. Government services are monopolies but they're pretty proof against failure. The worst that might happen is you might buy a car that turns out to be less valuable than you expected because it's bad quality or the company owner turns out to be a nazi. But even that only costs you if you need to sell the vehicle.
I envy you for your walkable city. I don't think I did better by getting a thousand square metre block and a detached house. I'd like to see our cities made walkable and the outer suburbs connected by rail so no one needs a car. I'd like to see cars banned from the city centre except working vehicles, taxis, disabled people, tourists with a hotel in town. For long trips off the transit network one would take a train to a car hire depot out of the city and drive from there. Hopefully cars will be sufficiently smart that the fact the drivers will have little practices will be mitigated
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We didn't make cars more complicated because "of the electronics" or "because we had to".
Car companies make cars more complicated because they make huge amounts of money from warranties, maintenance that you can't do yourself for some reason, and of course the leases.
Cars being as complicated and impossible to work on as they are today is because line must go up. Everything else is propaganda.
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maintenance that you can’t do yourself for some reason
Also helps hide shoddy low quality parts.
The condensers on 2017-2021 Honda Civics are basically guaranteed to fail. There’s a warranty, but the only people who can open up the AC are the dealerships, who have been trained to find some speck of dust to justify denying the warranty.
It really fucking sucks - I’d love the option of being able to make some money on doordash, but the “reliable” Honda Civic I bought gets up to 100+ F with the air on full blast.
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That's...effectively what they said. The added electronics make it infeasible for normal people to maintain their own vehicles. They never speculated on why the electronics were added.
The way you came at them makes it seem like they're provided a scapegoat when they didn't.
Edit: I regret stepping into an arena against a pedant with an axe to grind.
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But "electronics" don't mean "impossible to repair yourself". And to be clear, I'm not expecting someone to become a shade tree mechanic. Remember, "right to repair" also includes the ability to go to a 3rd party repair service.
But requiring your mechanic to buy $15k+ in licensing per year, making specialized (and proprietary) fasteners, taking months to get replacement parts to the mechanic, or not honoring warranty because you went out of network are not things that are intrinsic with an electronic system.
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- Also implied that other methods of transportation are devoid of failure points.
Sure wish I lived in a walkable city though 😢
100 comments