That would be the case if the bulk of the cost was being used to address negative externalities that are currently absorbed by the commons. As things stand, high prices are just high profits. Taxes are the same or lower.
> "There are very few tools the US administration has because the biggest drivers for gasoline prices are driven by global fundamentals," Matt Smith, lead oil analyst at Kpler said. "You can make decisions on domestic supply, but if it doesn't have an impact on the global picture, it won't have an impact at the pump."
One of the most overlooked tools... reducing dependence on oil. If supply won't budge, we should attempt to reduce our demand. It's odd that with all the issues plaguing the US because of higher oil prices, many governments (local, state and federal) refuse to acknowledge that our built environment has made us entirely dependent on oil for the foreseeable future.
> It's odd that with all the issues plaguing the US because of higher oil prices, many governments (local, state and federal) refuse to acknowledge that our built environment has made us entirely dependent on oil for the foreseeable future.
A ban like that would do nothing useful anyway. Public transport might make more space on the road, but it does not save energy.
Numbers: "Public transportation use saves the U.S. the equivalent of 4.2 billion gallons of gasoline annually"[1] "In 2021, about 134.83 billion gallons (or about 3.21 billion barrels)1 of finished motor gasoline were consumed in the United State"[2].
I’d argue 3% savings is better than nothing, and you have to keep in mind that that 3% figure is in the US we have right now where very few people use transit. If ridership grew, that number would as well.
Regardless, a move like that is as much about demonstrating that alternatives are possible as it is about direct savings. The Netherlands started building excellent bike infrastructure around that time, and they’re now in a better position than we are to get by with less oil use.
> I’d argue 3% savings is better than nothing, and you have to keep in mind that that 3% figure is in the US we have right now where very few people use transit.
I agree. In general, I'm finding that people underestimate the importance of small improvements here. I remember people saying that Russia provides 10% of the world's oil as if that were a small amount.
No, its actually a pretty critical amount in terms of price volatility. But the good news it that all it takes is a few 2-3% improvements across the board to effectively negate it. It "only" requires our willingness to take those steps.
Public transit is single digit percentage of mode share, so the fact that it has that big of an impact actually implies that the energy savings are substantial.
> During the 1973 oil crisis, the Netherlands banned private car usage on Sundays to curb oil usage…It seems there’s little appetite here for anything like that
You might be surprised. I remember that California had car-free days (on Sundays, I believe) in the Bay Area in the 1970s. Perhaps someone who remembers the details can chime in. I think it had more to do with bicyclists than with oil.
Around that same, the US implemented the National Maximum Speed Law [0], more commonly known at the "55mph speed limit" for the same reason.
It is widely regarded as one of the least popular pieces of legislation ever enacted by Congress, so hated that it even became the subject of a hard rock song [1]. It was widely ignored by motorists and police alike, with non-compliance rates as high as 85%. Some states made violations of the law basically meaningless, with the "fine" being a few dollars and no points or any other ramifications. It's also why cars over a certain age will have a big circle around the 55 on the speedometer.
What's crazy is that this wildly unpopular law soldiered on, in watered down form, until 1995, at which point speed limits fully reverted to state control. And, in retrospect, because of the widespread non-compliance it is believed that it did relatively little to impact overall fuel usage.
Interestingly, in Montana, there were some places that, prior to the 55 speed limit, had no speed limit. They were signed as "Reasonable and Prudent", and when the 55 speed limit was repealed, the "Reasonable and Prudent" signs went back up [2]. I have a picture of myself in front of one around that time because I was working as a park ranger in Yellowstone. This changed in 1999, and Montana now has a maximum speed.
Montana always had a "maximum speed", they just didn't put a number on it for periods of time. But if you thought 110mph down US 2 was reasonable and prudent (and there are plenty of sections where an argument could be made...), a MT trooper might set you straight.
That makes sense. I remember hearing a story while I was out there of a race car driver that got ticketed doing like 130mph. His argument was that, for him, that was a reasonable and prudent speed. The State Trooper disagreed. :P
The story I heard was that at least in one case the driver was told that "reasonable and prudent" was not what you thought it was, but what Mom and Pop at the ice cream shop thought it was, because they're the ones that would sit on your jury should it ultimately go that far. :-)
It helps if you can practically enforce the restriction. Easy enough to tell if someone's driving a private car when the streets are otherwise mostly empty; hard to monitor everyone's speed and reliably pull people over if they go past the limit.
> entirely dependent on oil for the foreseeable future.
We are dependent on energy. That's never going away.
Electricity prices are going up just like gas, (although without the daily price changes).
> reducing dependence on oil
Maybe you can drive less, but you'll still need lots of energy. In the net it won't make much difference.
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ - this is a graph showing what happens if you don't have enough energy. After 1971 everyone worked to conserve energy, and the result was poorer employment and greater inequity.
To make this world a better place we need to increase supply, not reduce demand. Ideally clean supply.....
> Electricity prices are going up just like gas, (although without the daily price changes).
Of course, but the increased stability comes from increased versatility. Building everything on gas is like building a food system exclusively on beef. Its bound to lead to fragility.
Having natural gas, coal, nuclear, and a plethora of renewals (in roughly that order, IIRC correctly) is great for stability.
> To make this world a better place we need to increase supply, not reduce demand. Ideally clean supply.....
Ok, maybe we actually are agreeing here. That's the best answer in the long run.
Raise fuel tax. If one canceled a fuel tax equal to a cost increase the demand stays the same and the whole point is that demand is higher than supply so the increase comes anyway, but oil producers get to keep the money.
Yes many do, but still it's completely wrong. Lower taxes never get fully passed through to the customer.
"The markets" make sure that parts of the money remains as higher prices.
The high prices have made Russian oil income grow, not shrink since 24-Feb. (That's not the fault of any tax reductions, but tax reductions will increase consumption which will certainly not help the problem.)
Supply will butch perfectly, as long as the administration is willing to cut off all military assistance to the Saudis if the oil price is above, say, 70 dollar a barrow that month.
The US is not an island, we produce a lot domestically. I have to look at oil industry equipment daily. At the beach I get tar on my feet from oil spills (some if from natural seeps but not in all places). And I pay some of the highest gas prices in the US.
You know how you guys have universal health care and all that? Thats part of it right there. If the US raised taxes to that level and didn't increase the life services being delivered, it'd be a travesty
Informative, but the conclusion is a bit out there. Restricting supply to increase demand will only go so far. What happens when the prices are so high no one will buy? What happens when demand plummets because only EVs are sold? At some point, ICE gets pushed out of the consumer market. When consumers no longer need gas, gas prices will indeed plummet.
I think you are being overly pedantic about the use of the word forever. The oil industry isn't restricting supply, only by a twisted interpretation could that be true. They aren't expanding supply to keep prices constant.
> What happens when the prices are so high no one will buy?
> "There are very few tools the US administration has because the biggest drivers for gasoline prices are driven by global fundamentals"
More "disinformation" being peddled to excuse this administration of the high prices they've caused. If anything, Putin has probably increased production and been forced to give discounts to entice countries like India to go against the US sanctions, so blaming the Russian conflict is ridiculous.
There is probably no other good or service in the world more sensitive to global politics than petroleum. The whole "gas lines and stagflation from the 70's" that we're reminded of were absolutely due to our political support of Israel and against most of the Arab block - very little was based on supply and demand.
Likewise, other mass price increases were almost entirely due to either military conflicts or currency issues caused by central banks.
If this administration just came out and said, "Listen - we think fossil fuels are a losing bet. We're gonna make it as painful as possible for our citizens to continue to use them. Lube up, but it's for our own good." then I'd at least respect them, even if I don't agree with the policies.
But I'm not even sure that's what's happening. What I think is that it's just massive mismangement, an uncoordinated and ad-hoc set of policies being pushed by dozens of different actors, causing price increases. And the administration is just flailing around throwing out false narratives and talking points that their hacks in the media regurgitate to the public.
I'm afraid there is no competent technocratic "elite" easing us into a sustainable future where we're all driving Teslas with a nuke-powered charging grid as ubiquitous as gas stations are today. Instead, we're gonna end up with rolling brown-outs, $1500 domestic airline tickets, severely reduced mobility, etc. It's a disaster, IMO.
This isn't disinformation, and contrary to your comment, the Biden administration actually HAS come out to say that fossil fuels are a losing bet. That's why Biden made it such a huge priority in his platform to build sustainable, renewable energy capacity. And the public voted for it.
And then Republicans blocked it completely. So I think you need to get your basic facts straight.
BTW, Israel has nothing—absolutely nothing—to do with this. Not sure where you got that crazy idea, but it's time to move on from it.
> BTW, Israel has nothing—absolutely nothing—to do with this. Not sure where you got that crazy idea, but it's time to move on from it.
I mentioned Israel because our support of them during various Arab-Israeli conflicts in the 1970s was what led to price hikes, lines at gas stations, etc. This is in direct contradiction to the typical talking point that is currently being trotted out by those wishing to deflect blame on the administration for current price issues, asserting that it's all about "supply and demand."
Which is clearly false - like I mentioned, oil prices are absolutely influenced by international politics, and in fact, it'd be hard to find a product less influenced by politics than crude oil.
>Rather, supply, demand, and sentiment toward oil futures contracts, *which are traded heavily by speculators,* play a dominant role in price determination.
We need cheaper EVs. Nissan Leafs have a 5-month waiting list right now.
We should temporarily abandon car safety requirements, to reduce weight and complexity and get EVs to people earlier.
EVs due to their expense are being purchased mainly by the laptop-class, who work from home now. The production capacity would be better dedicated to the working-class who use their vehicles for transport daily.
And eventually when capacity meets demand, and demand falls (there isn't an infinite demand for cars like there is for something like food)...you have a bunch of useless factories that probably haven't earned back their investment yet.
As true as that is, it takes ~2 years to get a battery plant from shovels in the ground to decent volumes. It won't take long, but 2025 is probably the first year to see anywhere close to demand satiation for EVs, and even then it may only be in some segments.
You need decent public transport and bikable settlement structures. EVs are only gradually more sustainable than traditinal cars and still lead to uninhabitable cities.
Public transport isn't the panacea that everyone always makes it out to be. It makes sense when you have heavily trafficked metro areas, but when you get outside of those (like most of the USA is) it's more efficient to use cars rather than empty buses and trains.
As for bikability, I can agree with that, but again when you have the vast suburban sprawl that the USA has it's not safe to bike and even if it was everything is so spread out in places that biking isn't a good option.
It doesn't work with >80% owning a car and using it. There is just too much traffic, biking gets difficult and public transport runs half-empty (if even existing)
It would very well work in most places with <20% own a car and using it. And in some rare case renting one.
Gyms would go bankrupt because nobody needed to go there anymore because they bike every day. But that would be an acceptable downside IMHO.
(I know what I am talking off. I work from home, but I bike to some shop, not even the closest one, every day to get my motion.)
How to get there I don't know. Europeans are not willing to do it. And Americans are decades behind with the development going into the completely wrong direction.
> when you have the vast suburban sprawl that the USA has it's not safe to bike
Sprawl does not make it unsafe to bike; it's a lack of safe cycling infrastructure that does that. It would take a small fraction of the space given to cars to make it perfectly safe to bike. Now as you also mention, sprawl may make it impractical to bike.
That said... the distances between things in suburbia are often artificially inflated as well. This 21-minute walk to a grocery store near where I used to live could be cut down to maybe two minutes if you were to take down the fence blocking it off:
That's not a mass transit problem. People are not safe in schools and many other places either. It's a problem of society, too big wealth differences and poor education for those who can't pay enough.
Rating each other is highly discriminatory: I have an Asian friend and she complains that she never gets decent places on Airbnb.
We'd need to abandon a hell of a lot before you start making a difference in safety that's big enough you don't need to torture it out of the the data.
Stuff like backup cameras weren't even brought into existence for many of the types of vehicles they find themselves in.
How many people are really sitting in the back seats of these subcompact cars and how many people is the back half of the side curtain airbag really gonna save?
At $7.25 a gallon over the lifetime of the vehicle, you're going to pay more than the sticker price of the car in fuel for a good majority of vehicles.
Unless you have incredibly expensive electricity in your city, you're probably looking at over $30,000 in savings over the life of the vehicle. Subtract $30K from the price of an EV and those prices look pretty good...
I worry about the idea of abandoning safety requirements for these smaller cars when in the US purchases/usage of overweight,tank-y SUVs and huge trucks on the rise. Or am I mistaking the kind of safety requirements you mean?
OPEC especially the Saudi could increase output and put an end to this stupidity. Instead they are trying to milk the world as much as possible. They’re not only going to cause the next recession but accelerate EV adoption. I don’t think they’re too smart which is not surprising considering that they’ve done absolutely nothing with all the money they’ve made from oil.
Edit: Note this is the same group of people who refused to LOWER production at the height of pandemic panic in hopes of killing the US energy sector.
Sure, and I'm sure that adds a few cents to the price of those goods. Doesn't negate that it's a good time to not have to pay for gas for personal transportation.
I left the US for Spain in February and sold my car before the move. Really lucked out between used car market being bonkers (sold pretty much at break even, including dealers fees with 2 years of ownership) and gas prices doubling.
Now with a young kid it seems I'm likely going to need to get a car again in the near-ish future, and not looking forward to when that hits the wallet :(
Here in Singapore, prices are about the same as Europe. I just replaced my old car with an EV and now my price per km is 1/5 of what I paid before, and that was before the most recent price petrol price hikes.
It should be noted that Biden and Democrats generally are getting blamed for this, but the House passed a measure today to address price-gouging by oil companies, and every single Republican voted against it.
Meanwhile, the oil companies are making substantially higher profits during this crisis.
Hard for the political system to address issues like this if we as a society are completely getting it wrong about who is exacerbating the problem, versus who is trying to solve it.
I agree that blame is misplaced on the executive branch, but simply saying "oil companies are price gouging" is too simplistic for me to take seriously. EU has placed major sanctions on Russia, which historically has been the largest oil import source. Supply has gone and will go down tremendously. To suggest oil companies are artificially colluding to price gouge together would take more than "just look at their profits". I'm definitely open to seeing more serious investigation.
Odds are Republicans will control all branches in a couple of years and for once will inherit a crisis for a change. Interesting to see how they legislate out of it.
When I drove from Denver to Detroit for Thanksgiving last fall gas prices weren't this bad and the cost savings of driving our Y were signifcant then.
In case anyone is wondering I paid ~$230.00 in charging charges going to Detroit and ~$245.00 driving back to Denver.
Sure we had to stop ever 2 hours or so for around 25-30 minutes but for us, in our situation, that worked out perfectly traveling with a 11 month old baby.
Yeah, those numbers seem off. My Y gets at least 250 miles/charge and using expensive superchargers in California would put it around $30/charge. I'd expect worst case to be about $150 each way. Superchargers around here are time of use based and could be half of that cost, plus I'd start from my home charger so it only goes down in price from there. Also, if you're stopping every 2 hours that wouldn't take long to charge up. It's not fun traveling long distance with infants no matter what kind of car you have though.
Cost aside, how would charging on a roadtrip work when everyone has an EV? Sure in cities you can install chargers everywhere, but on highways you would need, what, charging stations with 100 charge spots? One highway gas station has hundreds if not thousands of cars per day, how would that work if each car has to take the spot for half an hour?
I don’t think people selling EVs really care about this, government is too slow to react as usual, and huge bottleneck with charging infrastructure is bound to happen.
A highway rest stop may easily have 100 parking spots, and since most highways run through sparsely areas at many you could probably find space to increase that 10x if you wanted.
That said, if you are looking for a modern and efficient (but high upfront cost) alternative to 1-10 hour car trips between major cities, high speed rail may be a good choice
I wouldn’t say “easily”. Charging stations are much more expensive than gas stations, and they would require a lot more land and concrete to build on. All while electricity is considerably less profitable than gas.
There is also electricity consumption. By my calculation, an EV consumes similar amount of energy as an average household per month. That would require huge increase in power consumption, bringing the cost down. On the other side, we have those huge costs for charging stations, both in tech and parking space , while profit is questionable due to falling power prices.
I mean, humans will find a way, but it will be a very bumpy road unless battery tech improves by a lot.
The land and concrete already exist in exactly the right places [1]! Sure, you might have to run more power line capacity and install the chargers themselves, but this isn't some insurmountable problem. The average power line running down your street can supply dozens or hundreds of homes. This whole setup probably isn't even logistically that hard.
I purchased a vespa-type gasoline moped almost a year ago, and it's been an incredible tool.
It outperforms cars on every dimension.
Here's some "bare" facts, which present only a fraction of the benefits:
- ~90mpg, has a 1.4 gallon tank
- surprising amount of storage capacity (seat storage, and a hook where your fit sit)
- inexpensive - a brand new, nice scooter cost me $3800, + a nice helmet and gloves
- with proper clothing, and be worn in a quite wide range of weather/temp combinations
- less safe than riding around in an airbag-equipped heavy steel box, but not as unsafe as I was afraid it would feel
I can park it anywhere. _anywhere_. I always do trips door-to-door now. I don't pay for parking in cities anymore. I can ride to the front of a column of stopped cars (at a light or stop sign)
It's the perfect vehicle.
It got stolen 3 days ago (sigh. I forgot to lock the steering wheel column, someone rolled it away from where it was parked, probably into a pickup truck).
I bought a new one the next day. I was out a few thousand dollars and a few hours of inconvenience, but it was no biggie.
No car driver can empathize with:
- these low costs of operation
- high amount of convenience
- trivial replacement cost/inconvenience
Go visit a local scooter dealer, and do some test rides!
(I live in Denver, bought both scooters from Sportique on South Broadway. They're great, and do same-day maintenance for oil changes and such.)
I had a 125cc Genuine Buddy Kick, I replaced it with a 200cc Lance Cabo.
Lots of my friends are getting closer and closer to buying their own mopeds. Some already have. #ScooterGang
Eh. While there's certainly a lot of "SMIDSY" crashes, at least some crashes and deaths are due to dangerous riding and lack of gear. It'd be interesting to see how the risk is spread; my guess is that if you're over 25, the risk drops precipitously, for example.
I've known numerous motorcyclists throughout my life and very few of them have had a crash. They're all middle age or older, well educated, and not thrill-seeker types.
> I've known numerous motorcyclists throughout my life and very few of them have had a crash.
This surprises me. I know a decent number and more than half of them have had a crash, all have close calls. Mostly avoiding another vehicle or laying down because of gravel or oil on the road surface.
Good for fuel and CO2 output per mile, manufacturing impact, and so on. Not so great for atmospheric pollution, where even modern "emissions equipped" 4 cycle scooters and motorcycles pollute far more than a modern passenger SUV.
This one major downside would be easily fixed by going EV. And scooters are far more practical for having an EV in an urban area; you can actually charge them off a 110V outlet in a practical amount of time, for example.
The shame is that in the US, "Vespa" style electric scooters are very difficult to come by. Some major players are in the market, but nobody seems willing to import and sell in the US on any sort of grand scale.
We need someone like Honda to sell an EV scooter.
FYI a steering lock won't stop a scooter from being stolen. You need to basically secure it with an enormous chain to something completely stationary. Even with a steering lock and disc brake lock, it'll just get tossed into a minivan (the most popular choice for thefts because they're enclosed and have tinted windows.)
Around 1963 I offered a ride on my new Lambretta scooter to a good looking girl. She looked at it and saw the manufacture's name, Innocenti. Without hesitation she said, "that's Italian". "Inno" means no and "centi" means sense. Anyone who would ride on that thing doesn't have any sense.
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[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 157 ms ] threadOne of the most overlooked tools... reducing dependence on oil. If supply won't budge, we should attempt to reduce our demand. It's odd that with all the issues plaguing the US because of higher oil prices, many governments (local, state and federal) refuse to acknowledge that our built environment has made us entirely dependent on oil for the foreseeable future.
That’s right. During the 1973 oil crisis, the Netherlands banned private car usage on Sundays to curb oil usage: https://www.theguardian.com/world/from-the-archive-blog/2020...
It seems there’s little appetite here for anything like that, even in places that already have excellent public transport by national standards.
Numbers: "Public transportation use saves the U.S. the equivalent of 4.2 billion gallons of gasoline annually"[1] "In 2021, about 134.83 billion gallons (or about 3.21 billion barrels)1 of finished motor gasoline were consumed in the United State"[2].
4.2/134.83 = 3%.
[1]https://www.kcata.org/about_kcata/entries/environmental_bene...
[2]https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=23&t=10
Regardless, a move like that is as much about demonstrating that alternatives are possible as it is about direct savings. The Netherlands started building excellent bike infrastructure around that time, and they’re now in a better position than we are to get by with less oil use.
I agree. In general, I'm finding that people underestimate the importance of small improvements here. I remember people saying that Russia provides 10% of the world's oil as if that were a small amount.
No, its actually a pretty critical amount in terms of price volatility. But the good news it that all it takes is a few 2-3% improvements across the board to effectively negate it. It "only" requires our willingness to take those steps.
You might be surprised. I remember that California had car-free days (on Sundays, I believe) in the Bay Area in the 1970s. Perhaps someone who remembers the details can chime in. I think it had more to do with bicyclists than with oil.
It is widely regarded as one of the least popular pieces of legislation ever enacted by Congress, so hated that it even became the subject of a hard rock song [1]. It was widely ignored by motorists and police alike, with non-compliance rates as high as 85%. Some states made violations of the law basically meaningless, with the "fine" being a few dollars and no points or any other ramifications. It's also why cars over a certain age will have a big circle around the 55 on the speedometer.
What's crazy is that this wildly unpopular law soldiered on, in watered down form, until 1995, at which point speed limits fully reverted to state control. And, in retrospect, because of the widespread non-compliance it is believed that it did relatively little to impact overall fuel usage.
Interestingly, in Montana, there were some places that, prior to the 55 speed limit, had no speed limit. They were signed as "Reasonable and Prudent", and when the 55 speed limit was repealed, the "Reasonable and Prudent" signs went back up [2]. I have a picture of myself in front of one around that time because I was working as a park ranger in Yellowstone. This changed in 1999, and Montana now has a maximum speed.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvV3nn_de2k
[2] https://images.roadtrafficsigns.com/img/art/Montana-speed-li...
We are dependent on energy. That's never going away.
Electricity prices are going up just like gas, (although without the daily price changes).
> reducing dependence on oil
Maybe you can drive less, but you'll still need lots of energy. In the net it won't make much difference.
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ - this is a graph showing what happens if you don't have enough energy. After 1971 everyone worked to conserve energy, and the result was poorer employment and greater inequity.
To make this world a better place we need to increase supply, not reduce demand. Ideally clean supply.....
Of course, but the increased stability comes from increased versatility. Building everything on gas is like building a food system exclusively on beef. Its bound to lead to fragility.
Having natural gas, coal, nuclear, and a plethora of renewals (in roughly that order, IIRC correctly) is great for stability.
> To make this world a better place we need to increase supply, not reduce demand. Ideally clean supply.....
Ok, maybe we actually are agreeing here. That's the best answer in the long run.
Is this calculation based on the law of averages?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-24/germany-t...
"The markets" make sure that parts of the money remains as higher prices.
The high prices have made Russian oil income grow, not shrink since 24-Feb. (That's not the fault of any tax reductions, but tax reductions will increase consumption which will certainly not help the problem.)
Last week when I stuck some diesel in the van, here in UK, it was:
£1,81/litre = £6,85/[US]Gallon = $10,87/[US] Gallon
You don't know you're born!
1.32 USD ~ 1.05 GBP
Still, your point is clear.
4.622 $ per gallon (New Hampshire) / 4.546092 liter per gallon = 1.0167 $ / l
Converting to Canadian dollars, that's 1.29 $ CAD / liter.
My colleagues told me this morning they pay 2.123$ / liter. New Hampshire is literally a 30 minute drive. What's their excuse?
1 US gal = 3.785 liters.
This makes US price around $1.55 CAD / litre. Compared to the lowest price of around $2.00 CAD/litre in MTL
It's around 2.50 €/l here in Finland (2.30 - 2.70 depending on part of the country and quality). So that makes £2.12 / l or $10 / gal (both US).
How could they mess up their supply chain so badly?
[0] https://gasprices.aaa.com/?state=MI
Why Gas Got So Expensive (It’s Not the War) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQbmpecxS2w
> What happens when the prices are so high no one will buy?
Then the market has decided that oil is over.
More "disinformation" being peddled to excuse this administration of the high prices they've caused. If anything, Putin has probably increased production and been forced to give discounts to entice countries like India to go against the US sanctions, so blaming the Russian conflict is ridiculous.
There is probably no other good or service in the world more sensitive to global politics than petroleum. The whole "gas lines and stagflation from the 70's" that we're reminded of were absolutely due to our political support of Israel and against most of the Arab block - very little was based on supply and demand.
Likewise, other mass price increases were almost entirely due to either military conflicts or currency issues caused by central banks.
If this administration just came out and said, "Listen - we think fossil fuels are a losing bet. We're gonna make it as painful as possible for our citizens to continue to use them. Lube up, but it's for our own good." then I'd at least respect them, even if I don't agree with the policies.
But I'm not even sure that's what's happening. What I think is that it's just massive mismangement, an uncoordinated and ad-hoc set of policies being pushed by dozens of different actors, causing price increases. And the administration is just flailing around throwing out false narratives and talking points that their hacks in the media regurgitate to the public.
I'm afraid there is no competent technocratic "elite" easing us into a sustainable future where we're all driving Teslas with a nuke-powered charging grid as ubiquitous as gas stations are today. Instead, we're gonna end up with rolling brown-outs, $1500 domestic airline tickets, severely reduced mobility, etc. It's a disaster, IMO.
And then Republicans blocked it completely. So I think you need to get your basic facts straight.
BTW, Israel has nothing—absolutely nothing—to do with this. Not sure where you got that crazy idea, but it's time to move on from it.
I mentioned Israel because our support of them during various Arab-Israeli conflicts in the 1970s was what led to price hikes, lines at gas stations, etc. This is in direct contradiction to the typical talking point that is currently being trotted out by those wishing to deflect blame on the administration for current price issues, asserting that it's all about "supply and demand."
Which is clearly false - like I mentioned, oil prices are absolutely influenced by international politics, and in fact, it'd be hard to find a product less influenced by politics than crude oil.
>Rather, supply, demand, and sentiment toward oil futures contracts, *which are traded heavily by speculators,* play a dominant role in price determination.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/determini...
ref: https://www.grid.news/story/economy/2022/05/28/the-real-reas...
ref: https://qz.com/2092389/the-simple-explanation-for-rising-us-...
We should temporarily abandon car safety requirements, to reduce weight and complexity and get EVs to people earlier.
EVs due to their expense are being purchased mainly by the laptop-class, who work from home now. The production capacity would be better dedicated to the working-class who use their vehicles for transport daily.
You can't magically create more cars out of thin air. Every EV manufacturer is currently running at capacity.
As for bikability, I can agree with that, but again when you have the vast suburban sprawl that the USA has it's not safe to bike and even if it was everything is so spread out in places that biking isn't a good option.
It would very well work in most places with <20% own a car and using it. And in some rare case renting one.
Gyms would go bankrupt because nobody needed to go there anymore because they bike every day. But that would be an acceptable downside IMHO.
(I know what I am talking off. I work from home, but I bike to some shop, not even the closest one, every day to get my motion.)
How to get there I don't know. Europeans are not willing to do it. And Americans are decades behind with the development going into the completely wrong direction.
Sprawl does not make it unsafe to bike; it's a lack of safe cycling infrastructure that does that. It would take a small fraction of the space given to cars to make it perfectly safe to bike. Now as you also mention, sprawl may make it impractical to bike.
That said... the distances between things in suburbia are often artificially inflated as well. This 21-minute walk to a grocery store near where I used to live could be cut down to maybe two minutes if you were to take down the fence blocking it off:
https://goo.gl/maps/iujAxMRRMCRs4YzW9
https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/funeral-today-for-danie...
Private mass-transit using autonomous busses and auto-routes, where passengers can rate eachother, is a better solution.
Rating each other is highly discriminatory: I have an Asian friend and she complains that she never gets decent places on Airbnb.
Nothing says short-sighted like "we have a problem now, so let's create a 10-year scourge of death-traps."
Stuff like backup cameras weren't even brought into existence for many of the types of vehicles they find themselves in.
How many people are really sitting in the back seats of these subcompact cars and how many people is the back half of the side curtain airbag really gonna save?
At $7.25 a gallon over the lifetime of the vehicle, you're going to pay more than the sticker price of the car in fuel for a good majority of vehicles.
Unless you have incredibly expensive electricity in your city, you're probably looking at over $30,000 in savings over the life of the vehicle. Subtract $30K from the price of an EV and those prices look pretty good...
Yep that's a sure fire way to solve the battery supply constraints...
Edit: Note this is the same group of people who refused to LOWER production at the height of pandemic panic in hopes of killing the US energy sector.
I left the US for Spain in February and sold my car before the move. Really lucked out between used car market being bonkers (sold pretty much at break even, including dealers fees with 2 years of ownership) and gas prices doubling.
Now with a young kid it seems I'm likely going to need to get a car again in the near-ish future, and not looking forward to when that hits the wallet :(
Meanwhile, the oil companies are making substantially higher profits during this crisis.
Hard for the political system to address issues like this if we as a society are completely getting it wrong about who is exacerbating the problem, versus who is trying to solve it.
In case anyone is wondering I paid ~$230.00 in charging charges going to Detroit and ~$245.00 driving back to Denver.
Sure we had to stop ever 2 hours or so for around 25-30 minutes but for us, in our situation, that worked out perfectly traveling with a 11 month old baby.
That round trip in a Honda Accord would be $300 total in fuel, or $350 in a Honda CR-V.
I don’t think people selling EVs really care about this, government is too slow to react as usual, and huge bottleneck with charging infrastructure is bound to happen.
That said, if you are looking for a modern and efficient (but high upfront cost) alternative to 1-10 hour car trips between major cities, high speed rail may be a good choice
There is also electricity consumption. By my calculation, an EV consumes similar amount of energy as an average household per month. That would require huge increase in power consumption, bringing the cost down. On the other side, we have those huge costs for charging stations, both in tech and parking space , while profit is questionable due to falling power prices.
I mean, humans will find a way, but it will be a very bumpy road unless battery tech improves by a lot.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rest_area
It outperforms cars on every dimension.
Here's some "bare" facts, which present only a fraction of the benefits:
I can park it anywhere. _anywhere_. I always do trips door-to-door now. I don't pay for parking in cities anymore. I can ride to the front of a column of stopped cars (at a light or stop sign)It's the perfect vehicle.
It got stolen 3 days ago (sigh. I forgot to lock the steering wheel column, someone rolled it away from where it was parked, probably into a pickup truck).
I bought a new one the next day. I was out a few thousand dollars and a few hours of inconvenience, but it was no biggie.
No car driver can empathize with:
Go visit a local scooter dealer, and do some test rides!(I live in Denver, bought both scooters from Sportique on South Broadway. They're great, and do same-day maintenance for oil changes and such.)
I had a 125cc Genuine Buddy Kick, I replaced it with a 200cc Lance Cabo.
Lots of my friends are getting closer and closer to buying their own mopeds. Some already have. #ScooterGang
No thanks.
https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-motorcyc...
I've known numerous motorcyclists throughout my life and very few of them have had a crash. They're all middle age or older, well educated, and not thrill-seeker types.
So many bad drivers are on the road that my vehicle purchases are guided by safety over other factors.
> I've known numerous motorcyclists throughout my life and very few of them have had a crash.
This surprises me. I know a decent number and more than half of them have had a crash, all have close calls. Mostly avoiding another vehicle or laying down because of gravel or oil on the road surface.
Which is not to say your concerns are unfounded. Just means we need safer streets. :)
This one major downside would be easily fixed by going EV. And scooters are far more practical for having an EV in an urban area; you can actually charge them off a 110V outlet in a practical amount of time, for example.
The shame is that in the US, "Vespa" style electric scooters are very difficult to come by. Some major players are in the market, but nobody seems willing to import and sell in the US on any sort of grand scale.
We need someone like Honda to sell an EV scooter.
FYI a steering lock won't stop a scooter from being stolen. You need to basically secure it with an enormous chain to something completely stationary. Even with a steering lock and disc brake lock, it'll just get tossed into a minivan (the most popular choice for thefts because they're enclosed and have tinted windows.)
that explains the bottomed-out suspension on some minivans I see driving around the city...
And she was right!
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