General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The CEO of Ford just perfectly summarized the biggest problem for electric cars [View all]hunter
(38,311 posts)On the other hand, by some planning and greater good fortune, my wife and I have avoided the commuter lifestyle for many decades now. When we met we were Los Angeles commuters. Some days it would take me more than an hour, each way, for a commute less than twenty miles.
I drive an $800 mid-eighties car that has lost most of it's decorative trim. It has a Bondo patched bullet hole in it, innocent bystander of a gangland shooting. I never wash it but for the windows and headlights. I don't lock it because I've lost a few windows to break-ins. I leave windows open when it's parked, except when it rains, just to make it obvious. The catalytic converter is still functioning, it doesn't burn oil and the analog fuel injector system is still humming along, so I'm neither polluting any more than a newer car, or spewing any more CO2 into the atmosphere. It gets pretty good mileage. I fill the gas tank every couple of months whether it needs it or not because leaving the gas tank near-empty invites trouble with condensation and other miscellaneous gunk.
I hate my car and it hates me. It's not a positive relationship. Silver grey car lives to spite me.
My own children and a few nephews and nieces have moved away to big urban areas, maybe because they feel the opportunities and entertainments in our small city are limited. I think our cosmopolitan small city is magnificent. Sure it has serious gang problems, but I've lived in real small town brain-drain America where the major social activities for young people seem to be beer and sex, graduating to heroin and meth and black-eye abusive relationships. Run, run away!
When the city kids of our family need a car they rent one, maybe borrow one from friends and family. A place to park a car is a luxury in San Francisco and urban areas like it, and I've spent hours looking for parking places when I visit them. My youngest kid takes the Metro to work, a short walk at both ends. A nephew and niece of mine use BART.
Watching our kids navigate the big city is pretty amazing. Being tied to a car, worrying about where it's parked, is a nuisance. I've gotten tickets when I couldn't get back to my car in time to feed the meter, and I've also got burnt in parking garages by not exiting before the $20 an hour or more prime time rates kick in.
Rural farmers and ranchers actually do need their vehicles. My mom's cousin still owns her family's original 19th century homestead and it's a long way down occasionally winter impassible dirt and gravel roads, about as far as as one can get in 48 State U.S.A. from the nearest WalMart and McDonalds.
Everyone else is a pretender. My Wild West great grandmas would kick their sorry asses.