Electric cars themselves have never been a solution to poverty or low income. The cost of ownership isn’t even the biggest barrier. If a person doesn’t own a home with a garage or driveway- how do they charge their car? Assuming there is even electricity available where you park, do you leave a charging station worth thousands outside? Stretch extension cords from your home to your parking space..?
Until and if there is ever widespread and competitive parts and service for such vehicles, dealers and relatively rare specialists are really the only source for maintaining these vehicles whos cost of ownership quickly outpaces the cost of replacement as they age and drastically lose capabilities- not just from tired batteries and components, but from the inevitable discontinuation of software and cloud support for features etc.
The electric car, and it’s logical “end game” the “self driving” car are not really meant for those without money. Perhaps someday they’ll be affordable alternatives, but don’t count on it soon- or at least don’t count on an affordable version which maintains anywhere near the capabilities of more “traditional” power trains.
Between emissions and other regulations there is a long standing and obvious campaign to remove older vehicles and increase the cost to own them. The environment- or at least the optics of supporting “green” policy are one reason- economically the new car market is one the government is incentivized to support to drive spending and more importantly borrowing and credit. That said- a major component is the catch 22- driving is not a right but a privilege. It isn’t protected or guaranteed in the constitution- but we created a suburban society where driving is a necessity.
Across the country people live in places where the land they desire or require is affordable and then drive to reach work, play, and other destinations. Even cities and large developed are designed around this concept for the most part- tens of square miles of homes and neighborhoods with hardly if any businesses to serve the basic needs of those living there. Everyone in the area drives to their Walmart or target or Costco etc. of choice to stock up on groceries and necessities- these “shopping oases” are routinely packed at given times and dates with people from many miles around trying to conduct their businesses.
A great number of Americans simply couldn’t conduct their lives as used to or at all without cars.
Of course- wouldn’t it be great for everyone except them if we could get people off the roads….? And enter the privilege. People who can afford to drive and afford to have a place to charge won’t have any real issues. People with enough money will drive whatever they want, they always have- and people who can’t afford to but have the money will just keep driving their old cars- another “poor tax” sucking away the wealth potential. Those who truly can’t pay… won’t drive. The system never really cares about that segment anyway, and really- society doesn’t either. I mean- how many people are complaining about gas prices when through the pandemic tent cities and homelessness have skyrocketed?
People barely holding on usually don’t REALLY care about people in poverty because they’re too busy worrying about holding on. Truly middle class people rarely care either- they’re too busy trying to enjoy what they have and keep from sliding down to “barely holding on…” and so forth. Well- maybe they “care,” I should say- aren’t really going to do anything for them, and will spend most of their time fighting for things that benefit them and sometimes benefit those worse off via “halo.”
So I mean- the real answer here is: “don’t drive.” Of course as discussed- we literally built our country around the concept of driving being taken for granted.
We lack public transit for many reasons- among them being that automotive corporations bought up established transit when our nation was becoming mobile and destroyed it to incentivize buying cars; and because transit has always been a “gate keeper.” Low income and “minority” communities have been intentionally excluded through transit design. The “golden age” of road infrastructure had freeways and highways built to act as fences around such communities, and laid out to best obstruct access from those areas to ones those residents weren’t wanted in. This is factual and verifiable- federal documents from the time provide instruction on how to best do this, and many freeways in once formally segregated states follow the exact boundaries of fences and other barriers they had to tear down after segregation.
In modern times racism is still a challenge, but we have moved ever towards discrimination based primarily on income. Because of that many who once found themselves in groups not traditionally discriminated against widely or institutionally are now feeling the effects of discrimination. Despite experiencing it first hand and seeing the feelings and effects, many still deny or mock those who from groups who have dealt with such issues for decades or centuries. A sad lack of awareness I suppose.
When all is said and done, it really comes down to a fundamental need to redesign our cities and society as well as the need to change personal habits and ways of thinking. It is inevitable that eventually lack of resources and other factors will make our car crazy ways untenable for the majority of the population unless we are willing to pay a steep personal financial cost to keep it up.
The solutions aren’t to be found in electric cars alone, or perhaps at all. Cities and homes designed as communities where people live and do commerce without revolving around cars, better and wider spread public transit, etc etc.
Those things take time and won’t help right now. For anyone who’s built a life requiring a car they’re sort of powerless at the moment. Much like we can look at energy woes and say the US or the E.U. should be less reliant on foreign fuel…. As an individual most people are pretty reliant on fuel no? So better late than never for people to take this as a sign to start weaning off fuel dependence and restructuring their lives and expectations to not revolve around having easy cheap access to a car.
Not disagreeing but there is an interesting concept that I know is in development that may make electric cars more reasonable, "powered roads". The concept is that the cars are charged wirelessly from the roads themselves. So while driving on the road you don't actually need a to use batteries and the on board batteries will be charged from the road to give you power when you're not using a powered road. Yes, I know, there are massive complications and considerations for this but it is a cool concept.
I'm not going to comment on the structure or costs or any of that boring stuff. A road that powered your vehicle wirelessly would be pretty awesome. That'd be a very sci-fi invention and I'd probably spend a lot of time staring at roads. Lol
Lol. Yeah. Not saying it’s all not very futuristic and cool. The powered roads concept is a neat one, and advances in wireless charging and battery technology could make that technologically feasible- ignoring costs and challenges to convert any sizable portion of roads to that set up.
It’s likely MUCH further off of ever- but the concept of setting up power generation technology like solar panels in space and wirelessly transmitting it to the surface has been kicked around in the past too. It has a ton of challenges as well and some questions on feasibility- but it’s a neat concept with some cool implications.
Dacia Spring. It’s our second car and only a city car, not for long highway trips. I’m using it to go to work and to run errands and for that it has been great so far
Until and if there is ever widespread and competitive parts and service for such vehicles, dealers and relatively rare specialists are really the only source for maintaining these vehicles whos cost of ownership quickly outpaces the cost of replacement as they age and drastically lose capabilities- not just from tired batteries and components, but from the inevitable discontinuation of software and cloud support for features etc.
Between emissions and other regulations there is a long standing and obvious campaign to remove older vehicles and increase the cost to own them. The environment- or at least the optics of supporting “green” policy are one reason- economically the new car market is one the government is incentivized to support to drive spending and more importantly borrowing and credit. That said- a major component is the catch 22- driving is not a right but a privilege. It isn’t protected or guaranteed in the constitution- but we created a suburban society where driving is a necessity.
A great number of Americans simply couldn’t conduct their lives as used to or at all without cars.
We lack public transit for many reasons- among them being that automotive corporations bought up established transit when our nation was becoming mobile and destroyed it to incentivize buying cars; and because transit has always been a “gate keeper.” Low income and “minority” communities have been intentionally excluded through transit design. The “golden age” of road infrastructure had freeways and highways built to act as fences around such communities, and laid out to best obstruct access from those areas to ones those residents weren’t wanted in. This is factual and verifiable- federal documents from the time provide instruction on how to best do this, and many freeways in once formally segregated states follow the exact boundaries of fences and other barriers they had to tear down after segregation.
When all is said and done, it really comes down to a fundamental need to redesign our cities and society as well as the need to change personal habits and ways of thinking. It is inevitable that eventually lack of resources and other factors will make our car crazy ways untenable for the majority of the population unless we are willing to pay a steep personal financial cost to keep it up.
Those things take time and won’t help right now. For anyone who’s built a life requiring a car they’re sort of powerless at the moment. Much like we can look at energy woes and say the US or the E.U. should be less reliant on foreign fuel…. As an individual most people are pretty reliant on fuel no? So better late than never for people to take this as a sign to start weaning off fuel dependence and restructuring their lives and expectations to not revolve around having easy cheap access to a car.
It’s likely MUCH further off of ever- but the concept of setting up power generation technology like solar panels in space and wirelessly transmitting it to the surface has been kicked around in the past too. It has a ton of challenges as well and some questions on feasibility- but it’s a neat concept with some cool implications.