[cdepman]

100% agree with the article - cars, even in this petite form factor, are not the future of urban transportation. Cycling, electric cycling, scooting, walking and better mass transit will make our cities quieter, safer and more livable. Sure, there is a niche for these cute cars for those unable to use these other forms.

[Noos]

These things are nowhere near as good as you think, and HN fetishizes them a bit too much. Trying to cycle or scoot on slush filled roads or in 90 degree plus temperatures is a tedious chore; being unable to simply go out and bring home a 75 pound piece of unassembled furniture, or buying frozen foods in bulk sucks too.

Being 50 or older and having even the slightest health problem will teach you why cars are good. My own mother is 70 and is starting to have knee issues; cars are the only way for her to even survive. A lot of ebikes and scooters aren't even able to support a weight limit over 200-250 pounds, limiting cargo usage. Many struggle to go up hills.

And we aren't even getting into things like how bicycles and scooters are much easier to steal or steal from, or how unsafe walking can be at certain times of the day especially if you are a woman. Or having to ride a bus next to someone who smells like shit and is possibly deranged.

Cars are freedom and power. There is way too much idolizing a sort of serf mindset here; have nothing, do what government tells you, be part of a crowd dependent on others to sustain you.

[kergonath]

> Trying to cycle or scoot on slush filled roads or in 90 degree plus temperatures is a tedious chore; being unable to simply go out and bring home a 75 pound piece of unassembled furniture, or buying frozen foods in bulk sucks too.

As far as I am concerned, I ride buses and trains and almost never cycle, and I don’t have a car. The cases you mention here would be solved much more rationally and efficiently by generalising home deliveries (with electric trucks). You don’t need to dimension your car for the furniture you need to carry around once every 5 years. You can just rent a van for a day then.

> Cars are freedom and power.

...which come at a cost that too few people realise, and which our children will have to pay.

> There is way too much idolizing a sort of serf mindset here; have nothing, do what government tells you, be part of a crowd dependent on others to sustain you.

Now I have some ideological issues with this.

Most governments I know encourage people to buy cars because it stimulates the economy and keeps some factories running, and some mates among money. Governments in general follow, not lead, these efforts.

You already are part of a crowd and could not survive on your own. You are dependent on thousands of people you will never meet for the most insignificant of your daily activities. To paraphrase, there is way to much idolising a sort of tough survivor mindset around. The tough guy living in a forest with his gun (which he built? From ore he mined?) is a mirage. If society collapses, tough guys will die just as well as others. There has to be a middle ground, where one can be wise enough to enjoy the freedom that living in society provides without being entirely controlled by totalitarians.

[treis]

> I ride buses and trains and almost never cycle, and I don’t have a car.

Do you have kids?

[nicoburns]

I don't have kids yet, but my parents took me everywhere on public transport. I loved it. In fact, I often wanted to go on the bus even when we had no need to.

[kergonath]

I absolutely loved trains as well. I couldn’t understand why grown-ups kept moaning about having to take one to work every day; it sounded like heaven!

[kergonath]

Yes, two. One in primary school, whom I drop off before taking the bus to work in the morning and take home on the way back, and one in day care, with whom my partner does the same. We rent or borrow a car for holidays.

It is true that a car is often very useful when you have children. But then, a family can have a small city car instead of two SUVs.

I am not against the concept of cars, I actually love driving a good one. But I despair when I see the growing popularity of SUVs, and sedans getting larger and larger.

[thescriptkiddie]

Funny thing about kids, they aren't allowed to drive cars. They actually aren't allowed to call an Uber either, but they can call a real taxi, or take public transportation, or ride a bike, or god forbid walk around unsurprised.

[thescriptkiddie]

And yet every time an article about walking or cycling is posted here, people come out of the woodwork to explain why they couldn't possibly be a practical form of transportation, and no we shouldn't fund public transportation either. Have you considered that not everyone lives in a car-dependent suburb? What about people who are too old or disabled to drive a car? What about people who can't afford to buy and maintain and insure and fuel and park a car? Have you considered that a car can be a prison rather than a power fantasy?

[llampx]

Its the strange HN dichotomy between "let's all work from home all the time" and "we all live in villages where it is -30 in the night and 2000 degrees in the day so we need a car"

[overton]

You depend on: - millions of square kilometers of paved roads and parking garages - a long and complicated supply chain producing an difficult to maintain, expensive, and fast decaying machine which requires a non-renewable resource as fuel - the forced indulgence of your fellow citizens as you pollute the air with noise and poisonous gases and make them deal the danger you impose on them (sometimes it will cost them their lives) - the arrangement of our cities for cars and the damage that does to communities, quality of life, and aesthetics

You have lots of dependencies, the government and the car industry has just naturalized them and largely guaranteed them to you. That's why you see non-drivers as serfs. And that's why we see drivers as entitled.

[Valgrim]

My father is close to 70 and is in very bad health. His knees and feet are painful and will never heal. He is overweight, has multiple cardiac issues and other problems. He lives in a rural town.

He's also looking to buy an electric bicycle, because he's anticipating the day when he won't be allowed to drive anymore. He also wants to be able to follow my mom on bike, or me and my siblings, or his grandkids. His car is getting expensive and less and less useful since he's been buying his groceries online (yes, even in a rural town).

[helen___keller]

> Cars are freedom and power

I respect your opinion but disagree wholeheartedly. When I drive [in the city or suburbs] I feel like my attention is enslaved to the road, to the traffic lights, to the stop signs, etc.

When I'm walking, or even biking, around the city I have so much more freedom to drink in my surroundings and live in the moment. I can literally stop to smell the flowers.

Don't get me wrong, cars have uses that are uniquely difficult to solve without one. As you mention, hauling heavy cargo, transporting the mobility-challenged, and shielding from bad weather, are just a few examples.

But as someone who is not hauling heavy cargo, is not mobility-challenged, and isn't particularly afraid of a little bad weather (and well I tend to not go anywhere during a blizzard anyways), I quite prefer to walk or bike or take a train or take a bus, rather than be a slave to the road.

[canniballectern]

This is silly. I could also list many scenarios where cars are bad.

The reality is that car ownership isn't necessary for many people - having access to a car is enough.

I can walk, bike, or bus most of the time, and then when I have a load of frozen food or furniture to bring home, I can rent or hail a car. And yeah, if I move to a rural area or I get bad knees, I'll buy a car.

[baq]

cars will be the future of urban transportation for as long as urban areas will be designed with cars in mind. there needs to be a top-down policy change to break the cycle - until then, making cars smaller, lighter and less polluting is our best bet.

[zdragnar]

...in warm climates. Nobody wants to walk to or from a bus stop in -30 degree winds if they can get an alternative, and most won't scooter or bike in freezing conditions either.

[screye]

I stay in Boston, and winter really isn't as big a problem for public transport as people make it out to be. I can't think of many cities outside Canada/Russia that have worse weather (cold, high precipitation and windy).

If anything, owning a car in the winter is a massive pain as driving is riskier, involves daily drive-thru shovelling and regular de-icing that gets irritating rather fast. Biking does get quite difficult for longer trips, but people still use bikes (owned or rental city bikes) for short distance trips to the grocery stores within 10 minute distances.

I recognize that this only works in dense enough cities. But, if the city is dense enough to have good public transportation in the summer, then it is dense enough for public transportation to be sufficient over the winter.

[lm28469]

> walk to or from a bus stop in -30 degree winds

What's the percentage of the world population living in dense urban areas where temperatures drop to -30 ?

[wenc]

Not sure what the percentage is, but it's not a small number.

This is the map of areas classified as Köppen Humid Continental. It covers almost all of the populated areas of Canada and the northern United States, as well as parts of Europe and Korea, northern Japan and northern China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humid_continental_climate#/med...

Most northern US geographies experience at least a few days of -30°C (-22°F) weather every winter (even coastal places like NYC -- I remember it was freezing in lower Manhattan ca Feb 2016). However it's not as bad as it looks, as these temperatures are wind-chill temperatures and usually occur in the wee hours of the morning.

[bluenose69]

Agreed; -30C is not really that bad if you dress for it. I find it a lot more pleasant than +30C with humidity.

[lagadu]

You should come to Copenhagen for an extended period sometime.

[baq]

exactly.

ideally there would be no need to get to the bus stop - if most of your needs could be satisfied within walking distance.

[ghaff]

Even if you live in the urban core of a dense city like Boston, NY, or Paris, you can't realistically walk most places you would want to go.

[slykar]

Where do you want to go? Living in a city center right now. It's hard for me to find a thing I DON'T have in a radius of 4km, which is a reasonable walking distance.

[ed312]

Uh, citation please? Have lived in and around Boston, you certainly can get everything you need with either walking or a couple T stops.

[ghaff]

>or a couple of T stops

The parent was specifically talking about walking rather than taking public transit. Boston has a particularly dense core and yes, so long as you confine yourself to the original Boston core (North End, Beacon Hill, Financial District, maybe add the Back Bay), you don't really need to use public transit. But I'm probably not going to walk from there to Harvard Square in Cambridge, Symphony Hall, or even the Seaport on a regular basis although I could.

[TillE]

I live in Berlin (tarif zone B, so not even the true center), I haven't been inside a vehicle of any kind since February.

Even in normal times, 99% of my transit usage is for leisure rather than necessity.

[nicoburns]

I'm not familiar with Boston. But I think NY and Paris are actually too big for everything to be walkable. In smaller cities that's definitely possible. I used to live in Bristol, UK (pop. ~500k) and if you lived centrally then you get pretty much anywhere within 30 minutes of walking.

[rospaya]

Paris is actively working on becoming a "15 minute city"

https://www.smartcitylab.com/blog/governance-finance/paris-1...