[whalesalad]

Oil companies, vehicle manufacturers, tire companies and other powerful lobbyists have been doing this for decades so it’s an unsurprising theory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...

It’s why we don’t have rail in the US like you see in Europe. At one point in time we had a ton of rail and streetcar networks but these groups destroyed it all because it was a threat to their business. For oil companies, so is hydrogen.

[staunton]

> ... a threat to their business. For oil companies, so is hydrogen.

Hydrogen is no threat to oil and gas companies, quite the contrary, as discussed by comments all around.

For example, they can produce hydrogen from fossil fuels and justify expanding gas infrastructure while talking about some "future transition".

[andrepd]

Plenty of this in Europe. In my country there's less km of rail now than there was in 1910.

[newuser94303]

which country?

[masklinn]

Pretty much all of them. At least in the west, less sure about the east.

France had 70000km of rail around ww1, now it has about 30000. The main (though not only) casualty was the rural narrow gauge lines ("local interest network") which got obliterated by car and low productivity (about 20000km progressively closed from about 1930 to 1960, a handful survive as tourist attractions).

[rkosk]

Dunno which country they are in but this has happened in a lot of places. This is a an infamous example in the UK:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts

Which this politician who owned a major road engineering company was quite involved in

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Marples