General / Off-Topic Electric cars are stupid.

[Rampant]

Which leads me to another point...

I grew up in Cheshire, near Warrington.
Later on I moved to Scotland.
The common denominator is that both places are semi-rural areas, close to power-stations.

The people of places like London, Glasgow and Manchester might be the ones complaining about "air quality" and love the idea of zero-emmisions EVs but it's the people who live in rural areas, near to power-stations, who pay the penalty for that.

And, of course, when 8 million people, in London, vote for stuff that makes their lives better, the opinions of a few thousand people who live near the power-stations aren't going to count for much.

It's kind of like everybody in your street voting to poop in your bathroom instead of using their own.
The vote might be democratic but the consequences aren't.

I've always said something similar:

Me - So you want to make the streets of a large city less polluted?
City dweller - Yes
Me - But to do that you want to displace all the pollution into the countryside, where the air is supposed to be clean?
City dweller - Yes
Me - riiight!

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I think there are a lot of extremes in this and people looking for a magic bullet when the reality is a lot of things are going to have to happen to make our way of life sustainable, tome technological, some in terms of intelligent design of property etc, some to do with flexible working and some to do with compromises.

Just for fun come visit Mike Town. It is 2040.
Mike Town is run by a benevolent dictator. He is fair but what he says goes.

We have hydro electric power all round the coast
Lots of wind turbines
A nuclear power station was deemed necessary but lots of money is being invested in future tech such as solar panel windows as well as a way to better harness the sun.
New houses are wooden built using sustainable trees which are continually planted for more houses,
Cars are all autonomous now,
In Mike town people are allowed 1 family car however the tax hit on them is large.. BUT when your car is not in use you can free it up for other people to use (see next point) .

If a car is freed up for 300 hrs a week you can offset the tax hit and it works out there is no tax charge.

Peak hrs count as double, rush hrs count as quadruple Any more than 300 hrs a week and you get a small profit any less and you pay in tax your short fall .
So long as you do your 300 hrs maintanence costs of car are covered, less than 300 hrs you pay a percentage.
Work.... Employees are not expected to go to work in their own car. For most every day journeys you book an autonamous car whi h picks you up. Each car has room for 4 with a table and room for laptop each. You can request solo occupancy and you pay full price, 2 occupancy is half price 3 or more is then free. Where possible friends can cycle to 1 house and make getting to work free.
Shopping deliveries are all free, large deliveries without limits and you are allowed 2 small deliveries a week. If you book an autonamous car to pick up you to go shopping or another trip deemed more suitable for delivery you pay a fee, use your own car that fee is doubled.
The family car really is for family trips and not much else.
IF you choose not to have a car at all you get X number of miles of free automous travel each year and a tax rebate.
Long distance public transport (trains and buses ) is massively subsidised, lorries do not do long haul they drive onto trains then drive off at stations and go as short a distance as possible.


And my tea is ready so....

 

[Stealthie]

Work.... Employees are not expected to go to work in their own car. For most every day journeys you book an autonamous car whi h picks you up. Each car has room for 4 with a table and room for laptop each. You can request solo occupancy and you pay full price, 2 occupancy is half price 3 or more is then free. Where possible friends can cycle to 1 house and make getting to work free.

I'd be interested to hear what arrangement MikeTown might come to for, say, somebody who lives in a rural area, has a weekly commute to work and uses their vehicle to store a week's worth of clothing, tools, equipment, files and other work-related materials and who also uses their vehicle on an ad-hoc basis, when not visiting their office, for a variety of charitable uses throughout the day.

Asking for a friend.

 

[TiberiusDuval]

What are these "parking areas" of which you speak?

In here those are flat paved areas with markings on them. Those also have electric outlet poles in each individual car space.

 

[TiberiusDuval]

I think it has a bit to do with the energy infrastructure in general. In Norway and probably Finland to, everything is electric. We use five times more electricity per capita, than in the UK. Putting cars into the loop makes far less impact on the total consumption.

My understanding is that the UK use gas for most heating purposes. Houses are generally smaler and temperatures are a bit better. If the UK power net is scaled for this relatively small consumption, it could have serious impact to electrify cars rapidly.

There are other alternatives for helping the environment. Where I work, we run quite a few natural gas cars. This gas is made from food waste, which is sorted in households. This is a CO2 neutral option that is only a small conversion from a petrol car.

I don't think there is one correct answer to these questions. Sometimes public transport is the answer, sometimes it's electric and sometimes petrol/diesel is the only viable option. Every small step helps though. It reduces emissions and pushes technology.

Well what I have heard about UK is laughingly badly insulated houses. Meaning 10 celsius below zero and water freezes inside...In comparison our summer cottage is perfectly livable when temperatures hit about -25 celsius.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I'd be interested to hear what arrangement MikeTown might come to for, say, somebody who lives in a rural area, has a weekly commute to work and uses their vehicle to store a week's worth of clothing, tools, equipment, files and other work-related materials and who also uses their vehicle on an ad-hoc basis, when not visiting their office, for a variety of charitable uses throughout the day.

Asking for a friend.

Lol glib answer perhaps but perfection is the enemy of progress......

But for the thought exercise there word be some exceptions for some work vehicles .I truly believe a system like the above could work for 80% of people. Some jobs the vehicle would be provided by work and equipped accordingly.
People don't want to give up their freedom. I get it, I sure as hell don't want too... But ultimately having a car doing nothing 90% of the time and continually using them single occupancy ain't gonna work for the.lobg term imo.
There are for most people I dare say a handful of occasions a year where they need their own car for the rest of the time an autonamous car from a car pool ordered when needed with just a small amount of planning is doable with a bare minimum of disruption.
(Rich)People who flatly refuse to compromise could pay a HUGE penalty to own however many cars they want... This money would be used to help subsidise the system for the rest of us

Using a pool of cars would massively reduce the number needed to be made, reduce emissions and reduce congestion.

Just because your mate may be an edge case does not make the system unworkable imo

 

[Stealthie]

.....I truly believe a system like the above could work for 80% of people.....

See, this is the problem, IMO, and it's a symptom of a much bigger problem we currently have in society.

In this age of zero-hours contracts, agency work, flexitime and part-time employment, I'd be surprised if anything like 80% of the working population (who use cars to commute) could be served by any kind of car-sharing scheme.
Add in the minimalist network of public transport and I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of workers have no viable alternative to using a private car.

I mean, back in the day, we had things like works-buses to collect people and take them (by the hundred) to the factory where they all worked.
All these car-sharing schemes are is a glorified re-imagining of the same thing.
The only difference is that we no longer have the manufacturing industry to provide employment for heaps of people all in the same place.

 

[Rampant]

See, this is the problem, IMO, and it's a symptom of a much bigger problem we currently have in society.

In this age of zero-hours contracts, agency work, flexitime and part-time employment, I'd be surprised if anything like 80% of the working population (who use cars to commute) could be served by any kind of car-sharing scheme.
Add in the minimalist network of public transport and I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of workers have no viable alternative to using a private car.

I mean, back in the day, we had things like works-buses to collect people and take them (by the hundred) to the factory where they all worked.
All these car-sharing schemes are is a glorified re-imagining of the same thing.
The only difference is that we no longer have the manufacturing industry to provide employment for heaps of people all in the same place.

Despite the fact that I worship at the altar of the fast car - I subscribe to Mike's vision of a potential way forward. I can't see how you can label it as "re-imaging of the same" bus trips for hundreds at all, exactly because of the differences you illustrate.
My work is relatively flexible. Some days I need to be in work at 6am and be in work for 13-plus hours (for 9-plus hours flying time...), while others I'm in at midday for a 5 hour work day, yet others are "normal" 7:45-ish or 8:30-ish to 4:30-ish or 5:30-ish, so the buses of which you speak would of course be inappropriate. When possible I also travel home at lunch time to let the dogs out and feed the fish and other domestic animals... And this flexible autonomous car concept would also work for that requirement...
However, for the workforce you mention, it is absolutely plausible that sharing of autonomous cars would be highly convenient for an agile, flexible workforce (exactly the kind of work-force you describe - including that heinous zero-hours lot). I would therefore tend to believe that it is plausible that 80% of the workforce could be served in Mike's Town of the future.

Personally, I'd still "need" the option of driving a petrol car to the track and back for a track-day within this autonomous regime, though...

 

[Stealthie]

Despite the fact that I worship at the altar of the fast car - I subscribe to Mike's vision of a potential way forward. I can't see how you can label it as "re-imaging of the same" bus trips for hundreds at all, exactly because of the differences you illustrate.
My work is relatively flexible. Some days I need to be in work at 6am and be in work for 13-plus hours (for 9-plus hours flying time...), while others I'm in at midday for a 5 hour work day, yet others are "normal" 7:45-ish or 8:30-ish to 4:30-ish or 5:30-ish, so the buses of which you speak would of course be inappropriate. When possible I also travel home at lunch time to let the dogs out and feed the fish and other domestic animals... And this flexible autonomous car concept would also work for that requirement...
However, for the workforce you mention, it is absolutely plausible that sharing of autonomous cars would be highly convenient for an agile, flexible workforce (exactly the kind of work-force you describe - including that heinous zero-hours lot). I would therefore tend to believe that it is plausible that 80% of the workforce could be served in Mike's Town of the future.

I'm genuinely not sure how this "car sharing" malarkey might be expected to work.
I mean, are we saying that I would buy a car - paying full price for it - and then be compelled to just let anybody make use of it when they want to?
What happens if I, the guy who paid money for the car, need it to take me to work at 8am and some nobber decided to use it to take them home from an all-night bender at 6am and threw-up all over the interior, just for good measure?
In fact, what happens if a big gang of heads all get together and decide to take a bunch of automated cars for some kind of automated joyride/race around the country, for the lulz?

Seems like we'd have to completely abolish the idea of privately-owned vehicles before this'd be viable (in which case, taxis are already a thing).

And, while we were at it, we'd probably have to eradicate the concept of theft too, in order to prevent these automated vehicles being stolen and stripped for parts or just plain vandalised - which is probably going to involve some interesting new invasions of our civil-rights.

Course, sorting out this stuff might have happened before we get to a point where automated cars are truly viable on the roads.


What we're talking about is, however, a couple of extra steps down the road from EVs, though.
In the mean-time, even if a government created some kind of voluntary scheme (with associated tax benefits) to encourage car-sharing, I doubt it'd be especially useful - even if you could convince people to car-share instead of simply choosing to keep their car for their own use.
The main role for EVs is local journeys due to limited range and if you've got 4 people who all need to go 20 miles here, 30 miles there, 15 miles somewhere else, etc, you're quickly going to reach a point where the EVs range becomes the limiting factor.


Honestly, I think we're going about this "Alternative energy" thing all wrong.
I made a thread on this subject a couple of years ago.

Thing is, 50 years ago we were all content to use public transport.
The thing that changed that was the availability of cheap cars, which brought private transport within the reach of normal people.
These days, EVs are taking that convenience back out of the reach of normal people again due to high prices.

What we should be doing is concentrating on cheap, modular, EV components that people can use to either buy an EV that's suitable for their needs ot even convert an IC car to 'leccy if they want to.
Forget the self-driving nonsense, the touch-screen infotainment systems and the wifi link to the factory.
The old duffer who just wants to do her shopping, or the guy who just wants to get to work, doesn't need all that stuff.
People like that would be much more likely to adopt EVs if they could just buy a cheap EV or take their IC car, bung an electric motor in it, along with a suitable battery pack, and carry on doing exactly what they already do.

Course, the only people who lose from that are the car companies, who don't get to sell you a shiny new EV to replace the 40m perfectly good cars already driving around the UK.
I can't help thinking that has a lot to do with the government's advocacy for EVs.

Trouble is, it's no good trying to "boost the economy" by compelling people to buy new stuff when they simply don't have the money for it.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Course, the only people who lose from that are the car companies, who don't get to sell you a shiny new EV to replace the 40m perfectly good cars already driving around the UK.

Given that it has been suggested that 50% of a car's lifetime emissions are spent during production, would it not make more sense to make the cars we currently have "last longer" and move towards in-service replacement of ICE with EV or other suitably lower emission technology?

.... fully acknowledging that any replacement propulsion / energy storage equipment will have its own sunk and ongoing emissions.

 

[Stealthie]

Given that it has been suggested that 50% of a car's lifetime emissions are spent during production, would it not make more sense to make the cars we currently have "last longer" and move towards in-service replacement of ICE with EV or other suitably lower emission technology?

.... fully acknowledging that any replacement propulsion / energy storage equipment will have its own sunk and ongoing emissions.

Oh, absolutely... if environmental issues really are the driving factor here, rather than creating a lucrative new revenue stream for car companies.

 

[Rampant]

I'm genuinely not sure how this "car sharing" malarkey might be expected to work.
I mean, are we saying that I would buy a car - paying full price for it - and then be compelled to just let anybody make use of it when they want to?
What happens if I, the guy who paid money for the car, need it to take me to work at 8am and some nobber decided to use it to take them home from an all-night bender at 6am and threw-up all over the interior, just for good measure?
In fact, what happens if a big gang of heads all get together and decide to take a bunch of automated cars for some kind of automated joyride/race around the country, for the lulz?

Seems like we'd have to completely abolish the idea of privately-owned vehicles before this'd be viable (in which case, taxis are already a thing).

And, while we were at it, we'd probably have to eradicate the concept of theft too, in order to prevent these automated vehicles being stolen and stripped for parts or just plain vandalised - which is probably going to involve some interesting new invasions of our civil-rights.

Course, sorting out this stuff might have happened before we get to a point where automated cars are truly viable on the roads.


What we're talking about is, however, a couple of extra steps down the road from EVs, though.
In the mean-time, even if a government created some kind of voluntary scheme (with associated tax benefits) to encourage car-sharing, I doubt it'd be especially useful - even if you could convince people to car-share instead of simply choosing to keep their car for their own use.
The main role for EVs is local journeys due to limited range and if you've got 4 people who all need to go 20 miles here, 30 miles there, 15 miles somewhere else, etc, you're quickly going to reach a point where the EVs range becomes the limiting factor.


Honestly, I think we're going about this "Alternative energy" thing all wrong.
I made a thread on this subject a couple of years ago.

Thing is, 50 years ago we were all content to use public transport.
The thing that changed that was the availability of cheap cars, which brought private transport within the reach of normal people.
These days, EVs are taking that convenience back out of the reach of normal people again due to high prices.

What we should be doing is concentrating on cheap, modular, EV components that people can use to either buy an EV that's suitable for their needs ot even convert an IC car to 'leccy if they want to.
Forget the self-driving nonsense, the touch-screen infotainment systems and the wifi link to the factory.
The old duffer who just wants to do her shopping, or the guy who just wants to get to work, doesn't need all that stuff.
People like that would be much more likely to adopt EVs if they could just buy a cheap EV or take their IC car, bung an electric motor in it, along with a suitable battery pack, and carry on doing exactly what they already do.

Course, the only people who lose from that are the car companies, who don't get to sell you a shiny new EV to replace the 40m perfectly good cars already driving around the UK.
I can't help thinking that has a lot to do with the government's advocacy for EVs.

Trouble is, it's no good trying to "boost the economy" by compelling people to buy new stuff when they simply don't have the money for it.

A lot of interesting points that I agree with there, and a few that just smack of resistance and obstacle setting, instead of positive critique and problem solving.

A few ideas on your questions and gripes would be the following - they're only ideas, mind, and not a total solution.

The way I think the car industry (allied to governments) see this going is to sell a "subscription" to car access, rather than a consumer buying a car outright as a personal possession. Very similar to the way digital content is now marketed and ELUA'd. Personally, I do not like the digital content solution (I still buy music on CD (and RIP it myself for personal use)), and, personally, I'm not a total advocate for car subscriptions as a way forward, but I do think there is some merit in this thinking...

That would go some way to allay your fears of some rando puking in "your" car. If it doesn't, then we could imagine a system where the rando has a subscription to the car service and any damage caused has had their bank account details "licenced for debits" for any damage caused while the vehicle is in your possession.

At present, there are computer systems that run the schedules for fleets of private minicabs - and send the most appropriate cabs to each booked journey start point / anticipated end point, and shuffle the fleet around on a continual basis against traffic flow and blockages. The bigger the local fleet, the better the system would inevitably run, particularly if ALL the transport nodes (EVs) were linked to some cloud to predictively juggle road usage and traffic volume on all roads...

If every single car were publicly subscribed (millions of them) and internet linked (regardless of manufacturer) - there'd be a car available for every journey.

Battery life (range) would conceivably be managed by modular battery changes at drive-through hubs in every single neighbourhood. The removed batteries go straight back on to charge, and the process is cyclical day-in-day-out.

Use an app to book your transport and not only will one be there at your requested time (minus 10 minutes to plus 5 minutes of request) - this can be predicted and managed by the network via active route management - sending some cars down alternative routes as a predictive management, rather than reactive measure.

And since nobody has their own car any more, this frees up road space in dense residential areas that are now blocked by nose-to-tail street parking. Nobody would vandalise, either, because there are tracking cameras on every car! (A bit Big Brother for my liking, but a measure for common good nonetheless) and nobody wants to crap on the car they might get sent tomorrow for that important journey...


That said, I do agree that the car has been a "good" thing for human society, but the fact remains that it is no longer defensible as a holistic good thing. Allied to this is that our econo-scape has developed with cars as the universal driving force, such that the landscape is now forcing us to rely on personal transport to get to the large shopping centre, etc, where the large shopping centre would not have been plausible prior to the invention of cars.

It sure is a tricky and thorny issue.

 

[Stealthie]

Personally, I do not like the digital content solution (I still buy music on CD (and RIP it myself for personal use)), and, personally, I'm not a total advocate for car subscriptions as a way forward, but I do think there is some merit in this thinking...

That would go some way to allay your fears of some rando puking in "your" car. If it doesn't, then we could imagine a system where the rando has a subscription to the car service and any damage caused has had their bank account details "licenced for debits" for any damage caused while the vehicle is in your possession.

That's what I was alluding to when I mentioned interesting new invasions of our civil-rights.

To back up a bit, though, I still don't really understand how the provision of a "shared vehicle" might work.
If I buy a vehicle then surely I have more right to use it than other people?
Conversely, if the intended paradigm is that there's a bunch of vehicles floating around and people just use them when they want to, I don't really see how that can work in conjunction with the idea of individuals purchasing those vehicles.

One of the big problems with Communism is that it assumes everybody is going to "do their bit" and you're not going to get people who just decide to toss it off and expect everybody else to support them.
Seems like there's a similar problem here.

"Automated cars will be free for everybody to use".
"Hey, that's great. I can't wait 'til my next-door neighbour buys one"
Says, erm, everybody.

Course, I guess we could just try and get society to adopt a star-trek style attitude where everybody's a happy-clappy little drone, working for the betterment of society, but that list of fundamental changes to human-nature required just so we can use communal vehicles is getting longer.


But then we move to the issue of culpability.
What happens if a communal vehicle gets damaged, vandalised, stolen or used unacceptably?
Seems like the only way that's ever going to be viable is if we all have some kind of infallible ID system which can be used to gain access to communal vehicles.
I'm sure everybody's going to be fine with that.

But, what if you're not?
Do you simply lose the right to travel around unless you're okay with having a tracking-chip in your head (or whatever)?

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Given that it has been suggested that 50% of a car's lifetime emissions are spent during production, would it not make more sense to make the cars we currently have "last longer" and move towards in-service replacement of ICE with EV or other suitably lower emission technology?

.... fully acknowledging that any replacement propulsion / energy storage equipment will have its own sunk and ongoing emissions.

indeed... which is why ICE cars wont be replaced over night and which is why for my thought exercise I mentioned 2040...... 21 years from now most cars which are on the roads today will be close to end of life... the ones which are not will most likely be labours of love - my 1998 which i loved dearly fiat coupe would have been 21 this year (had i not crashed it) so maybe 2040 is too soon, but it was only a hypothetical example and mostly for fun anyway.

the point is, 2040 , or 2050 imo some sort of government car pool scheme i am completely convinced will happen as soon as cars are fully autonomous and I definitely think encouraging users to give out their own vehicle to add to the pool for a set number of hrs per week with the carrot of tax breaks as well as help with maintenance is also a fairly obvious and logical idea - not forced of course.... if you really want to keep your car, sat on a driveway for 90% of the time then i imagine you can, but you would be taxed highly for this extravagance (money which would feed into the system to fund everyone else)

At some point, I think especially multiple car ownership but also (much sooner) ICE cars such as the big engined American cars like the Camaro etc despite looking <subjectively> beautiful I think will be looked on with the same distaste of someone rocking up to a restaurant with a mink coat and an ivory necklace.

(I say this as someone who is a petrol head!)

As for theft and vandalism........ I think some imagination is needed. to get into an autonamous car it would be simple enough for everyone to have finger print recognition to get in the car, as well as full camera suit in the car as well.... Big Brother is a thing now.... 20 years from now it is only going to be more so.

IF allowing my car to be used by random people whilst i was at work meant I got a large chunk of the money back for it, as well as significant help with maintanence etc then i absolutely would be happy for it to be used when i cant use it.

range on battery cars now can be over 300 miles (my mates tesla is just about over that right now when he doesnt drive like a berk). that number must surely go up as tech improves and if cars are self driving i suspect they will be more economical still. Presumably when the battery gets low they would automatically drive to a charging point and take themselves off line,
this would be far cheaper than a taxi as there is no driver to pay.

people need their freedom, but they are also likely going to have to accept some small compromises as well as give up a (tiny) amount of flexibility.... A car pool still gives everyone freedom with little downsides.... And the advantage of not having to find/pay for parking AND you can have a cheeky drink after work without losing your licence.

taxis exist now, (another argument against it) however my counter is they are too expensive.... with no drivers to pay, and with a highly encouraged and likely subsidised government system it would be far far cheaper.

last point then i need to work.
regarding engine swapouts with EVs... I suspect (but i dont know) it would not be worth it. I think the amount you would need to replace would just not be effective and the over all finished product i reckon would still not be as good as a proper EV (due to light weight materials etc) . best to see out the ICE cars on the road and phase in the new EVs as we go imo... but i am no engineer if someone who is disagrees then i bow to their judgement.

edit damn i am back... i should have read @Rampant response before i replied.
@Stealthie honestly i think big brother is just a thing.... there are bits about it i dont like but there objectively ARE advantages and forcing honesty in such a system as this is one.

as for communism... I see your point but disagree..... if you are happy to rely on on a car pool and dont want to buy one great! such a system would support this however I believe enough people would want to have access to a vehicle sometimes at their beck and call even if only for a few weeks a year for family holidays or weekend breaks where they can have their car with all their stuff in on a day trip all day, that they would still choose to buy one if they could afford - but then "rent" it out to the car pool when not in use to mitigate some of the costs. Remember in my example as an owner you choose when you let the car be available and when not too, the more you let it out the more cash your get back.

but if you dont have a car of your own i would still imagine there would be a full car hire if you want your very own car for a week for instance..... you just have to pay for it.
AND finally (really this time) I never said autonamous cars would be free to use... I said perhaps, if you signed up for a multicar journey to work, that may be free if the car was full or close to - to encourage people to car share and to cut down on congestion in rush hr........... but everything else would have to be paid for like a (cheap) taxi if you do not have your own car.

 

[Robert Maynard]

If only the wealthy could afford the "mandatory shared" cars - and made a significant profit from the sharing - then it'd simply be another "get more rich more quickly" for those and such as those.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

If only the wealthy could afford the "mandatory shared" cars - and made a significant profit from the sharing - then it'd simply be another "get more rich more quickly" for those and such as those.

clearly there would be a balance to be found..... but then that said, of all the rich people getting richer schemes in life i think i could live with that one. like it or not the top 10% (of whom i am NOT one) do actually pay the way for the rest of them.. should they pay mroe? maybe but let us not kid ourselves that they do not pay their way and then some.

i was told from a reliable source that until you become a higher rate tax payer, you are unlikely to be a net contributor when you take into account the amount the country puts into you all your life. its easy to hate the rich... but i would hate the country a lot more without them.

rushed reply i really have to go so hope i have not stepped on any toes

 

[Robert Maynard]

clearly there would be a balance to be found..... but then that said, of all the rich people getting richer schemes in life i think i could live with that one. like it or not the top 10% (of whom i am NOT one) do actually pay the way for the rest of them.. should they pay mroe? maybe but let us not kid ourselves that they do not pay their way and then some.

Thinking of what buy-to-let has done to the housing market, both in terms of house prices and rents, I don't share that view.

.... and those with sufficient income can arrange their affairs in such a way that their taxation is pitifully low in relation to their income.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I can't say for the rest of the country but where I live (near Cambridge) it is not buy2let folk getting a 2nd property which is the problem . Cambridge university own masses and masses of properties as usual however it is not the mega corporations who get stung but the average or slightly better than average folk who just want to secure their future. Same really about the decent but not mega rich earners who earn enough to pay a lot of tax but not enough to hide it in some tax loophole like amazon or Jimmy Carr or any number of truly fat cats.

That said.... In my hypothetical scenario I didn't say anything about putting the price UP on buying a single vehicle only increasing the taxation on those who chose not to pool it out when not in use.... This would be a conscious decision... And those who can't afford a car then probably couldn't anyway.

The reality is there will always be rich people the trick is getting them to pay as much tax as you can but without forcing them to move out of the country where their tax they do pay goes elsewhere and you get nothing... Therefore if a mega rich person wants a status symbol of 3 cars doing nothing all day let them but they pay for it and that money benefits everyone else

 

[Rampant]

That's what I was alluding to when I mentioned interesting new invasions of our civil-rights.

To back up a bit, though, I still don't really understand how the provision of a "shared vehicle" might work.
If I buy a vehicle then surely I have more right to use it than other people?
Conversely, if the intended paradigm is that there's a bunch of vehicles floating around and people just use them when they want to, I don't really see how that can work in conjunction with the idea of individuals purchasing those vehicles.

One of the big problems with Communism is that it assumes everybody is going to "do their bit" and you're not going to get people who just decide to toss it off and expect everybody else to support them.
Seems like there's a similar problem here.

"Automated cars will be free for everybody to use".
"Hey, that's great. I can't wait 'til my next-door neighbour buys one"
Says, erm, everybody.

Course, I guess we could just try and get society to adopt a star-trek style attitude where everybody's a happy-clappy little drone, working for the betterment of society, but that list of fundamental changes to human-nature required just so we can use communal vehicles is getting longer.


But then we move to the issue of culpability.
What happens if a communal vehicle gets damaged, vandalised, stolen or used unacceptably?
Seems like the only way that's ever going to be viable is if we all have some kind of infallible ID system which can be used to gain access to communal vehicles.
I'm sure everybody's going to be fine with that.

But, what if you're not?
Do you simply lose the right to travel around unless you're okay with having a tracking-chip in your head (or whatever)?

Who mentioned the word "free"? I don't think it was - in fact I personally mentioned "subscription", meaning you pay for your access and pay "fairly" for your level of usage.

Mike's concept also mentioned that privately owned vehicles would be used (or at least co-exist alongside subscription groups) - but that for this to happen it would be of course first and foremost your own car - and you would perhaps, spit-balling some more, select which tariff of taxation you would prefer to pay. Pay the HEINOUS car tax level and the car is yours and yours alone - but then you also pay sole use insurance (including premium sole usage insurance tax?), also pay for road usage (tolls per mile) and associated maintenance costs from your own pocket. Somebody vandalises it, it's just exactly the same system that you have today. On the other end of the scale, you could buy your own vehicle and select the SOCIETY SHARE taxation level when you purchase and this entitles you to the use of your own vehicle at any time - ring-fenced to you provided that it is locked into a booking App at least a week in advance - but accessible to others who subscribe (pay for) to a specific user scheme at times when it is not being used by you. Any other journeys you require that weren't locked a week in advance are available free through the subscription service that uses your vehicle.
I think that vandalism and theft are total red herrings in this discussion, since cars can, always have been and probably always will be stolen and vandalised - regardless of the model of ownership or subscription that is prevalent. It's a side issue and need not be part of this discussion. Other than the random that subscribes to "your" vehicle and chunders in it - that could conceivably be rectified by services paid for by the chunderer, with a side-penalty of using "their" subscription service payments for your own onward transport via the subscription service while your personal vehicle gets steam cleaned or re-upholstered.

I personally don't like this concept very much, but the thing here is that it is probably a viable system - and like music streaming services and software agreements we all use today (reluctantly for me - I'd much rather "own" the software I use) - allied the "youth" of today who just don't want to learn to drive - I can already sense that the car/transport industry is moving toward a subscription based model. Can't you?