13 replies to this topic

[Neo]

Admit it, the biggest reason you take mass transit is to save on the costs associated with fueling up your vehicle.  With electric vehicles on the horizon for all, do you think this will speed up the rate of suburban sprawl?  If it only takes $0.50 to give your electric car a full charge, would you still be willing to pay the $3/day for mass transit?

[The Voice of Reason]

Neo, on Apr 1 2009, 10:35 AM, said:

Admit it, the biggest reason you take mass transit is to save on the costs associated with fueling up your vehicle. With electric vehicles on the horizon for all, do you think this will speed up the rate of suburban sprawl? If it only takes $0.50 to give your electric car a full charge, would you still be willing to pay the $3/day for mass transit?

I think the best reason to take mass transit is not savings, it is free time.

If Hartford had a train I would be willing to commute on that train for as much as 45 minutes to an hour.

In a car I am only willing to drive for 30 minutes.

while on a train I could read a book, write something, use wifi and get started with work, pretty much anything.

Also I can have more than 3 drinks after work and still get home safely and without DWI.

Mass transit wins no matter what electric cars cost to fill.

[cloudship]

I have to agree. It is not the cost savings - in  many cases mass transit sometimes will end up costing a little more. But for those areas where it is really popular, it is usually more a convenience item than anything else. You don't have to worry about finding a parking space, you don't have to deal with traffic. If you are talking about commuter trains heck, you can even take a quick nap. It's sometimes quicker, at least in those places where it works.

I think that is why some places still have a hard time selling mass transit - they focus on savings, they focus on green issues. Mass transit usage comes out of convenience, and that means frequency, good coverage, quality environments, and working at all hours. Opponents have in some cases figured out the way to defeat transit is to make it as scarce and bare bones as possible, to make it as unpalatable as they can so the convenience, and thus ridership, iss not there.

[Rural King]

Given access to mass transit, esp. rail, I would take it over driving in traffic any day of the week without hesitation. I'd gladly go from two car household to a one car household if I and/or the fiance could use a mass transit system to commute to work. I am pro-walking as well.....so if the mass transit even gets relatively close to my start and ending points its viable for me.

To actually answer the question though; I believe electric cars could be a detriment to the growth of mass transit usage and promote the continued growth of suburban development patterns.

[go_vertical]

The thing we all have to understand here is that the members of this website are a different breed.  We invite and enjoy the urban lifestyle whereas a majority of the citizens of this country do not.  A car that has nearly zero fueling costs will keep alot of people off mass transit.  That is until, like Cloudship stated, the traffic and the hassle of finding parking becomes too much of an annoyance.  Hopefully commuter rail and light rail will be in use in more and more places before an electric vehicle is as common as a Civic, and if we're lucky a large number of those car lovers will have been converted to transit lovers.

[InitialD]

Neo, on Apr 1 2009, 12:35 PM, said:

Admit it, the biggest reason you take mass transit is to save on the costs associated with fueling up your vehicle.  With electric vehicles on the horizon for all, do you think this will speed up the rate of suburban sprawl?  If it only takes $0.50 to give your electric car a full charge, would you still be willing to pay the $3/day for mass transit?

At this point, it really seems like electric cars are "vaporware" - they exist only on drawing boards along with space elevators and cold fusion.

Take for example the EV1, that was created over a decade ago, yet we don't see anybody driving them on the street. I highly doubt the Volt will actually go in to production - it is just a dog and pony show put on for congress. Hydrogen fuel cell cars are decades away from mass production, not to mention the complete lack of infrastructure.

All this on top of the fact that that not everybody can rush out and drop over $30,000 on a new vehicle. As gas reaches the double-digit-per-gallon range entering the next decade, it will be transit or nothing for the majority of the population.

As a side note, however, now would be a good time to start up a business that converts older cars & trucks into electric vehicles. I imagine a lot of people will try to do this as gas becomes unfordable to all but the upper class. The auto mechanics class at the college I work for has converted a couple of mid-90's pickup trucks into electric vehicles. Most people won't be able to aford a $30,000+ electric car, but spending around $5,000 on a conversion would be within the reach of a lot of people.

Edited by InitialD, 08 April 2009 - 05:02 PM.

[monsoon]

InitialD, on Apr 8 2009, 06:55 PM, said:

...
Take for example the EV1, that was created over a decade ago, yet we don't see anybody driving them on the street. ...

Did you actually read the article you quoted?   There are no EV1s because GM did not sell them.   They were leased to individuals in California and once the leases were up, GM took them back and ended up crushing them.   GM canceled the program because it took too much to develop.     Now disposed CEO Rick Wagner says it was a mistake to have done that as the decision, which was based solely on short term profits, ended up costing them a decade's worth of technological development.   GM instead developed vehicles like the Hummer H2 & H3.  

There really is nothing new about electric vehicles.  A century ago, there were a number of these vehicles on the road like this Detroit Electric.   This car would go about 80 miles on a charge and was quite competitive with gasoline vehicles of the time.   People preferred electrics because they were reliable compared to gasoline cars which often broke down and were easy to start.  Before the electric crank, starting a gasoline vehicle could cause serious injury.   If they had stuck with the technology over the next 100 years, it would be my guess that electrics would be quite advanced now.  



Bonus: Dr. F. Porsche, the same guy famously known for inventing the VW Beetle and the fast sports cars, actually built a hybrid electric in 1899.  This was a remarkable achievement given the state of technology at the time.  Notice the electric motors on the wheels.  

[InitialD]

monsoon, on Apr 8 2009, 07:23 PM, said:

Did you actually read the article you quoted?   There are no EV1s because GM did not sell them.   They were leased to individuals in California and once the leases were up, GM took them back and ended up crushing them.   GM canceled the program because it took too much to develop.     Now disposed CEO Rick Wagner says it was a mistake to have done that as the decision, which was based solely on short term profits, ended up costing them a decade's worth of technological development.   GM instead developed vehicles like the Hummer H2 & H3.

What I meant to say is that the technology such as the EV1 has existed for a while, not that they were for sale. Like you said, they didn't invest in the electric cars because oil was cheap and they couldn't see two feet from the end of their nose. They ended up having to play catch up when the Prius came out.

[TheBostonian]

Neo, on Apr 1 2009, 12:35 PM, said:

Admit it, the biggest reason you take mass transit is to save on the costs associated with fueling up your vehicle.  With electric vehicles on the horizon for all, do you think this will speed up the rate of suburban sprawl?  If it only takes $0.50 to give your electric car a full charge, would you still be willing to pay the $3/day for mass transit?

I take mass transit to avoid the cost of owning and operating a vehicle.  If people accept the cost of owning and operating their vehicle as a given and compare the cost of a mass transit trip only to the marginal cost of a car trip (gas), the car may often win.  But if one takes the average daily cost of owning and operating a car (purchase price, insurance, repairs and gas) and compares that to the cost of a mass transit round trip, the car is more likely to lose.

[The Voice of Reason]

Our local utility here in CT is developing an electric filling station network.

I guess it is one of the first in the nation, but it is also definately one of the largest.

Northeast Utilities supplies power to half of New England. so I guess it would be a pretty large network.

500+ filling stations.

[aboutmetro]

If this new ultra-capacitor technology turns out to be anything, it could revolutionize electric cars. The advantage is a fraction of the charge time.

GM Volt considering it - link

Zenn Motors in production with 50 U.S. dealers.

[nashbill]

Electric cars will have no impact on sprawl one way or another.  Drive time, cost of parking, convenient mass transit are the things that get people out of vehicles. I don't see much changing for a while.

And as GM, Nissan and Tesla receive government dollars for electric cars and the Nissan plant here in TN actually expanding to produce the cars next year, nothing will change.

[nashbill]

TheBostonian, on May 5 2009, 11:59 PM, said:

I take mass transit to avoid the cost of owning and operating a vehicle.  If people accept the cost of owning and operating their vehicle as a given and compare the cost of a mass transit trip only to the marginal cost of a car trip (gas), the car may often win.  But if one takes the average daily cost of owning and operating a car (purchase price, insurance, repairs and gas) and compares that to the cost of a mass transit round trip, the car is more likely to lose.

And yet having visited a friend who lived in Boston and lived 2 blocks from a subway station lived in a condo building with 4 units.  Every unit occupant had a vehicle and had to tandem park in the rear of the building.  Each owner had to have everybody elses keys so they could move these vehicles to get to theres.  And they were not small economical cars either.  2 SUV's, a big mercedes and a sports car.  What does this have to with sprawl, nothing.  People simply do not want to get rid of there cars.

[lordwd63]

I do not think so. In the other hand, it will affect suburban negatively !