"I don't think I would have believed it."

Rivian CEO issues strong statement about people who purchase gas-powered cars: ‘Sort of like building a horse barn in 1910’::“I don’t think I would have believed it.”

  • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    – a friend of mine just got a Tesla, despite living in a townhouse where he can’t charge. He goes out to charge on weekends, similarly to how he fills the tank in his gasoline car. It’s not as convenient or cheap as being able to just plug in, but it is a reasonable thing to do

    It only seems reasonable until you take a step back to consider the bigger picture, which is that areas zoned for townhouses ought to be walkable. The fact that he even wants a car – electric or otherwise – to begin with shows that something went very, very wrong in the design of the entire neighborhood.

    • AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      something went very, very wrong in the design of the entire neighborhood

      Several things went very very wrong ….

      The context is the Boston metro area. We do have pretty good transit, for the US. Most towns are old for the US and built up long before cars, so do have walkable centers with higher density housing ….

      So they built this complex in a swamp, oriented around cars, not walkable to anywhere. Exits on a main road that doesn’t even have sidewalks. And somehow for a car oriented development, it’s in an area without decent roads, so it’s not even easy to drive anywhere … and the complex is a black hole in the map of high speed internet: the only part of town not served by fiber

      • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        And somehow for a car oriented development, it’s in an area without decent roads, so it’s not even easy to drive anywhere …

        It’s almost never easy to drive anywhere car-oriented (except rural areas): too many cars get in the way! What’s more, this is true no matter how “decent” the roads are, due to induced demand. The way to make it easy to drive is to provide alternatives so that the other folks use them and thus get out of the way.