OK. It's a snowstorm. Would you rather spin out in something that weighs 4000lbs or something that is more like an enclosed ATV or a gator with studded tires? The physics is on your side with the smaller and lighter vehicle plus of course the efficiency gains to be had from requiring less energy overall to go the same distance since your total weight is going to be lower.
You're ignoring the vehicle has to be able to carry an HVAC system on it unless you're fine with freezing in sub zero temperatures. Like where do you think all that weight is going? Car manufacturers just arbitrarily making their own costs higher and fuel efficiency worse for nothing?
If your solution to this problem doesn't account for the disabled, elderly, physically unfit, or requires that some or all people be unable to drive in weather that personal vehicles right now handle without issue, like freezing rain, you're not gonna get much buy-in.
IMO maybe its a little absurd every minivan or whatever can go 120mph and go zero to 60 in 5 seconds. Why do you need that power? Not for legal driving sitations that's for sure since as soon as you use that power you have on tap you are basically driving recklessly by definition. Tool for the job and all. I can manage life going to the grocery store with something with the performance characteristics of a golf cart or a bird scooter. Don't need a 5 second 0-60 for that, personally.
Even where I live there is the 110 to pasadena, one of the oldest freeways there is (if not THE oldest) and some of the shortest onramps you've ever seen. Even then, you do not need to go from 0-60 in five seconds to safely merge.
And with the 120 on the other end, sure, maybe the engines are good for that, but why even allow the car to go that fast? Why not just put in a speed limiter? Doesn't make much sense why we have all this power imo when the driving rules and laws were written around cars that probably took 20 seconds to reach 60mph and might have needed to go downhill with a tailwind to breach 75mph. And what do you know, the laws always have to account for these anemic vehicles thanks to just old vehicles and stuff like commercial equipment that is going to be heavy and slow no matter what, so you won't find yourself ever needing more performance to keep up with faster interchanges or anything like that since things are always going to built to these meager performance expectations. It's like buying a $4000 gaming PC to run microsoft word 98; wrong tool for the job.
The Worldwatch Institute regularly put out 80-page studies in the 1980s. Disappointingly, they published one on The Future of the Bicycle which never once mentioned the word 'rain'.
FWIW, the Aptera three-wheel EV design gets IIRC 10X better distance/kWhr than most EVs, and has a US classification as a motorcycle.
I suggest you try getting outside and traveling the world a bit, to get a better understanding of the large ranges of weather seen in different cities throughout the world. You'll definitely be surprised! There's hot, cold, wet, icy, windy, and everything in between.
For a rare few places in the world, open air transportation could work year round. For the rest, you'll need an equally sized fleet of cars for the bad days, and scooters for the good days, than can be easily swapped.
they would shovel the snow and salt the sidewalks at my uni with enclosed with hvac, basically more durable 'golf carts' with a truck bed with a salt dispenser and a snow plow in front. seems like something like that would make a decent winter grocery getter or commuter.
I imagine that, at some point, safety will become a concern when injuries start piling up [1], leading to bigger, heavier, 'golf carts', with car like safety features. I drive a Fiat 500e [2], which is basically the same size as a golf cart, but won't get me killed. I have no interest in driving anything smaller, and I doubt I'm alone!
> During the observation period, a total of 875 GC-related crashes occurred, representing an average of 136 crashes, 65 hospitalizations, and 9 dead or disabled annually. Of all crashes, 48% resulted in hospitalization, severe trauma, or death. Of these, ejection occurred in 27%, hospitalization in 55%, and death or disability in 15% of crashes.
> I suggest you try getting outside and traveling the world a bit, to get a better understanding of the large ranges of weather seen in different cities throughout the world. You'll definitely be surprised! There's hot, cold, wet, icy, windy, and everything in between.
Nice personal attack.
You have 0 info about me to say anything. You know what they say: "if you have nothing to say, just shut up". Your mom should have taught you that ;-)
> For a rare few places in the world, open air transportation could work year round. For the rest, you'll need an equally sized fleet of cars for the bad days, and scooters for the good days, than can be easily swapped.
A rare few places?
Bikes are common in South East Asia (hot, wet).
Bikes are common in the Netherlands (wet, windy).
Bikes are common in Finland (icy).
Electric bikes are starting to make even hilly terrain bikeable.
Unless population density is low, bikes + scooters + public transport can cover everything.
People just don't want to do that. That's a different story to "it can't be done!!!11!!".
This reminds me of winter biking back in university in Idaho (fairly cold winters)... with a night shift that got off at 23:00.
The path I was on wasn't really maintained with winter bikers in mind, and I never even thought of researching winter tires, and I wasn't a particularly skilled cyclist (I don't think I cleaned the chain once in several years).
So I did what any stubborn-minded fool who had to bike to their job rain or shine would do: I simply fell over repeatedly until I started getting the hang of things (pro-tip: just don't turn at all and you won't fall over)
Nowadays I'm too old to consider regularly crashing during my commute to be a particularly sane idea; though I still don't have a car and wish cycling infrastructure would get even a fraction of the attention that car infrastructure does.
Well, for this missing scenario, public transport in theory would help.
However there is a strong lack of will for it in many places.
In many others the population density doesn't really allow it.
As usual, it's a mix of things, just that the current default of "cars everywhere" should be turned on its head. It should be: "no cars everywhere, and then introduce cars where they are actually needed".
I see you live in an area with significantly more days of good weather than bad!