They would have to make it a LAW that any power that the “grid” steals from your car is purchased at the HIGHEST PEAK rate from homeowners. Otherwise you would pay retail to charge your car the grid will take power from your car and only pay you wholesale prices and now you have to pay retail to charge your car…

I think that’s great for being able to use it as a backup source for my house when the power goes out. Since I already need to have a car, I don’t have to pay another $20k to bolt a bunch of ugly ass batteries to the side of my house. And the car will get replaced every few years anyway, so no need to think about…

Exactly, Every time I see one of these Crap on PHEV articles it’s kinda maddening. I just got my first one in December and it’s almost a perfect fit. It only has ~25 miles range EV realistically in colder weather, but that’s enough for my daily round trip commute. I use gas on those days I end up driving long…

I switched from an EV (Tesla) which I owned for 7 years to a PHEV for this reason. I’m a single car household and started driving long distance more and while the Tesla wasn’t a bad long-distance driver it wasn’t a good long-distance driver. It obviously has great charging infrastructure but you are still required to…

2nd Gear: For love of christ, can we please stop with this idea that PHEV’s are a half measure? Most of their battery packs are less than a quarter the size of an equivalent BEV’s, and just about anyone who uses one will tell you the fill the gas tank less than 10 times a year. Using a fraction of the most critical…

I think you described most people. When the range of EV’s was super limited the argument was always “well the average commute is X so you don’t need that much range”. People who own plug in hybrid’s could feasibly do most of their driving on full electric and really only use the ICE when going on long trips. IMO plug…

2nd Gear: Plug-Ins

Who are plug in hybrids for? Honestly, they’re for people like me. Every other week I have to drive between 400 and 500 miles to Ohio in pretty much whatever weather god decided to throw at the midwest. The rest of the time, I don’t have to drive that much- I work remote and when I’m at home, aside…

Plug-ins are for:

A big reason their costs are so low is that they charge luxury car money but are equipped more like a Mitsubishi Mirage with an Ipad bolted to the dashboard, and they have worse build quality.

I have a brilliant idea, since MTA is so focused on Manhattan, why not tax Manhattan business (including real-estate / investment properties) and have transpiration services free or cheaper to riders.
I seriously doubt fare evasion can be fixed and that by itself is not small amount:

“Lets see, corporate profits are at their highest in 70 years, were going into a recession, and we need to fix something that mainly affects NY city.... Oh I know! Let’s tax streaming services and delivery! No wait, how about taxing Uber and Lyft!" Gee why are people leaving NY state again?

New York has a long history of taxing the wrong things and wrong people. The answer has always been “tax the rich a little more.” And since the 1970s, New York policymakers have danced around that answer. The income tax could be a little more progressive, and the state should tax mansions - where our rich usually get…

Ok, that supermarket displaces 50 homes bc of all the space taken up by surface parking, not the store itself. Or you can do what they do in a lot of other places- build a supermarket and business on the ground floor, and housing above. Try looking at a map of any suburban commercial development and you can see how…

Before cars it was the only type of city.

The issue is the time they waste in transit period (whether they own a car or not) because the inexpensive housing is always a long way from the work. The problem is not public transit, it’s housing. And when we waste HUGE amounts of space on parking for people who own cars, That’s part of the problem.

What’s always funny and telling about this is how mad some people get about the idea that someone might choose to try and make their life less car-centric.

Yeah I love cars too, but I hate the simple cost of owning and operating them. If I didn’t need to have a car, I wouldn’t have a car despite my affinity for them.

Combine the car-free zone and no minimum parking or single-family home rules with a law similar to the Japanese requirement for proof of off-street parking for car purchases, et voilà!

Maybe, and I’m just spitballing here, the people who choose to live in the car-free neighborhood are the people who choose to not own a car at all.

Cities can change. We don’t have to keep making car ownership mandatory. I love cars but I hate commuting in them.