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Why owning a car no longer adds up for drivers

telegraph.co.uk

9 points by lhomdee 2 years ago · 8 comments

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SkyPuncher 2 years ago

This is an opinion piece based heavily on quotes from Sixt - a company interested in car sharing.

  • winternett 2 years ago

    I am thoroughly convinced the whole anti-car movement, and the lobby to increase taxes and fees on personal vehicles is driven undercover and underhandedly by the car/ride sharing industry. It's unreasonable and nefarious, and pretty much any time a reasonable person posts a counterpoint, they're mobbed by bots and commenters that harass them online. If you get rid of car ownership, there are no longer job opportunities in Uber, because individual drivers won't be able to own cars... Removing the right to own vehicles is a ridiculously silly and deeply undermining & dishonest anti-intellectual argument.

    We've reached a point where the anti-car lobby form of marketing has become hostile warfare, just to make people at the top of the scheme rich, and they use the most underhanded methods to push their agenda.

    In a crisis, for example, your wife having a baby, or a tremendous hurricane approaching your house, you don't have an option of simply hopping into an Uber, renting a Turo car, Having a fully charged Tesla, or hopping on a bikeshare with your family of 4 and riding for 100 miles to grandma's house in a snowstorm.

    The more we lose individual rights to property ownership, or when affordability grows out of our reach, we'll be doomed to a life of terror and constantly rising costs without any ownership, if we invest further in this attitude that ridesharing and that Amsterdam bicycle culture can work everywhere for everyone.

    Not everyone has the same abilities and needs in life, not everyone lives 5 minutes from their downtown city job, or somewhere where the weather is always sunny and roads are clean. End fake rideshare dictatorship. Car ownership prices, taxes, insurance, and emissions should also be decreasing, not increasing year over year, while reliability and safety should be increasing. This whole structure is deeply manipulated by people with their own agendas and they need to be properly countered with reason.

    These efforts should be geared towards making big industry fix factory, trucks, trains, shipping, and air transport all more clean... That's where most of the pollution in our planet secretly goes unchecked. New cars are more efficient than they've ever been, getting rid of that will mostly fund more diesel busses when EV busses break down (as they often do).

    • stillwithit 2 years ago

      And all the “drive more” memes and “look everyone; Sting drives a car too!” commercials are car seller propaganda.

      Thanks for pointing out there are groups out there looking to influence our economic positions.

      Where would I be with my understanding of the world if not for social media belaboring the usual and offering little net new?

    • faeriechangling 2 years ago

      Do you know how much money there is behind convincing people that the opposite sex with love you, you’ll be tough, you will be productive, and your life will be fantastic if you only buy this truck?

    • ttymck 2 years ago

      > riding for 100 miles to grandma's house in a snowstorm.

      Maybe some of us simply reject the notion that we should be obligated to travel 100 miles at a moments notice?

fatnoah 2 years ago

I feel like this article is best summed up as "Owning a car no longer adds up for people who don't really drive anywhere."

I'd even go so far as to say that's always been true.

doublerabbit 2 years ago

Anti-Paywall: https://archive.ph/vBttl

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