End of private ownership

Arde

Arde

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Now the World Economic Forum is putting the blame on car ownership:
www.weforum.org

3 circular approaches to reduce demand for critical minerals

The energy transition requires huge amounts of critical minerals. But circular solutions alone won't be enough to sustain the demand – we need a change of mindset.
www.weforum.org www.weforum.org

The geniuses that meet in Davos flying their private planes with a monster carbon footprint pay the salary of this Winne Yeh, based in Germany (a country that barely allows Uber to operate), to lecture us about using things for longer, for phones and for cars.

This is not petty politics, this matters to a community of classic car aficionados. We cannot have eyes and not see, or worse not speak. Even Hagerty makes an effort to defend the rights and future of car classics.

This lady is against people owning more than one phone, great the reason I HAD to carry a personal and a corporate phone is not that I wanted the extra burden, the charging, the updating, etc. It is that corporations required a corporate phone and installed software agents to monitor its use, and limited in writing personal use. Nothing to do with my desires to own shit. And the reason people have newer phones is not that the old one does not work, or affects my image, it is the fact that the battery stops holding the charge and Apple made the battery not replaceable. Barking up the wrong tree. Force Apple to make the battery replaceable and lose revenue. Good luck.

I have BMWs from the 70s,80s,90s, and 2000. The newest one is 22 years old, and I have to hear lectures about giving cars a second life. My BMW minerals are pretty old. And if you want them to be reused, the factory should take the cars back after my ownership, and be on the hook for reusing them. I keep my car minerals unoxidized, and my money stays in my community by paying local mechanics.

Words matter, from the lowly naive technocrats all the way up to the teleprompter puppets about to swap a WBNA player for a Russian arms dealer just to keep the lights on.

I am going to Davos next year if that is what it takes.
 
Whenever I hear someone arguing for the "efficiency" of renting rather than owning cars, I am struck by the same question: "How do I know that a car will be available when I need it, and will be available to do what I want to do."

One of the reasons the car was widely embraced was that in enabled huge increases in freedom of movement. We are no longer stuck in our little community when we have a car. We can take a job ten miles away. We can drive to the farmer's market. We can get parts from the junkyard on the other side of town. We can shop at the outlet store next to the factory in the next town. We can date a girl from another high school (or two girls from two different high schools). We can visit our grandparents in another state. We can spend the day at a lake 40 miles away.

We have all had experiences where we wanted a taxi, or a rental car, and there were none to be found that fit our needs. The business model for rental companies is that our needs will have to be modified when demand is high. They do not consider this a cost to us. I do.

And then there is the question of permission. We do not think of needing permission to hail a taxi, because most cities require taxi drivers to take all customers. But Uber and Lyft require apps, which require both cell phones and credit cards. What happens if the rental companies, or the cell phone companies, or the credit card companies, or all of the above, create black lists? To be specific, what if the black list includes anyone who supports a German Car Company who used slaves to produce war material for Hitler? We here are all known to support such a company. Impossible, you say. I don't think so.
 
Ohmess said:
Whenever I hear someone arguing for the "efficiency" of renting rather than owning cars, I am struck by the same question: "How do I know that a car will be available when I need it, and will be available to do what I want to do."
Click to expand...

Not only wouldn't you know whether a car would be available, but if one did show up, can you imagine how clean it would be and how fully-charged its battery would be? Picture calling for a car early in the morning to take you to the airport for a dawn departure. One arrives that has just been used to get someone home after a night of partying (just ignore the vomit). And its battery will have 10 miles of range left. Good luck with that!
 
Ohmess said:
Whenever I hear someone arguing for the "efficiency" of renting rather than owning cars, I am struck by the same question: "How do I know that a car will be available when I need it, and will be available to do what I want to do."
Click to expand...
Yep, a car is freedom. In April I came for a week to NY from SFO. I called an Uber at 4AM, the moron did not want the trip so he accepted and upon seeing the destination started moving away instead of towards me. After 15 minutes I had to cancel, get on my car, drive to the airport, and pay for a week parking.
I get that a lot when I need a late ride from Aptos to Cupertino, I usually have 40 minutes to play chicken and I do not cancel. I see them riding down hwy 1 at 10pm about 10miles per hour. When they arrive I face the choice between cursing them or thanking them for coming. So far I always thanked them. Car ownership is freedom.
 
Arde said:
Yep, a car is freedom. In April I came for a week to NY from SFO. I called an Uber at 4AM, the moron did not want the trip so he accepted and upon seeing the destination started moving away instead of towards me. After 15 minutes I had to cancel, get on my car, drive to the airport, and pay for a week parking.
I get that a lot when I need a late ride from Aptos to Cupertino, I usually have 40 minutes to play chicken and I do not cancel. I see them riding down hwy 1 at 10pm about 10miles per hour. When they arrive I face the choice between cursing them or thanking them for coming. So far I always thanked them. Car ownership is freedom.
Click to expand...


there is a neat additional question for some of us that live in environments without the critical mass (demography they call it)

clear is that you may have shared services in Madrid, LA, or London, but what happens in rural environments, small cities, and so on...?

happy that checking the three keys for a virtuous life i only miss the first one:

1. Go from owning to using

2. Enable preference for longevity = check

3. Build pride in second life = check

so I am not that far from paradise ;-)
 
deQuincey said:
what happens in rural environments, small cities, and so on...?
Click to expand...
I think the intelligent folks studying shifts in car ownership understand that the ownerless model really only works in specific environments and for specific people (ex people with dogs or kids who need safety seats). I know quite a few people in cities who do not own a car, instead using a combo of ride sharing and a variety of rentals formats (trad and zip-car).
As far as the unreliability of Uber … that’s why traditional livery service companies still exist.

In my suburban area, Uber is not a great choice due to long wait times and high prices, and I’ve never found one that will tow my trailer or haul a pile of 2x4’s

John
 
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