What piece of shit harassed you for riding a bike?
Edit: I am deeply saddened by the current state of things.

This was my experience this morning. I ride a trike with a big fucking basket in back so i haul a lot of shit around town. It's mostly pickup dudes who love my trike anyways i've discovered, but when i'm hauling shit (like 150 pounds of cat food) they really love it. I get "how much gas are you saving on that" "all of it, it gets me to the next town and back" a lot and it's a real fun conversation.

goshery store

I think there's also a problem with the kinds of EVs everyone tried to sell.

Tesla has seen legitimate success in making EVs a desirable luxury item. The Prius became something of a fashion statement among kale chip eating Californians in the 2000s because of its alleged economy, but it was still an economy car. It wasn't that nice or luxurious. Tesla made cars people wanted to drive and be seen driving, with an all-electric powertrain.

Pretty much everyone tried to copy that business model, making excessively fast luxury sport sedanover blobs with price tags that make car shoppers start muttering the word "depreciation."

Meanwhile, EVs tend to be the breeding ground for shit features everybody hates, like touch screen HVAC controls. Nobody wants to make a normal car that happens to be electric, which is what a lot of the buying public wants, but can't find.

I hope more people try it because hot damn, I love having an EV. We got a gently used Bolt last year and it’s exceeded my expectations in every way. It’s quick and QUIET inside and so far we haven’t had the need to go beyond a regular old wall socket 120V charger (we mostly just drive in-town). But wow I love driving it and never stopping to gas it or even change the oil. It’s such a simple and satisfying experience.

unfortunately he's decimating green energy in pretty much every other area. especially wind.

They are probably people that were already looking or anbout to start looking for a new car and pivoted to EV based on current conditions.

Maybe. The average driver is spending just under $200 per month now on gas (14000 miles per year at 20mpg, gas $3/gallon - you can adjust numbers as you want, these are reasonable but some cars better fuel ecconomy) if you drive more than average it is possible to make payments on fuel savings in some cases.

or in my case the old car was going to be replaced anyway. Paymets were a given, so saving over $100 a month in fuel was a nice bonus. There are a lot of people who are buying something different anyway who care about their budget.

People whose car died at the worst time (because my personal situation) but also at the best time (because of the Iran war / oil situation). We really needed a new car fast and before our old car really broke down we were looking at either a hybrid or EV version of a certain car. The attack on Iran and its ripple effects simply tipped the balance towards the EV. I knew this bs wasn’t going to go away in a few days but we were fast enough to get one for the price it was before the war. I was already really looking forward to driving oil-free, so I think it’s been a good decision. No debt either.

Car are always being bought and sold. Some people jump from car to car every few years; I’ve known people who always lease precisely because they trade what they have every year or two for something new.

I’ve been an EV driver for the last few years; my brother called today to tell me he had just bought a used Bolt for his wife. As things happened one of his grown children had their car completely fail on them this week, and so he and his wife decided to buy themselves a new car so they could sell the old one for cheap to their child. With gas prices as they are they found a gently used Bolt EUV. They pick it up this weekend.

So in their case they didn’t go out and buy a car just because gas prices were up — but the decision between gas and EV was triggered by the price of gasoline.

You can get by on public fast chargers for the interim. 120V is also more viable than I expected. I was all ready to install a 240 line for a charger when we bought our EV but a year later we haven’t actually needed to yet. No long commute in our household, so 🤷‍♂️BTW we did exactly what you described: bought a very low-miles used Bolt on Carvana.

Take the plunge if you want to.

You might just do it now. You can probably be ok for a few weeks.

Whomp whomp.

God how I miss living in an urban area. Until two years ago, I'd bike with my kids to their school every day. Where we are now, it's 10 miles of deathtrap pavement away. ☹️ I wouldn't feel comfortable riding most of it on my own, let alone with my kids.

Fuck cars. Quality of life is so much higher when you don't have to depend on them.