[sustran] Re: Better Place sustainable transportation and business
model
Todd Edelman, Green Idea Factory
edelman at greenidea.eu
Fri Dec 12 22:52:10 JST 2008
On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 7:08 PM, Ramon Fernan <bayk_aksyon at yahoo.com <mailto:bayk_aksyon at yahoo.com>> wrote:
Don't know if this topic has been discussed here but what do people think of Shai Agassi's Better Place business model for promoting electric cars? More junk on the road? Not even worth considering?
Better Place has a website: www.betterplace.com <http://www.betterplace.com> and Agassi has a blog to promote his ideas: http://shaiagassi.typepad.com/. Thomas Friedman of the NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/opinion/27friedman.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/opinion/27friedman.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin>) has lately been promoting his plan to rid the world of dependence on (Arab) oil. (Agassi is Israeli).
***
In response, Peter Smith wrote:
I have a view! :) i don't like it.
http://bikeblogs.org/sf/2008/12/02/just-so-were-not-confused/
saving cars is bad, and i'm also thinking of the Jevons Paradox, named after William Stanley Jevons:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
less energy on the micro-scale, but much more energy on the macro scale. boo.
***
To which I add,
Hi all,
Peter is right, and the one extra thought I had is that - to paraphrase
someone whose name is presently elusive - if you keep on repeating the
word "sustainable" over and over people will start believing it. George
Orwell would be impressed or depressed, depending on how you look at things.
The future these folks propose will seem to have just as much
congestion, obesity and social isolation in places which are
automobile-centred now and of course more in the rest of the world which
is still not automobilised. Deaths of vulnerable road users per capita
might go down in automobilised countries (because the cars are lighter
than current ones) but will go up everywhere else.
They talk about renewable energy grids but it will be years before these
exist en masse, and as we know current plug-in hybrids take advantage of
a network not designed for vehicle use (in regards to taxation), and
which in many places is powered by coal.
If I may be so bold:
"Dear Better Place,
We are sorry to report that your project in its current form will not be
permitted to carry the New Mobility* label.
However, if you propose urban vehicles only for use for carshare, paying
a individual motorised transport tax on distance travelled, and with
active and passive safety features to protect vulnerable road users as
well as speed limiters, in addition to further measures which will
define this solution as a minority-partner in a sustainable mobility
plan focused strategically on reducing the need for mobility, and
tactically on construction of dense housing, de-centralised services,
shopping and entertainment plus walking, cycling and mass public
transport vehicles, we may reconsider your proposal.
Kind regards,
People of Earth"
* This label does not exist; I am just trying to make a point and would
not be the one to authorise its use. For more info please see
www.newmobility.org
- T
p.s. I am half-Israeli
--
--------------------------------------------
Todd Edelman
Green Idea Factory
Urbanstr. 45
D-10967 Berlin
Germany
Skype: toddedelman
Mobile: ++49 0162 814 4081
Home/Office: ++49 030 7554 0001
edelman at greenidea.eu
www.greenidea.eu
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Green Idea Factory is a member of World Carfree Network
www.worldcarfree.net
CAR is over. If you want it.
"Fort mit der Autostadt und was Neues hingebaut!"
- B. Brecht (with slight modification)
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