[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

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Germany

Skype: toddedelman
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Green Idea Factory is a member of World Carfree Network
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CAR is over. If you want it.

"Fort mit der Autostadt und was Neues hingebaut!" 
- B. Brecht (with slight modification)

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