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[–] 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Get my class A and become the bus driver?

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    This literally is the plan of the villain in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    I really like the fact that if most of the lanes in the bottom picture were replaced by rails and trains, the cars would be able to travel faster

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  • 28 comments in c/memes@lemmy.world view that post
    [–] 23 points 11 months ago* (8 children)

    Saw a documentary on how gm killed the electric car they made in to 90s

    GM EV1 electric car was discontinued in the late 1990s after its production run (1996-1999), and GM controversially crushed almost all of them in the early 2000s, sparking the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?". The company stated the decision was due to high production and maintenance costs and the belief that it was not a commercially viable product. The EV1's demise is often linked to the end of California's zero-emission vehicle mandate, after which GM and other automakers lobbied to soften the regulations. 

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  • [+] 14 points 11 months ago* (3 children)
  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago

    They were still selling into the 30s, marketed primarily towards women ("less maintenance, no gasoline needed", etc). The Depression really killed off the environment that allowed many people to own multiple cars, and those little electric city cars were the first to go because you needed something that was big and could actually carry your kids and your dog and your belongings and whatever else.

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  • [–] 0 points 11 months ago

    Batteries being shit is the reason electric cars haven't been a thing.

    Even now lipo batteries at best are 40x less energy dense than gasoline.

    People really don't understand how critical energy density is. It's the reason hydrogen is a pipe dream, a 60 gallon tank of hydrogen is equivalent to a 5 gallon gasoline tank.

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Just imagine what our battery capacities would be by now if we had gone forward with those

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  • [–] 16 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    I see this a lot and GM definitely deserves a large share of the blame but we also need to look at ourselves, our culture, and the way we decided to evolve our cities.

    Redlining, white flight, car-centric suburbs, HOAs, wide streets, 2-car garages, Hollywood movies like Rebel Without a Cause. The list of factors goes on and on and on.

    A lot of people like to blame boomers for all our ills but I think the trend started earlier with people who were teenagers at the end of WW2. They were too young to fight in the war but they were old enough to get sucked into this brand new marketing and cultural phenomenon known as the teenager.

    Prior to WW2, marketers targeted only older adults and their messaging was very practical and family-oriented. After WW2 there began a movement towards teenage independence, rebellion, and rock & roll. The centre of all this independence was the car!

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago

    I agree, NIMBY behavior and local political inefficiency in cali makes it impossible to build any high speed transportation. We barely got bart (and LA metro) extensions built after such a long delay.

    I'd love a day when the entire west coast is connected via high speed, but right now we have just amtrak which is ungodly slow and doubles how long a trip takes

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  • [–] 8 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    What is that middle lane for?

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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago

    It's for all those drivers that enjoy getting stuck behind that one idiot doing half the speed limit for no reason.

    Or it might be a lane for tidal traffic: one way during the morning rush hour and the other way in the evening.

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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Probably an express lane that allows through traffic to not need to deal with on-ramp/off-ramp congestion

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago

    Exactly. A fee is paid for the illusion of expeditious transit as you will encounter someone going slower than the "free" transit lanes far more frequently than desired. It's fun to look next to you in those situations as you feel the justified contempt of passersby zipping along on their journey.

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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    It was Henry Ford and John D Rockefeller who killed public transportation like electric trolley cars, so they could be replaced by gas guzzling vehicles.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago

    There used to be a line on my street in Lansing 😭

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago

    My area in Los Angeles used to have several rail lines nearby along with pedestrian tunnels (called “sub-ways” at the time) all over the place. I like looking at old photos from those times and marvel at how much more pedestrian friendly it all used to be.

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  • [–] 10 points 11 months ago

    Couldn't Fascist Ford, shipping weapons to Nazi Germany, be held just as culpable? Fuck all these cunts.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago

    Expensive planet killing death machines are all they are.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    don’t forget Firestone et al…

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago (1 child)
  • [+] -7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    ‘Enjoying’ the BO, scabies/fleas and creeps groping n taking vids when you’re just trying to get home in one piece to be able to access a restroom finally.

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