The Guardian just ran an article on carfree predictions. One thing I found interesting is that almost nobody there had any problem with predicting and even celebrating a carfree future. While here on this supposed "carfree" forum, making carfree predictions is much more controversial and soundly challenged. Is that just the difference between European and American world views? Or does bikeforums.net just tap into a more conservative subculture than the Guardian does?

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/20...ss-end-car-age

I predict car free isn't going to happen unless a catastrophic social collapse happens... The car will change, become electric, become computer guided, and car light will rule ones life...

Generally, I think US Americans are culturally bullied into accepting the centrality of automotivism with the national-identity card and the same national-identity association between US Americans and automotivism allows European-identifiers to reject automotivism. The US is construed as national-pride in American culture and national shame in EU culture. Ironically, this helps Europeans feel less bad about exploiting US economic growth for investment returns. Sadly, most Americans aren't capable of questioning the goodness of economic growth in order to consider that they are being exploited as a growth market by global investors.

So even while many Europeans may have less qualms with seeing automotivism in decline from a personal standpoint, there is a simultaneous anti-austerity culture that expects investors to maintain high levels of welfare built on global economic growth. These investors, in turn, are charged with the responsibility of determining whether, in fact, high levels of Europeans welfare can be maintained if the US consumer markets shift away from automotivism. Ultimately, the same Europeans who are happy to see automotivism decline in their own backyards are also content to have it expand in the US if that gives them greater economic security in living more car-free at home.

As engines shrink the starter motor could be less necessary. Replacing that with a hand or foot crank can also reduce the battery and alternator weight.

Twisting a key is apparently too much work for motorists. Now a button is in fashion. A hand or foot crank would be a hard sell.

'Constructing' the user as unable or unwilling to put in extra effort to save weight/energy and/or money is a marketing myth that business tells itself to avoid putting products out on the market that give consumers the option of saving money and/or simplifying machines for other reasons. Businesses scratch each others' backs and one way to do that is by promoting the market position of your friend by insisting that your customers wouldn't be happy without his product. In reality, many people might be really happy to simplify and save some money by replacing a starter motor with a kick-starter system.

Wow! I just checked the author and date of the first post. Now I'm feeling old!!

Seems like people come and go, but some threads just never die.

No thread wwill die while Machka is around! ;)

I have a pet peeve about bumped threads, but actually, in the case of prediction threads the old ones are kind of interesting.

I notice that peak oil was a huge issue among us carfree/carlight folks eight years ago. Nowadays, in the midst of a fossil fuel glut, peak oil doesn't get much air time. Now the main focus seems to be technology and the economy. I wonder what we'll be thinking about in 2023?

It's a little ironic for me, as tonight I bought my first tank of gasoline in a year. I have a guest visiting who needed a car, so we are renting. I couldn't believe gas was only $2.59. When I pointed this out to a friend, they mentioned that this price is up from a few months ago. I guess I'm not very observant.

I also noticed that my friendly local gasoline station is now selling E85 at $1.85. Wonderful to think that the fertility of the local soils is now headed out the rear end of so many cars. Food crops now fueling transportation.

I don't know about Peak Oil or the end of the Automobile Age, but a day of reckoning is inevitable.

Good article.

I created a thread about a documentary on alternate energy called Fuel. There's no question in my mind, when the time comes, the motorist will continue to drive but without gasoline. It will happen one day.

The good news for the carfree is that we really don't have to pay much attention.

I think that teens will lead the way when adopting self-driving cars. Parents will be more comfortable when their kids go places together without needing to drive or to have a parent drive them. From there, it will seem natural to adopt a self-driving car lifestyle as an adult.

And from the origional post I would say the book was a big swing and a miss because it has already been 20 years since it was published.

You won't like hearing this, but that writer made quite a big splash with his ideas and observations. He did go out on a big limb with his peak oil predictions, and it's getting less likely that he will be right about the timing, although the main points of peak oil may or may not still come out to be true. I still love his work about sprawl and the overall ****tiness of modern design.

Modo's prediction is. RIP, Modo.

Peak Oil mania seems to have waned. Now that we're out of the recession which hit just after this thread, car sales are up. Gas prices were down, now creeping back up, but there's a lot more hybrids and full-electric vehicles than were around 8 years ago. To the point that conservatives are now proposing "use taxes" during registration renewal, based on mileage, to make up for lost gas tax revenue, punish those saving money by driving thrifty vehicles, and further subsidize gas hogs. Turns out there's a lot of natural gas out there, which people like Hong Kong taxi drivers use to power their Crown Comforts. Autonomous, self-driving cars are being developed by huge, too-big-to-fail companies. You'll sooner see hybrid, composite construction, full size pickups than their demise.

The Death of the Automobile in the USA has been overanticipated... I also get the feeling that those who predict such don't get out to rural USA much...

Still Roody it is what happens when someone predicts from what they want to see rather than what is happening. it is a bit like betting on horses. If you bet on a long shot and win people think you have special insight. If you lose by betting against the odds people just look at you and smile that knowing smile that says, there went the rent.

In unsustainable economics, betting against the odds are the only hope of survival. Betting on the sure win is economic suicide bombing.

****sler is not a scientist, and AFAIK never pretended to be one. He is more a prophet, almost in the Old Testament sense of the word. I think he is quite good at describing what is happening and where it will lead if we don't change the realities on the ground.

Much of what is happening is unsustainable, in the literal sense of the word. It will stop, cease, grind to a halt, or whatever you want to cal it. The open question is not if this will happen, or even when it will happen. The important question is, can we plan for it, can we minimize the bad impacts and maximize the good, can we even increase our chances of survival as individuals and as a species?

Early discussion of future issues is very important--even if it seems like pure science fiction at the time. Keep both eyes open for new data, and use our powers of statistical analysis and rational analysis to put together data bits and figure out where it's all headed.

Still a miss is a miss. And false prophets lose status prett quickly as a source for the future. Anything else is an excuse for why the people he indicated were out of their mind are still doing what he said they would never be able to do.

The predictions for the fall of automobile are as realistic as Mad Max fury road.

No matter what happens to the car culture, the big companies will always find a way to find something to sell to us. They will sell electric cars, steam powered cars, natural gas powered cars, fuel cell cars, hydrogen cars, or even pedal powered cars. They will find a way to continue to earn money from the masses. They will do whatever they can to make government go their way.

The liquid and gas fuels available now will be available in the next twenty-five years. Money availability in the hands of the general public will be the limiting factor for car purchases.

Look at how California is dealing with the water shortage. Conservation is being mandated by government. At the same time government is planning to raise the prices for water because they can't earn enough money with less water flowing. I really haven't read any articles about people moving away from the state because of less water availability. How many years will it be for the shortage to actually make people leave?

I know there are a couple of small towns that have water trucked to them. I haven't read about such towns dissolving because the citizens moved away. Where are the stories about houses being abandoned because of no water?

Fuel of one type or another will always flow for automobiles.

I never thought of Kunstler actually predicting the end of automobiles. He was talking more about petroleum becoming scarcer and much more expensive. Maybe he wrote something about cars ending that I'm not aware of?

From post number 1. Maybe a hedge but here it is. "Howard Kunstler in Home From Nowhere
Anybody who thinks we're going to be using cars twenty-five years from now the way we've been accustomed to using them in the recent past ought to have his head examined. That phase of out national history is over."

Which was awesome!

A frienid of mine turned me on to this alternative to Kunstler's prophecy.

BBC - Future - The cars we?ll be driving in the world of 2050

Not everyone may get that message.

http://blog.caranddriver.com/wp-cont...fury-road3.jpg