Peak Car

'Empty Highways' - About 61 Million Americans Have Stopped Commuting In Post-Covid World 

I read the above headline on Zero Hedge, which reminded me of Peak Car, or the beginning of the end of our short relationship with personal automobiles.

 

This was the reaction to the headline from Raúl Ilargi Meijer over at The Automatic Earth:

"I’m trying! I am! 

I’m trying to feel stupid for thinking that it’s great we finally found a way to make people NOT drive a car an hour+ every day that is 20x their weight and uses less than 10% of the energy effectively that moves it forward. 

I’m trying to feel stupid because, I know, the economy!"

61 million people giving up the car commute is a lot less wasted time and energy for a lot of people. Also cleaner air, less noise, and fewer people maimed and killed in accidents.

Do we each need our own cars, or does the economy need each of us to need our own cars? 

Many of the cars taken off the road since the beginning of 2020 will not go back, but the decline started well before the car-ona virus.

Car ownership in the US has plateaued for about a decade, and declines in private auto use have been seen in many countries such as Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Iceland, Japan and the UK.

But won't China save the big automakers? 

Nope.

Car sales in China, the world's biggest car market (formerly the world's largest bicycle market), fell a whopping 92% in the first half of February this year.

Perhaps we don't need all those millions and millions of inefficient personal mobility devices. They may be "good for the economy", but they are hardly economical. 

Might not our lives, and the world, be better without them?

Besides, where is there to go when the world is tapped out?