this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2026
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I love talking to people that I know with range anxiety when I know they could charge every night at their home.
And then they start on about "What about long trips?", and I've known them for over 20 years, and the only travel they've ever done is from the airport.
Seriously, are they getting paid ? I don't get why they feel obliged to just talk about things that don't even apply to them.
This is also why they buy those massive 4WDs as city and suburban people. It's for the imaginary off road camping trip they are definitely going to go on...one day. Could just buy a normal car and hire the 4WD, but no - they plan their entire life around the one thing that will never actually happen.
The funniest part is that if 90% of those cars attempt actual offroading, the cars will kill themselves, or, the driver will kill the car, having absolutely no clue how to drive off road.
Several years back, I was in a Prius C, hybrid, trying a shortcut through some empty truck loading dock areas, to get around an accident at a fairly major intersection not too far away.
... Me, in my little putt-putt subcompact... found myself blocked by... it must have been a Ford 350.
He had come up to a puddle.
A 3 inch deep puddle.
But it was really broad, wide.
This fucking moron was evidently not from around here, doesn't cut through this completely flat parking lot that gets puddles like this whenever it rains, which is often.
So I carefully mount a bit of a curb, with two wheels, (again, in my subcompact hybrid) to drive around this lost idiot. I carefully dismount the curb, with him honking at me the whole time, and then make a rooster tail in the 1/8 mile long, 3 inch puddle that him in his F 350 can't fucking figure out.
When I got home, I checked my undercarriage for any damage.
Nothing.
Also, no electrical problems either, in the following months, in my hybrid, that 90% of local mechanics say has electronics that are too complicated for them to even touch the car for anything semi-complicated.
Truck people are not worthy of drawing breath.
Suburban people buy SUVs because they’re big with lots of space, and they’re safer. It’s a circular thing too, because when everyone else has one you need one to be “safer” in an accident, rinse and repeat.
99% of them aren’t 4WD. The number of actual 4WDs you see driving around are negligible. Most SUVs don’t even have a AWD option, let alone 4WD.
And also they don't want to admit to themselves they actually need a minivan.
That’s the loss of space part, but minivans are more like regular cars than SUVs in terms of safety.
Unfortunately the best way to avoid dying in a car crash because a SUV hit you is to be in an SUV.
Don't get me started on the SUV thing.
I seriously question how often they leave the tarmac, and would love to see proof if they are ever put in 4WD mode.
Meh, most of them are probably 2WD and only pretend offroaders anyways.
As someone who doesn't own a car, it's wild to me that people will buy something for the extremely rare times they'll use that feature.
Renting a car for the weekend is a thing, folks...
I've done the maths trying to justify not having a car.several times. Eg, just uber or public transport
I am so damn close!
For clarity, I'm not saying everyone can not own a car, but most people definitely don't need a yank wank truck, or a car that drives 1000 km in a single go, for the vast, vast, vast majority of their trips.
I think there's a case to be made that if one must have a car, and they have the option of choosing an electric car, they should do that, and in the rare cases they need a car that runs on fuel for range or lack of charging options, just rent one.
I hope you get some more transport options near you soon to tick you over to the car-free life!
Not buying more car than I need was definitely something I thought about when I bought mine. It's okay that trips I do every 2 or 3 months need a charging stop. I was taking a break during those anyway, so the smaller battery size is fine.
I did the maths back in 2017 and got rid of my car. Calculated that if I took two or less car trips per week, it was cheaper to get a taxi for those than to pay for ongoing maintenance, registration etc.
I have a mate who genuinely drives across australia. For leisure, he's a travelling man. He"s done melb to broome, to busselton, followed the 'ghan, whole kit and caboodle.
He does it in a divvy van he's had converted to lpg.
I suspect much of it is a fear of change. People are looking for a remotely plausible reason to dismiss it, even if it doesn't apply to them, because it means they won't have to modify their behaviour. You can see this with plant based diets, public and active transport, and cooking and heating technologies such as induction cooktops and heatpumps.
The plus side is that the moment people actually make the change, they rarely go back. See also congestion pricing across the world, where the view of it is negative right up until it's implemented and it almost immediately becomes popular.