Why I'm not a Tesla fanboy

March 19, 2020
technology, philosophy, society

Whilst large parts of the world just seem to love Tesla as a company and probably cheer for Elon, or even hail him as the great revolutionary saviour, I can’t get myself to chime in. In this Wired article you can read up on what ST.Elon thinks about public transport:

“I think public transport is painful. It sucks. Why do you want to get on something with a lot of other people, that doesn’t leave where you want it to leave, doesn’t start where you want it to start, doesn’t end where you want it to end? And it doesn’t go all the time.”

“It’s a pain in the ass,” he continued. “That’s why everyone doesn’t like it. And there’s like a bunch of random strangers, one of who might be a serial killer, OK, great. And so that’s why people like individualized transport, that goes where you want, when you want.”

Before you going to get irate, and half-spitting half-shouting want to tell me why Elon deserves the St. in front of his name, let me row back a bit. I do agree Elon is probably a great CEO and innovative thinker by industry standards. He does remarkable things and dares to literally reach for the stars - he’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls. So, hold your horses, no need to start a row, just yet.

What is grinding my gears and upsetting me big time though is his swagger and proclamations about “saving the planet” and a “green revolution”. First and foremost he’s doing it to make money. Let’s not forget that. It is for the money. Despite that, I guess the term green washing is quite appropriate here, or shall we say there are at least some very fundamental conceptual errors.

First of all, consider the price of a Tesla Model 3 is about $40k. Some folks will want the more expensive models though. Anyhow, with a median household income of £29,400 (yes, that’s per household and without the super rich and moneyless, PER HOUSEHOLD not per person), who is going to be able to afford such car? And who is going to afford having it fixed? Who says this model is even appropriate for many people that say, have many children or simply have very different requirements for their car? What will the price for Lithium be if a third of the world (I know, never going to happen) id going to drive a Tesla or say some other Lithium battery powered car? How much Lithium is there on this planet? I highly doubt enough to even run a third of cars on Lithium batteries (Bold claim, he knows).

Secondly, Tesla (style) cars solve or address one particular problem and essentially only that: C02-emissions or exhaust emissions from cars. That’s it. There is a whole catalogue of other problems it doesn’t address and in my opinion makes them worse because it distracts from the fact that they exist. Let me name a few:

I’ll stop here. Essentially, the claims Tesla makes are not only hugely wrong in terms of environmental and societal benefit, but also set entirely wrong impulses in our society. They veneer and distract from the problems.

Public transport is great, unless you live in out in the sticks somewhere, fair enough. If you been to European cities, though, for example, you will find it easy to agree. One of the best places for public transport I have been to is Copenhagen, Denmark. By the way, I know there is no one solution fits all, but most people do live in or around a city in central Europe. So, the points I’m trying to make you can surely refute with counter examples. However, they don’t invalidate my points because I am fully aware that you can give me counter examples, yet my points apply to many people, the majority of people in central Europe in fact. Anyway, solutions to the problem of transporting people are actually already known to a great deal at least. In places like Copenhagen, or most parts of the Netherlands, bike lanes are ubiquitous and safe. There is special bike lanes separated from cars and cars have to give way to cyclists and pedestrians. Bus go often and reliably, so do metro and trains. Not taking the car or even cycling also come with a variety of benefits, Elon! Cycling will keep you physically active and healthy, it might even safe you 20 quid for a stupid gym each month. You won’t have to worry about finding parking space, paying for a ticket or getting fined. Public transport takes up less space and is safer, car accidents are frequent and dangerous. Not using mostly a one car per person approach results in freeing up lots of valuable space in squashed cities. A great example here is Berlin. Although lots of people cycle and use public transport, cars are still everywhere. Just imagine banning private cars in the city center all together. You keep a minimum of road for deliveries, buses, taxis and services like the ambulance or fire brigade to use. The rest is freed up! You can plant trees and flowers (or even some veg), you can have generous cycle lanes and generous pavements. You have also created space for encounters, for people to meet people. To just stop for a few minutes for a chat without standing in the exhaust fumes and noise of cars. You may argue life will be much slower and people won’t get from A to B in time. In fact you may partially be right, but you can also improve public transport in this scenario, and factually cycling is often faster already than driving because you won’t get stuck in traffic. Without individuals causing congestions and accidents, traffic will also run more smoothly and predictably. Hence, you might sometimes take longer but at the same time especially during what is now called rush hour there won’t be much traffic jam to get stuck in. So instead of a 30 minutes drive being a 60 minute drive during rush hours you journey from and to work will be a reliable say 40 minutes. And! You are are not losing 10 minutes - you have made 20, my friend. Despite you have made actually more. On a descent service you can relax and read a book or the news. On a bike you can listen to your favourite podcast (in one ear only, of course). and predictabilty is important, it’s why you get a discount when when you subscribe for 12 months instead of three to a service at only marginally higher costs, or why your season ticket for the bus is such a better deal than buying singles.

However, I see and share many people’s frustration with and concerns about public transport. Wait for the but…wait for it… BUT: These are mostly not problems of public transport as a technology or mode of transportation. They are mostly policy problems. And whilst I’m much a fan of bringing a bit of Gandhi into life by being the change you want to see in the world, we also need to seek change as a collective. The government shoulnd’t be some external entity we bow to. We are always told we have a vote and that we live in a democracy where whe elect a government that represents us and our interests. Not dying from climate change is in our interests, living a healthier more relaxed life is in our interest. Caring about the well-being of our neighbours is in our interests. Since the government proclaims it reflects our interests it’s time to push it to do something about it.

Public transport is still (too) expensive. In many cities your regular trip from A to B within the city is about £2.50 - roughly. That’s lots of places in the UK, that’s Berlin. That’s Toronto. And that’s extortionate. How can I order an Uber from door to door and if I go with three or four people in the car, then that little group pays less or equivalent per person compared to public transport?

Public transport sucks! Well, in some cases it does. If you’re living out in the sticks and the bus goes twice a day, I agree. For most folks in cities it doesn’t though. It could and should go more often and connect more places. But mostly the problem is as above. The extra in inconvenience is not made up for by price. Also, running too few services is problematic because rush hour public transport gets over-crowded and then doesn’t make for an enjoyable journey. It’s also not quite as easy as running more buses. You can’t just buy a load more buses to run between 8 and 10 am and 4 to 6 pm and have them standing around or going mostly empty the rest of the time. You can however, give more people more flexible working hours to spread things out a bit. You can introduce working from home more where possible. Maybe that’s just one day a week or two days a week. Yet most of all you can make cycling and public transport more attractive by having safe designated cycling lanes. Maybe grant a tax reduction or other financial incentive for buying a bike and cycling. And make public transport cheap.

In fact I lastly want to talk about how cheap I believe public transport should be. Considering we’re taxing fuels so heavily with an “eco” tax, how come we are getting so little eco? If you want to take a fancy high speed long-distance train, fair enough, pay for it. But how can it possibly be cheaper to even drive a car alone, one person in there, on a 100 mile journey. It gets you door to door you can put on some tunes or the radio and you can go whenever you want. How can that possibly often be the cheaper option compared to taking the train? Especially when you’re a group of friends going somewhere or a family? It not only makes me angry but also believe that politics is lying about their truthfulness and true intentions. Public transport shouldn’t be privatised and for profit. Public transport is for the public by the public - that’s part of the point and in the name: It’s public. You get it? Public, as in everyone - all of us!

Don’t get me wrong. Having a car can be a great thing and fun. Moreover, it is vital for people especially in more rural areas. The rich person driving a fancy SUV or expensive sports car won’t care so much about fuel and tax getting more and more expensive. In fact, it’ll probably make it even more appealing to drive heavy and expensive cars to display a certain wealth, power and status. Increasing prices for fuel and cars is a good thing to discourage using them. But it is at most a half-arsed approach that is lazy and dishonest. The ordinary person that’s already permanently short on their dough should not be punished for just trying to be normal getting life done and getting to their jobs! People need alternatives and incentives to take public transport and cycle. Take all the bloody tax money from the fuel, tax the bloody big corps that dodge tax like Amazon or Apple. Take it and do something genuine and honest: make public transport free! At least within cities. Make it free! Hop on - hop off! That is true richness and status. Liberate people from the need to have a car, for practical and financial reasons!

It is that easy and it should be that easy. If we start talking about some people getting more discount than other and some getting transport for free we end up like so often in a whole lot of messy bureaucracy that eventually just frustrates people, adds to the too large pile of bureaucracy we have already and most of all will swallow up a huge portion of a budget that could otherwise be used directly to improve and run public transport.