You’re also assuming that it’s only working at traffic lights. My auto stop would activate when the car was slowing down under 10mph. It also activates in car washes and when the car is parked.
But hey, fine, if saving 190 million pound of CO2 from entering the atmosphere buy turning off idling engines isn’t the answer, what would you do to save that much CO2 from running ICE vehicles instead?
In 60000 miles, the above poster reports one gallon of gas was saved. That’s 0.05% assuming 30mpg. We don’t need hundreds or thousands of changes that each net us tiny results, we need big changes that can happen quickly and net tens of percentage points of improvement. Yes, small changes are not literally nothing, but solutions need to look like “40% fewer cars on the road” sorts of things if we want to actually accomplish anything at all.
The world doesn’t have time or space for us to make these minor, rounding-error changes. I know the argument will be “every little bit helps” but we collectively need to start making massive changes, and stop thinking of this as an incremental problem. We should still make improvements and strive for better efficiencies, but the practical reality is that those changes are too small, too slow, and too late.
solutions need to look like “40% fewer cars on the road” sorts of things if we want to actually accomplish anything at all.
I think the worst part with this is that this can be achieved overnight be mandating remote work for office workers. We already know exactly what the impacts of remote work are because the entire white collar workforce went remote 5 years ago. Let’s do that ASAP because the only people who don’t benefit from remote work are commercial real estate investors
My imagined legislation would impose a new commute tax on businesses with office workers working in office. This tax would be proportional to the number of office workers, and would be introduced alongside a new tax incentive for remote office workers. If the office worker is permitted to work remotely 4 workdays a week the tax break effectively zeros out the commute tax cost for that worker. 3 days a week reduces the commute tax break by 3/4 for that worker, etc. Force shitty bosses to pay for their anti-worker RTO plans. The tax income would be directly applied to road and public transit infrastructure since the significantly reduced rush hour traffic would change traffic patterns and we all know how road maintenance has been struggling for funding on recent decades
Every car made in the last 10 years can use auto-start and stop without any additional hardware. It’s practically free, just a little bit of code to shut off spark and fuel under certain conditions. I’m also fairly sure the commentor just googled “how long does the average person spend waiting at stoplights every day” and used that as an estimate for the fuel savings (practically free fuel savings I might add again). Auto-Stop works at the drive-thru, it works in carwashes, it works while waiting to pick up your kids at school, it works when you run into the house to grab something you forgot. I drove a 2015 Honda CR-Z with Auto-Stop for 9 years, and when the feature wasn’t working (it disables when it is very cold out) it dropped my fuel economy about 3-5mpg, and that was for a fairly small (1.5L) motor. The savings are much greater for larger, more fuel hungry engines.
Again though, the feature does not require a new component, or special fuel, or interaction from the driver. We’re buying, burning, and wasting that extra fuel for no reason at all. No matter how small an amount it is, it’s worthwhile to save it when it costs us literally nothing to do so.
You’re also assuming that it’s only working at traffic lights. My auto stop would activate when the car was slowing down under 10mph. It also activates in car washes and when the car is parked.
But hey, fine, if saving 190 million pound of CO2 from entering the atmosphere buy turning off idling engines isn’t the answer, what would you do to save that much CO2 from running ICE vehicles instead?
You’re locking in on the wrong thing.
In 60000 miles, the above poster reports one gallon of gas was saved. That’s 0.05% assuming 30mpg. We don’t need hundreds or thousands of changes that each net us tiny results, we need big changes that can happen quickly and net tens of percentage points of improvement. Yes, small changes are not literally nothing, but solutions need to look like “40% fewer cars on the road” sorts of things if we want to actually accomplish anything at all.
The world doesn’t have time or space for us to make these minor, rounding-error changes. I know the argument will be “every little bit helps” but we collectively need to start making massive changes, and stop thinking of this as an incremental problem. We should still make improvements and strive for better efficiencies, but the practical reality is that those changes are too small, too slow, and too late.
I think the worst part with this is that this can be achieved overnight be mandating remote work for office workers. We already know exactly what the impacts of remote work are because the entire white collar workforce went remote 5 years ago. Let’s do that ASAP because the only people who don’t benefit from remote work are commercial real estate investors
My imagined legislation would impose a new commute tax on businesses with office workers working in office. This tax would be proportional to the number of office workers, and would be introduced alongside a new tax incentive for remote office workers. If the office worker is permitted to work remotely 4 workdays a week the tax break effectively zeros out the commute tax cost for that worker. 3 days a week reduces the commute tax break by 3/4 for that worker, etc. Force shitty bosses to pay for their anti-worker RTO plans. The tax income would be directly applied to road and public transit infrastructure since the significantly reduced rush hour traffic would change traffic patterns and we all know how road maintenance has been struggling for funding on recent decades
You’re locking in on the wrong thing.
Every car made in the last 10 years can use auto-start and stop without any additional hardware. It’s practically free, just a little bit of code to shut off spark and fuel under certain conditions. I’m also fairly sure the commentor just googled “how long does the average person spend waiting at stoplights every day” and used that as an estimate for the fuel savings (practically free fuel savings I might add again). Auto-Stop works at the drive-thru, it works in carwashes, it works while waiting to pick up your kids at school, it works when you run into the house to grab something you forgot. I drove a 2015 Honda CR-Z with Auto-Stop for 9 years, and when the feature wasn’t working (it disables when it is very cold out) it dropped my fuel economy about 3-5mpg, and that was for a fairly small (1.5L) motor. The savings are much greater for larger, more fuel hungry engines.
Again though, the feature does not require a new component, or special fuel, or interaction from the driver. We’re buying, burning, and wasting that extra fuel for no reason at all. No matter how small an amount it is, it’s worthwhile to save it when it costs us literally nothing to do so.
We can’t even get everyone onboard with incremental changes, how are we going to make massive changes?