• 0 Posts
  • 42 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
Cake day: January 17th, 2022
  • utopiah@lemmy.mltoEurope@lemmy.ml•After scrapping nuclear reactors, Germany to spend billions on new gas power plants
    3·
    3 months ago

    Definitely not the most optimal path. It’s arguably the result of terrible deals from the previous government starting with Nord Stream pushed by Gerhard Schröder directly profiting from it. It is sad how to see how individual greed has an impact on millions of citizens. Unless this kind of corruption has actual consequences, it will happen again. The effect here has been accelerated with the war in Ukrain. Hopefully Germany can find better compromises because this was a terrible bet. Interesting also to compare how Belgium handled a similar situation, namely reverting the decision to step away from nuclear.

  • utopiah@lemmy.mltoFuck Cars@lemmy.ml•Twike EV pedal powered enclosed e-trike vehicle
    1·
    3 months ago

    I didn’t try one so I can’t comment on it from first hand experience. At least on paper, including the claims that it is (which would make sense as France push for right to repair kind of laws) easy to repair, without a need for a specific Kilow “accredited” shop, makes is very tempting. If it’s true and a random person can buy an affordable small EV and fix it easily, possibly even at home, I believe in terms of democratization it’s going in the right direction. Eager to read reviews and see if it can become a trend.

  • utopiah@lemmy.mltoFuck Cars@lemmy.ml•Twike EV pedal powered enclosed e-trike vehicle
    1·
    3 months ago

    PS: for a bit of personal context, I also cycle regularly in Bretagne (France) and Brussels (Belgium) which are both infamously renown for… the rain. Yes, it’s raining a lot there, and yet, with a helmet, jacket and optionally a pair of rain paints, you get wherever you need mostly dry. I’m not saying a complete right cover wouldn’t be nice but if the trade off is a much larger vehicle to park, might not fit on cycling roads and is multiple times more expensive, I’m not convinced. Maybe I’m just stuck in my “old” ways.

  • utopiah@lemmy.mltoFuck Cars@lemmy.ml•Twike EV pedal powered enclosed e-trike vehicle
    3·
    3 months ago

    30k EUR or more… why? Or rather, what for and for whom?

    I mean I LOVE to see alternatives to cars but… a fancy electric bike is less than 5k EUR, a electric cargo bike (with a 400kg a payload, e.g Urban Arrow) is around 7k EUR, a tiny electric EV from France Bagnole (from https://kilow.com which did e-bikes until now) seems to be 10k EUR … this is 3x or 5x (!) more for a much better top speed but also not a lot of actual space.

    I understand the need for an electric bike (which I have) in cities but also in the countryside, going from a small town to a larger one where public transport exist but is very infrequent but … this, I don’t get. Who needs to reach 100km/h or more regularly and wouldn’t go for an EV “proper”. I briefly checked and a Nissan Leaf is in the same price range.

    I’d be curious who is actually buying this and even more why they are preferring this over alternatives.

    Apologies if I sound critical I’m just very surprised by the price and thus which market this is addressing.

  • utopiah@lemmy.mltoEurope@lemmy.ml•A lot of the EU consumer protection laws are actually financial compensation door stops in favour of big corps.
    7·
    5 months ago

    How would you do it? Genuinely curious.

    In this very context, what law do you suggest that would enforceable in practice, does apply to all people and all cases and is compatible with past laws?

    I’m not saying it is your duty to do so, I’m not saying some politician don’t have other interests in mind beside that of all citizens, yet I also do not think it is trivial so I’m wondering if there is an obvious better alternative than what is in place. I believe by trying we often see that the current solution isn’t great but there are a lot more worst ones and that new ones often have other flaws, at least have different compromises.

  • utopiah@lemmy.mltoFuck Cars@lemmy.ml•How to improve a street in one easy step…
    51·
    10 months ago

    the crashes hurt and people can be killed regardless of the participants

    Not what I recall from accident stats, assuming Belgium is somehow representative. Bike and pedestrian hardly lead to death, same for bike and bike, only bike and cars did.

    I’m obviously not advocating for bikes to go anywhere without respecting others (my own rule of thumb is to be always be more mind of the small or slower people share the space) but I don’t think considering risk regardless of participants is realistic either.

    TL;DR: yes I prefer separation whenever possible but there is a big difference between separating car with others.

  • utopiah@lemmy.mltoFuck Cars@lemmy.ml•We don’t *need* more cars, more traffic, more congestion, more pollution, more road damage, and more CO2 emissions.
    8·
    10 months ago

    Yes, obviously, neither electronic nor self driving cars are the solutions. They STILL are cars that are cluttering the streets of our cities, both while running or while parking.

    Of course they are SOME use cases where one truly needs a car but they are very limited, so limited usually other solutions are much better, e.g cycling but using a car or car sharing when one can’t get delivery done.

    We, as citizens, “only” have to be honest with our actual usual. Sure from time to time we go from city A to city B but 95% of the time we go from neighborhood A, our flat, to neighborhood B, our office. That’s what most of us do twice a day, 200 days a year. We do NOT use cars for more than that and in such contexts, a bike, electrical or not, is better along most axis, not just price but also convenience.

    Hopefully we’ll stop being convinced by ads showing beautiful cars in Corsica, Toscani, French riviera or Iceland while in truth, we are stuck in the boring rings surrounding our capitals.