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Opinion: Owning a Car Will Soon Be as Quaint as Owning a Horse
I will die before I buy another car. I don't say that because I am particularly old or sick, but because I am at the front end of one of the next major secular trends in tech. Owning a car will soon be like owning a horse — a quaint hobby, an interesting rarity and a cool thing to take out for a spin on the weekend.
Before you object, let me be clear: I will drive in cars until I die. But the concept of actually purchasing, maintaining, insuring and garaging an automobile in the next few decades? Finished.
[...] It's obviously an easier decision if you live near a major metropolitan area, like I do, where the alternatives — cars and then car pools and then bikes and now scooters — are myriad. (Why, by the way, this is a revolution led by private companies instead of public transportation is an important topic for another day.) In other countries, often with denser populations, there are even more ideas bubbling up, from auto-rickshaws and motorbike taxis to new bus services.
Obviously, the biggest change will be the advent of truly autonomous vehicles, which are still years or even decades in the future. But in the meantime I am going to lean into this future all I can, and will chronicle the efforts over the next year, its costs and its benefits and how I get there. Or not.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday March 25 2019, @05:21AM (16 children)
Leaving aside the whole big city arrogance thing (and the ridiculous pronouncements and judgments of such snobs) this is not at all like "owning a horse will be quaint." Back in the day when horses were the transportation tool, the vast majority of people in massive cities didn't own them either but would rely on the then equivalent to cabs or uber. The fact that denizens of the modern metroplosis would also not own cars is thus not surprising and says nothing at all about the utility of cars.
What changed for people who needed a personal horse was that a more efficient mode of transportation became available which is why owning a car superseded the owning of horses for practical uses, although there are scenarios where horses are still the superior mode (back country packing, especially in mountainous terrain, for example).
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday March 25 2019, @05:29AM (3 children)
https://animals.mom.me/average-monthly-cost-owning-horse-5504.html [animals.mom.me]
So owning a horse if you don't own your own stable is going to be like 700/night. I imagine these costs would have been lower (not just inflation) back then because it was the prevailing industry, but you are still paying a lot.
Modern price to own a car is what? 120/200 for a corolla? 3-500 for not a corolla, then gas on top of that with insurance. But pretty doable if we just assume 200.
Guess our lives are improved by some tiny amount in a hundred years
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @05:35AM (2 children)
I think you meant $700/month.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday March 25 2019, @07:41AM
Or maybe 700 cents per night? After all, no monetary unit was given.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @04:50PM
Even that is high. I just checked Craigslist and there's a place that will board for $100/mo you feed, or $150/mo and they feed. It doesn't say anything about exercise though. Usually you can find somebody who wants to ride your horse once in a while. The hard part is probably getting the proper daily exercise. Then of course there's vet care, but it might not be too much more expense than a car. Thing is, it's a luxury. My area is generally regarded as expensive, and I have no idea about the rep of a stable that advertises on CL--maybe they suck. It was the only ad. I'd shop around and ask other horse people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @06:07AM (8 children)
Or they could rent one from a livery stable, like the Lincoln assassins did.
Owning a horse is not quaint, it's just expensive as fuck.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday March 25 2019, @06:41AM (7 children)
Quaint is not a matter of "when" it's more a matter of "where".
I imagine that living at countryside property with a stable makes from owning a horse affordable even nowadays.
On the other side, owning a car in a big city is expensive as fuck today - for almost the same reason you can't own a horse in a big city: parking (granted, a horse will have higher maintenance cost, but the major cost is still "parking" - i.e. the stable).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hartree on Monday March 25 2019, @07:34AM (6 children)
Location is a big thing.
My boss moved out of her apartment into a rural house with a barn and three outbuildings. She also moved her horse that she had been paying to be stabled to the barn. Between those she's paying about the same in mortgage as she was in rent and boarding fees and is building equity. The house is about twice as far from work as her apartment, so she has to pay a bit more in fuel but it was quite equitable.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aiwarrior on Monday March 25 2019, @09:58AM (5 children)
And spend her precious time in commuting. Thanks but no thanks. Money can be earned back. Times does not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @02:13PM
I don't know about OP's boss, but my move from the city to the country increased my commute distance by 10 mi, but reduced my commute time by 15 min because I no longer need to go across the entire city and deal with traffic the entire way.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Monday March 25 2019, @02:38PM
A slightly longer commute in exchange for a nice private country home? I'd do it in a heartbeat.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @05:24PM (1 child)
Commutte time is not always wasted. For example, now that I do not commutte I struggle to find the time in my day to listen to audio books.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:26AM
Nailed it in one. It adds about 20 minutes to her commute, but she's an audiobook addict, so doesn't mind.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @06:55PM
She also doesn't spend any precious time listening to her upstairs neighbors clacking around.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Monday March 25 2019, @01:30PM (2 children)
Moreover, TFA's comparison with horses taking over from cars is utter nonsense.
Cars and horses, apart from both being forms of transport, are otherwise radically different - in speed for a start. OTOH, cars that are owned and cars that are hired are very similar; in fact the difference is only visible in their paperwork. For as long as they exist, owned and hired cars will always exist in parallel, as they have for a long time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @09:29PM
And cows taking over from cars is udder nonsense.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:35AM
Cars that are hired are much like horses that were hired. Urban people did not own a horse, they called a cab or rented. In the future, I think rural people will still own cars (just like they owned horses) as it is hard to depend on a cab in the countryside