• andyburke@fedia.io
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      7 months ago

      Amen. We are always like “but how will we find room for new rail?!”

      Well, those highway lanes are looking fucking good and we know adding them didn’t help traffic, so why not just take them back?

      • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        Plus highways are costing states a fuckton to maintain and many are past their design life. About time we put something better in and stop listening to the automobile industry lobbying that got us into this in the first place.

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          We’re way past maintenance on rail as well, but we are chugging along even with decades or as much of a century of past due maintenence. Not that it’s a good idea but it surely seems to last longer than highways and degrade more slowly

  • Smuuthbrane@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    This is a surprise? Anyone watching EVs for more than a few minutes knows that Toyota has been pushing back HARD against EVs, with other Japanese automakers doing effectively nothing to make the transition. Western automakers have been forced into it, either by scandal (hi VW) or having Tesla eat their lunch.

    I expect Ford to make it, barely. GM will make it, at a cost. Toyota and Honda are too big to fail, they’ll just spend their way out of their own mess. It’s a matter of what brands will be reduced to niche manufacturers or have themselves bought out instead of going bankrupt. Stellantis has already sold themselves to Leapmotor, and will succeed or fail based on that JV.

    • sabreW4K3
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      7 months ago

      It’s crazy to me how big General Motors is and yet they have zero presence in the UK.

      • AA5B@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Same here - Massachusetts is one of the few parts of US not all in on trucks: you still see a lot of cars also. We also have the stereotype of frugality, buying something that lasts. Two strikes against GM, mostly in favor of Toyota but sometimes it seems like even little Subaru is more common than GM

    • insomniac_lemon@kbin.social
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      7 months ago

      Japan being the worst yeah, it seems like Kei cars are the perfect format for EVs plus the population density of Japan (+city life and high-speed rail).

      Then again, I do see that the incentives for Kei cars were reduced in 2014 and I wouldn’t doubt if oversized trucks/SUVs were gaining popularity there too (I did see 1 headline about it).

  • VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    And when china makes affordable ones the governments start talking about 100% tariffs to stop them helping us transition away from oil