The Idiocy of Tiny Houses and Electric Vehicles

https://medium.com/fuck-niches/the-idiocy-of-tiny-houses-and-electric-vehicles-ac811bfb691c

35 28 5 years ago

warlog• 5 years ago

"To live more sustainably, if you don’t need it, don’t buy it."

This.

But it flies in the face of sustainability(TM), which has been captured by corporations and is the new new for capitalism.

LinuxBender• 5 years ago

Very much this. I learned that life lesson a little late. Prior to moving I gave away 98+% of my things to neighbors and friends. I moved into a small home and forced myself to keep it free of clutter. I did not need all that stuff.

blacksmith_tb• 5 years ago

Certainly a good idea, but the average estimates I am seeing for the footprint of goods is 14% in the US[1]. So you wouldn't want to stop there.

1: https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/carbon...

tacker2000• 5 years ago

Buying and using less is not an option in our consumerism-centric world. Companies want to always sell you more, not less. So they are just adapting their products to be or appear more “sustainable”, however it fits their business, in order to keep selling more of the same stuff.

imtringued2• 5 years ago

If you don't keep spending your entire income the interest rate will fall below zero. Our enlightened society has decided that an interest rate below zero is apparently defrauding savers while they can just get a certificate of deposit at 0% interest and therefore demands endless growth fueled by government debt.

The best part is that the very same people demand that the government pay its debts back, at very high interest of course, which is completely illogical because paying debt reduces interest rates.

cblconfederate• 5 years ago

Wait till you see the combination of the two, Tiny Electric RVs.

seg_lol• 5 years ago

I am working on one right now. Solar powered, self driving. More of a planetarium on wheels with a memory foam bed. If I can get the active suspension right, it might be hard to tell you are moving.

skywal_l• 5 years ago

My dream. Set the course and take a nap.

fknorangesite• 5 years ago

I think you just invented hashtag-vanlife bloggers.

marssaxman• 5 years ago

My partner and I left our 2000-sqft Seattle townhouse a few months ago to live on a 44-foot sailboat, which we are converting from a diesel motor to electric. Much the same idea, only more so! The space is cozy but sufficient.

shoulderfake• 5 years ago

Article starts off talking about homelessness. Those houses are for well off remote workers seeking a mix of nature and work space + instagram worthy shots.

jokethrowaway• 5 years ago

These are two entirely different situations.

Tiny houses will never be practical for most people as people generally need indoor space to live. It's not a replacement for a house, it's something else, a luxury toy. Also, I don't get how such a small house in the middle of nowhere can be that expensive. Someone is profiting big time and you can get one for cheaper.

Electrical cars are practical for most people. Who the hell routinely gets to the limit of a EV regularly? They're just too expensive for now and charging is not as widespread. Once more affordable models come out and chargers get installed everywhere they'll become the new standard.

closeparen• 5 years ago

A hundred million people took road trips for the holidays last month. They’re not all getting rentals.

Gibbon1• 5 years ago

"Also, I don't get how such a small house in the middle of nowhere can be that expensive."

My belief is that utilities are expensive. Water, power, sewage. What costs $$$ to remodel? Bathrooms and kitchens. Then framing and drywall are cheap. And square footage goes up with the square of the wall length. So the marginal cost of more square feet is low.

My feeling is if you're going to do tiny living spaces you want multifamily. And the last thing you want is McMansions in ultra low density suburbs.

jopsen• 5 years ago

Tiny living makes sense when remodeling a tiny downtown apartment to suit your needs -- saving you from having to buy a house or larger apartment.

But tiny houses in the middle of nowhere makes no sense..

Same with EVs if you are otherwise naturally replacing your car, sure go EV, otherwise it's probably better to hold off.

kmac_• 5 years ago

Umm, aren't those just modern holiday cabins?

bwanab2• 5 years ago

The idiocy of badly interpreted statistics: “20% of electric car owners switch back to gas-powered cars of electric car owners switch back to gas-powered cars”. This kinda means that 80% don’t switch back. Given the current horrible state of EV charging, this sounds pretty reasonable. I don’t find it surprising that a number of people buy an EV, then realize that the charging environment doesn’t work for them.

sidpatil• 5 years ago

“20% of electric car owners switch back to gas-powered cars of electric car owners switch back to gas-powered cars”

Huh?

imtringued2• 5 years ago

“20% of electric car owners switch back to gas-powered cars” “20% of electric car owners switch back to gas-powered cars”

bwanab2• 5 years ago

Sorry, bad text copy on mobile.

dlkf• 5 years ago

Agreed, the use of stats is so terrible. I love this one: "43% report driving more once they go electric." So the people who buy these things end up using them? How is this an indictment of electric cars?

It's rather unfortunate, because there is a really interesting cost-benefit analysis to be performed that compares the carbon footprint of assembling a new Nissan Leaf against the carbon footprint of driving your Civic for another 5-10 years. The analysis would have to be parameterized by the gas-mileage and age of your current car, the type of electric you intend on replacing it with, the carbon footprint of electricity in your region, and how much you drive.

We'll have to find a pundit who isn't innumerate to write it.

djhn• 5 years ago

Though not a write up per se, Engineering Explained has made several videos with reasonable estimates:

https://youtu.be/L2IKCdnzl5k

https://youtu.be/MEqxaH47DTs

https://youtu.be/Hatav_Rdnno

sytelus2• 5 years ago

I am infinitely surprised why Elon Musk doesn't buy up cheap gas stations and turns them into all-electric charging stations. It turns out that customers are quite ok to pay close to gas prices as long as they feel they are getting bit of a discount. Higher charing price is not a deterrent for buying EVs.

I would expect charging will be much more profitable business than manufacturing EVs in a long run. It's like Gillete makes blade handles cheap but blades very expensive.

thehappypm• 5 years ago

Long term, chargers may not end up being too important.

Today, range is like 200 miles. That’s enough for basically 100% of commutes, knocking around town, and many longer trips.

It’s not however long enough for a ski trip day trip, or a road trip, or if Grandma lives farther away.

If range gets up to ~500 miles, charging away from home base will be almost exclusively for road trippers which is already where Tesla is focusing.

m0llusk• 5 years ago

People who buy homes that are too small for them or vehicles without enough range for their needs are not an indicator of fundamental problems with these products.

inglor_cz• 5 years ago

I would love to have a tiny house when I was 23 or so, with a price tag affordable for my then-income.

Living there my whole life would be miserable, though.

sytelus2• 5 years ago

I have been frequenting AirBnBs way too much and now I can attest to creativity of the owners to spin weaknesses into strengths. For example, when you ready "cozy" in the title, be careful. Similarly "views" never mean anything unless you actually see a photo from inside. Unfortunately AirBnB has no filters on things like shared heating, parking difficulties, long stair climbing, lack of lighting, coffee maker, toilettories and so on.

mitchbob• 5 years ago

Archived: https://archive.ph/fUkG8

The Idiocy of Tiny Houses and Electric Vehicles

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