
As the Planet Warms, Who Should Get to Drive? - jseliger
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/02/car-ownership-climate-change-driving-poverty-economic/582091/
======
RickJWagner
There will probably come a day (maybe soon) when electric cars become cheap
and easily available.

When that day arrives, ICE autos will probably become very affordable.

~~~
brudgers
In the US, probably not. Cash for clunkers is an example of a government
policy that made car ownership less affordable. During the recession, people
with the means to purchase a new car received a massive windfall appreciation
of their old cars. Those without means to purchase a new car faced a used car
market with scarcity and in particular scarcity of the best kind of cheap used
car...one previously owned and maintained by a person of means. The car
grandma only drove to church on Sunday was crushed for scrap.

History might not repeat itself. But I would be unsurprised by a greening
policy for electric vehicles that looked a lot like cash for clunkers. The
long run of tax favored policies for electric vehicles don't suggest future
policies designed for the means of those without means: there never has been a
tax incentive for buying a _used_ electric vehicle or replacing a vehicle with
low fuel mileage for a more efficient _used_ vehicle.

Trickle down theories tend to ignore the incentives for those at the top of
the hill to capture any value that might flow downstream. Cash for clunkers
didn't buy used cars from poor people with a yard full of junkers. Because of
the holding period required, they weren't salable on their potential trade-in
value to people with the means to buy new cars.

Never mind that part of transportation greening is raising the price of
gasoline.

------
fovc
Without the causal link is this really groundbreaking or interesting data?
Rich people have cars more often than poor people, and in a city where cars
are a necessity only the most destitute don't have a car.

~~~
AstralStorm
The richest have a car but don't need it. They have transportation services
instead. On demand taxi or chauffeur.

