Should I Sell My Civic and Buy a Hybrid or Electric Car?

[jennypenny]

@vexed--Sorry if I sounded cranky. Sometimes people who don't live in a walkable community use it as an excuse to throw up their hands and do nothing to reduce their driving. Or worse, resilience advocates like Kunstler write off people who live in the suburbs as 'doomed' to a high impact lifestyle. There are large parts of the country that are automobile-dependent and they shouldn't be written off or told to move to an urban area.

First, people can do a lot to minimize their driving without making any real lifestyle changes. Second, people can make strategic changes based on the driving they need to do. For example, if someone needs to drive to obtain groceries, then they should work on gardening and also learn how to stockpile food and put up inexpensive items to reduce the number of trips needed. They could even change their diet to make that easier (like limiting items with a short shelf life). If they can walk to groceries but have a long commute to work, then negotiating a work from home arrangement, even if it's only a day or two a week, can have an impact. If they have small children, they can live near the kids activities (that's what we did, we live near the pool, library, playground, school, etc).

All I'm saying is that it's not an all-or-nothing proposition. People can do a lot to reduce their needs and then focus their energy on mitigating the biggest transportation issues. I personally don't worry about what to do if gas becomes scarce or prices skyrocket because the effect that will have on the trucking industry will have a bigger impact ... no need to drive anywhere if the stores are empty.

[cmonkey]

First, people can do a lot to minimize their driving without making any real lifestyle changes. Second, people can make strategic changes based on the driving they need to do. For example, if someone needs to drive to obtain groceries, then they should work on gardening and also learn how to stockpile food and put up inexpensive items to reduce the number of trips needed. They could even change their diet to make that easier (like limiting items with a short shelf life). If they can walk to groceries but have a long commute to work, then negotiating a work from home arrangement, even if it's only a day or two a week, can have an impact.

Hey is someone spying on me.

We have reduced our outings in our vehicle ( a 2001 pickup truck which sadly gets 15 mpg ) to once per week and get by on about one tank of gas per month. If we made a true effort at reducing this we could probably get to 2 weeks per outing. This is paltry potatoes compared to everyone else around here. I've made somewhat of a habit of paying attention to people's routines and I'd estimate the worst offenders come and go from their homes up to 6-8 times per day. The average is 2-3 times per day.

There is a lot of room for improvement here so before any real energy crisis hits you are going to see LOTS of forced reduction in wasteful habits.

To answer the OP - I would keep the civic. Any true energy crisis is going to affect electricity prices as well and there is a lot more complexity (and thus need for expertise should it break) in the electric car.

[Lemur]

@vexed--Sorry if I sounded cranky. Sometimes people who don't live in a walkable community use it as an excuse to throw up their hands and do nothing to reduce their driving. Or worse, resilience advocates like Kunstler write off people who live in the suburbs as 'doomed' to a high impact lifestyle. There are large parts of the country that are automobile-dependent and they shouldn't be written off or told to move to an urban area.

First, people can do a lot to minimize their driving without making any real lifestyle changes. Second, people can make strategic changes based on the driving they need to do. For example, if someone needs to drive to obtain groceries, then they should work on gardening and also learn how to stockpile food and put up inexpensive items to reduce the number of trips needed. They could even change their diet to make that easier (like limiting items with a short shelf life). If they can walk to groceries but have a long commute to work, then negotiating a work from home arrangement, even if it's only a day or two a week, can have an impact. If they have small children, they can live near the kids activities (that's what we did, we live near the pool, library, playground, school, etc).

All I'm saying is that it's not an all-or-nothing proposition. People can do a lot to reduce their needs and then focus their energy on mitigating the biggest transportation issues. I personally don't worry about what to do if gas becomes scarce or prices skyrocket because the effect that will have on the trucking industry will have a bigger impact ... no need to drive anywhere if the stores are empty.

I appreciate reading the locus of control in this post...I've personally been a victim of this (in bold). Thanks for the reminder!