Torsten Daerr (@TorstenDaerr) Tweeted:
@fdp @c_lindner Die Frage ist, warum wir in Deutschland mehr als 50 Millionen privater Pkw haben, die zu 92% der Zeit stehen. Wir brauchen völlig neue Konzepte und nicht noch mehr SUVs, die nur rumstehen. https://twitter.com/TorstenDaerr/status/1081506300851310592?s=17
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Hi Torsten. Your question is a pretty good question. I have no clue what drove you asking this Mr. Lindner, chairman of the poilitical Party "the "F"ree "D"emocratic(Liberal) party of “D"eutschland (Germany)”. And before I answer, I´d like to translate your post into the English as to encourage more people to discuss:
> "The question is why Germans own more than 50 Millionen cars usually standing around uselessly or unused more than 92% of the time. We need new concepts rather than even more Sports-Utility-Vehicles kicking their heels."
Well I would say that our system is depending on cars. I mean the industrialisation started with car manufacturing. It´s been the automotive company “Ford” that invented industrial manufacturing in the early 20s century. In Germany it´s been the nationalist factury “Volkswagen” that started mass production of vehicals driven by fossile fuel. The goal of mass car production has been to make the people a reward for their hard work and them companies a huge profit.Everyone was happy but noone pondered on the effects.
And there are a lot of effects. Car manufacturing provides still with work places. It still provides people with a life earning. Other people easily can reach their work places by cars rather than with mass transportation. I, for instance, never had a job I could arrive by mass transportation in less than double or even triple of the time I needed by car. With the exception of the two years I lived in Berlin.
Believe it or don´t, I ride my car to an extent of 98% only on the way to and fro work. During summertime I use my bycicle for shopping.
But there still are other reasons why we need cars longing for us to unlock, enter it, turn the start key and make the machine run. One of them simply is: My car is my castle. I am unbeatable pressing down the gaspedal to receive the cars highest accerleration and highest exhaust of waste gas. Look how people on the pavements run, fearing I could lose control. See them protecting their ears against the noise the motor creates on highest speed. The car is my indentity. Without my car I am nothing.
Haha, of course, I am exxaggerating, But isn´t it what commercials has been and still are telling us? Cars are our symbols for freedom, power and individualism.
And there you come and ask poor Mr. Lindner whether we need them SUV´s? I wonder what his suggestion or idea is.
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Gosh, there is a long list of points to make. Wish many people would join in this topic and discuss.
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Well, the transition from private car ownership to autonomous taxi services has already started. Waymo in cooperation with Chrysler certainly is the pioneer in this field but traditional car makers such as Chinese owned Volvo and Ford on the one hand and companies of the shared economy such as Uber and Drive.ai are heavily investing to catch up with Google. Ford has just announced that by 2021 they want to start offering a commercial autonomous taxi service similar to Waymo. The millennials is the first generation that doesn’t view private car ownership as a goal. What they want is convenient and instant mobility and that’s exactly what autonomous based car services are all about.
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actually autonomous taxis draw an intersesting and pleasant picture of the traffic in the future. No exhaust gas, no jams on the roads , a convenient traffic on the roads and no more search and anger about parking lots in the cities. since them taxis find their ways on their own you might focus on more efficient things than observing other cars and reacting on the traffic signs and the rudeness of other car drivers. You might start your work on your way to the company and similar things. But on the other hand I fear many jobs will go astray. I wonder what the solution for this problem would be.
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