Quote Originally Posted by Ser Clegane View Post
Two person household. As I prefer to use public transportation to get to work I see no point in having a second car (and this would not change if we had kids).

So, do you think people should have one car or two cars?
Depends entirely on their situation. If you live and work in Manhattan, you probably don't need a car at all and can easily rent one for those rare occasions that you do. The public transportation system there is reasonably efficient and a good cost alternative given the costs of car ownership in NYC. On the other hand, in a typical U.S. suburb and with the typical activities of a family of four, having only one car would create a deal of inconvenience. With some larger families, it would be outright counter-productive. Our suburbs have public transportation, but the density required to make cars irrelevant would be cost prohibitive.


Horetore:

What you suggest is unworkable on a mass level. Car manufacturers do not manufacture 3-5 year old hybrid cars. While it may be an excellent personal choice for any indvidual to do so, SOMEONE will have to buy the new cars and absorb the comparatively high front-end cost of vehicle purchase -- or there will be no new cars.

I didn't do a Prius to non-Prius comparison because I wanted a direct parallel for "side-by-side" comparison. Once you go that route, you need to spend forever making "what's comparable" decisions on loadout as well as mileage modifications for those loadouts -- and I only had a few minutes.