Ainâ(TM)t capitalism wonderful! Two cars. Each $40,000.00. One gas 300 m @ 20 mpg @ $3.00/gal = $45.00. Electric: 300m @ $10.00.
Yep, call me when you can buy the above EV and we'll talk.
We may not see it in our lifetime... Really... you are making assumptions on the future, they aren't assured...
As a side note, people buying $40K cars care a whole lot less about the difference between $45 and $10 than you'd think. Oh sure it is nice, but if the $10 price comes with range-anxiety and the $45 does not...
It is also worth noting that small cars tend to get MUCH better MPG than 20 MPG. You're really trying to stack the deck in favor of EVs...
No, people continue to buy gas cars precisely because they don't know how to make rational financial choices. I was in Mitsubishi dealership getting service on my car, and there was a young couple in there with a sales guy doing the math on a couple of options. The sales guy was trying to push the electric model (as I assume they have been told to), but the young couple was under the impression that electricity cost $1 per kilowatt hour, and accused the sales guy of lying to them when he tried to correct them. On top of that, the young couple assumed that electrics would have higher maintenance costs (because of the battery, I think). These folks claimed they couldn't afford the $350 per month for the electric car. When I left, they were finalizing a *lease* on an SUV for $250 per month. If these idiots had done their homework, they could have gotten the electric for effectively the same per month cost, and after 5 years they would have owned the electric with a very low monthly cost. Instead, they leased an SUV, and in 4 years they will have absolutely nothing, and be back right where they are now. Americans (with some exceptions) are stupid.
Perhaps they don't want to deal with the range issues, and would prefer to avoid all that headache?
If they don't drive as much in a given month, the SUV still only costs $250 a month, the electric car is $350 sitting in the garage.
Perhaps they want a SUV and not a car?
Perhaps they have other changes in their life and they are not ready for another change, such as a new type of vehicle?
I wouldn't say they are a niche product just for the wealthy. I sent my 1998 Oldsmobile (that I bought 10 years ago for $4,000) to the scrap yard because it cost more in fuel than a lease on a brand new Chevy Spark EV + Electricity + insurance delta.
And if that works for you, then great, no worries...
However, those were not the only two choices you had... Sure, if you limit yourself to ONLY those two options, you probably made the right one... but...
You could have bought a 3-5 year old car and saved even more... just saying...
Assuming super unleaded costs $2.50/gallon, here are some comparisons: BMW M5, 16 mpg combined, $0.16 per mile. Jaguar XF, 23 mpg combined, $0.11 per mile
Usually where electricity is expensive, gasoline is also expensive.
Yes, but what such things usually miss is that no one buying a BMW really cares about the cost of gas.
If they did, they wouldn't be buying a BMW.
My Yukon gets 12 mpg. It sucks, but I don't *really* care. Oh I might say "gee, it would be nice if it were better", but if I really cared, I'd drive something else.
Anyone who tells you they bought a Tesla Model S to "save on gas" is lying to you or themselves, it is a $100K car, there is no "savings" to be had there.
* Greatly reduced maintenance due to the greatly reduced number of moving parts - and we're not just talking about oil changes or the like. For example, you'll never have to swap out a transmission because there is no transmission (apart from a direct linkage). You're not going to have to replace a timing belt because there is no timing belt. And on and on and on, there's all sorts of things that can break in a gasoline car that don't even exist in an electric car.
As a side note, the people buying EVs don't do any of that, just FYI.:)
I have never, in my multiple decades, had to replace a belt, and that includes driving a truck to over 150k miles.
I've never done anything to a tranny other than fluid changes.
I think you're making car maintenance out to be more than it is. Cars in the 0-10 year old range simply do not generally require anything other than fluids and tires.
All 85 kWH Model S cars have an 8-year, infinite mile warranty on battery & drivetrain. If you buy one today, you can drive the hell out of it worry-free, except for what it costs to replace tires, until 2023.
Yes, but I can buy a car just as nice as the Model S for half the money, so why would I?
To save fuel? Yes, I suppose it does, but the payback time period sucks, I probably won't own it that long, and I gain the headache of having to deal with range issues.
It isn't a bad idea, but it isn't ready for primetime yet. I can see the day coming when a decent percentage of cars on the road are EVs, but I don't see the day coming when the majority are EVs.
It might, but it will be a lot longer than 5-10 years.
Your gas car can fill up in 10 minutes. This is the reason that an electric car needs such a long range to be taken seriously. Personally I think a lot of people would be fine with a car with 100 mile range as a second car, or even as their only car. They could rent a car the 2 or 3 times a year they needed to drive further. I realize there are people who dive hundreds of miles in a single day almost weekly. Electric cars will possibly never solve their problem. But they are a minority.
What will "technically work" and what people will accept aren't always the same thing.
Tech people tend to think in terms of technical solutions.
"Well, you really only drive 30 miles a day, what do you need with a car that does 300 miles on a charge?"
Yet that is a real concern, otherwise cars would only have 5 gallon tanks to save on weight and be a reduced fire risk in the event of a crash.
This isn't a technical issue, it is a solution searching for a problem. You're trying to convince people to give up something they have and telling them that it is better. You rail against companies like Comcast when they do it, yet then you go out and do it yourself. It is amusing and sad.
Why on Earth should the average person give up their 300 mile range care they have RIGHT NOW and trade it in for something that takes hours to charge and goes 20% of the distance?
To "save the planet?" Yea, that isn't going to be enough for the average consumer. It works for a small portion of the customer base, perhaps the portion that is buying them right now.
If you want to sell millions of EVs, you're going to have to show people how it is BETTER FOR THEM, not for "mother Earth", which everyone says they care about until it costs them money.
It's the same situation as solar PV. The initial outlay puts people off, but over the lifetime of the panels they are bound to come out on top. For EV batteries leasing has been tried as a way of spreading the cost but turned out to be crap.
You would think so, but that isn't how capital works...
If the payback period is too long, then it becomes infinite, because there are better uses for the money in that time that would return more money than the power generated is worth.
I'd take a safe, 2 tandem seat, 45 mph max, 50 mile range, decent looking, GREAT environmental controls, under $10k car. That's all I need 95% of the time. The other 5% I'll use gas. Right now the best economic car I can find is a Honda Fit.
So would everyone else, you're dreaming if you think it'll ever be under 10k, no matter how many are made.
Here's the 2 things they could do, plain and simple to have me jump onboard the EV almost immediately. 1. Make one that isn't 100% fugly...build me one that is sleek, maybe a 2-seater sports car (like the early Tesla was) with performance speed/torque, and handling.
2. Make the range on a charge about 300-400 miles, approx what a tank of gas currently is. If I'm evacuating for a hurricane, I need to pack up and get out fast, and potentially sit in stop/go traffic at times. I can't have my safety riding on a short charge system.....Ok, maybe a #3. Make said car in the upper end Camero/lower end Corvette price range.
All of that is totally doable... for the low six figure price range...
The trick is that if they built it, you likely wouldn't want to pay for it...
If you believe competition is the key to innovation and choice, then what MS did cannot be viewed in a good light. Microsoft stifled the industry; we'd be better off without them.
I do believe that competition is good...
But if we had not had Microsoft, it would have been someone else. The situation would not be improved if Apple was the monopoly stakeholder, or IBM, etc...
The question becomes, is there room for two companies to make a desktop OS? Maybe, but it would seem not to be the case. There were plenty of people trying back in the 80's and 90's, remember GEOS?
There were lots of stuff like that back in the day, none of those companies would have done any different.
---
Perhaps a better question is... what else would you like to see at this point, in 2015? We can talk until we're blue in the face about the past, but that is water under the bridge. Where do we go from here?
For all that Apple, Amiga, Commodore, etc. did, they did not bring computers to the masses.
Even IBM was never going to do that, it wasn't in their vision. They tried half hearted with the PC Jr. and we all know how bad that was.
Bill Gates "got it", he understood that we could live in a world where every home had a computer in it. We aren't there yet, but we're well on our way.
---
Is Bill Gates a saint? Far from it, he is a ruthless business man who ran a large company for a long time. Steve Jobs isn't a saint either, being cut from largely the same cloth as Gates.
We wouldn't have Linux today either, without such people, because it was built on the backs of giants as well, large companies that made strides in software long before Linux was a dream.
MS isn't perfect, but they aren't the devil either. They are simply a large company trying to make money while making customers happy (which makes them more money).
The IRA enjoy massive support in Ireland to this day, most of my peers would be supporters. They smashed both my legs in 2001 and left me with a permanent limp and gimpy leg, so obviously I hate the fuckers, but do not stick your head in the sand and pretend that ignoring these people will magically take away their contempt for you and their ability to hurt you. It won't.
As a personal victim of the IRA, clearly you are not going to see eye-to-eye with them.
What is the other solution? Kill them all?
Actually, it might be, it has been done before, Hitler was not original in his ideas at all.
---
So what do we do about radical Islam? Perhaps reduce the world's population by 3 billion?
I make no claims to knowing the answers, only to knowing that some behavior is unacceptable. It is a shame that we don't make it more clear to those doing it just how unacceptable it is.
Simple research on cars.com shows that the MSRP of a new 2015 Corolla is between 16,950 and 22,955. The original MSRP on a 2005 Corolla was 13,780 to 17,555. The price has increased between 23% and 31%. In that timeframe, inflation has supposedly gone up 20.2%, so the price of the Corolla has output paced inflation by a factor of 1.15 to 1.5. In 2005, the Median household income was $55,238. A Corolla cost 25-32% of that. In 2013, the last year for which numbers have been released, the median household income was $51,939. A Corolla costs 33-44% of that. In 1968, the Corolla was first introduced in the United States. It cost under $1,700. Median household income was $7,700. The Corolla cost 22% of that. Clearly cars are costing more as a fraction of income then ever before.
That is interesting...
However, it is worth noting that the 2015 Corolla will last a lot longer than the older ones and hold more of its resale value.
What a car costs matters less than what it costs you to own.
I recently traded in a 2011 Ford Explorer last year, I paid about $41k for it and sold it to the dealer for $29k. In just under 3 years, that isn't much depreciation. Cars are tending to hold their value since they last so long these days.
If that Explorer doesn't last to 250k+ miles, I'd be shocked. I wouldn't say that about a 1991 Explorer.
And modern cars require less service. I used to have to change the points in my VW when I was a kid, every 3000 miles if I recall correctly. These days as long as you change your oil and filter every 10,000 miles, you don't really have to do anything else. Home serviceability is still possible, if inconvenient, but it's more than offset by the larger service intervals.
^ This.
When I had less money, I couldn't afford to trade in for a new truck every few years.
I drove my 2001 Tahoe for 9 years, putting hundreds of thousands of miles on it.
What maintenance did it require in 9 years?
Oil changes, a tyranny fluid change (twice), brake pads (once), spark plugs (once), and a few sets of tires.
Whoopee frickin do...
Tranny fluid was $80, brakes were maybe $150, spark plugs were $80, and tires are what they are.
Oil changes at $20 each at the quick lube place.
My "horrible maintenance bill"? Not even worth doing the math on, the cost of gas over 9 years completely swamps whatever maintenance cost.
Oh, I just remember, at emissions inspection, I did have to replace my fuel filler cap because it was leaking, that was like $14 or something silly.
If the car is constantly running as part of a motor pool then it may only last 2-5 years or so before it accumulates 200-400k+ miles and is worn out. The automakers may end up liking this new era where a car only lasts a few years and there is a constant demand for replacements, which would help smooth out some of the ups and downs of the current car market.
If the cars are all doing that much driving, then we'll need FAR fewer cars.
The average car does maybe 10k in a year, give or take. If they end up doing 100k a year like a taxi would, then you'd need up to 90% fewer cars.
So the auto companies would hate this, they would sell far fewer cars and those they sold would have to go up in price.
Everything costs more at lower volumes, both the parts that go into the car, R&D, marketing budgets, etc.
You can't post someone's explicit video online, a dude just got sentenced to 18 years in prison for making money off such things without the ladies permission.
Reporting to the police and having CC info doesn't get the car fixed. And if someone puked in the back, did drugs, had sex... your car is never quite the same unless you strip out and replace most of the interior.
You either are fighting to win an Internet point without really caring about this issue, or you have unbelievably low personal standards.
Either is fine, but to suggest that this is just not an issue is silly.
Slashdot Mirror
Ainâ(TM)t capitalism wonderful! Two cars. Each $40,000.00. One gas 300 m @ 20 mpg @ $3.00/gal = $45.00. Electric: 300m @ $10.00.
Yep, call me when you can buy the above EV and we'll talk.
We may not see it in our lifetime... Really... you are making assumptions on the future, they aren't assured...
As a side note, people buying $40K cars care a whole lot less about the difference between $45 and $10 than you'd think. Oh sure it is nice, but if the $10 price comes with range-anxiety and the $45 does not...
It is also worth noting that small cars tend to get MUCH better MPG than 20 MPG. You're really trying to stack the deck in favor of EVs...
About 3% US market share of similarly-priced vehicles ($25K+) in just 4 years, despite many models being unavailable outside a handful of key states.
That's a far cry from "utter shit" for market penetration of a product that's significantly out of the norm and facing strong opposition.
No, it is what I'd expect from early adapters who have reasons to buy other than "it makes sense".
"Save the planet" types...
The first 3% are the low hanging fruit, those are the easy sales.
I'd be shocked if it is past 10% in 10 years.
No, people continue to buy gas cars precisely because they don't know how to make rational financial choices. I was in Mitsubishi dealership getting service on my car, and there was a young couple in there with a sales guy doing the math on a couple of options. The sales guy was trying to push the electric model (as I assume they have been told to), but the young couple was under the impression that electricity cost $1 per kilowatt hour, and accused the sales guy of lying to them when he tried to correct them. On top of that, the young couple assumed that electrics would have higher maintenance costs (because of the battery, I think). These folks claimed they couldn't afford the $350 per month for the electric car. When I left, they were finalizing a *lease* on an SUV for $250 per month. If these idiots had done their homework, they could have gotten the electric for effectively the same per month cost, and after 5 years they would have owned the electric with a very low monthly cost. Instead, they leased an SUV, and in 4 years they will have absolutely nothing, and be back right where they are now. Americans (with some exceptions) are stupid.
Perhaps they don't want to deal with the range issues, and would prefer to avoid all that headache?
If they don't drive as much in a given month, the SUV still only costs $250 a month, the electric car is $350 sitting in the garage.
Perhaps they want a SUV and not a car?
Perhaps they have other changes in their life and they are not ready for another change, such as a new type of vehicle?
Not everyone sees the world through your eyes.
I wouldn't say they are a niche product just for the wealthy. I sent my 1998 Oldsmobile (that I bought 10 years ago for $4,000) to the scrap yard because it cost more in fuel than a lease on a brand new Chevy Spark EV + Electricity + insurance delta.
And if that works for you, then great, no worries...
However, those were not the only two choices you had... Sure, if you limit yourself to ONLY those two options, you probably made the right one... but...
You could have bought a 3-5 year old car and saved even more... just saying...
It is cheaper than gasoline.
It is now, but what happens if 25% of the cars in the US were EV tomorrow?
I'll bet you that wouldn't hold...
Electric prices would rise and gas prices would dive through the floor as demand drops off...
If gas fell to $1 a gallon and electric rates went up 50%, run the numbers again and tell me how much I'm saving...
Assuming super unleaded costs $2.50/gallon, here are some comparisons:
BMW M5, 16 mpg combined, $0.16 per mile.
Jaguar XF, 23 mpg combined, $0.11 per mile
Usually where electricity is expensive, gasoline is also expensive.
Yes, but what such things usually miss is that no one buying a BMW really cares about the cost of gas.
If they did, they wouldn't be buying a BMW.
My Yukon gets 12 mpg. It sucks, but I don't *really* care. Oh I might say "gee, it would be nice if it were better", but if I really cared, I'd drive something else.
Anyone who tells you they bought a Tesla Model S to "save on gas" is lying to you or themselves, it is a $100K car, there is no "savings" to be had there.
* Greatly reduced maintenance due to the greatly reduced number of moving parts - and we're not just talking about oil changes or the like. For example, you'll never have to swap out a transmission because there is no transmission (apart from a direct linkage). You're not going to have to replace a timing belt because there is no timing belt. And on and on and on, there's all sorts of things that can break in a gasoline car that don't even exist in an electric car.
As a side note, the people buying EVs don't do any of that, just FYI. :)
I have never, in my multiple decades, had to replace a belt, and that includes driving a truck to over 150k miles.
I've never done anything to a tranny other than fluid changes.
I think you're making car maintenance out to be more than it is. Cars in the 0-10 year old range simply do not generally require anything other than fluids and tires.
All 85 kWH Model S cars have an 8-year, infinite mile warranty on battery & drivetrain. If you buy one today, you can drive the hell out of it worry-free, except for what it costs to replace tires, until 2023.
Yes, but I can buy a car just as nice as the Model S for half the money, so why would I?
To save fuel? Yes, I suppose it does, but the payback time period sucks, I probably won't own it that long, and I gain the headache of having to deal with range issues.
It isn't a bad idea, but it isn't ready for primetime yet. I can see the day coming when a decent percentage of cars on the road are EVs, but I don't see the day coming when the majority are EVs.
It might, but it will be a lot longer than 5-10 years.
Electric car batteries now come with 8 year warranty so that kills your whole argument.
Yes, but the engine in a BMW should last 20+ years without a fuss, so what's your point?
Your gas car can fill up in 10 minutes. This is the reason that an electric car needs such a long range to be taken seriously. Personally I think a lot of people would be fine with a car with 100 mile range as a second car, or even as their only car. They could rent a car the 2 or 3 times a year they needed to drive further. I realize there are people who dive hundreds of miles in a single day almost weekly. Electric cars will possibly never solve their problem. But they are a minority.
What will "technically work" and what people will accept aren't always the same thing.
Tech people tend to think in terms of technical solutions.
"Well, you really only drive 30 miles a day, what do you need with a car that does 300 miles on a charge?"
Yet that is a real concern, otherwise cars would only have 5 gallon tanks to save on weight and be a reduced fire risk in the event of a crash.
This isn't a technical issue, it is a solution searching for a problem. You're trying to convince people to give up something they have and telling them that it is better. You rail against companies like Comcast when they do it, yet then you go out and do it yourself. It is amusing and sad.
Why on Earth should the average person give up their 300 mile range care they have RIGHT NOW and trade it in for something that takes hours to charge and goes 20% of the distance?
To "save the planet?" Yea, that isn't going to be enough for the average consumer. It works for a small portion of the customer base, perhaps the portion that is buying them right now.
If you want to sell millions of EVs, you're going to have to show people how it is BETTER FOR THEM, not for "mother Earth", which everyone says they care about until it costs them money.
It's the same situation as solar PV. The initial outlay puts people off, but over the lifetime of the panels they are bound to come out on top. For EV batteries leasing has been tried as a way of spreading the cost but turned out to be crap.
You would think so, but that isn't how capital works...
If the payback period is too long, then it becomes infinite, because there are better uses for the money in that time that would return more money than the power generated is worth.
The questions you need to ask are: can you replace the drive train on a say a Ford Focus for $20k and how long will it last before I need to do that?
Yes, it shouldn't cost more than about $5k, give or take, for an engine and tranny rebuild on a Focus. If it does, you're in the wrong shop.
How long? Probably 20 years...
I'd take a safe, 2 tandem seat, 45 mph max, 50 mile range, decent looking, GREAT environmental controls, under $10k car.
That's all I need 95% of the time. The other 5% I'll use gas. Right now the best economic car I can find is a Honda Fit.
So would everyone else, you're dreaming if you think it'll ever be under 10k, no matter how many are made.
Here's the 2 things they could do, plain and simple to have me jump onboard the EV almost immediately.
1. Make one that isn't 100% fugly...build me one that is sleek, maybe a 2-seater sports car (like the early Tesla was) with performance speed/torque, and handling.
2. Make the range on a charge about 300-400 miles, approx what a tank of gas currently is. If I'm evacuating for a hurricane, I need to pack up and get out fast, and potentially sit in stop/go traffic at times. I can't have my safety riding on a short charge system. ....Ok, maybe a #3. Make said car in the upper end Camero/lower end Corvette price range.
All of that is totally doable... for the low six figure price range...
The trick is that if they built it, you likely wouldn't want to pay for it...
IBM would have kept PCs at $5,000...
There is always that...
I agree that any monopolist is bad, no matter the stripes...
We could debate that until the cows come home. It isn't 1990 anymore, it is 2015...
Now what?
If you believe competition is the key to innovation and choice, then what MS did cannot be viewed in a good light. Microsoft stifled the industry; we'd be better off without them.
I do believe that competition is good...
But if we had not had Microsoft, it would have been someone else. The situation would not be improved if Apple was the monopoly stakeholder, or IBM, etc...
The question becomes, is there room for two companies to make a desktop OS? Maybe, but it would seem not to be the case. There were plenty of people trying back in the 80's and 90's, remember GEOS?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
There were lots of stuff like that back in the day, none of those companies would have done any different.
---
Perhaps a better question is... what else would you like to see at this point, in 2015? We can talk until we're blue in the face about the past, but that is water under the bridge. Where do we go from here?
They brought computing to the masses...
For all that Apple, Amiga, Commodore, etc. did, they did not bring computers to the masses.
Even IBM was never going to do that, it wasn't in their vision. They tried half hearted with the PC Jr. and we all know how bad that was.
Bill Gates "got it", he understood that we could live in a world where every home had a computer in it. We aren't there yet, but we're well on our way.
---
Is Bill Gates a saint? Far from it, he is a ruthless business man who ran a large company for a long time. Steve Jobs isn't a saint either, being cut from largely the same cloth as Gates.
We wouldn't have Linux today either, without such people, because it was built on the backs of giants as well, large companies that made strides in software long before Linux was a dream.
MS isn't perfect, but they aren't the devil either. They are simply a large company trying to make money while making customers happy (which makes them more money).
The IRA enjoy massive support in Ireland to this day, most of my peers would be supporters. They smashed both my legs in 2001 and left me with a permanent limp and gimpy leg, so obviously I hate the fuckers, but do not stick your head in the sand and pretend that ignoring these people will magically take away their contempt for you and their ability to hurt you. It won't.
As a personal victim of the IRA, clearly you are not going to see eye-to-eye with them.
What is the other solution? Kill them all?
Actually, it might be, it has been done before, Hitler was not original in his ideas at all.
---
So what do we do about radical Islam? Perhaps reduce the world's population by 3 billion?
I make no claims to knowing the answers, only to knowing that some behavior is unacceptable. It is a shame that we don't make it more clear to those doing it just how unacceptable it is.
They should have ARRESTED him, not executed.
Perhaps, but he wasn't within the jurisdiction of the US, so how exactly would we have arrested him?
Simple research on cars.com shows that the MSRP of a new 2015 Corolla is between 16,950 and 22,955. The original MSRP on a 2005 Corolla was 13,780 to 17,555. The price has increased between 23% and 31%. In that timeframe, inflation has supposedly gone up 20.2%, so the price of the Corolla has output paced inflation by a factor of 1.15 to 1.5.
In 2005, the Median household income was $55,238. A Corolla cost 25-32% of that.
In 2013, the last year for which numbers have been released, the median household income was $51,939. A Corolla costs 33-44% of that.
In 1968, the Corolla was first introduced in the United States. It cost under $1,700. Median household income was $7,700. The Corolla cost 22% of that.
Clearly cars are costing more as a fraction of income then ever before.
That is interesting...
However, it is worth noting that the 2015 Corolla will last a lot longer than the older ones and hold more of its resale value.
What a car costs matters less than what it costs you to own.
I recently traded in a 2011 Ford Explorer last year, I paid about $41k for it and sold it to the dealer for $29k. In just under 3 years, that isn't much depreciation. Cars are tending to hold their value since they last so long these days.
If that Explorer doesn't last to 250k+ miles, I'd be shocked. I wouldn't say that about a 1991 Explorer.
And modern cars require less service. I used to have to change the points in my VW when I was a kid, every 3000 miles if I recall correctly. These days as long as you change your oil and filter every 10,000 miles, you don't really have to do anything else. Home serviceability is still possible, if inconvenient, but it's more than offset by the larger service intervals.
^ This.
When I had less money, I couldn't afford to trade in for a new truck every few years.
I drove my 2001 Tahoe for 9 years, putting hundreds of thousands of miles on it.
What maintenance did it require in 9 years?
Oil changes, a tyranny fluid change (twice), brake pads (once), spark plugs (once), and a few sets of tires.
Whoopee frickin do...
Tranny fluid was $80, brakes were maybe $150, spark plugs were $80, and tires are what they are.
Oil changes at $20 each at the quick lube place.
My "horrible maintenance bill"? Not even worth doing the math on, the cost of gas over 9 years completely swamps whatever maintenance cost.
Oh, I just remember, at emissions inspection, I did have to replace my fuel filler cap because it was leaking, that was like $14 or something silly.
You have more faith in human behavior than I do.
You're also trying to apply logic to a situation that will be heavily emotionally driven.
If we used logic to solve all our problems, the world would be a different place.
If the car is constantly running as part of a motor pool then it may only last 2-5 years or so before it accumulates 200-400k+ miles and is worn out. The automakers may end up liking this new era where a car only lasts a few years and there is a constant demand for replacements, which would help smooth out some of the ups and downs of the current car market.
If the cars are all doing that much driving, then we'll need FAR fewer cars.
The average car does maybe 10k in a year, give or take. If they end up doing 100k a year like a taxi would, then you'd need up to 90% fewer cars.
So the auto companies would hate this, they would sell far fewer cars and those they sold would have to go up in price.
Everything costs more at lower volumes, both the parts that go into the car, R&D, marketing budgets, etc.
This is a solution in search of a problem.
You can't post someone's explicit video online, a dude just got sentenced to 18 years in prison for making money off such things without the ladies permission.
Reporting to the police and having CC info doesn't get the car fixed. And if someone puked in the back, did drugs, had sex... your car is never quite the same unless you strip out and replace most of the interior.
You either are fighting to win an Internet point without really caring about this issue, or you have unbelievably low personal standards.
Either is fine, but to suggest that this is just not an issue is silly.
You're fighting to try and win a point... stop fighting for a second and realize that having your car trashed is a real concern...
It doesn't have to happen often for it to be an issue.