People have been using boxes on wheels to transport themselves and things for millennia. The issue is how fast #MotorVehicles can go, which in turn determines how far it is practical to #travel in one.
There will always be a need for weather protection and cargo capacity, but #society would look very different if motor vehicles were restricted to 20 mph, like Class II #ebikes.
@gcvsa how about 9mph and we build special lanes that they have to stay in to keep them out of the way of people who have somewhere to go. I mean the boxes.
@enobacon It's not really necessary to limit them to that low of a speed. 20-25 mph would deter most people from building their lives around motor vehicles. More people would necessarily live in population centers, because they would not be able to commute or travel long distances in short periods of time, and that alone would eliminate most people's ownership of motor vehicles, just like most people in the late 19th Century did not own horses and wagons or carriages in cities.
@enobacon It's also worth nothing that limiting vehicles to low speeds also makes adoption of EVs much more feasible, as they need smaller batteries with lighter weights and lower power motors.
Not having to engineer for highway speeds means the vehicles that would continue to exist could be much smaller and lighter, as there would be much less need to account for high speed crash protections.
@gcvsa maybe the speed limiter needs to factor in the weight and bulk of the vehicle. I tend to think cars are actually useful for certain long trips, but if the heavy ones were limited to 9 or 15 in the city, the little ones going 20 would get more popular.
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