Hedges & Company Blog

Would the increase in deaths YOY be related to increase in drivers? https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2018/10/number-of-licensed-drivers-usa/ Maybe the driving age should be increased to 18 or 21, and cut off at 75. Relatedly, what type of driver causes these accidents the most? My guess is that it is a subpopulation of teens and elderly. Edit: the safety recommendations in the article do not account for a steady influx of new drivers. I am unconvinced that applying clamming or lower limits neccesarily does anything to mitigate a careless, inattentive driver. Tbh, age limit seem to be the most easily implementable solution. Voters may hate any who push for it though (but if it comes from a bipartisan group, then the blame can be diluted). Applying age limits may also help with congestion issues.

Sorry but all you say in you post is a bunch of baseless personal assertions pushing a specific personal political take that has no substance or credibility. The Ford F150 is no niche product. It's the most popular car in all US states except in 5 or 6 states. According to some sources , "the vast majority of these new trucks are [sold] in large and medium-sized cities." https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2018/10/pickup-truck-owner-demographics… So unless you want to claim that white males living in large urban centers from all corners o the US are not Twitter's demographics, your view is baseless and completely detached from reality. But be my guest and point out the best source you used to source your claim. And lastly: https://marketing.twitter.com/en/success-stories/ford-f150-lightning-l… Hard to explain, isn't it?

Sorry for the delay. I don't get notifications. Not sure how people are so active on here with communication. Maybe you or someone could recommend a way? Anyways: > But what do you mean by 'across the board'? By that I mean across all of the people driving in the US and their rate of incidence. For example, average miles driven, the amount of drivers and the rate of accidents. I think the most intriguing detail could be drawn from the rate of fatal accidents, since that's the most concerning, ignoring accidents that cause a casualty as I don't know the method for gathering that data off hand. One could glean a lot of info from that. Here's some rough numbers I gathered, and please forgive the naive approach to my data gathering to express a point: Average miles driven/person[0]: 13,000 Average fatalities/year[1]: 37,000 Approximate number of licensed drivers[2]: 231,652,000 I don't have numbers for self-driving cars and the number of accidents, but regardless, would it perform the same with the same number of miles driven per car. Keep in mind that self-driving cars currently aren't navigating in all circumstances and will beep to make the human take control again. At least with Tesla. [0] In 2019, there were almost 229 million licensed drivers in the United States. (Source: https://www.asirt.org/safe-travel/road-safety-facts/) [1] Over 37,000 Americans die in automobile crashes per year. More than 90 people die in accidents every day. (Source:…

While Tesla would love to have people believe that their cars are safer than other cars, they are cherry-picking data which makes a real comparison difficult. One clear example that makes a huge difference in accident rates is the age of the driver. The average Tesla owner was 54 in 2018 vs 38 for car owners in general [1]. Teenagers are involved in 2-4 times more accidents per miles driven than drivers over the age of 30 [2], so by having a very low percentage of drivers under the age of 30 relative to other brands, you can already expect to see a significant difference in accident rates. Further, the article you quote says that Tesla's numbers "includes any activation of active restraints (airbags/pretensioners) which is crashes over 12mph.", whereas my link [2] is for any police reported crash, which would include fender-benders and other low speed accidents. I suspect that if you could correct for these factors, you'd find that Tesla's aren't statistically safer than other comparable cars. [1] https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2018/11/tesla-owner-demographics/ [2] https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuries-deaths-…

I agree this seems bizzare at best. "According to a study conducted by the Motorcycle Industry Council (MIC), the number of American households with at least one motorcycle in their garage has reached 8.02 percent in 2018." [1] "The total of motorcycles owned by US families has now reached 13.1M—12.2M or 93 % of which are active on the road, a decrease in percentage over 2014 (96.1%)." [1] While these numbers do not say "and they plan to purchase tires" (tyres?), I can not imagine that the number of those planning to purchase tires would be greater than the number of people with cars who plan to purchase tires. There are roughly 276.1 Million cars registered. [2] That does not mean anything, but inference would seem to suggest more people would purchase tires for cars. Of course, this article may have given the respondents a multiple choice sheet (with just those choices :) I sill lay claim, I can not imagine asking 100 people what they want to do with the tax refund, and their answers even remotely aligning with those. I might live in a strange part of the US, but I know the answers here would look much more like: Fishing rods. Fishing reel. Tackle. Parts for the boat and motor. That #$@%^ thing I have not fixed on the house yet. That other #$^!@# thing I have not fixed on the house yet. BBQ supplies. Pay off debt. [1] https://www.rideapart.com/articles/302630/more-americans-own-bikes-sur… [2]…

Tesla owners aren't that young. This site claims the average age of Tesla owners is 48 (updated for 2025): https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2018/11/tesla-owner-demographics/ Which should not be that surprising. Teslas were priced as premium vehicles initially, and then dropped as competitors appeared and to take advantage of tax credits. Teslas also benefit dramatically from owning a garage and adding a charger to it, which mostly homeowners can do. A homeowner buying an expensive car is very likely older and richer. Teslas aren't cool anymore, they are what your parents and your Uber driver has.

91% of US adults have a driving licence: https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2024/01/number-of-licensed-drivers-us/ So forgive me for being flippant but....how hard can it be? >>How do people with 2 or 3 jobs do? I assume they drive to those 3 jobs, so they somehow found a way.Again, sorry for being dismissive, and I appreciate it might be time consuming at costly - but still, 91% of all American adults have found a way to do this, so my point is that driving licences(along other documents) seem like a perfectly acceptable form of ID for voting?

> There are about 150 billion cars in the world. This is wrong by ~100x. "There are about 1.475 billion vehicles on Earth in 2024.": https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2021/06/how-many-cars-are-there-in-the-…

If by 0% you meant 23%, then yes. https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2024/02/average-age-of-cars-trucks/#:~:… And you only need to spend that 1-2 trillion dollars if you insist on perpetuating car dependence. You are not "spending it anyway". It is an opportunity cost that you could spend on a better world instead.

This makes sense to me. The average age of cars on the road has increased by 10% (~1.5 years) in the last decade, reducing the number of new cars needed to maintain equilibrium.[1] Wealthier people buy new cars (and pay the absurd premium) which then trickle down to the rest of the market through secondary sales. The reality is that a five-year-old car today is most likely more reliable than a new car built 25 years ago. A similar dynamic can be observed in the cell phone market. 1: https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2022/02/how-old-are-cars/

.....? The average age of cars are hitting 12 years. https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2022/02/how-old-are-cars/ If the data here is to be believed, then cars 2009 and prior make up 44% of of all cars on the road today, or or very roughly around 127 million cars. There really isn't that much to be said about EV longevity because to be frank, they isn't really enough data right now. There's not enough that are not old enough.

You are by far the exception, especially since being on HN, you're most likely to be middle class or higher. Poor people have cars that old, usually, there's a reason they're called "beaters". People in general try not to have cars older than around 7 years if they can, that's the "public wisdom" regarding when cars start having bigger maintenance problems. Edit: There you go, data: https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2022/02/how-old-are-cars/ Only 24% older than 18 years. 30 years old puts you at 5% and 35 years old at 1%.

The typical household != the typical new car buyer. The average age of a car buyer is decades older than the average American, and >90% of them own their home. So they're likely to either be families or elderly. https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2019/01/new-car-buyer-demographics-2019…

> Despite any TV ads you see with F-150s in a rural or country setting, the vast majority of these new trucks are in large and medium-sized cities. * https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2018/10/pickup-truck-owner-demographics…

Vehicles are expected to last on the road for more than 9 years. Today, the average age of a vehicle on the road is a little over 12 years[1] - average. It's a significant problem if vehicle's critical safety software/parts fail yet are still on the road. The future utopia of self driving vehicles can never become a reality if slightly older models kill people because they are no longer supported or updated. [1] https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2022/02/how-old-are-cars/#:~:text=The%2…

Yes, you get taxes from a residential area. But if you get MORE from a business area, guess which one cities are going to be incentivized to attract? About the road, a standard parking space is 180 square feet. At $100 per square foot for the land that's $18,000. Now compare to the car. Per https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2022/02/how-old-are-cars/ the median car is about 12 years old. If you want to buy a 2011 car right now, https://www.truecar.com/used-cars-for-sale/listings/year-2011/ shows you a whole lot of options. All are substantially less than that. The median car really does cost less than the space where it is parked. For more on this, see https://streetwidths.its.ucla.edu/

Calling Tesla drivers executives seems a bit... out of touch? Maybe the most premium model is an executive car. The vast majority are $50-$65k, with a house hold income of $133k. This means they are top 25% earners, not top 5%. More important is the fact they are driven by older people (median age 48 years old), that is more important. Model 3 Demographics: https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2019/03/tesla-model-3-demographics-inco…

> like driver's licenses, which poor people don't have. I did a cursory search and found this link[1] that says , > Across all age groups, 84.6% of all Americans have a drivers’ license. > The lowest percentage of total licensed drivers is among 16- to 19-year-olds, where 51.7% of the population have their driver’s license. Its even higher if you remove 16-19 age group, who aren't eligible for voting. Curious if you have a stat for drivers license by income. 1. https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2018/10/number-of-licensed-drivers-usa/…

"according to CNN there were 750,000 Uber drivers in the US in 2017. That's an increase from 327,000 Uber drivers in the US in 2015" [0] So, let's assume that there were 1m Uver drivers in US in 2019 and set aside all other counries' markets. If we split $42m + $11m + $71m between them instead of top managers, they will get ~$10/month. Will you feel better with this change of Uber expenses structure? [0] https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2018/10/number-of-licensed-drivers-usa/

The good numbers come from DMV registrations. There are industry sources which collect that data weekly.[1] [1] https://hedgescompany.com/automotive-market-research-statistics/auto-m…

I mean if we're being pedantic, unless there's something I missed the regulation you linked above only deals with shifting out of park, not starting the vehicle, but point taken, either Toyota has been flagrantly skirting regulations for a decade, or his car won't move without first depressing the brake (I don't think Toyota was making manual Rav4s that late, but haven't researched). I actually don't think my Accura will let me do it either (without putting a key in the bypass), but I'm not quite motivated enough to go out and check. My Baja is manual and would have no problem. > Quantified, "plenty of cars" is not a number. I mean did it need to be one? Unless you think I'm the only person whose managed to keep a car running over ~20 years the fact that we're around is enough to make it plausible we're talking a car predating them. But since your curious, it looks like ~40% of the cars on the road are from before 2010. https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2024/02/average-age-of-cars-trucks/

> I would not be making such claims with a global recession and wars increasingly prevalent. A lot of legislation around clean energy may be pushed aside for economic or security purposes. The economics of renewables are favorable in comparison to fossil fuels, even when you remove all subsidies. What makes them appear more expensive today is that the infrastructure for fossil energy carriers is already there, the one for renewables is often just being built. Obviously there is a tipping point somewhere in the future. Unfortunatly, time is the one thing we don't have. > What makes 1.5C key? Why not 2C [1]? And is this normalised for background rise vs actual rise? The Wikipedia link you provided alludes to the reasoning why 1.5 °C are key. The article also links to a longer piece by the IPC explaining the reasoning. > The earth's temperature has risen fast in the past too [2]. True, the changes in temperature earth has experienced over the last 500 millions years are vastly larger than 2 °C. Only 400 millions years ago oceans were hot baths with a thriving ecosphere! From this vantage point the "there is no planet B" slogan seems less clever, agreed. Climate change will not end earth or nature in general, both will be fine. It will just end the living conditions in which humanity can thrive or even survive. > By far the most environmentally friendly thing to do currently is to keep existing vehicles running for longer, until they are eventually traded for something…

With a properly designed electricity grid with interconnects to other grids and using all those idle electric cars as batteries we surely can solve this problem. The wind is always blowing somewhere, the sun is always shining somewhere, and most electric vehicles are idle at night when the sun is not shining and they could be used to smooth out the peaks and troughs. Most private vehicles are idle for more than 90% of the time. There are about 290 million private cars in the US (See https://hedgescompany.com/automotive-market-research-statistics/auto-m… If those were all electric with, say 50 kWh batteries they would be able to deliver an instantaneous power of something like 58 TW if the connectors could take it. But even if we assume that they are connected to only 7 kW charging points they could deliver 2 TW instantaneously. They could keep this up for an hour at the cost of losing less than 20% of a full charge. Average US electricity consumption is about 500 GW so vehicle to grid plus an upgraded and properly interconnected grid should be able to solve the problem of intermittent generation. I hope I haven't made a mistake in the arithmetic!

I'm just trying to help folks understand how it works outside the HN bubble. People buy trucks because it's what they feel they need (even if it isn't; that truck likely is going to be a garage queen and never leave pavement), for some it satisfies a part of their self image and ego, and a lot of folks buying them aren't fiscally responsible and buy them anyway (repo lots are a savvy way to find lightly used diesel pickups in good condition someone overspent on before a sophisticated broker/dealer acquires them and marks them up to the public). https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2018/10/pickup-truck-owner-demographics… > The Ford F-150 is the single most popular truck in America today and the most-popular vehicle in 44 states. It outsold the Ram pickup in 2019 by 78%. > The average age of the new F-150 buyer is 55. It may not be too surprising that about 16% of new Ford F-150 owners are female/84% male. About three-quarters of all new Ford F-150s are purchased by white males, although Hispanic buyers account for 22% of total incremental growth of new F-150 sales from 2010 to 2017. > Despite any TV ads you see with F-150s in a rural or country setting, the vast majority of these new trucks are in large and medium-sized cities. > The average household income of a new Ford F-150 owner is about $82,000 per year. By comparison the median household income in the United States is $61,937. > If that average household income sounds high, remember this! The F-150 has a base MSRP…

> 18 people have died in space exploration since the 1950's. Over a million people die in car wrecks each year on earth I was curious about the statistical risk here, so I crunched some numbers. There are approximately 230 million licensed drivers in the United States alone¹, versus approximately 560 astronauts². So let's do the math here: 18 space deaths / 560 astronauts¹ = 3.214% 1,850,000 US automotive deaths² / 230,000,000 US licensed drivers³ = 0.804% 50,000,000 worldwide automotive deaths⁴ / 1,200,000,000 worldwide drivers⁵ = 4.167% So by US automotive safety standards, space travel has a long ways to go in terms of fatality reduction, whereas by global safety standards space travel is approximately on par. ---- ¹: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_astronauts_by_name ²: https://www.asirt.org/safe-travel/road-safety-facts/ (your link), assuming the 37,000 per year is constant ³: https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2018/10/number-of-licensed-drivers-usa/ ⁴: Assuming - again - a constant 1 million deaths per year over 50 years ⁵: https://www.quora.com/What-percent-of-the-world-population-knows-how-t… which assumes that there is at least one person capable of driving per registered vehicle in the world; this is almost certainly a drastic underestimation, since it doesn't factor in passengers at all.

I started tracking the advertisers who upload my contact information a few months ago. One day I "hid" all of the pages in that section of the ads settings page and the next day it showed that over 100 pages had uploaded my contacts. I messaged a selection of the "new" pages (I'm not sure if they were actually new or if the had just re-upped their list). Most of them responded that they were confused as to how my info would end up associated with their pages, since most or all of them are quite a distance from where I live. A couple mentioned that they outsource their marketing to outside groups. My theory is that there may be industry marketing groups that collect contact information for use in social media advertising. One auto dealer worker responded to my question, "how did my name get on a list that your page uploaded?" by saying "I don't know, I just post ads." The ad settings page suggests that usually the uploaded identifying information is a phone number or email address, but the wording is vague enough that it could probably be just about anything. So if you've ever shared your phone number with Facebook (even once, I suspect, even if you've since deleted it) I wouldn't be surprised if they use that to identify you. Similarly, a postal address or even a city might enough to identify you for these purposes. Edit: A quick Google shows a number of groups similar to [1] that sell lists of auto owners. I would be surprised if there were not similar groups for other…

The average age of a car on the road today in America is 12 years. According to Hedges & Company, only ~10% of all cars on the road today are 20 years or older[0]. That’s not a small number, but “in general”, people do not drive 20 year old cars. The minimum battery warranty for an EV in the US is 8 years or 100k miles[1], and crowdsourced reports of battery degradation over time suggest that (at least for Tesla vehicles) it is not a major issue; range loss averages out to around 11% at 200k miles[2], which is the expected EOL for most ICE vehicles[3]. There are anecdotal reports of high-mileage EVs running on the same battery for over 350k miles[4] and 620k miles[5] without issue. [0] https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2022/02/how-old-are-cars/ [1] https://www.myev.com/research/buyers-sellers-advice/evaluating-electri… [2] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1c3m9wqlxPBo8ziDYVm5cHRzNCHZbtI… [3] https://www.caranddriver.com/research/a32758625/how-many-miles-does-a-… [4] https://insideevs.com/news/342457/this-tesla-model-x-90d-covered-35000… [5] https://jalopnik.com/one-tesla-model-s-has-gone-nearly-1-million-miles…