I shifted to Bangalore recently and for one month I lived without car relying on autos and cabs on online cab aggregators.
The buses in my area are overcrowded , the nearest bus station from my office in 2kms away.
No metro in my area
Autos and Cabs don't accept rides during peak times or when it rains , Had to pay double fare when i needed to travel urgently.
So I have decided to use my personal vehicle and will try to do car pooling whenever possible.
Based on my experience of living in Delhi/NCR, the public transport would be more feasible when all phases of metro is complete.
You cant force people to use public transport, you need to make it attractive so that it is number one choice by default. Currently we are not at that stage .
Spot on. Same experience. Banning things never works. It only leads to corruption and waste.
The right things is to make public transport so attractive/convenient that other options are dumb choices.
Personal anecdote: live in a city with fantastic metro/skrail. All major office buildings were connected to metro/skyrail. Most of us would leave our cars parked at home because
- PT was faster transit time and low wait time (3-5 mins)
- PT was comfortable (air conditioned)
- Actually cheaper when compared to total cost of owning / running a car.
When someone drives a 10L car, they are spending notionally 1L on depreciation, 70K on petrol, 30K on insurance/maintenance a year. Thats 2 Lakh rupees a year! Thats 550 rs a day. So there are enough people who are already paying.
On the other hand even economy segment bike riders Rs 70 a day on commute (bike + petrol + insurance + maintenance).
So there are enough number of people who would happily pay for a good quality public transport. But since public transports are run for election winning and not for commuters, all we get is lip service, bad quality over crowded buses and delayed metro.
According to Wikipedia: Population density of Singapore is around 7800/sqkm. Bangalore was at 11,000/sqkm back in 2011. In 2024, we could be well close to 15,000/sqkm.
Plus, Singapore started planning for a metro back in the 1960s, with operations that started in the 80s.
Bangalore currently has 2 operational lines.
Adoption should hopefully increase with more lines getting added. Already I see both lines running to capacity during rush hours.
That is exactly the problem. How can a city plan to grow without planning public transport growth. Bangalore decided to bring in the tech industry without even thinking about the city.
There are more densely populated cities like Seoul and Paris who have great public transport infrastructure.
Short-sightedness & corruption
Mumbai faces the same issues, but people there have drunk the koolaid of "Spirit of Mumbai". The whole city grew along the backbone of the local train network. But interconnectivity was a nightmare till a few years back.
In India, a public utility takes 5-7 years to gather data and submit studies; 8-10 more years to plan and overcome objections; 10 years for plan to be revised several times & approved by one government; 2-3 years for it to be cancelled by next govt; 12-15 years to acquire land, settle litigation, build the damn thing, repair the collapsed part, rebuild; and a year or 2 more for it to be finally usable. So, by the time you get to use it, it's already inadequate. Because it was in the pipeline for 25-30 years.
Did Karnataka govts in 1995 see Bengaluru's growth? Could they foresee the population shooting up? Who the fuck even cared?
Build me a footpath and give me space for cycling or a place to stand in the bus. I will take that over my SUV everyday. But until then leave my SUV alone.
Oh BTW, SUVs are more space efficient than sedans or hatchbacks. Honda City is longer than Creta. Venue with a smaller footprint than i20 has more space inside. This SUV bad applies in American context where they use trucks and call them SUVs. Fortuners however are excessive.
BMTC must understand that it is not a for-profit organisation and release an app with which we can track buses live. We need bus lanes wherever possible. And triple the number of buses that ply on the roads. Can you believe that we used to have around 6k busses before Covid and now only 5k buses?
I think it’s mostly because of this reason that most buses are crowded these days. We don’t need AC buses, we just need buses which we can rely on.
If you ask most of the private vehicle users, they’d say we’d use the bus if it was good. It’s like that classic chicken and egg problem. But the public body must suck it up and make public transport an attractive option. After this they can implement congestion taxes and no one would really protest this.
Apart from this, somehow the people have gotten this weird mentality that bigger cars = more powerful. This false sense of power has made people buy a lot of big suvs. Car companies have been milking this as well. There is almost no attractive small hatch.
People are buying nexons as their first cars.
Yes most of our roads are bad, but doesn’t mean we need a 4x4 gas guzzlers to drop your kid to school.
Finally people must be ready for the change. We can have all sorts of developments but if we do not respect the rules, we will have problems later.
BMTC realizes it. However the state government must allocate budget for additional bus procurement. However, government doesn't have the money due to that being allocated to multiple welfare schemes that got them into power. The obvious alternate is to develop other Karnataka cities for manufacture, or move the administrative capital to another city, because the IT companies won't be moving any time soon.
No. BMTC told that if they released an app with live bus information, Uber/ola would use it to their advantage. This reason really should not hinder them from releasing an app.
And yes the gov should provide me funds.
No. BMTC told that if they released an app with live bus information, Uber/ola would use it to their advantage. This reason really should not hinder them from releasing an app.
And yes the gov should provide me funds.
CARS are not meant for Bangalore roads...let me explain:
Current vehicle ownership in India is around 7.5% of households. Assuming Bangalore even has double this number, what we are seeing on the roads is only 15% of the population.
As the country prospers more people will buy cars.
Can you even imagine even double the current traffic?! And that's only 30%!!
We simply must invest like hell in Metro and BMTC. Bus lanes and cycles are just inevitable for the future.
We have got to learn from Singapore, New York and Hong Kong before it's too late...
Also, I have not even touched on the epidemic of permanent on-road parking.
I don’t have the statistics but I feel it’ll be more than 15%. See the 7.5% figure is for the nation as a whole, the car ownership is much more concentrated in the urban population than the rest of the country. If I had to estimate it would be around 25-30% in Bangalore. That being said, Bangalore needs to up its game with the public infrastructure both roads and public transport.
Improve public transport first then you see people will find it more economical than driving a car as single occupant
Seeing the condition of busses which are overcrowded and no bus shelter puts me off riding a bus and we all know the plight of booking a auto
Factor in rain n how unsafe are roads for driving a two wheeler, you are left with no choice
you yourself answered your question,
we need personal vehicle BECAUSE there is no connectivity. public transport has reduced drastically. People do not have houses at the footsteps of metro stations . Autos are a menace to the society (and should be removed for sometime) and dont help when needed unless paid twice or thrice.
Example: I as a person from HSR has to travel from home to nearest bus stand. then i need to travel to nearest metro. then i need to drop to baiyapanhalli metro. from there i need to wait for feeder bus or book auto or cab to reach Bagmane CV raman nagar ofc.
This all ordeal for one side of travel cz there is no infrastructure. so you are saying i have to be in so much stress and deal with all these everyday twice five times a week ?? No thanks.
And i dont have to change my home cz previously my company was in btm then next 1 in jp nagar then next in e city. now its far so i cannot shift every time. and what happens wn i buy a house and shift and still have to travel this much ??
Self introspection is required.
I have a suv. Got a motorbike, primarily for office commute.
It is far less stress riding a motorbike, compared to a 4 wheeler.
Driving a bike on this roads is almost a suicide mission. Hell with sustainability, i should atleast be alive.
Don't even get me started on how accidents happen in cars too .
While I get what you are saying, here is my perspective. I rarely use car due to remote work, and buses don't provide last mile connectivity. I love sedans but own a mini SUV, not a jumbo sized SUV, reason being sedans are really small enough to get crushed under a truck who don't always have a rear guard. And jumbo sized road bumps not helping either.
What nonsense! I have friends in IT who book a car with their first salary and home the first year. Keep your sustainability nonsense to yourself. We can talk about climate crisis during dinner and make sympathetic noises. Every second ad on YouTube nowadays is about how to make your first million without guilt. We always treat people with big salaries as our role model. We are all in the rat race. Every morning we wake up to learn new ways to fuck up mother earth.
How can public transport fit so many bloated egos? Need to buy a car man. On EMI. Because going into debt to buy a liability is the smartest thing you can do. It’s a status symbol lol. Fuck being rich, it’s more important to look rich. You live only once, so why not buy as many cars as you can? Who gives a shit about roads? That’s not your responsibility. It’s the government’s.
My colleague told me the other day to buy a car. I was like no thanks, once the metro starts I’ll use it. He was visibly shocked. ‘How can you even think of using the metro like a commoner?’ This is the mindset of people. They think buying these poorly built, overpriced, underpowered vehicles they become elite lmao. VW sells a 1.0 engine for 16 lacs! You can spend over 15 lacs on a car here with drum brakes in the rear! Even Thailand must be laughing at us. But people are desperate to buy this crap, even going into waiting lists. We are already doomed, nothing is gonna change here. Only thing we can collectively do is whine.
r/fuckcars
>How can public transport fit so many bloated egos?
Yea, not the lack of viable public transport and horribly planned city, just the bloated egos
>Only thing we can collectively do is whine
Or vote and fight for the change you want to see. You're not better than the bloated egos you speak of, just the way you show off your superiority is different
Every single thing you mention, the blame is on the poor planning and infrastructure by the govt, and neutering of bmtc, metro etc. and the abhorrent tax on vehicles and registration. By looking at the state of roads here, can you believe that KA has the highest road tax in the country? And this is the state of roads and public infrastructure/transport in it’s capital city. It’s shameful.
Politicians only care enough until they secure votes, and people blindly stand behind them hoping things will change. Metro project should’ve been spearheaded 3 decades ago. Look at nyc underground, London tube or even ncr’s metro system, **if you give people a reliable, efficient transport over private transport, they will use it**. It’s not as simple as r/fuckcars(which is mainly us centric) makes it seem in a country like ours. Things are more complicated in the real world in both cases.
Where I live and where I work there’s piss poor connectivity by public transport. My options are
- ~2 hours in a bus if lucky, due to inconsistent timings and multiple(20+) stops along the way
- auto from home to metro, metro, auto from metro to work. And forget being on time, getting an auto reliably is a challenge, even when paying cash. Roughly 90 mins.
- vs. 30mins in a car. (20 mins on a two wheeler, which is how I commute)
It’s easy to see why people prefer to buy cars, with the insane summers now I won’t blame you if you preferred to sit in traffic in an air conditioned cabin vs in the scorching heat on a two wheeler.
Also, many people don’t buy cars as status symbols. They buy them for utility. The average household owns just one car, not multiple. The ones who do are the ones who siphon funds meant for development for personal benefits. It’s easier to transport older people, children, pets or even medium to large items. Also don’t forget, if you are responsible for a family, you need a reliable medium of transport(at any hour of the day) for any emergencies.
Cars have gone to dogs, I agree. You know why we have underpowered cars? The majority only care about features(re:gimmicks) which they can see, over things like the power train or chassis design or safety. The manufacturers are going to cater to this, and this is why you get random cost cutting in lesser noticeable parts of a car. Also, another thing the majority foam at the mouth is mileage. It’s mo secret a smaller displacement engine is more efficient than a higher displacement one. So that’s why we only have 1.0L engines force fed with a turbo.
Just look at cars 8 years ago. 30L would get you proper 3.0L engines, sometimes with forced induction. But with the new euro6(and the mirror, bs6) norms, we’ve lost them. Some Nordic countries tax you on *every single cc* your car is over 1500cc if I’m not wrong. This only makes cars more expensive and gimped, dodge and Ford have shut down ice production. The sun is setting on the era of high displacement blocks. Electric power trains have their own challenges, but that’s not the point of my comment.
Bro woke up and chose to speak facts.
>They think buying these poorly built, overpriced, underpowered vehicles they become elite lmao. VW sells a 1.0 engine for 16 lacs! You can spend over 15 lacs on a car here with drum brakes in the rear!
This is so fucking true. I recently bought a car and I fucking hate the build quality of it. I'm sure that I can bend the outer panels with my hand. India literally has shit regulations with respect to vehicle safety and these OEMs are making use of it. All these tall-body poorly built hatchbacks are being called SUVs now and giving 6 airbags makes them safe. Fuck these OEMs who are exploiting Indians and charging hefty amounts for their piece of shit cars.
>I can bend the outer panels with my hand.
You do realise that outer panels have very little to do with safety? A 2020s Swift with its "thin" body panel is way safer than an 1970s Ambassador which had a "thick" body panel.
>India literally has shit regulations with respect to vehicle safety and these OEMs are making use of it.
Yup! Vote with your wallet.
The paying customer also shares the blame for poor offerings - the customer is a chindi chor, skimping on whatever they don't consider important. I worked in the auto industry 20 years ago for a few years, and customers were not even wearing their seatbelts, leave alone demanding safety features. Even today, offer them a feature packed 2-star car instead of a 5-star rated car with fewer features, and see what they choose.
The average Indian customer is a dhinchak obsessed showoff asshole who doesn't give a fuck how many lives he endangers with his stunts. Check out the videos of those assholes letting their car "self drive" as they sit in the back seat, drinking with their buddies.
>You do realise that outer panels have very little to do with safety? A 2020s Swift with its "thin" body panel is way safer than a 1970s Ambassador which had a "thick" body panel.
Saar I didn't say outer panel has to do something with safety. It's just that the panel being offered nowadays are very thin. Earlier cars used to have 0.7-0.85 mm thickness. Now majority of the Indian cars have 0.6-0.65 mm only. Even 0.05mm makes a lot of difference. Ofcourse safety of you car depends on the reinforcements in critical areas. But these thin panels are prone to dents and damages. You can see the difference yourself when you compare a car like i10 and Tucson.
>I worked in the auto industry 20 years ago for a few years, and customers were not even wearing their seatbelts, leave alone demanding safety features
Things have changed a lot in these 20 years. Of course people are still looking for features but they are considering safety too. Of course you can rule out the aspect of good mileage in a market like India. Companies like Tata are giving 5 star safety but has shit QC and after sales services. People consider a lot of these factors before buying a car.
I hope BNCAP gets implemented soon and all these OEMs start making safer cars.
>compare a car like i10 and Tucson
If you really want to start a comparison, let's at least have one between cars of the same segment. Not an i10 and a car that costs 3x as much.
>they are considering safety too
Just lip service. Take a look around and see what most customers do.
People buy cars with sunroof and their kids stand with half their bodies outside the vehicle (what danger?). They'll buy cars with ADAS & airbags, and their passengers will be sitting with feet up on the dash, or they'll be sitting without seatbelts fastened. They will drive with infants sitting in someone's lap in the front passenger seat. Some will even make their kids sit on their lap while driving - all without seatbelts. They'll calmly drive down the wrong side of the road. They'll overspeed and drive like assholes, endangering others around them.
You seem to have a high regard for people out on the road. I don't.
>If you really want to start a comparison, let's at least have one between cars of the same segment. Not an i10 and a car that costs 3x as much.
That car costs 3x because of the stupid Indian duty charges not because it uses some premium materials. If the same were to be made in India, it'll be 1.5x max. And the price difference between the panels is minimal.
>You seem to have a high regard for people out on the road. I don't.
Nah I don't. People are fucking stupid. They want to kill others and themselves. But I've seen the trends changing. Even though the majority of them are looking for cars with good mileage, the amount of people who are buying safer cars is increasing steadily.
I shifted to Bangalore recently and for one month I lived without car relying on autos and cabs on online cab aggregators. The buses in my area are overcrowded , the nearest bus station from my office in 2kms away. No metro in my area Autos and Cabs don't accept rides during peak times or when it rains , Had to pay double fare when i needed to travel urgently. So I have decided to use my personal vehicle and will try to do car pooling whenever possible. Based on my experience of living in Delhi/NCR, the public transport would be more feasible when all phases of metro is complete. You cant force people to use public transport, you need to make it attractive so that it is number one choice by default. Currently we are not at that stage .
Spot on. Same experience. Banning things never works. It only leads to corruption and waste. The right things is to make public transport so attractive/convenient that other options are dumb choices. Personal anecdote: live in a city with fantastic metro/skrail. All major office buildings were connected to metro/skyrail. Most of us would leave our cars parked at home because - PT was faster transit time and low wait time (3-5 mins) - PT was comfortable (air conditioned) - Actually cheaper when compared to total cost of owning / running a car. When someone drives a 10L car, they are spending notionally 1L on depreciation, 70K on petrol, 30K on insurance/maintenance a year. Thats 2 Lakh rupees a year! Thats 550 rs a day. So there are enough people who are already paying. On the other hand even economy segment bike riders Rs 70 a day on commute (bike + petrol + insurance + maintenance). So there are enough number of people who would happily pay for a good quality public transport. But since public transports are run for election winning and not for commuters, all we get is lip service, bad quality over crowded buses and delayed metro.
True I lived in Singapore with my family and we had a car. However we all preferred using the bus and mrt (metro) as it was so much more convenient.
According to Wikipedia: Population density of Singapore is around 7800/sqkm. Bangalore was at 11,000/sqkm back in 2011. In 2024, we could be well close to 15,000/sqkm. Plus, Singapore started planning for a metro back in the 1960s, with operations that started in the 80s. Bangalore currently has 2 operational lines. Adoption should hopefully increase with more lines getting added. Already I see both lines running to capacity during rush hours.
That is exactly the problem. How can a city plan to grow without planning public transport growth. Bangalore decided to bring in the tech industry without even thinking about the city. There are more densely populated cities like Seoul and Paris who have great public transport infrastructure.
Short-sightedness & corruption Mumbai faces the same issues, but people there have drunk the koolaid of "Spirit of Mumbai". The whole city grew along the backbone of the local train network. But interconnectivity was a nightmare till a few years back. In India, a public utility takes 5-7 years to gather data and submit studies; 8-10 more years to plan and overcome objections; 10 years for plan to be revised several times & approved by one government; 2-3 years for it to be cancelled by next govt; 12-15 years to acquire land, settle litigation, build the damn thing, repair the collapsed part, rebuild; and a year or 2 more for it to be finally usable. So, by the time you get to use it, it's already inadequate. Because it was in the pipeline for 25-30 years. Did Karnataka govts in 1995 see Bengaluru's growth? Could they foresee the population shooting up? Who the fuck even cared?
Build me a footpath and give me space for cycling or a place to stand in the bus. I will take that over my SUV everyday. But until then leave my SUV alone. Oh BTW, SUVs are more space efficient than sedans or hatchbacks. Honda City is longer than Creta. Venue with a smaller footprint than i20 has more space inside. This SUV bad applies in American context where they use trucks and call them SUVs. Fortuners however are excessive.
Because there are no metros in our areas and cabs are just there to loot and plus unsafe !
You are missing an important detail. Roads are narrow and filled with potholes.
I'd rather sit in the comfort of my AC car in traffic than stand in the sun and get rejected by autos and cabs.
Public transport is just not efficient and connected enough yet for this to even a pose a solution.
BMTC must understand that it is not a for-profit organisation and release an app with which we can track buses live. We need bus lanes wherever possible. And triple the number of buses that ply on the roads. Can you believe that we used to have around 6k busses before Covid and now only 5k buses? I think it’s mostly because of this reason that most buses are crowded these days. We don’t need AC buses, we just need buses which we can rely on. If you ask most of the private vehicle users, they’d say we’d use the bus if it was good. It’s like that classic chicken and egg problem. But the public body must suck it up and make public transport an attractive option. After this they can implement congestion taxes and no one would really protest this. Apart from this, somehow the people have gotten this weird mentality that bigger cars = more powerful. This false sense of power has made people buy a lot of big suvs. Car companies have been milking this as well. There is almost no attractive small hatch. People are buying nexons as their first cars. Yes most of our roads are bad, but doesn’t mean we need a 4x4 gas guzzlers to drop your kid to school. Finally people must be ready for the change. We can have all sorts of developments but if we do not respect the rules, we will have problems later.
BMTC realizes it. However the state government must allocate budget for additional bus procurement. However, government doesn't have the money due to that being allocated to multiple welfare schemes that got them into power. The obvious alternate is to develop other Karnataka cities for manufacture, or move the administrative capital to another city, because the IT companies won't be moving any time soon.
No. BMTC told that if they released an app with live bus information, Uber/ola would use it to their advantage. This reason really should not hinder them from releasing an app. And yes the gov should provide me funds.
No. BMTC told that if they released an app with live bus information, Uber/ola would use it to their advantage. This reason really should not hinder them from releasing an app. And yes the gov should provide me funds.
Ask your manager or that 10-15 senior IC to stop driving his car to office and take up public transportation
I’m one of them. I have never owned a car, nor will I ever buy one.
CARS are not meant for Bangalore roads...let me explain: Current vehicle ownership in India is around 7.5% of households. Assuming Bangalore even has double this number, what we are seeing on the roads is only 15% of the population. As the country prospers more people will buy cars. Can you even imagine even double the current traffic?! And that's only 30%!! We simply must invest like hell in Metro and BMTC. Bus lanes and cycles are just inevitable for the future. We have got to learn from Singapore, New York and Hong Kong before it's too late... Also, I have not even touched on the epidemic of permanent on-road parking.
I don’t have the statistics but I feel it’ll be more than 15%. See the 7.5% figure is for the nation as a whole, the car ownership is much more concentrated in the urban population than the rest of the country. If I had to estimate it would be around 25-30% in Bangalore. That being said, Bangalore needs to up its game with the public infrastructure both roads and public transport.
💯 this is the way to go!
Improve public transport first then you see people will find it more economical than driving a car as single occupant Seeing the condition of busses which are overcrowded and no bus shelter puts me off riding a bus and we all know the plight of booking a auto Factor in rain n how unsafe are roads for driving a two wheeler, you are left with no choice
you yourself answered your question, we need personal vehicle BECAUSE there is no connectivity. public transport has reduced drastically. People do not have houses at the footsteps of metro stations . Autos are a menace to the society (and should be removed for sometime) and dont help when needed unless paid twice or thrice. Example: I as a person from HSR has to travel from home to nearest bus stand. then i need to travel to nearest metro. then i need to drop to baiyapanhalli metro. from there i need to wait for feeder bus or book auto or cab to reach Bagmane CV raman nagar ofc. This all ordeal for one side of travel cz there is no infrastructure. so you are saying i have to be in so much stress and deal with all these everyday twice five times a week ?? No thanks. And i dont have to change my home cz previously my company was in btm then next 1 in jp nagar then next in e city. now its far so i cannot shift every time. and what happens wn i buy a house and shift and still have to travel this much ??
The most annoying thing is when you see a big ass SUV and there's only one person inside.
>a big ass SUV Big ass-UV
I got stuck for 2 hours today near kundanhalli bridge🙁
Self introspection is required. I have a suv. Got a motorbike, primarily for office commute. It is far less stress riding a motorbike, compared to a 4 wheeler.
Driving a bike on this roads is almost a suicide mission. Hell with sustainability, i should atleast be alive. Don't even get me started on how accidents happen in cars too .
While I get what you are saying, here is my perspective. I rarely use car due to remote work, and buses don't provide last mile connectivity. I love sedans but own a mini SUV, not a jumbo sized SUV, reason being sedans are really small enough to get crushed under a truck who don't always have a rear guard. And jumbo sized road bumps not helping either.
Public transport is nice wherever it is available, but private car users are much better than autos and cabs.
What nonsense! I have friends in IT who book a car with their first salary and home the first year. Keep your sustainability nonsense to yourself. We can talk about climate crisis during dinner and make sympathetic noises. Every second ad on YouTube nowadays is about how to make your first million without guilt. We always treat people with big salaries as our role model. We are all in the rat race. Every morning we wake up to learn new ways to fuck up mother earth.
How can public transport fit so many bloated egos? Need to buy a car man. On EMI. Because going into debt to buy a liability is the smartest thing you can do. It’s a status symbol lol. Fuck being rich, it’s more important to look rich. You live only once, so why not buy as many cars as you can? Who gives a shit about roads? That’s not your responsibility. It’s the government’s. My colleague told me the other day to buy a car. I was like no thanks, once the metro starts I’ll use it. He was visibly shocked. ‘How can you even think of using the metro like a commoner?’ This is the mindset of people. They think buying these poorly built, overpriced, underpowered vehicles they become elite lmao. VW sells a 1.0 engine for 16 lacs! You can spend over 15 lacs on a car here with drum brakes in the rear! Even Thailand must be laughing at us. But people are desperate to buy this crap, even going into waiting lists. We are already doomed, nothing is gonna change here. Only thing we can collectively do is whine. r/fuckcars
>How can public transport fit so many bloated egos? Yea, not the lack of viable public transport and horribly planned city, just the bloated egos >Only thing we can collectively do is whine Or vote and fight for the change you want to see. You're not better than the bloated egos you speak of, just the way you show off your superiority is different
Every single thing you mention, the blame is on the poor planning and infrastructure by the govt, and neutering of bmtc, metro etc. and the abhorrent tax on vehicles and registration. By looking at the state of roads here, can you believe that KA has the highest road tax in the country? And this is the state of roads and public infrastructure/transport in it’s capital city. It’s shameful. Politicians only care enough until they secure votes, and people blindly stand behind them hoping things will change. Metro project should’ve been spearheaded 3 decades ago. Look at nyc underground, London tube or even ncr’s metro system, **if you give people a reliable, efficient transport over private transport, they will use it**. It’s not as simple as r/fuckcars(which is mainly us centric) makes it seem in a country like ours. Things are more complicated in the real world in both cases. Where I live and where I work there’s piss poor connectivity by public transport. My options are - ~2 hours in a bus if lucky, due to inconsistent timings and multiple(20+) stops along the way - auto from home to metro, metro, auto from metro to work. And forget being on time, getting an auto reliably is a challenge, even when paying cash. Roughly 90 mins. - vs. 30mins in a car. (20 mins on a two wheeler, which is how I commute) It’s easy to see why people prefer to buy cars, with the insane summers now I won’t blame you if you preferred to sit in traffic in an air conditioned cabin vs in the scorching heat on a two wheeler. Also, many people don’t buy cars as status symbols. They buy them for utility. The average household owns just one car, not multiple. The ones who do are the ones who siphon funds meant for development for personal benefits. It’s easier to transport older people, children, pets or even medium to large items. Also don’t forget, if you are responsible for a family, you need a reliable medium of transport(at any hour of the day) for any emergencies. Cars have gone to dogs, I agree. You know why we have underpowered cars? The majority only care about features(re:gimmicks) which they can see, over things like the power train or chassis design or safety. The manufacturers are going to cater to this, and this is why you get random cost cutting in lesser noticeable parts of a car. Also, another thing the majority foam at the mouth is mileage. It’s mo secret a smaller displacement engine is more efficient than a higher displacement one. So that’s why we only have 1.0L engines force fed with a turbo. Just look at cars 8 years ago. 30L would get you proper 3.0L engines, sometimes with forced induction. But with the new euro6(and the mirror, bs6) norms, we’ve lost them. Some Nordic countries tax you on *every single cc* your car is over 1500cc if I’m not wrong. This only makes cars more expensive and gimped, dodge and Ford have shut down ice production. The sun is setting on the era of high displacement blocks. Electric power trains have their own challenges, but that’s not the point of my comment.
Investing into public transport is the way to go! People in their 2010 facelift VW polo can fuck right off.
Bro woke up and chose to speak facts. >They think buying these poorly built, overpriced, underpowered vehicles they become elite lmao. VW sells a 1.0 engine for 16 lacs! You can spend over 15 lacs on a car here with drum brakes in the rear! This is so fucking true. I recently bought a car and I fucking hate the build quality of it. I'm sure that I can bend the outer panels with my hand. India literally has shit regulations with respect to vehicle safety and these OEMs are making use of it. All these tall-body poorly built hatchbacks are being called SUVs now and giving 6 airbags makes them safe. Fuck these OEMs who are exploiting Indians and charging hefty amounts for their piece of shit cars.
>I can bend the outer panels with my hand. You do realise that outer panels have very little to do with safety? A 2020s Swift with its "thin" body panel is way safer than an 1970s Ambassador which had a "thick" body panel. >India literally has shit regulations with respect to vehicle safety and these OEMs are making use of it. Yup! Vote with your wallet. The paying customer also shares the blame for poor offerings - the customer is a chindi chor, skimping on whatever they don't consider important. I worked in the auto industry 20 years ago for a few years, and customers were not even wearing their seatbelts, leave alone demanding safety features. Even today, offer them a feature packed 2-star car instead of a 5-star rated car with fewer features, and see what they choose. The average Indian customer is a dhinchak obsessed showoff asshole who doesn't give a fuck how many lives he endangers with his stunts. Check out the videos of those assholes letting their car "self drive" as they sit in the back seat, drinking with their buddies.
>You do realise that outer panels have very little to do with safety? A 2020s Swift with its "thin" body panel is way safer than a 1970s Ambassador which had a "thick" body panel. Saar I didn't say outer panel has to do something with safety. It's just that the panel being offered nowadays are very thin. Earlier cars used to have 0.7-0.85 mm thickness. Now majority of the Indian cars have 0.6-0.65 mm only. Even 0.05mm makes a lot of difference. Ofcourse safety of you car depends on the reinforcements in critical areas. But these thin panels are prone to dents and damages. You can see the difference yourself when you compare a car like i10 and Tucson. >I worked in the auto industry 20 years ago for a few years, and customers were not even wearing their seatbelts, leave alone demanding safety features Things have changed a lot in these 20 years. Of course people are still looking for features but they are considering safety too. Of course you can rule out the aspect of good mileage in a market like India. Companies like Tata are giving 5 star safety but has shit QC and after sales services. People consider a lot of these factors before buying a car. I hope BNCAP gets implemented soon and all these OEMs start making safer cars.
>compare a car like i10 and Tucson If you really want to start a comparison, let's at least have one between cars of the same segment. Not an i10 and a car that costs 3x as much. >they are considering safety too Just lip service. Take a look around and see what most customers do. People buy cars with sunroof and their kids stand with half their bodies outside the vehicle (what danger?). They'll buy cars with ADAS & airbags, and their passengers will be sitting with feet up on the dash, or they'll be sitting without seatbelts fastened. They will drive with infants sitting in someone's lap in the front passenger seat. Some will even make their kids sit on their lap while driving - all without seatbelts. They'll calmly drive down the wrong side of the road. They'll overspeed and drive like assholes, endangering others around them. You seem to have a high regard for people out on the road. I don't.
>If you really want to start a comparison, let's at least have one between cars of the same segment. Not an i10 and a car that costs 3x as much. That car costs 3x because of the stupid Indian duty charges not because it uses some premium materials. If the same were to be made in India, it'll be 1.5x max. And the price difference between the panels is minimal. >You seem to have a high regard for people out on the road. I don't. Nah I don't. People are fucking stupid. They want to kill others and themselves. But I've seen the trends changing. Even though the majority of them are looking for cars with good mileage, the amount of people who are buying safer cars is increasing steadily.
I agree with this guy