HelenaNMar 13
Not Just Bikes 🇳🇱

I was doing some research for a video and randomly came across this image from GM, which was on a page to promote the benefits of electric vehicles.

This image is obviously photoshopped, but look at this place. It's prime waterfront land, directly across the river from a city, and it's being shown as a featureless asphalt surface.

Even in their "optimistic" visions of the future, car companies' vision for cities is shit.

Mar 13 at 3:12pmWeb
Show threadNot Just Bikes 🇳🇱Mar 13

The actual location of where this "photo" would've been taken is Windsor, Ontario, Canada, across the river from Detroit (with the headquarters of GM shown in the background):

https://maps.app.goo.gl/hYTKmR75WWHg4sto7

Windsor is pretty shitty, because it was also a "motor city", but at least it's not quite as dystopian as GM makes it look in this photoshopped image.

Bevor Sie zu Google Maps weitergehen

Show threadNot Just Bikes 🇳🇱Mar 13
Here's a less-dystopian image of what this area actually looks like (from Google Maps).
Show threadpetes_bread_eqn_xlsMar 13
@notjustbikes is it a weird perspective or is that Canadian flag as big as American flags at car dealerships?
Show threadWolf_DeityMar 13
@petes_bread_eqn_xls
Its a very large flag meant to be visible from across the river.
@notjustbikes
Show threadZipMar 13

@petes_bread_eqn_xls

What's this car dealership flag thing?

*searches*

Good Lord

@notjustbikes

Show threadBryan H. RomboughMar 13

@notjustbikes Crossed back into Canada via the ambassador bridge once.

My main impression of the view from the bridge was that Detroit was almost completely grey while Windsor actually had green spaces.

Show threadThomas BohnMar 13
@notjustbikes and the only useful vehicle is in far distance back
Show threadNot Just Bikes 🇳🇱Mar 13

@tehabe yeap. And the one in the back-right is their concept Cruise Origin self-driving van, which tells you that this image is several years old.

GM shut down Cruise after one of their self-driving cars ran over and dragged a woman 20 feet in San Francisco in 2023:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-10-03/woman-hospitalized-after-being-hit-by-two-cars-one-self-driving-in-san-francisco

Woman hospitalized after being pinned under self-driving car

First responders arrived to find a woman pinned underneath a self-driving car with 'multiple traumatic injuries.'

Los Angeles Times
Show threadThomas BohnMar 13
@notjustbikes and of course GM already stopped the production of the brightdrop van, so no useful vehicles in the picture left
Show threadDer GigaMar 13

@notjustbikes Post apocalyptic car ads aren't a category, it's THE category.
Car ads are often feature a car driving through uninhabited land or even city scapes.

Kind of impressive how honest they are.

Show threadObscura, CheetahMar 13
@notjustbikes Not to mention giant truck, giant truck, giant SUV, giant SUV, whatever the heck the useless looking thing in the middle is... How about nice small cars and a proper minivan? *sighs*
Show threadScott KellumMar 13
@notjustbikes Cities in this vision are places to go to, not to live in.
Show threadReiner Jung 🇬🇱 🇺🇦 🇪🇺Mar 13
@scott @notjustbikes very true. I'll take this phrase, as it sums up what I heard so often in discussions with people that tell you that they need wide roads to visit the city and that all things that improve the life of people living in a city are obstructions to their needs. And also the city and its people should pay for all of it.
Show threadGull (Thomas) 🇨🇦Mar 13
@notjustbikes Wow, so bleak and boring. It makes me feel nothing.
Show threadhoutigMar 13
@notjustbikes car commercials are always out of this world. If you watch a video of them, the streets are always empty. (Almost) No traffic, all the space to enjoy your drive 🚗🛣️
Meanwhile I'm stuck in traffic or dodging fast driving drivers 🙈
Show threadBarry Cook 🇨🇦Mar 13
@notjustbikes - photo includes the Brightdrop EV van, which GM built in Canada and has since shut down and shuttered the plant.
Show threadJean-François MezeiMar 13
@notjustbikes This is good ! Paving areas gives cars more freedom of movement! Remember there is the GM declaration of universal car rights! If cars don't have access to the riverfront in Windsor because them pesky humans planted trees and grass to make a park, it is only normal that cars revendicate their rights to go there too! Treeless paved parking lots don't prevent those ugly bags of mostly water to walk on them, but grass/tree parks do prevent cars from going there. Ashphalt wins 😉
Show threadhugoMar 14

@notjustbikes
This reminds me of the hilarious Streetcraft video "redesigning Disney for cars".

EDIT: here's the video
https://youtu.be/CG0qRAOoVgI?si=ixVkuM-jHy6qB5Ox

I Redesigned Disney World... But For Cars

YouTube
Show threadMagnus AhltorpMar 14
@notjustbikes Is that a very tall silo in the background?
Show threadGhostOnTheHalfShellMar 17

@notjustbikes

Yes, there are many people here who absolutely would say, at the mere suggestion of having that be a neighborhood filled with housing and shops, and people walking about, would mean they were eating berries and living in caves and evil, and forcing people to live in poverty.

You should check out Chuck’s latest video of how black wall st not only built itself, but rebuilt itself after a race riot and what finally the neighborhood.