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Private Cars Are The Next Egyptian Pyramids: Beyond Petrol - Culture - Nairaland

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Private Cars Are The Next Egyptian Pyramids: Beyond Petrol by jara: 1:53pm On Dec 07, 2020
Private Cars Are The Next Egyptian Pyramids: Beyond Petrol

https://www.thenigerianvoice.com/news/294414/private-cars-are-the...

Private Cars Are The Next Egyptian Pyramids: Beyond Petrol. ... Soon, roads for private cars will diminish in favor of mass transit and the clean environment. However, some African beautiful houses are built
Re: Private Cars Are The Next Egyptian Pyramids: Beyond Petrol by jara: 1:51pm On Dec 08, 2020
Private Cars Are The Next Egyptian Pyramids: Beyond Petrol

https://m.thenigerianvoice.com/news/294414/private-cars-are-the-next-egyptian-pyramids-beyond-petrol.html

African countries must think and plan for the future instead of coping and struggling to live from one day to the next buying new technologies from foreigners that prepared for the future. No amount of money can be earned to buy trending technology if Africans do not make and produce any. The reason Africans are consumers and not producers has more to do with the fact that we are always looking towards the other guys to lead in future products and services. Solar technology is not new as African countries are right under the Sun. Yet, none of our countries is a leader in Solar energy, the clean fuel of the future.

The biggest world oil refinery in Nigeria is too late to push Africa into the future. If it was the biggest Solar power plant or rechargeable battery factory, we could celebrate the First in Africa. It is never too late to delve into the future. Opportunities open everyday for thinkers and how to change the world instead of dreaming about how to make money. No matter how much money you make, thinkers get most of it for products and services. Dream big, not rich.

It is even easier to copy and improve on foreign technology or improve on products as the Americans did with the British and the Japanese did with American goods. Our proximal generation will wonder why our generation keeps on assembling private cars when we cannot keep up with infrastructure needed to operate them or source power from rechargeable batteries. The richest countries argue about how much more money to spend on new and decaying roads and bridges. The world is so attached to personal cars, it has become individual freedom. Even where there are good roads, the world prefers the convenience and privacy of our automobiles.

The greater problem with personal cars in most African countries is that there are less roads to drive them on. Even the roads that are available are not well maintained creating more damages and more repairs to new or fairly used cars. Some Africans buy cars as “gifted” status symbols rather than for necessities to make income. There is no doubt that cars started as status symbols everywhere but others kept up and built roads. Usually, infrastructure including roads are built before most developments in order to get in and out. Driving for pleasure is also good but when you are stuck in traffic most of the time, it becomes a pain.

Town planners have started creating roads, streets and bridges for mass transits, bicycle and car-free passages downtowns. Some roads and streets are now designated strictly as walkways and for bicycles in the downtown areas. Soon, roads for private cars will diminish in favor of mass transit and the clean environment. However, some African beautiful houses are built where there are no adequate ways of getting in or out. Creating temporary roads that cannot even support the weight of these cars. More damages are done to the cars, not to mention roads that can swallow a car and people. Simply put, the mentality is that ownership of cars comes before motorable roads.

This mentality is transferred to other national planning where infrastructure lacks behind housing, health clinics, factories and schools. The most successful businesses do not build a factory or plant where there are no means of getting there. When they go into the jungle to build cement factories; roads and power generating plants are the priorities. Regardless of our complaints that they cannot establish in towns and cities without the government providing an enabling environment.

The irony is obvious on its face. You build factories on virgin land providing needed infrastructure to run it, which is great. But blame the governments in the cities for the lack of the same infrastructure you build in the jungle. The same people running governments support cronies managing private businesses. The difference is private businesses generate personal profit but the Government enabling environment benefits many in the community.

Automobile Industry is a major part of the private sector economy in most countries. Any downturn can cause a cultural change that might be difficult to contain. We witnessed this in the 70s as the industry became the easiest way for workers with high school education or less to earn middle class income and buy houses in the same neighborhood as professionals. Indeed, a single income earner in the household could support the whole family.

What changed? Profits from big luxury cars decreased as they were replaced by smaller efficient cars because petrol became expensive. Before the Arab Oil Embargo in the early seventies, Japanese were making smaller efficient cars. So it was not a surprise that they gained a larger share of the world automobile market during the oil embargo. The backlash in the United States was to boycott Japanese cars. American major car makers were betting that Japanese could not break into the luxury car market.

They were wrong. The Japanese and Korean introduced efficient luxury cars as the Europeans. More important, in order to break into America and retain their share of the market, Asian and European Automobile manufacturers established manufacturing plants in the American Midwestern states without the old Unions negotiating benefits. They were able to build the same cars they built in their countries in America and Canada at lower wages.

The boycott backlash faded in Canada and the United States because local automobile plants created jobs and the cars made in or outside the Americas became indistinguishable. Moreover, automobile parts were manufactured in Asia, Europe and America, then shipped worldwide. Since Quality Assurance and Precision gained priority in Japan, efficient cars depended more on machines reducing human errors worldwide.

The cultural consequences change behavior in America. As Auto Unions lost power and wages, they lost the financial capabilities to buy homes and raise their families in the suburbs beside professional doctors, lawyers, accountants etc. The loss of privilege changed into depression, increase suicide rate and drug use to numb the pain. This loss of comfort with only high school education created the Opioids generation that became Angry White Men. They want to go back to "the good old days" analog that had given way to technological advancement. Politicians that know how to exploit their sense of privilege and entitlement promised to create more jobs in coal and petroleum energy they know were not coming back while investing their personal wealth in present and future technology.

African countries did not seize the opportunity as European and Asian manufacturers. Even the oil rich African countries relied on crude oil resources and spent the money like drunken sailors. They sold crude oil to import refined oil from the 70s to date. The same mentality of selling raw gold and buying refined gold designed abroad. African refineries have never been self sufficient and hardly operated efficiently. A country like Nigeria is now ready to operate the first private refinery since government refineries gulped allocation, never made profit as an Industry. Our precious metal and commodity had been sold since the days of gold for mirrors.

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