I feel the most consequent stance is to demand all the things. Not to reject all the things except for the one pure solution.
As long as ICE vehicles are still sold, even make up the most of the sales, supporting EVs is moving in the right direction. At the same time, even better solutions can be demanded and supported.
The point is that electric cars are shit, have never been a solution to anything, and that they shouldn’t be presented as one, doubly so when as a technology, public transport exists.
We will get public transportation from one million people city to the next in billionaire tubes. And exploited drive-app drivers will drive people around inside them, because public transportation isn’t flashy or profitable enough without the vacuum and the time savings.
EVs also greatly reduce brake dust, as most use regenerative braking under normal circumstances, leaving traditional braking for hard (emergency) braking.
New EV models tend to be heavier and quicker—generating more particulates and deepening the danger. In other words, EVs have a tire-pollution problem, and one that is poised to get worse as America begins to adopt electric cars en masse.
Tires were already a problem, but when we switch to electric cars, according to Michelin, we increase tire wear by up to 20%. According to Goodyear, it’s up to 50%. This is validated also in other research that we’ve seen.
edit: To be clear, EVs are better than ICEs and every car should be an EV. But EVs also suck and we still need to transition away from car dependence.
The comprehensive study has found that in everyday driving, particulate emissions from tires are 1,850 times greater than the equivalent exhaust emissions. This is only made worse by the heavier battery packs fitted to electric vehicles, which increase vehicle mass and, in turn, place further strain on the tires.
edit: this is not to say the tire particulate has the same greenhouse effect. Experts overwhelmingly agree that EVs are better for climate change. But EVs are still bad for the environment.
My EV is under 4000 pounds what about all those 8000 pound trucks SUV on the road. Ford latest Raptor or what ever it is is heavier the the F150 Lighting EV. Brake dust shouldn’t even matter on a EV, I’ve 170k on my original Brakes. Gas cars still use electric the “gas refinery” and the pollution from the refinery. And there’s still much less environmental impacts like no oil changes no NOX no Co2 and ETC.
Your EV is worse, per distance and per capita, than any non-car mode of transportation. Compared to ICEs, it’s better in one particular way, worse in others, but still causes major environmental damage through bad land use. Cars are one of the biggest killers worldwide, and EVs may make that problem worse.
Oh yes, I forgot about how brake dust is burning towns to the ground because of extreme weather and inundating low lying regions with rising sea levels.
Do you seriously think a community called “fuck cars” is trying to defend gasoline cars over EVs? This is a public transportation gang good sir, madam, or otherwise.
I was talking about tire dust being worse than brake dust. Was that a typo?
Literally no one is arguing that EVs aren’t better for the climate than ICEs. But a lot of the climate harm of cars is not just tailpipe emissions, but bad land use. Pavement, parking lots, urban sprawl, are major contributors to climate change. I don’t understand this idea that if we push to move away from cars, it will encourage ICE use. It’s an inane argument.
edit: I also haven’t seen studies of how much air particulate matter from tires contributes to the greenhouse effect. I don’t doubt it’s still better than ICEs, but it could still be significant.
You said tire pollution is potentially worse for the environment than tailpipe emissions. That is a wildly irresponsible thing to say. That’s what I was objecting to.
There absolutely are people arguing that ICs are better for the environment, as if climate change doesn’t affect the environment.
If you’re going to buy a new car, don’t, but if you’re going to buy one anyway, prioritize reducing of ghg emissions.
Edited: changed “euphemistically” to reducing, my fault for not proofreading my auto correct (I use swore typing on my phone so sometimes things go really sideways)
Then you’re responding to the wrong comment. The comment you’re responding to is one where I say that tire pollution is worse than brake pollution. In the thread where I say that tire pollution can be worse in some ways than tailpipe emissions, I specify that EVs are still better than ICEs for the climate.
So you’re responding to a comment where I didn’t say what you claim I said, while accusing me of holding a position I don’t hold.
I don’t think I’m in the wrong comment chain, and I think I commented before you clarified re climate change.
Also I’ve edited one of my comments explaining a really weird auto correct replacement i didn’t catch, which may explain why you feel I’m accusing you of things.
Thanks for observation that noone asked. I don’t need to argue in a topic where one fact ends the “discussion”.
EV’s are full of unrecyclable garbage, same with your shitty solar panels and wind turbines, you know nothing and therefore it’s pointless to argue with you, so I’m not going to do it.
I’m not sure what you were expecting. It is not unreasonable to ask for actual reasons to support your ideas, especially hot takes like “petrol will always be superior”.
👆 This guy is a troll. He’ll say whatever he can to get a rise out of people. He doesn’t argue with any sort of consistent logic and just deflects once he can’t figure out what to say next. Not worth engaging
You’re not going to get actual reasons. This guy is a troll. He has spent the entirety of his day old account picking fights and deflecting the logical retorts. Just thought you should know
Hey, this guy you’re arguing with is a troll, although you probably already figured that out. He declared yesterday that he lives to be an asshole and spends his time mostly picking fights and deflecting the ones he’s losing. Just thought you should know that you’re engaging someone who doesn’t argue in good faith
Tires were already a problem, but when we switch to electric cars, according to Michelin, we increase tire wear by up to 20%. According to Goodyear, it’s up to 50%. This is validated also in other research that we’ve seen.
I’m not seeing anything about how brake dust is nearly as big of a problem. Literally dozens of articles about how bad tire pollution is. I’m not even mentioning microplastics! Tires are the biggest source.
Forgive me, but the articles suggested that the problem with tires was their deteriorating into miroplastic particles with use. What other miroplastic problem with tires is there that you’re not mentioning?
You’re right, I wrote that confusingly. I mean to say that the research I linked to is just about air pollution from tires. There are also non-air pollution consequences, as microplastics leak into our food supply, drinking water, our environments, our oceans, etc. This is no small matter.
Everyone who cares about the environment is in favor of EVs over ICEs, but some bad effects will actually increase with EV use. We need to transition every remaining car to EV, but we also need to transition society away from cars.
Yes, much heavier. It wouldn’t be such a big problem if car sizes weren’t exploding, and if people didn’t demand such absurdly high battery ranges “just in case”, even though their daily commute is not 300 miles. Consumers also seem to want unnecessary power instead of efficiency, negating some of the benefits of the transition.
I have an EV that I just charge at home when I need to, once every 5-8 days depending, and then in the morning unplug it. That covers driving to work, shopping, gym, school runs and occasional trips to the airport. The stats show most cars never go more than 20-30 miles on average. Maybe there are some hyper commuters, or people who drive hundreds of miles per day but they’re atypical, not the norm.
I’ve had the car 6 months and haven’t even tried using a public charger. That said, public charging infrastructure in Ireland is very spotty and if I did need to make a long journey I probably would be concerned about where I was going to charge and have to plan ahead. I am expecting that since over a 1/5th of new car sales are electric that the situation will improve over time. The UK is much better, France / Germany are even better and Norway is insanely good. Demonstrates it is possible and will happen eventually.
I think governments could do much to alleviate range anxiety if every public charger was required to be visible in a national database - occupancy, cost, reliability, rate of charge and other information so that apps could be built around it. At the moment it’s a hodge podge of apps which seem to have their own partnerships with different providers so it’s very hard to know all the chargers from a single app.
here is the RAC - a major road assistance company in the UK & Ireland - explaining EV particulate emissions. Basically, no the particulates aren’t any worse from an EV and are actually better compared to ICE, both brake and tyre.
Doesn’t mean particulates are good in any circumstance, but this argument, that somehow EVs are even worse, which is largely being propagated by people & groups with a vested interest in ICE cars is a complete nonsense.
No dummy, the RAC is one of the biggest automotive companies in the UK. Tyre repair companies also say it. Common sense says it. If tyre tread on EVs was substantially less than ICE vehicles it would be borne out by data but it is not.
It literally is borne out by data though. The way that source wriggles around is crazy.
They carefully pick the worst case scenario tire wear number then use it as a baseline for the mathematics that underlie the sentence
the tyres would be bald in less than 1,358 miles, or two months’ worth of driving
and extrapolate that out to
we now know that tyre wear is nowhere near as big a contributor to particulate matter emissions as some media coverage has suggested
The dancing around weight and tire wear is even more absurd:
modern electric vehicles aren’t actually that much heavier than many modern petrol or diesel cars, especially with the recent trend towards bigger and heavier SUVs
and a long section about taxi tire math that ends with the buried admission
Ryan notes that his diesel taxis do tend to get an extra 5,000 to 10,000 miles of lifespan out of their front tyres
But even if you aren’t interested in reading that source with a critical eye and recognizing the ways it manipulates language and information to make a point (I’m still not clear why a towing company wrote this), you can literally just look next to the authors name and see:
Author of this report commissioned by the RAC
I genuinely cannot understand why you’d choose to believe a dubious blog entry from a towing company over research from literally any other source.
Shame on you for making me bring out the [ ] over the British equivalent of a triple a guide.
But even if you aren’t interested in reading that source with a critical eye and recognizing the ways it manipulates language and information to make a point (I’m still not clear why a towing company wrote this), you can literally just look next to the authors name and see:
The RAC isn’t just a “towing company”. It provides a range of motor services like breakdown assistance, insurance, vehicle inspections, servicing, fleet management. Therefore it happens to know a great deal about automotive matters unlike say Forbes or some other outlet which does not. It’s also not some stealth EV proponent controlled by some shadowy puppet master, it just happens to have knowledge from supporting fleets of EVs of their outcomes. The AA, a similar organisation also debunks EV myths, again coming from a position of experience.
If the towing company is so smart and has all the data and experience, why do they have to commission reports that they then deploy every narrative manipulation technique in the book towards when reporting upon?
Couldn’t they just publish all their good data in a peer reviewed journal?
The Guardian article mentions that there’s some hope of mitigating that problem though:
The average weight of all cars has been increasing. But there has been particular debate over whether battery electric vehicles (BEVs), which are heavier than conventional cars and can have greater wheel torque, may lead to more tyre particles being produced. Molden said it would depend on driving style, with gentle EV drivers producing fewer particles than fossil-fuelled cars driven badly, though on average he expected slightly higher tyre particles from BEVs.
Dr James Tate, at the University of Leeds’ Institute for Transport Studies in the UK, said the tyre test results were credible. “But it is very important to note that BEVs are becoming lighter very fast,” he said. “By 2024-25 we expect BEVs and [fossil-fuelled] city cars will have comparable weights. Only high-end, large BEVs with high capacity batteries will weigh more.”
That might be so in Europe. I am not so optimistic about the US, where car sizes keep increasing. We seem to want to “consume” the extra efficiencies with more powerful engines and bigger range.
I have already responded to multiple people who asked for sources, which you apparently didn’t bother to check. One source I cite mentions a 20-50% increase in tire wear. A simple internet search will bring up literally dozens of articles.
It’s always amazing how the laziest and nastiest people on the internet, like yourself, are always the most ignorant. You don’t need to start shit to support your point.
You are angry about people not finding it despite wanting to prove your point not me. Add the source into OP instead of bitching at people who were not part of your conversation with others. Or don’t be rude about it.
Here is Kwik Fit, the largest tyre repair / refit retailer in the UK saying the complete opposite. They say that conventional tyres wear faster. The downside of EV tyres is they’re still more expensive. It’s not hard to find similar points made by others who have the knowledge to make the comparison.
You’ve completely misunderstood. EV tires are designed to wear slower because EVs eat through tires faster. If you put more expensive wear resistant tires on a lighter conventional car, it would obviously wear even more slowly.
Your link is not journalism. It doesn’t even cite its sources. It’s literally a blog entry by a tire company encouraging you to buy tires. The multiple experts cited in the actual news articles I posted say increased tire wear from EVs is a huge environmental problem.
Wait, so you you’re saying EV tyres are designed to wear slower, and yet they eat through tyres faster? Did that even make sense in your head? And if this design is a thing (slower wearing I mean) then why don’t ICE vehicles also do it?
And no EV tyres are not more expensive because of whatever you imagine but because of simple market forces - EVs are less common therefore, tyres cost more.
And yeah my link is not journalism. It’s pointing to actual companies that deal with breakdowns and replace tyres. The sort of people most people would implicitly trust to know what they’re talking about.
I don’t know if you’re willfully misreading me. I am saying that EV tires only wear slower when they do because they have to be specifically designed to withstand the extra friction. But EVs wear equivalent tires faster than non-EVs because EVs are heavier. If you don’t understand this, I’m not sure how to explain it to you.
Imagine someone saying “Chairs for obese people last longer than those for normal weight people.” That may be, but only because they are designed that way. You can’t change the laws of physics. EVs are heavier. As the many experts across the actual journalistic sources I cited say, that means more friction and more wear.
What is the climate denialist outfit you’re referencing? Each article cites multiple experts and different sources making multiple different claims. None of them rely on a “single study” and they are all from high quality sources, so your claim is ridiculous on its face.
Just don’t go race mode everyday and and it will be reduced to just heavier weight. Get smaller than supers sized truck and it will compensate for the weight as well.
What does this mean? What is the “it”? What does “compensate” mean? Equivalent EVs are heavier. At the same speeds, tires will wear faster and accidents will kill more people.
Yeah but for some reason people drive for a cap of coffee in freaking truck. Also i think you understand what i reacted to, if not you can use “show context” above my replies all the way till the beginning of this thread.
No they don’t massively increase tyre dust. In fact, if you go to motoring organisations, or actual tyre repair / refit companies they will tell you straight out that tyres on EVs don’t wear any faster than regular tyres. The only difference really between an EV tyre and a regular one is the cross section which is different to account for the generally higher weight of an EV.
I live in a city with about 2 million people. It has major sprawl and lots of guys with big trucks to compensate for little personality. The city has a brown haze floating over it that is a result of tailpipe emissions.
EVs may not be the solution to climate change, but they are helping my local area with air pollution. Well… they would if they were more popular. Every time a local buys an EV, ten more prosthetic penises are sold.
EVs also help with the brake disc “dust” since a lot of the braking is “regenerative breaking” done by the electric motor and does not use the brake pads at all. They require less maintenance, and have fewer parts in them, so fewer manufacturing materials. With very few exceptions, they are also smaller vehicles with more safety features which should result in fewer pedestrian casualties.
Obviously having no vehicles at all would be even better at solving these issues, but that’s not practical for our current reality. Maybe in 100 years.
I will say that “autopilot” features should absolutely be outlawed and cause nothing but trouble to everyone.
Which market is it that is producing smaller EVs? They’re all just regular cars turned EV, which means they’re heavier and you can’t feature-rich your way out of physics as per pedestrian safety
China has some great small, low and medium range electric cars. They’re not allowed to be sold in the U.S. due to protectionism, but they exist, and they’re cheap as hell compared to most EVs.
Emissions Analytics has found that adding 1,000 pounds to a midsize vehicle increased tire wear by about 20 percent, and also that Tesla’s Model Y generated 26 percent more tire pollution than a similar Kia hybrid. EVs’ more aggressive torque, which translates into faster acceleration, is another factor that creates more tire particulate mile for mile compared to similar internal combustion engine cars.
100 years is ambitious only if you want to remove all of the cars. There are plenty of milestones that can be attained fairly quickly :
Smaller cars. Less energy, materials, etc. Safer for other road users (you don’t get hit on your vital organs, better vision for the driver and everyone else since pedestrians can easily see over the car).
Less car use is available now, if we just empower the alternatives (make bike usage safe, make public transport good enough)
No more cars in cities. Bikes + trains mostly do the job, you can rent a car if you leave the city, or park it at the outskirts.
Even smaller cities used to be liveable without a car. This could be brought back, but that’s probably a tough hill to climb.
I will say that “autopilot” features should absolutely be outlawed and cause nothing but trouble to everyone
Autopilot is a pretty broad category. I like the autopilot on my car, which is nothing like elon musks self driving bullshit. It only turns on on supported highways and uses lidar instead of machine vision. All it does is maintain a following distance and follow the curve of the road. On Long drives it stops your foot and arms being fatigued and frees up a lot more mental space to look out for road hazards, it has a camera in the wheel that makes sure you have your eyes pointed at the road. I don’t see any risks for this sort of simple autopilot but it does have a lot of upside.
I’d definitely rather ride the train if it didn’t cost 200 dollars and come once a day, but until it gets better(and I’ve been writing a lot of letters to my officials) my self driving ev is the best alternative.
I just wanna say I appreciate people here making intelligent, good faith arguments on both sides without resorting to black or white thinking or getting too aggressive/ abusive.
Funny thing about horses - apparently when cities moved over to cars from horses they became safer. Because horses spook: and one spooked horse can spook the rest and you get a stampede.
Personally I’d rather be riding my horse from village to village over the hills - and I’m lucky enough to have had need to do that in real life. And I would prefer a city of bicycles to a city of cars. But my point (albeit meant casually) is that most of our solutions have downsides too, even the better-looking ones.
Funny thing about horses - apparently when cities moved over to cars from horses they became safer. Because horses spook: and one spooked horse can spook the rest and you get a stampede.
You seem cool enough / not carbrained that I’d like to suggest you to take a closer look at this. The perception of “horse -> car” as per transportation is pretty prevalent but it doesn’t really hold up in the sense this fun fact is often touted, it’s born out of a car based status quo applied backwards to horses mostly.
I’m happy to merit your insufficient-car-brains certification :-)
What quite do you mean? That horses weren’t used in the same way or for the same demographic as cars are now? Sure, and you also don’t refill them every 200 miles from the nearest highway hay-station. (Well, kind of…) But there were still horses clustered in many cities for a lot of the time, right? Where now there are cars? And as transport such as did use the one mainly transitioned to the other. I don’t suppose there’s hard, quantitative data on car-induced vs horse-induced deaths/injuries within cities at certain eras, but maybe someone has that data somewhere!
Actually, to go another step from your point: I suppose if cars, in their same number and usage, were traded for horses, then besides the epic problem of feeding them all, many cities would be far more dangerous now from the great horde of horses marching through every day!
I suppose if cars, in their same number and usage, were traded for horses, then besides the epic problem of feeding them all, many cities would be far more dangerous now from the great horde of horses marching through every day!
I’ll start off here: eh, maybe. Certainly a lot more full of massive amounts of poop everywhere, that was a common problem even with not every man, woman and child a horse, it’s where we got sidewalks from - so you could walk in not-poop.
Sure, and you also don’t refill them every 200 miles from the nearest highway hay-station. (Well, kind of…) But there were still horses clustered in many cities for a lot of the time, right? Where now there are cars?
Yes, but nowhere near the same extent. Check out old city street pictures from the 1910 and 1920s. Sure, you’ll see cars, they had been invented and hell, you still see horses, except pretty much all of them barring the ones with cops on it are pulling some thing or another. And also there’s trams and also there’s just a buttload of people walking - which is what most of them did.
The point I’m getting at is the notion that we basically just replaced horses with cars, for the most part, but that’s ahistorical. We’ve replaced horses and trams and walking and cycling - all of which were done a lot - with cars. People used and could use a variety of options, now, eh, not so much, they’re not really viable for a lot of people.
But then that’s not because cars are so inherently great for any and all transporation, it’s just we’ve built cities to accomodate cars first, foremost and nigh exclusively, to the detriment of everything else. You wouldn’t find me arguing to bring back the horses, but trams, cycling, walking? Absolutely.
Because we have pretty much gained nothing from cars. People still have roughly the same commute as before - they just live further away and travel the same time, except now the societal cost of doing that is 10x the price per trip. People have a time budget for travel, not a distance budget, and that’s stayed pretty much the same.
the notion that we basically just replaced horses with cars … We’ve replaced horses and trams and walking and cycling - all of which were done a lot - with cars.
Fair point
we have pretty much gained nothing from cars.
I don’t think that’s true, though. Cars bring a lot of utility; even the opportunity to live further from the workplace is not ‘no benefit’. After all, bicycles were hailed as the liberators of women, for much the same reason: ordinary women could have the freedom to travel further. I think what’s happened is that every gain is an opportunity for benefit; but also an opportunity for the greedy and powerful (not to mention lazy, deceitful, foolish, or any combination of the above) to take advantage of other people (and themselves) through. So (for example) cars bring the opportunity to work further from your house; and now many people are forced into living further from their work because employers/infrastructure expect it to be possible. Cars make it much easier to visit far-away relatives for festivals; now Americans must line up every year on Reddit to moan about Thanksgiving politics.
I will agree with you it’d be better if we restructured most transport away from cars and that we have - in principle - the options for a good solution (trams, bicycles, better-arranged-cities, etc). Still, what would the American dream be, without driving to your gym every week so you can run on the treadmill for half an hour ;-p
I’m certain dense human populations are better for the environment than non-dense human populations, because dense human populations need to be moved around less.
You’re basically advocating for human extinction in this comment.
As much as I agree, these are different things. EVs are fixing greenhouse gases. While the others are also bad things, they aren’t really global climate changers.
Not op, but the material gathering and building of EVs is far more energy intensive and resource intensive than gas cars. They do even out but it takes a number of years on the road depending on the vehicle.
Additionally they are very heavy which requires more infrastructure maintenance and therefore more emissions.
That is to say EVs are not a sure fire improvement and it depends on the car, the place you are, the supply chain producing your car, where it’s going to end up, and your own driving habits.
Or we could just invest in rail instead of doubling down on private vehicles. Then we can be sure.
Doesn’t need to be a “green energy paradise”, just a reasonably well connected first world country.
Take a look at Electricity Maps. Unless you live somewhere isolated or with very poorly developed grid infrastructure (or some central US states, apparently), you should see a non-trivial amount of electricity being generated by non-fossil fuels. For example, at the time of typing this 77% of the electricity I’m using is low-carbon and 50% of it is renewable.
That’s the kicker. EVs don’t have to rely on fossil fuels to operate (but they can make use of them depending on the grid infrastructure). ICE cars on the other hand are burning fuel wherever they go.
Walking or cycling will always be the least polluting means of getting around, but if you really need a car then you could do a lot worse than getting an electric one.
The problem is, the way I see it, all energy use is connected. Basically the problem we have is energy consumption grows faster than clean energy production. So requiring more green energy in this context still sucks. Even where I live where all of our energy is green (at least in the grid), extra energy can be sold either via selling it to other provinces/states, or by making deals with companies to do their production here where energy is cheap and green.
Energy is a commodity on a market. If you use it to inefficiently move people, you can’t use it for other things. Remember that to move a 150 lbs person in a car, you have to move about a ton and a half of car…
I’m really sceptic about that kind of metrics because many of them take carbon offsets into account, and carbon offsets are mostly greenwashing.
Power mix in the world right now is over 50% coal and gas, and only hydro is over a 10%. This is worldwide, so mix varies depending on where you are.
In the end EVs are no making a dent in power demand. They are increasing it. The percentage of fossil fuels is maybe going down but total fossil fuel consumption is increasing as our demand does. Green energy is only taking some of the slack from the increase.
EVs will be remembered as the thing we did to keep using cars and feeling good about it.
Except EVs still have a significant carbon footprint from their manufacture. So do train cars and buses, but to transport everyone in cars instead of public transportation would require orders of magnitude more materials, and therefore a much higher carbon footprint. Not to mention the poor land use that car dependency causes, which both leads to deforestation and impedes reforestation, which is a further climate change contributor.
EVs also have the ability to live longer. If an average EV is usable for twice as long as an ICE vehicle, its carbon footprint from manufacturing is already down to 50%.
So can transit vehicles, in fact they last even longer so I don’t see this as an advantage for EVs. In Vancouver, Canada for example, there are fully self-driving electric trains from the 80s that are still running perfectly fine today, and the only reason they’re getting scrapped soon is because they’re loud and uncomfortable compared to newer trains, which even then I personally don’t like the transit agency’s decision to scrap them because that’s super wasteful, they could probably run another 40 years with good maintenance.
I see them as “diet” cars. Similar to if someone is trying to cut back on sodas, switching to diet sodas is a net benefit. That’s not to say diet sodas are good for you or remotely healthy, they’re just less bad than the alternative.
Yeah, except the sweeteners they use to make diet sodas “diet” make those sodas just as bad, if not worse, than the originals. Which also works for the car analogy given the source of the energy most EVs use :/
Source? Because from what I’ve learned, they’ve studied aspartame so much now it’s almost silly, and it has never been proven to be “worse than sugar”. Though the sugar industry is really happy you believe otherwise.
A profoundly filthy coal power plant has multimillion dollar filtration the size of your damn apartment. That gross coal is scrubbed more than the gasoline from any vehicle possibly could be.
In a first world country it’s not possible to have an electric car as dirty per joule as a gas vehicle.
Further, the powertrain is direct and therefore dramatically more efficient, so on a distance basis you get an additional multiplier. That’s where the EPA MPGe comes from - total energy content of 1 gallon of gasoline, converted to range on the electric vehicle.
That’s about 33 kWh in one gallon, which is about half the total storage capacity of my Bolt EUV 2023 (65 kWh) which has about 240mi of range on a full charge, which is why the MPGe is ~120mi/gal, which for an equally polluting power source as a personal gas vehicle, is 5-6x cleaner. Public DC fast chargers are frequently exclusively renewably powered.
It’s impressive because literally every possible angle of your statement is hilariously incorrect.
Transportation (28% of 2021 greenhouse gas emissions) – The transportation sector generates the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions from transportation primarily come from burning fossil fuel for our cars, trucks, ships, trains, and planes. Over 94% of the fuel used for transportation is petroleum based, which includes primarily gasoline and diesel.2
To further break it down:
The largest sources of transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions include passenger cars, medium- and heavy-duty trucks, and light-duty trucks, including sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks, and minivans. These sources account for over half of the emissions from the transportation sector.
So the idea that transportation emissions from regular people is totally negligible compared to corporate excesses isn’t actually realistic. It’s a major chunk of it.
Exactly. Corporations ABSOLUTELY are a problem we NEED to fight. But its also not an excuse to pretend we’re all completely blameless. People get furious when you tell them we cant sit around and wait for climate change to magically fix itself or billionaires to magically become good and stop. But that WE are going to have to actually make changes and put our money where our mouths are
To be clear this isn’t quite my own argument; even though I am saying that transportation emissions are too substantial to be ignored, I am skeptical of “personal responsibility” type solutions. I think it would be better to approach this with stuff like taxing companies based on employee commutes, taxing oil, urban planning and improved public transportation.
Even those require individuals to do something though. Since the government and basically every corporation is entirely opposed to this. You still have to march and protest and call your representatives and fight for it. There’s no reality where this ever changes with no one doing anything beyond an occasional Facebook post. However, even if suddenly our politicians and billionaires all had a change of heart, the necessary changes to effectively combat this environmental catastrophy would mean a complete upheaval of our lives. Cars and animal products either cease to be made or are so expensive barely anyone can afford them. We’ll be using public transportation and bikes and eating mostly vegan diets and bringing our reusable bags to our zero waste grocery stores. Itd force people to do all the things that various groups are already trying to get everyone to do (and to be clear im not sitting on my high horse claiming i already do all that, because i dont) There’s no way through this where we solve the problem and it doesnt require all of us to change our own habits
the necessary changes to effectively combat this environmental catastrophy would mean a complete upheaval of our lives
Yes. But that doesn’t mean it makes sense to frame things as being about who is ‘good’ and who is to be blamed, or that the impetus for change should be personal initiative to adjust away from unsustainable lifestyles. What’s needed is uncompromising policy solutions, and ones that are designed by experts to actually have a direct impact. People often get confused about what matters and what doesn’t, and proportionality. For instance restrictions on plastic bags at grocery stores is totally negligible for climate change, and arguably makes the situation slightly worse. Meat consumption has a significant impact globally, but in a first world context is relatively insignificant compared to the other things we do to create emissions. The problem isn’t that people aren’t choosing to live virtuously, since even if they did many attractive definitions of virtuous would not produce the needed results, and realistically that is not a viable way for human behavior to be adjusted anyway. The problem is that the circumstances around us shape our lives, and impel us to live in an unsustainable way, and that is what has to change.
Basically I think it just has to be more things like, accepting that deliberately high gas prices are a necessary sacrifice for the wellbeing of humanity, rather than asking everyone to choose to drive less and pat themselves on the back when they manage it and feel shame when they do not.
It also destroys the very infrastructure that it’s trying to clear snow from. We eventually need to recognize that rubber wheels on asphalt simply isn’t a very efficient or durable method of moving large amounts of stuff long distances. Steel on steel is superior in both efficiency and longevity.
The reverse is also a thing, btw. Though it still uses special rail. But some Russian evil geniuses have made a road drive-able train before, and nobody even knows what for.
Which is why the real solution is PUBLIC transit, not private motor vehicle ownership of any kind beyond small electric personal mobility like an e-bike or scooter.
We eventually need to recognize that rubber wheels on asphalt simply isn’t a very efficient or durable method of moving large amounts of stuff long distances.
I disagree here, there’s in here for cars that’s hard to do otherwise. I think the problem is more that that is also not at all what cars are primarily used for. Like even in the US 60% of trips are under 6 miles and average occupancy rate is 1,5 persons. That’s a bike ride.
also, if the West did adopt EVs en mass (hard to even imagine), all those ICE vehicles aren’t just disappearing. They’re getting exported to the rest of the world as cheap used cars. Nothing has been “replaced”, you’ve just made more cars and more pollution.
@TheLastHero@Masimatutu Nah, there's not much intercontinental transport of used cars. Too expensive and complicated. If the West adopted EVs en mass there would be a lot less gasoline consumption there, and little increase elsewhere.
I disagree. The UN predicts the number of light duty vehicles to more than double by 2050, with 90% of that growth happening in non-OECD countries. Granted that would be a mix of new and used cars, but the vehicle trade is only regulated on the national level. That means there are considerable financial incentives to export abroad and take advantage of regulatory inconsistency.
For example, stricter emissions laws means that many cars may not be able to be driven at all in a country, but those laws do not exist elsewhere- that will cause an oversupply of cars that can’t be legally sold domestically, but demand for cars is only grow in the global south as their economies and standards of living improve. Logistic and shipping costs also get cheaper every year and shouldn’t be relied on as a economic deterrent, and it’s apparently already cheap enough for the US, Japan, and EU to export 14 million used vehicles between 2015-2018. Rich counties and their populations tend to replace their cars far before their economic life is over as well, and vehicle values depreciate far quicker in the OECD compared to elsewhere. There’s goi lot of economic pressure to
Cats reduce pollutants that contribute to smog that directly harm human health. But they do nothing to reduce the net carbon released into the atmosphere. In fact, by converting carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide they are hastening climate change (CO2 is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO).
It’s not that perfect (public transport) is more difficult than good (electric cars). More often good is the enemy of perfect since the industry is lobbying for it and against the other
Local commuter rail, walkable cities, and nationwide high speed rail are all necessary to completely eliminate 90% of individual car ownership. We should be advocating for these systems of convenience which will make car ownership obsolete while incentivizing EVs while the infrastructure is built up, not demonizing EVs and making them appear as useless and a waste of time for helping fight climate change. Plus we need EV utility vehicles and trucks for professionals who need them to do their job.
Incremental steps are not personal EVs. They are diesel and electric buses. EVs eliminate 1 problem (tailpipe emissions) while creating 2 more (battery manufacturing, increased vehicle weight making road and tire wear worse, and making them more deadly - there’s others, take your pick) and not addressing the other hundred problems with car dependence.
Buses use the same infrastructure as cars. Bus stops are stupid cheap in comparison to anything else. And then, bus lanes can be implemented to prioritise buses and keep them from getting stuck in traffic.
Ok you try riding the bus everywhere with your whole family dude. That’s not happening. It’s incredibly inconvenient. Especially given the infrastructure we have.
I’m loving my electric car and hope you all get one.
Having been to the UK and Germany, it’s incredibly convenient and much quicker than driving in many cases. I’ve used the metro where I live and it’s also much quicker, the only issue is the closest bus stop is 20 minutes away by foot. That’s easy to fix though.
I live in the UK, and I can say it depends greatly on your circumstances.
In general, if you’re traveling between an outside town to a city it’s usually an alright experience.
However, if your commute is between two outside towns then you have to be lucky, otherwise a car ends up being the only real viable option. My work is about 15 miles away, and before I had a car I had the only option of a railway line that ran through my town. If that line ever had issues getting cancelled or on the train strikes were on that day I couldn’t get to work because to get my work was 2 buses and 2 hours to go 15 miles. The train ran once an hour and didn’t call at half the stops on a Sunday including the stop I needed for work so if it was a Sunday I literally could not get to work.
It’s not even cheaper than a car when I factor in leisure travel, many places I regularly go to take longer to get to by car and are usually a worse experience whether that be service infrequency, long layover times or services getting cancelled/being on strike.
Oh sure, I agree that it’s not always perfect, but neither is driving. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been randomly stuck in gridlock because someone got in a crash on the freeway.
The issue here is entirely that there is no choice that can be made. You either drive, or you don’t go anywhere. I don’t want to need a car, I want to want a car. Cars are convenient, but when they’re required to do literally everything then they’re a massive inconvenience.
If I was able to make a choice, I could share a car with someone else. As it stands, we both have to own one.
Having lived in Germany, you obviously didn’t meet enough people. They fucking love thier cars dude. Yeah their buses are better, but I was shown many people’s cars as if they were a child.
Oh sure, obviously people like cars, but in the cities we’d park and switch from car to rail because it’s significantly faster. I also stayed in the city for a couple of weeks and didn’t need a car at all.
Compare that to the US where you need a car or you die, even in the city, and it’s not even a contest.
I have an electric vehicle. I ride it everywhere in my city and it costs basically nothing. It’s an ebike. I’ve done nothing to it, it’s a normal 350w motor capped at 32 km/h. And damn does it feel so much better than driving in traffic.
The number one (by a long way) selling vehicle in the US is a massively over sized truck. Designed to be so heavy to avoid falling under emissions laws.
There is no electric vehicle that comes even close to that. You want those people interested in electric cars. They don’t give a single fuck about what your think about buses and nothing you will ever do in your lifetime will change that. Ever.
Getting people into EVs is an across the board incremental improvement in the exact definition of the word.
You’re right about the massive benefits of transit and trains in particular would be so amazing… but none of the people we want getting out of F150s give a single shit.
I don’t care about getting people into things. That’s a highly individualistic way to look at the problem. Car dependency is a societal problem, and marketing won’t solve societal problems. There needs to be a fundamental change in the way we (specifically the government) view transportation as a whole. (And as an extension to that, there also needs to be a change in regulation to close that loophole for light trucks.)
What’s important to me is getting lawmakers and those advocating to the lawmakers on board with funding public transit and making the streets safer for all people using them. Yes we need people on board too but really only enough to get these ideas in lawmakers heads as a major issue. A minority. The majority of people don’t understand or care and that’s fine, because their minds will start to change once they see it actually working. In the words of NJB, there are not that many car people, bike people, or train people. Most people just want to get to their destinations as quickly and efficiently as possible.
We don’t live in a direct democracy. 51% don’t have to explicitly agree to laws. The government passes laws that are bad for people and the majority disagree with all the time. Not saying the majority of people disagree, I honestly think they couldn’t care less. I’m just saying we don’t actually have to recruit hundreds of millions of people.
Unfortunately, a major part of this plan is going to have to restrict what oil companies are allowed to do and nowadays that’s seemingly impossible. Only seemingly though. Nothing is truly set in stone.
I bet there are statistics on just how much space is wasted on cars (roads, parking space) but I don’t have them handy. It will probaly pretty maddening when only considering “urban” areas but I wonder if it’s more or less of 1% of the world’s total landmass …
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