Bikes. I enjoy being outside instead of being in a box. I can also usually take more scenic and pleasant routes than I could with public transport or a car.
Second place would be high-speed rail. It’s quite comfortable and you can read a book or just watch the landscapes go by at rapid speeds.
Well obviously less vehicles of any kind would be a benefit. Cities designed around people with public transport options would always beat out a society where everyone has a car. I think there is more push on this in Europe than the US, where outside of the big cities public transport is virtually non-existent. Urban planning should emphasis central districts to create transport hubs where people eat / work / shop and therefore demand to make public transport. And outside of that cycle routes, footpaths etc.
But electric vehicles are still much better than ICE vehicles. Over their life time they account for 1/4 emissions (depending on how power is generated) and those emissions can be more effectively captured. And of course renewables bring the emissions down year on year. There is a direct correlation between NOx emissions and respiratory deaths so this is a good thing. Also less CO2 emissions and contribution to global warming. Also, particulates are much less - brakes are not the primary source of deceleration in an EV (regen is) so pads don’t see anything like as much use as an ICE car. Some EVs are even going back to using drum brakes where the dust is basically captured inside an enclosed drum. The tyres also aren’t any worse or faster wearing than ICE vehicles so in that regard it’s even.
Agree with almost everything you said here, EVs are definitely significantly cleaner than ice vehicles but you’re oversimplifying a little when it comes to brakes and tires. Some cheap evs are going to drum brakes but the vast majority of modern evs are using significantly larger brakes with softer pads than equivalent gas vehicles due to the acceleration offered by electric vehicles. Its possible that as time goes on and electric vehicles make up a bigger market share of economy cars this will change.
The bigger issue with clean EVs is the insane amount of rubber they use in their tires. I’m not sure where you’ve heard the tires on EVs are roughly equivalent to ICE, sue to the weight increase EVs use much bigger tires that wear down faster than gasoline vehicles and I’ve read a few studies about the possibility of these tires throwing more “marbles” or small pieces of rubber than their lighter ICE counterparts. All this not to mention the increased road maintenance required by doubling the weight of the average car in the last thirty has me concerned were trading toxic fumes for other forms of pollution.
I wouldn’t say Volkswagen ID cars (ID.3, ID.4, ID.Buzz), Audi Q4 e-tron are cheap cars but they’re using drum brakes. Drum brakes are actually more efficient since a pad isn’t rubbing against the plate, impeding efficiency. It’s also easier to integrate electronic parking brakes into the mechanism. I imagine other EV makers will follow suit if for no other reason than it saves money and weight.
As for tyre wear, I’ve already pointed to links from the RAC & Kwikfit who I trust know what they’re talking about. I suppose if you drove an EV like you just stole it you might suffer wear but I imagine most people don’t drive like that and actually drive their car anticipating the need for acceleration / deceleration to maximize regen. And that style of driving also happens to reduce wear on the tyres.
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.
Not by choice 😂 I’m lucky to be retired early and have a bus system that gets me where I need to go. I’ll get another car when I can but I plan to still bus around for some stuff if I do.
We recently got amtrak back where I live, booked ahead of time (prices increase as the train fills up) I can DC for $30 round trip and nyc for $60 round trip. On my last nyc trip coming back, I was set up in the Cafe car on my laptop and chatting with people - one by one 3 of us busted our respective liquors out offering them around and made a party of it.
@Franzia@Facebones I have only driven three times in the past 13 years. It's one of the benefits of having lived in cities where you don't need a car to survive (Bogotá, Colombia; Genoa, Italy; and NYC). I wish your city can become like this soon, and you don't have to drive ever again!
You forgot about the material extraction and carbon emissions for manufaturing a new electric car. Can someone link the data for it please?
Edit: The article in below reply says it best. Lithium extraction and manufaturing emissions for electric cars are bad for the environment but still dozens of times better than ICE cars lifecycle emissions
It heavily depends on the battery technology used in that particular vehicle and the economy of scale. The emissions reduce as the build batches increase
I mean when it burns it burns, it’s a total either way, it just blocks traffic longer than a normal car, with the upside of not leaking burnable liquids that can do damage in larger areas.
Car fires from ICE's are magnitudes more common and cause more damage every year because of this. If you spent half a second to search this you'd find that reports indicate that per 100,000 vehicles sold in their respective powertrains in their lifetime, 25 electric cars catch fire, and 1,530 gas vehicles catch fire. While searching this, something that caught me off guard and surprised me was that hybrids are even higher, 3,475! The more you know.
Neither. The highway engineer got told to add a bike lane, said “ugh fine” and scribbled it along the side without thinking about it.
Nobody’s expecting these to be used, it’s some quota where they have to build X number of kms of bike lane so the politicians can placate us and hope nobody notices.
This. Its what happens when city council says do something without actually giving the millions of dollars needed to hire the folks to design an actual solution to improve the bikeability of their district
Right? This wasn’t “No don’t take my data but also find my car” it was “Please for the love of god find my car my child is in there” followed with “Right for a modest fee of $150 ma’am we sure can”.
Has nothing to do with privacy. Maybe they ask a boilerplate “We have to ask but you do give us consent right” followed by a “What the fuck do you think fucking yes!”, but not asking for money. That’s not the time.
But are all sides of the car in the optimal angle towards the sun?
No, but neither are solar panels on houses. For the car, it’s ideal to park facing North/South. For stationary solar panels, it’s ideal to have solar panels mounted on a pan/tilt platform so they can always face the sun, which is rare.
No trees or buildings near your parking spot that could shade your car?
It’s pretty clear at my house, I have a designated outdoor parking space. Not perfect but definitely sufficient for my commute. At my work there aren’t any obstructions.
If these panels didn’t go into a car, someone else would mount them to a roof instead.
No, they developed and patented their own tech for curved solar panels.
Big hydrocarbon plants are more effective than the little ones inside cars. There’s still other factors to consider like mining of minerals that contribute to make EVs not good, but they’re a little less bad for the environment than the combustion kind even if your energy comes from bad sources
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