Pipoca

Pipoca, 10 months ago

EVs have about half the lifecycle emissions as a gas car, given today’s electric grid. Which is better, but not all that much better.

However: 80% of the US lives in metropolitan and micropolitan areas. 20% of the US is rural. You can build better public transit in cities and small towns, and stop doubling down on building shitty-ass suburban stroads and sprawl. But Farmer Joe is never going to bike 20 miles to the nearest Dollar General. It’s just not practical, and neither is putting a bus stop in front of every farm.

A car-lite world where Farmer Joe drives an EV to a farmer’s market that 95% of people walked, biked or took a bus to seems way better than either the status quo or a car-free world.

Pipoca, 10 months ago

Noise pollution is a function of speed.

At low speeds, it’s mostly engine noise. At highway speeds, it’s mostly tire noise.

Pipoca, 10 months ago

Regenerative braking is basically turning the motors into a generator to recharge the battery. If you brake regeneratively, you’re not using your brake pads at all.

Many EVs can have their settings adjusted to where 90+% of braking can be just regenerative.

Pipoca, 10 months ago

Before cars, he’d probably have gone into town much less, and would probably have gone by horse.

that isn’t a problem that needs to be solved,

Why?

Pipoca, 10 months ago

The largest sources of transportation greenhouse gas emissions in 2021 were light-duty trucks, which include sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks, and minivans (37%); medium- and heavy-duty trucks (23%); passenger cars (21%); commercial aircraft (7%); other aircraft (2%); pipelines (4%); ships and boats (3%); and rail (2%).

Yes, your average driver creates a fraction of the emissions of the average flight.

But there are hundreds of millions of drivers in the US. Billions of car trips. And only tens of thousands of flights.

Changing the impact of one driver is small. Systemically changing the impact of tens of millions of drivers adds up.