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this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2023
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But they're a whole lot better for the planet than gas cars. And cars won't go away till we make alternatives. Which we should do as quickly as possible, but will still take a while.
... so long as you're not leasing them, the lifetime energy cost is night and day.
The current rhetoric against EVs is reminiscent of the rhetoric against nuclear power. Yes, it's not great. Yes, it's not renewable. However, it gives us more time to more deeply address these issues. The successful anti-nuclear Green Peace campaigns against nuclear have done immeasurable damage to the environment in the long-term (I'm now convinced they were a big oil sock puppet all along). The same could be said for the anti-EV crowd, but the "EVs are sexy" campaign seems to be gaining more traction this time round.
Make no mistake though, the "EVs are just as bad" is a myth perpetuated by big oil.
If you can do a bike, then please do a bike (or a scooter, or one of the many options). If you can't, then an EV is a good choice. If you can't afford an EV. But never, ever, lease.
It's not good enough. Cars are a bigger problem than their immediately obvious issues like pollution.
??? I hugely disagree that cars are a bigger problem than green house gas pollution. I can live in an unwalkable city. I probably can't live on a +4°C earth.
Designing a city to be hostile to cars takes more vehicles off the road than trying to push people into electrics. Less cars (of any type) in the city means less health hazards means billions saved means billions to use on climate change research. Please don't forget that tires are the major polluting factor right now, not exhaust gasses. I strongly believe this is more effective than trying to slowly push people into electrics which will still pollute the air with microplastics and make a ton of noise when they race through the city. Lithium is also not particularly clean to mine, so I'd prefer it was used to make batteries for bikes and other similarly sized vehicles. The world does not have the mining and processing capacity to support converting everyone to an electric car.
I usually visit my closest city for one of two reasons: 1) I have some kind of appointment or 2) I know some who lives there. Right now I'm able to drive there and park on the street. What should my alternative be once the city is "hostile" to cars? Remember, I live 30+ minutes away by car and take a highway to get there.
What's your source on tires? This estimates 75k miles for tire replacement. That amount of gas would emit 30000kg of co2, vs 350 kg co2 for 4 tires.
I think co2 ghgs global warming is by far the biggest environmental catastrophe coming our way. So the most important factor will be how will it impact co2 emissions.
As I said, we should make alternatives to driving in cities as quickly as we can. But that will still take a while. What are you suggesting in the mean time? Not going places?
EVs are much better than gas for minimizing co2 emissions. I think we should encourage them as a transitional solution till we have trains and walkable or bikeable cities.
This is my problem. I don't think we'll ever reach that point when we accept half-solutions. It wouldn't take more than a single decade to uproot our city design if we had any ambition left, but alas.
Our disagreement is that I think the societal cost of cars is more than you think, not that I think electric cars are a bad transitional step. But I also think that we live under an economic model that will kick, fight and scream the whole time we try to uproot such a massive portion of it, being the oil industry. It's possible we just can't fix it at this point except by radical change. I don't have ultimate solutions, I'm just wary of electric cars because lithium mining is just as bad as oil drilling from a different direction and electric cars will kill just as many kids in the street as combustion cars.
By all means make electric vehicles- just please not cars.
So should we not leave our homes for years? I don't see what you're proposing.
Are you telling me that I, who have never owned a car in my life, are unable to leave my house? Just because you got used to your car doesn't mean it's the only method of transportation. If it is the only method of transportation where you live, then, and I am sorry this is the case, but you could advocate for something better instead of giving up and accepting status quo.
I am advocating specifically for the removal of policy that hinder the progress of alternative transportation. Electric cars would be fine if it was not for the fact that they are part of the policies that postpone or, in most cases, shut down alternative transportation. The inevitably city-redesign can is kicked down the road, becoming increasingly expensive as the years tack on. The best time to do something about this was 30 years ago.
Electric cars will not save the planet. Electric cars will save the car industry.
I'm not taking about you, I'm taking about me and millions of others who couldn't walk or bike to where they work or get groceries, much less everything else. I am advocating for something better. But even if everyone was on board, it would still take years. And everyone else is very much not on board. I'm not giving up and accepting the status quo, I'm saying we need an transitional solution while we work to change things.
An electric car will kick this proverbial can down the road and make the bandaid even more painful to peel off because while you think you're doing your part for the world there are 500 politicians who are using that time you've given them to eradicate progress toward a better city design.
This is unfortunately the kind of problem where you have to suffer to solve it. If you can't or won't do that, that's fine. I'm not gonna tell you how to live your life, I'm just telling you how this has historically played out over the last 3 decades. Capitalist innovation will not solve that capitalism is exploitative and wasteful.
By staying inside for years? That's what I was asking.
No one says you have to stop driving your car while the city is undergoing restructuring. I am saying that allowing politicians to call electric cars a win will only entrench car culture even more. You have a strange "one or the other" mentality about this.
We have had every piece of technology required to solve climate chance and make cities human-centric for decades. More technology won't change anything. A fundamental restructuring of our economic model would. Electric cars do not help us toward that goal. Electric cars allow politicians to virtue signal about how green they are, while signing free trade deals that undermine the progress being made behind your back.
You're still lugging around 1500 to 2000 kg of steel, glass & plastic to move around little more than your butt. You can do something more efficient than that, assuming the infrastructure is rigged up to handle it.
Yup, not ideal. But the available infrastructure is the key point as you said. A lot of places in the US there just isn't an alternative.