[meme] Trains are 100000x easier to electrify and automate than cars, so why does everyone keep talking about electric and driverless cars?
[meme] Trains are 100000x easier to electrify and automate than cars, so why does everyone keep talking about electric and driverless cars?
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The worrying thing here is the assumption that we can choose...
The world has 2 billions individual cars. Lithium extraction rate may not be sufficient to make 2 billions cars by 2030... and that's assuming we don't need lithium for computers, smartphones, but also not for batteries for the grid (because no solar cell works at night and wind farms are not on demand erther), and... not for electric trucks! Then comes the question of the other metals: copper, nickel, cobalt, ...
Trains will not work everywhere for everyone, but not deploying them now and fast will be a severe issue for North America when resources will get scarce.
We need a smart mix of trains, buses, subways, tramways, shared vehicles, bikes, everything but one individual car per person. That era will come to an end because we're closer to the bottom of our planet's natural resources stock than the beginning.
There's not even a real option of keeping gas cars a little while more, as cheap oil is also coming to an end.
The difference between accepting this and "choosing" individual cars is how ready countries will be when resources will get scarce. It may get ugly...
Yeah, unfortunately what people aren't getting is that continuing car dependency -- electric cars or not -- is fundamentally not an option. Sure we'll probably have electric firetrucks and tractors, but having 1 ton of lithium batteries and 2 to 3 tons of steel per person -- plus mind-boggling amounts of asphalt roads and parking lots -- was never going to be a sustainable option, be it environmentally, economically, or socially.
We as a society keep shoving forwards as if switching to a better transit mix is a choice. It's not. Car dependency can never last.