Electric cars are to save the auto industry, not the environment.

The conservatives where I live shit blood absolutely any time any changes are made to roads to make them even slightly more pedestrian and bus/bike friendly. Preventing accidents/deaths and generally having a more usable, inviting environment for anyone that isn’t a car is unacceptable if it adds even a second to their commute. Go live on the fucking highway if you like it so much.

It's funny because adding more non-car options tends to make using a car more pleasant. But conservatives aren't known for being smart, correct, or good at long term thinking.
- Yeah. My city changed a one way street that runs 30 blocks headed away from downtown from a two lane multiple stop sign traffic hazard to a single lane with plenty of parking, a bike lane, turn lanes for busy intersections, and highly visible intersections with proper pedestrian connections. Traffic would get backed up before, but now it goes pretty much straight through at the same time of day with barely any sloowing down. Sure, all the cars are in the same lane, but prevoiusly they were just spread out between two lanes and slowing down way more often to merge and turn more slowly.
  Haven't heard of any new plans to do the same with comparable streets despite being a roaring success. People look at a single lane and don't understand it can be faster for everyone than two when done right.
- Every car commerical shows the fantasy of being the only car on the road.
  It's so ludicrous. and consistent that when you know to look for it, it's actually hilarious.
  People do not like traffic. They already hate most cars, cause they're only driving one.
They have been brainwashed by car and oil companies.
That doesn't excuse their ignorance, but it does highlight that the public information component will be very expensive to fix.
- It's not that. My theory is that its a brain chemistry thing.
  Many drivers don't do any form of exercise at all, and don't do anything exillerating ever. The only time they experience any kind of movement faster than a shuffle is driving. It's the most exciting and engaging thing they will do all year.
  With this in mind, there's kind of an imperative to zoom around as fast as possible without encountering adverse stimuli like a fine.
Yeah this. It's kinda wacky how serious they are about it.

Controversial take (for this community): Electric personal vehicles were the catalyst for the electrification of commercial vehicles. So while it doesn't address the problem of car-centric infrastructure, EVs have had a net positive impact on the environment by converting fleet vehicles to less polluting options as well as taking diesel trucks off the road.

Plus, even if you reduce the number of cars by 50% you still need to replace the other 50% on the road so the EV industry needs to grow
- Well, they solve the pollution problem in built-up areas and they solve the CO2 problem if you increase solar and wind power. The one thing they don't solve is the congestion problem.
I totally agree with you.
And what's even sillier is that examining the facts, Electric cars are better than ice cars anyway.
This philosophy take that op posted about evs being a "rich person's" green solution is a commentary on the general wealth required to own and maintain any car, not anything about ev technology itself.
It is verifiably true that even though cobalt mining and lithium mining are riddled with ethics issues, pollution issues, etc. The battery powered cars that those metals go into are still a net positive on the environment by year 4 or 5 of ownership. We should push for evs to use better battery chemistry but it's not productive to try and shit on evs when battery research really hasn't been a huge focus until recently and there is a ton of benefits.
ev cars were invented right around 1900. Imagine if we were focusing on the development of better batteries with cleaner chemistry, better power density, cheaper costs, etc for 100 years....we wouldn't be having this discussion.
And evs are better for cost of ownership for the end user. You didn't costume brakes nearly as fast, dollar per mile costs for energy (gas or kws) are much cheaper in a lot of places for evs (I know California is expensive for energy, I'm speaking generally), no oil changes, no break downs due to drive train...evs just work until they need tires or a new drive battery in 12+ years.
This argument I'm presenting is purely for the case of EV car vs ICE car. Public transport should also be electrified once the power infrastructure is there. That's the real problem.
The best 2 reasons not to get an ev over a regular car(especially since they are so cheap second hand right now) are 1. long trips being a headache and 2. Your electricity cost is really high.
If you live somewhere where electric is cheap and you need a commuter car an ev is so nice.

Tax rebates for massive luxury electric SUVs but you're on your own if you want to buy an e-bike worth less than the total tax rebate for an EV. Most places won't even build infrastructure for anything other than cars. My city has roads with no sidewalks that go straight to downtown and some newly built suicide bike gutters along a major stroad.

Some states have programs, I know Cali has a program for ebikes https://www.ebikeincentives.org/
Though I will admit most of Cali is not bikeable (at least socal imo, norcal is better)
Here's a list from what I could find online on it. https://tstebike.com/blogs/new/unlock-savings-2025-u-s-state-e-bike-tax-credits-and-rebates

As long as a majority of Americans live in suburban areas, car dependency will continue.

If suburbs were developed to be people-centric, you really wouldn't need a car for 99% of your daily tasks. Most trips by car are very short, and can very easily be replaced by non-car modes of transportation.
The argument I usually hear from car-brains is that we have to pRoTeCt RuRaL cAr DrIvErs.
- Unless you’re transporting anything of a decent size which most people do frequently.
That's not even true. E-bikes solve the low density suburb problem. You just need to actually build out appropriate bike lanes and trails. Suburban neighborhoods aren't unfixable.
- Many millions of Americans spend at least an hour commuting to and from work every day. I don't think they're going to want to do that on an e-bike.
- No, they are unfixable. Suburban infrastructure costs far more to maintain than the tax and fee revenues it generates.
As long as new housing is built in suburbs due to zoning, people will continue to live there.
All of the housing in my city that is near downtown or near business districts is either abandoned, run down, or gets converted into businesses.

A two hour commute in an electric car is still two hours in crushing, soul destroying traffic. People ask me why I take a train and a freeway bus for my two days on campus, and I ask them why not? My drive is three minutes from my house to the train.

But in suburban Southern California, public transit is "for freaks and losers." That was deliberate marketing.

It just sucks if 10 minutes by car/a little more by bike become 45 minutes by public transit, once an hour until 8pm.
- thats a little overexaggerating, at most its takes twice as long depending on which bus and route you are taking.
same for norcal, around bayarea, constantly getting the nagging, why arent you driving instead of taking the bus.

That's a problem, but small/micro particles aren't the only metric. The gases released by exhaust are also a real problem for people that walk nearby cars, and they're in a big quantity in certain cars.
But yea, balancing all of this is complicated.
Does having heavier electric cars with no exhaust but more tire usage (because heavier cars) so more particles in the air beneficial? I don't believe we have serious studies about this, but it could change the meta.
- Hear me out here, less cars regardless of their enegry source will reduce both exhaust and microplastics. We don't have to trade one for the other when we can build alternatives that don't produce either.

Nice. A flase dichotomy so the right can cut EV subsidies as well as not spending on public transport.

A flase dichotomy
It's illustrative of our national economic strategy. Which is to subsidize private consumer manufacturing rather than to directly invest in higher quality infrastructure.
This isn't a false dichotomy, its a deliberate strategy of Patriarchal Libertarianism (which has mutated into full throated corporate fascism).
- Don't disagree but in China you can get a new EV for less than 10k AND get the train.

When I have a full disk and have no storage space left. I open a program and see a visual representation of the largest files taking space. I clear them out first because its easy and quick.

For some reason, when we have too much CO2 going into the atmosphere, we see the visual representation of who is polluting the most, and take care of the smallest, little fragmented space. We don't select the larger chunks like industry, aviation, marine transport, we pick each individual car and press delete.

Look, cars have to change and Americans will have to be dragged kicking and screaming but It kind of pains me when someone looks at an old car someone is driving, using it way past its intended lifetime, and tells them they are the problem. While being perfectly fine taking an airplane twice yearly and ordering shit from china, shit they will forget they ordered before it actually arrives..

That because the big files right now are the OS. Just deleting system32 isn't a good idea, but moving to a more efficient system is difficult. So we do the easy thing and delete old PDFs, and maybe some old games. But the system needs to be changed, and the sooner the better.
- I get it. Is there really no bigger fish to fry? Cars are the only ting? I mean, yeah, we've put laws or goals in place to replace them slowly and thats good. Better we start the process as soon as possible. Are we doing the same for the bigger fish too?
We don’t select the larger chunks like industry, aviation, marine transport, we pick each individual car and press delete.
In fairness...
The nuclear powered cargo ship is already here.
And as China is the premier builder of trans-Pacific cargo ships (1,500 to 1,700 ships per year, which is more than the US has built in the last ten) this is technically getting addressed.
Also, incidentally, the premier electric car manufacturers are almost entirely East Asian. The only functional airplane manufacturer is French. Heavy industry in the US is on the verge of total collapse (outside AI and Bitcoin mining).
The US plan to cut emissions is basically just Degrowth.

I agree. My boyfriend and I were forced to buy a car some years ago because public transport in our area kept cutting budgets to the point that he would have to get up at 3.30-ish in the morning in order to get to work at 8.

We were avid users of public transport for our whole lives and wanted to support it until we were no longer given a choice, but to cave. If I have to go somewhere nowadays, he drives me because of how shit public transport has become in our country. It is genuinely pathetic. He made this decision on both of our behalf after a longer train ride of mine ended in me being stuck on a train station an hour away from home at 2 in the morning, having to wait for the next train home at 4.30. He jumped in the car and came and got me and that was one of the last times I used public transport. Really sucks when you want to support it, but it doesn't want to support you.

Even if every car on the road was electric, the world will still become an ash pile in 50 years.

It's more blaming the people for the problems of the rich, who will never be seriously regulated. It's easier to blame all of us.

thanks, henry. your horrible ideas still echo throughout history to this day. elon's taking notes.

mass transit enables the individual to travel far and wide at low cost

public transit provides autonomy to the individual to travel without the liability of owning and operating a half-ton missile just to get around

I often wonder how the emissions generated by producing and shipping a new electric vehicle compare to just keeping your old ICE vehicle until it rusts to pieces. Like how long does it take to break even from that?

It depends how quickly you put on miles (and which study you base the calculation on). For most EVs, they break even with the emissions of an ICE car at about 15k miles. By 200k, the EV emitted 52% less emissions compared to the average car.
If the electric grid is powered by more renewables in the future, that would jump to 78% less emissions at 200k.
A very long time. On the order of multiple decades, IIRC. Realistically, keeping an old ICE vehicle in proper running order beats the carbon footprint of purchasing a new EV.
My daily driver is a '98, I keep it running without codes in efficient closed loop and keep up on all the maintenance.
Now, the classic Ranger to electric conversion I want to do, not sure what the footprint is.
- A very long time. On the order of multiple decades, IIRC
  Not true. It also very much depends on where your power comes from (coal/sun).

Not practical to have zero cars. Residential areas aren’t set up for it. How you going to get your shopping in with 2 kids when it’s pissing of rain like it is 70% of the time here in Scotland.

Priority should be public transport with cheap public autonomous taxis that can drive 24/7 and unclutter the streets.

I don't think you'll find anyone with a lick of sense in here that's advocating for zero cars -- just that the way the system is currently set up prioritizes cars above everything else when it ought to be the other way around -- cars ought to be the very last resort instead of the first option most people go for. Taxis absolutely have their uses, and yes they should be cheap, but not so abundant as to divert people from using mass transit like buses or trams
Most of America's suburbs are designed to have a supermarket somewhere on the outside of the zigzagging streets of the residential homes. Golf carts would be perfect, in the vast existing suburbia. Legalize golf carts for slow streets in the burbs, and you'd get a massive reduction in car use. A quick electrification of vehicles.
I like bikes, I get it that many people don't. But at the very least legalize golf carts on slow streets. I feel that the average suburban home wouldn't mind getting a golf cart as a second vehicle. It's a quick way of hopping to the strip mall to get milk, or a morning coffee.
I have an electric car,but I also have an ebike(recently got it, maybe a month ago). I generally try to do small shopping trips on the bike,which is a lot of my shopping atm, but sometimes I need to transport stuff that just couldn't fit (cat litter, 40lb bird seed, stuff like that). I also have a more than 40 mile trek for work, so that isn't feasible on the bike. While I do get to work from home a lot, every other week I need to be in office for 3 days.
Having the electric is at least better for that, and my electric wasn't a luxury car like the OP states, it's a 2015 leaf that's down to 20% or so when I get to work, plus there aren't a lot of compatible fast chargers around for it. Even slower j1772 types seem to be not working half the time... I dislike the direction of bigger SUV and crossover eCars that seem to be the trend nowadays and I don't want to go back to ICE, but feeling some limits.

bUt oUr pRoFit MaRGiNs!

I agree on mass transit. Highly recommend Adam Something's youtube video on why self driving cars will increase traffic and waste. Its not a solution for cities large or small. Rural communities may see benefits but they pose weirder problems.

Because at least in the US the airline and car industries hand shake to stop commuter trains.

The west coast regions also have an additional problem where the slopes will need massive amounts of tunnels for high speed rail and are complicated by a lot active geologic zones. So while its the best solution (trains) its expensive but Japan managed to do it. Its not going to be cheap or quick to build the needed infrastructure. Add in most people are heavily invested in car infrastructure when they buy a car. So there's a public will barrier here built out of billions of garages, cars, and driveways sold.

People also pose "flying cars" etc as a solution. Piloting air vehicles requires air traffic controllers and communicating on an extreme level in addition to pilot licenses and security problems. Its not also not a serious answer to transportation.

Also for flying cars, when a non-flying car breaks down suddenly, it can be a dangerous situation but you just need to avoid hitting anything until your momentum is lost and generally have options (brakes might lose power assist but could work, if they don't there's still emergency brakes, and if those also fail, there's engine braking if you have transmission control, or steering back and fourth to lose momentum via turning friction, and once you're going slow enough, even colliding with something stationary can help).
With flying cars, maybe it can glide, assuming it even works like that and isn't more of a helicopter or just using some kind of thrusters. Plus, if you're falling to your death anyways, you might not have the presence of mind to try to optimize what you do hit with what control you do have to minimize damage to others. Hell, the safety feature might even be ejecting and leaving it to fall wherever, while hoping none of the other flying cars hit you or your parachute, or fly close enough to mess with the airflow in a way where the parachute might fail.
And that's not even going into how much more energy it takes to fly vs roll.
Flying cars don't make practical sense. And where they do, we already have helicopters.

I don't even know about that. EVs are prohibitively expensive for most people, and will continue to be for a while, if the idea is to have electric monster trucks on our streets.

Now, unless the future of EVs in North America include those tiny, affordable EV cars, then they might save themselves. Good luck with that! LOL

The Slate and Aptera are promising smaller and affordable North American EVs.

chinas BYD wouldve destroyed the OVERPRICED ev companies of the us, wish it did.

Tariffs from both Trump 1.0 (_{30%), Biden (}100%), and Trump 2.0 (~169%) mean that BYD will never come to the US. An EV from them is ~$30,000 compared to the ~$70,000 they are here. But the US government wants to coddle the oil & gas people while also making it seem like it's trying to support American exceptionalism.

This is an argument of scarcity. That scarcity (of money, in this case) is artificial, and created by those who won the last election to make the scarcity even more extreme.

The fact is we need both, and to get both we have to change ideas and to change ideas we need to get people onboard and a good way to get people onboard with clean renewable energy in the US is cars. It’s a gigantic fucking place and trains and bikes aren’t practical in some of it.

Well said.

Electric cars are not a "green solution". Because of all the associated costs to produce and maintain them:

The battery requires rare minerals that are to be mined elsewhere (Africa, China, south america...), in abject conditions.

The host country needs to deploy charging stations, plugged to the grid, which has a high cost in copper, contributing to point above.

The internal wiring of the car also increase the cost, contributing also to the first point.

And what to do of all the defective/old batteries ?

Think tanks say that constantly, what are you talking about?

I wish there was some way you could sue the government for doing this.

You're not wrong, but Sabine Hossenfelder is not a good source for well, anything (except physics, which she has excellent grounding in).

Your title is correct not the post you linked