This is why people hate liberals, and why liberals often migrate over to conservatism: no matter how right you are, there's always someone happy to crap on you for not being right enough.
Don't shit on EVs for merely being one of many solutions that all need to be engaged with. It's not like without EVs, so many people would be rushing to areas of greater density and riding public transit, so your message is not helpful in achieving what you want, and actively angers your allies.
Disagree on inefficient.
Internal combustion engines in standard small size convert 19.65-22.1% of their energy from thermal to kinetic.
The ratio of electron throughput from battery to electric motor can be as LOW as 88% but hovers between 92-98% efficiency.
Even if you had a fuel cell in the back, running electric motors quintuples (5×) the standard energy efficiency owing to the principle of energy quality type preservation in conversion (High to High vs Low to High):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_transformation
So 1 electric car = 4 less carbon liquid fuelled cars worth of pollution.
What you're actually looking for is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
Jevon's Paradox states that improved efficiency of something will only increase its use, and in this case, electric cars will in fact, correlate to car use, and increased mineral demands.
This is a problem you cannot solve endemic to humanity.
I'm sure this is unpopular this community but I feel like "fuck cars" folks are either living in a dream world where public transport can answer everyone's transportation needs. If you live in a city with all the amenities you need where public transport is good and economically viable sure, "Fuck cars", but if you don't...
Just remember, the argument relies on not just getting rid of cars, but drastically improving public transport.
World peace is more likely given government attitudes towards public services!
I really think we're too far in the hole here.
I think fear grips people at every angle and none of us are brave enough to accept bold action for positive change in our society. It seems like most people are just retracting instead.
I vaguely remember that "Ye" (formerly Kanye West) once said something like he formed a think tank to build a city but the thing stopping his team was that "Ye" didn't understand any of the concepts and he ran it into the ground.
I want public transportation, I think everyone wants it at this point but no no one understands why we need it. They all just want to escape.
(This message was brought to you by the new 2024 Ford Escape: just hit the road and escape to paradise)
Honest question. Does anyone here have enough humility to understand there's a similar checklist of things an automobile solves?
Now it doesn't mean it's the right solution but particularly in North America due to lack of XYZ automobiles are king.
It's very easy to go "hurr durr automobiles bad" but do you understand the multitude of reasons why we use them? All the things that need to be improved or fixed before we entertain the alternatives?
Saying this as a car owner who takes public transit far more than other car owners.
ice car | electric cartrain? ❌️ | ❌️
simple as.small amount of electric cars and mostly public transport
Wher train 😢
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 emissionsIn Case of Electric-Car Fire, Half of Fire Departments Are Unprepared
the car fires for EV are very much a different thing.
Would be nice if this had trains and buses and bikes columns.
Public transit would be great if you didn’t have to ride with other people. That’s my real problem with it in America at least; there are always loud and gross people aboard. My town has phenomenal bud infrastructure, but people drive because it’s faster, and because you don’t have to be around undesirable people.
Maybe public transportation where each person or group could ride in their own automated pod, which would be publicly owned. That way you could still go skiing/hiking/etc, since mass transportation to those places is very difficult due to low volume.
At this point I have landed at:
Someday I am going to get a used adventure bike, and modify it to be a hybrid capable of electric only at low speeds / low acceleration, and charge that with solar panels.
Why not an electric bicycle?
Theyre astoundingly overpriced for what they are.
Why not public transportation?
Well obviously use that whenever possible, but I like the hybrid concept because if you run out of fuel, you can do electric running, or if power goes out, you can charge batteries or run important equipment via the gas motor going through a transformer into a battery yada yada.
That and it'll be useful to be able to cruise around on said motorcycle when our modern american civilized society finally collapses into chaos.
I am all for urban redesign projects and locally sustainable diverse economies and all that, but i dont have faith enough of that will happen quickly enough to basically make it totally safe to just stay in one particular metro area.
EDIT: I suppose maximum utility apocalypse bike would also be capable of running on ethanol, and maybe even somehow whatever the proper name for the fuel refined from fast food restaurant grease is, forget the name. Ive heard it makes your vehicle smell like french fries though lol.
prices are not where an average person could go out and buy one in the usa $7.25 is still the minimum wage not to mention rising costs of insurance and property taxes and some states tack on extras fee for certain things and some insurance companies are leaving states making the cost jump even more
cheaper gasoline vehicles are barely affordable if at all for most even used ones
what about the battery and materials having to be mined and what have you
are the workers from material gathering to the final build paid a fair living wage
in some places such as tennessee the charging stations for electric are shutting down
I have the occasional beer I'm on year two of LSV [low speed vehicle] 25mph max, 30 mile range. The GEM does what I need it to do. Old & retired, so my requirements are minimal, maybe 100 miles a month. I heard lots of opinion that the low speed would invoke road rage. I find that driving the GEM is much like towing a RV, if there are more than a couple of cars, I pull over & let them pass. Mechanically & electrically basic. Everything is smaller & lighter, so I can do the minor maintenance. The difference in travel time is minimal. Easier to drive safely as my physical skills decline.
Not really a climate solution, more of a pragmatic conservation of my personal resources.
A good start would be greatly restricting the speed, power & performance of vehicles allowed to be registered on the street. Wanna drive 0-60 in 3 seconds & three times the speed limit, go to the race track
My favorite part about this sub is how everyone acts like the entire world is able to just stop having a car and be able to carry on normally about their lives as if cars haven't been forced into nearly all infrastructure plans globally since this inception. Like it's every citizens personal choice that nobody built a functioning transit system in the many decades before they were born, or that the place they can afford to live is too far from the place that pays the wages they need to live is too far to bike or bus to.
Like, push for fewer cars and less car centric design, but also stop being a fucking cunty dick about it.
look how little that electric cars have to sacifice, while costing twice as much! so efficient!
those green check marks, ill take both!
I posted this to Reddit over a year ago.
https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/xw8qcb/new_ev_ad_just_dropped_oc/
Several years ago, I considered an EV, got sticker shock, and slowly backed away. I wound up with an ebike instead. What happened with the latter is it turned out I really loved that thing and rode it far more frequently than I would have imagined. It's not a total car replacement, to be fair, but it handles most trips.
Today, EVs are still expensive, though there are more options and a bit more competition on price. But to make them worthwhile, you need to drive a lot so that you get back some of that initial investment in savings with charging vs fuelling. This means I am not really the demographic for EVs anymore, since I don't drive enough. It's so weird… I guess I'll just keep that 2006 ICE around until it dies, which might be awhile yet considering how slowly the mileage is ticking up.
