Electric cars don't solve every problem with private vehicle ownership but they're certainly a step in the right direction. Most EVs average an equivalent of more than 100mpg versus most ICEs, which are around 30-40. You can also power an EV with renewable resources. This isn't possible with ICEs (yes, I know you can power certain diesels with biofuel, but it's horribly inefficient).
"Buying a new car is worse than keeping an old one" is an incredibly situational phrase that has a million exceptions for so many people.
Buying a new car is worse than keeping an old one
Also, what do you think happens to your car when you replace it with an electric car? Do most people just drive their old cars into the ocean when they upgrade?
"Buying a new car is worse than keeping an old one" is an incredibly situational phrase that has a million exceptions for so many people.
Yeah, but this still holds a lot of water. More often than not people buy a new car to have a new car or even worse they buy one specificcally because they are misguidedly trying to lessen their carbon footprint.
But by selling there old car more people can affort to buy a newer cars and fade out old cars wich overall is going to decrease carbon emissions because newer cars are on average more fuel efficent.
But yes Consuming less is still important
People aren't just buying new cars for fun in a recession. The point is people will need to buy a new car at some point. Either because they now need their own car or their old one isn't viable. At that point, choosing an electric car is a step in the right direction. That's why this post is stupid, it's acting like buying an electric car is just a frivolous purchase and not acknowledgeding that when someone needs to buy a car there is a choice to be made.
My frustration comes from the fact that hybrids exist and are not used nearly as enough as they should (all cars should have been mandated as hybrids a decade ago) and this would reduce the downsides of electric car production.
I’m not defending ICEs here, I just think the overall environmental credentials of electric cars at this point in time isn’t as good as hybrids.
I fully expect this to change in the future but I’ve got entire fleets of vehicles which are less than 5 years old being replaced by electric and that makes no sense.
Also cars generally are just a terrible solution to mass transport. We already have the most environmentally friendly option known to man. Bicycles and trains.
Edit: for further information on hybrid vs electric see this analysis:
Yes, which is why I'm downvoting you.
I'm huge into going green, going mass transit, and everything else, however, most people cannot fit into one worldview, which is why this is more nuanced than your meme suggests.
As an example The Midwest in the states does not have mass transit, so they have to drive. So trains and bikes are out. Hybrid still uses gas, and for the vast majority of them they will be on the freeway, so a hybrid is basically the same as an ICE car anyway, so yeah, I'll push them into getting EVs if what they're doing is commuting. However than it gets more nuanced to "is this for roadtrips", because then maybe hybrid is better.
Which is why again I say it's a person-to-person basis. For you maybe a hybrid is the only option, but saying EVs are wrong for everyone is a very naive approach.
My issue with typical hybrids is that they got all the complexity of an ICE powertrain, in addition to all the complexity of an EV powertrain, plus the complexity of merging the two.
Slightly less efficient, but I think I'm more in support of EVs with gas range extenders. Maybe it's just a question of semantics. But more than that (if we're gonna keep cars) we need to invest in charging infrastructure. Idk why it sucks so bad, and why gas stations aren't installing charging stations.
Remember kids, if you're not solving climate change entirely in one single step, there's no point in trying.
Seriously, what a brain dead argument lol
I think it's under the premise of, of you have a functional car. It you got rid of that and bought an electric, you aren't helping anything.
There's a lot wrong with this video as most videos on EVs from 2016. The data is sources for electricity production is actually over a decade old now (Sep 2013) and it rationalizes that the electric cars will break down before the grid ever moves towards greener sources. This is a very silly notion considering solar is straining the grid with too much power at times, times where EVs could charge. They can also charge over night encouraging nuclear power to be more financially feasible as nuclear relies on a base load as they don't like to turn off.
They're not a silver bullet and in some cases like the Hummer EV they are worse than an old car but if you have to drive a lot it is completely less carbon intensive than an ICE for most EVs.
Here's a still pretty old but more nuanced video: https://piped.video/watch?v=6RhtiPefVzM
The greenest car is a train car.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/MQLbakWESkw?si=IGV7CRjQslRSI-er
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Every car on the road being converted to electric with magic wouldn't fix climate change. If you didn't also get trucks and SUVs it may not even move the needle Personal car use is not a major cause of climate change. It just doesn't matter compared to industrial and commercial emissions.
Of course it won't fix climate change in one go, but doing so would remove a major fossil fuel dependency for your average Joe and make them much more likely to vote against fossil fuels.
Put another way, how many people driving gas cars would vote in favor of heavy taxes on fossil fuel use?
Now, how many would vote that way if they personally didn't have any dependencies on fossil fuels?
Also, highway vehicles account for 1.5 billion tons of GHGs being emitted each year, that's 11% of the global yearly GHG emissions, so yeah, it definetely would "move the needle". In the US specifically it's as much as 20% of our nations emissions.
And yeah I already know the next argument "bUt YoUr JuSt UsInG fOsSiL fUeLs To ChArGe It" - except you're not necessarily, in my area (part of CA), you can choose to have 100% of your electricity provided by renewable sources for a small monthly premium ($18/month). Additionally in CA, all new homes are being built with solar power, which further increases your ability to charge without fossil fuels.
And in the areas that isn't true, it's at least getting groundwork laid down to make it true. An electric car can be powered by renewable energy, a fossil fuel car must be powered by fossil fuels.
There are a lot of steps to solving climate change beyond "buy an electric car", and you're right that industrial and commercial pollution accounts for the majority, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be pushing on all fronts.
We've already waited way too long to act, we can't afford as a species to say "well, I'm not going to change my car until the industrial polluters get their shit together", we have to push in Every possible direction, all at the same time to make progress, and electric cars overtaking fossil fuel cars is a big part of that.
There's a lot of work to be done globally until electric cars are 100% green, both in terms of power infrastructure and the processes to create them, but there's no way forward with gas cars, so we need to start moving over as a society now, phasing out the production of gas cars with electric
There's this concept under socialism called "development" where you make small steps towards your desired outcome. Naturally, capitalists hate this which is why they spend so much money pushing for all-or-nothing "solutions" and encouraging people to quit when it doesn't work. Whatever it takes to make sure that people don't fundamentally challenge their illegitimate rule as they burn the planet for profit.
We will never consumer our way of of a problem capitalism created. And public transit is nearly always a better solution to spending on car infrastructure.
... but... If you're gonna buy a new car anyway, they have the potential to cause less climate impact (although they're still environmentally devastating in other ways). As power generation becomes cleaner, so too do the cars. ICE cars are already about as environmentally friendly as they're gonna get, but EVs still have a lot of potential improvement (both in emissions and in things like material mining).
Although the tire microplastics is gonna get worse.
They already do cause less of an impact than ICE powered cars. Anyone can Google the information that shows that even though battery production is unclean, fossil fuel production over the life of a car is worse.
If the EV last for more than about 5 years, it was worth it.
5 Years.... This is part of the problem.. What happens to this car after 5 years, it gets "recycled". The metal does and the rest goes into a landfill to gas off. Micro plastics are just part of it, the gasses are a major polluter too. The reason you can own and keep your old car is that they were built to last, our current disposable society is the problem. Electric cars are dirty! Let go dig massive hole in the desert, lets separate the wanted materials out with lovely chemicals, then we can throw it all away. So clean.... Right to repair, build to last, and strong public transport is the way to go.
A well worded nuanced take on Lemmy? Where am I?
Yeah but by the time some of that potential is realised, your brand new EV is now a few years old and almost worthless cos the batteries are next to useless.
Modern EV batteries last for over a decade and still retain most of their original capacity even after a few hundred thousand miles.
This post is fucking idiotic. Without electric cars climate change CANNOT be addressed.
Nothing is ever as simple as a single solution. Mouth breathing OPs need to get that through their thick stupid skulls
Without electric VEHICLES* climate change cannot be addressed. Expensive new electric cars are not the solution. Electric public transport, retrofitting old vehicles, making current vehicles last, and people adopting two wheeled electric solutions will be the solution. Cars like Teslas are awful and buying one shouldn't be considered making a difference.
Yeah the key is for people to understand that incremental improvements are the way.
I'm in no way saying we should run out and buy shit. I'm saying that shitting on electric cars is counterproductive
Fun fact: In the UK there is no ability (DVSA/DVLA[requirement to legally taxing/insuring a car]) for legally driving a converted ICE to Electric car. This is due to the MOT test having a test for CO2 and if the test returns null or "out of bounds" the car fails it's MOT and therefore is illegal to drive.
Such a wonderful country.
Afraid you're wasting your breath. OP appears to be a member of fuckcars, which feels like it's coming from a good place but is mostly just short-sighted and infantile. I live in DFW and not having a vehicle is not an option, but these folk would classify me alongside the devil because I dare to use a combustion engine. If I could realistically use an electric vehicle I would.
I'm sure that in OPs mind everyone should just abandon their cars tomorrow and that will immediately solve all of the climate change as if private vehicle owners are the ones actually causing the problem in the first place.
Fuckcars is made up of people with little life experience who think they have all the answers, and people who fetishize city living and think it's normal or healthy for humans to live at a density like NYC (and fuck you if you disagree). They're oversimplifying to the point of meaninglessness, and handwaving away the problems.
You should keep an eye on Edison Motors, they're developing practical hybrid heavy vocational trucks & have a side project for a pickup retrofit kit that I'm waiting for.
This post is fucking idiotic. Without electric cars climate change CANNOT be addressed
I mean, that's not true at all..... America would just have to build actual public transportation. We just attach a feeling of personal freedom to cars that's so prevalent that Americans cannot fathom the idea of expanding public transportation.
And yes, of course public transportation isn't going to reach everyone in rural America. However, if a significant portion of the urban/suburban population switched to electric rail, it would curb climate change faster than everyone slowly replacing their personal vehicles.
This is questionably accurate.
It's not just a matter of building the rail, it's also redesigning the urban sprawl. That's a LOT of new construction of buildings needed, too. That comes with new utilities, etc. And cement is a huge carbon source.
There is a time scale over which that's more carbon efficient than replacing all personal vehicles and their replacement lifecycles, but it's very unclear if that's actually faster with regards to climate change timelines.
Honestly, cars are polluters, but they're not our big polluters.
There are way more effective ways to address climate change.
Cars are probably one of the more effective things that are accessible to single users.
Oh I’m reasonably confident if we got rid of cars that’d be a good thing for the climate.
If there was plentiful mass transit the need for electric cars is reduced greatly.
Cars are terrible forms of mass transport and societies need to deprioritise them in city planning.
The idea that we can just keep doing what we’re doing and replace all ICEs with BEVs and it’ll solve climate change is not really the full story.
Now if you’ll excuse me I’ll go back to my mouth breathing.
This is a terrible arguement. It has the premise that all ice are going to be scrapped at once and we will just make a bazillion electric cars. It's a phase out thing.
Also quieter cars and no tailpipe emissions are fantastic.
Well. Bought my new electric car. What am I going to do with my old gas one? Trade it in and get money? Nah. Pay to get it scrapped? I'm such a genius.
Guys, cars don't last forever, but when you own a car that doesn't burn dead organisms, get ready to almost never change your oil because it doesn't collect soot and for engines and cars to last much longer because they don't generate grimy grease and heat and exhaust, all of which are terrible for mechanical parts.
Pre-emptive caveat: I am fully in favor of electric cars, and will happily switch if I can ever afford to do so.
Yes, most of the parts that are going to wear out on IC cars are motor and transmission parts, and those are complicated and time consuming to fix. In many cases it's not practical for the end-user to do so anymore. Electric cars OTOH are more likely to have electronics issues, and the batteries are ridiculously expensive to replace when the capacity is reduced below a useful level.So you're still going to end up with similar maintenance costs over the lifetime of the vehicle, but they're more likely to be concentrated at one or two irregular points in time rather than small bits of preventive maintenance done at regular intervals.
Part it out and scrap it for cash.
Huh? This is just flat out wrong.
laughs in bicycle
Guess I'll keep pouring lead additive into my '65 Galaxie, then. Woo! 10 miles per gallon!
If you can, use public transport and ride a bike.
If you can’t, using the same private vehicle for a long time, while not ideal, is acceptable.
Buying a brand new electric car to replace a relatively new ICE is not a great solution.
Public transport takes 3.5 hours for my daily commute each way. Personal vehicle is 45 minutes.
A bike is going to get you killed in numerous parts of the Country. Here the massive pick ups that have never hauled more than a sack of groceries take sharing the road with bicycles as a very personal insult.
Depends upon the old one, (huge difference between 12-18 MPG and an EV), and what is done with the it after doesn't it?
I suspect you swallowed a lot of Corpo propaganda to believe the issue is the common individual's actions.
https://theconversation.com/the-carbon-footprint-was-co-opted-by-fossil-fuel-companies-to-shift-climate-blame-heres-how-it-can-serve-us-again-183566
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-mobils-messaging-shifted-blame-for-warming-to-consumers/
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220504-why-the-wrong-people-are-blamed-for-climate-change
just a few to get your deprogramming started.No doubt your logic is based on the carbon footprint of two cars - the old ice and the new BEV.
Where that logic falls down is the old ICE becomes a more affordable efficient used car that can replace an older ICE that it blowing blue smoke. Further, new BEV become used BEV in a few years. Used BEV are becoming quite affordable and cost effective. They are also far outlasting their projected battery life.
Finally, demand for BEV increases R&D on more efficient storage technologies that are cheaper and have a smaller environmental footprint.
Yes, more and better public transport should be a thing. But the US is just too big - and in many cases too empty - for ubiquitous public transport to be cost or environmentally efficient.
If you can’t, using the same private vehicle for a long time, while not ideal, is acceptable.
The typical breakeven point for an ev (when carbon emissions saved overtake emissions produced by its production) is around 30k kilometers. That's excluding potential downstream emissions saved by the old ice being sold second hand. I don't think even very wealthy people are getting rid of their cars so soon.
My brother in christ are you dense? No. Parking the 65 Galaxy and buying a new ev is most definitely better than driving it. 10 miles to the gallon is horrendous.
Double overly reductionist takes with no positive contribution. Congrats! This is crap.
It isn't.
But staying on fossil fuels is even worse. And by a lot.
Not sure whats gonna happen first, whether gasoline prices go too high for people to use cars and instead use public transport or the scenario where there is enough fuel even up to the climate collapse
Why not both: enough fuel to cause a huge climate impact, not enough to reverse it, and prices going through the roof when oil becomes too expensive to burn, but still necessary for plastics and other petrochemical products.
In countries that generate almost all of their electricity from renewables, they are better tbh. Although more environmentally damaging to produce.
The problem is more like that cars that use fossil fuels have a very much lower efficiency rate than electric cars. So theoretical if you use the same amount of FF for the energy production and use that for electric cars it would be more efficient. But that shouldnt be the solution.
Its always more costly and less efficient to produce new things in smaller quantity than large numbers. So electric car manufacturers at this point in time costs more to produce from an environment perspective. As the number of electric cars go up, my understanding is that this will compare to fossil fuel car production.
Imo you cannot compare these two as its impossible to be as efficient as a large scale manufacturer until you become one yourself.
Yeah economies of scale are absolutely a thing, but what the average person is coming around to is the idea that the personal vehicle is environmentally unfeasible. Tyre wear alone has a significant environmental impact and electric vehicles are only going to make that problem work. That's just one factor of countless factors. Transportation is a necessity, personal transportation isn't (not entirely true, some places have such terrible transportation infrastructure that a personal vehicle is a necessity). Electric car manufacturers are never going to tell you not to buy their car regardless of the fact that their products significantly contribute to climate change.
Well it's a two start program.
- All of the citizens buy an electric vehicle
- The government produces clean energy
So it shifts the responsibility onto the government.
where are you from that your government produces your electricity?
I mean I lot of countries have national owned power generation, it's certainly upto the government what gets built where.
My electric car was manufactured ONCE. It's powered by 99% green power (hydroelectric). It burns no gas/diesel, requires no oil changes. I intend on keeping it for 15+ years (my last vehicle got to 16 years before the electrical system fried).
It is better by literally every measure short of walking everywhere.
Hey how about bike man
How do i bike 30 miles each way? Even ignoring infrastructure needs and how bad most road surfaces are and how biking is death on a highway...
Remember, 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions.
I feel like this point is missing the big picture: people create the demand, and companies supply what the market demands. Like or hate "the free market", this is essentially what it is. If there were magically 1/10th the number of humans on the planet, we would expect those companies to have 90% less emissions. It's not that some of these companies aren't bad actors, and have actions that are at times immoral, it's that they are amoral actors in a market economy that is only responsive to consumer demand.
The example I like to give is that companies' race to the bottom on quality. They're responding to human behavior, where if an item on Amazon is $6, and another very similar item is 10 cents cheaper, the cheaper item will sell 100x more. This is a brutal, cutthroat example of human behavior and market forces. It leads to shitty products because consumers are more responsive to price and find it hard to distinguish quality, so the market supplies superficially-passable junk at the lowest possible price and (with robust competition) the lowest possible profit margin.
People create the demand, but it is up to the manufacturers to decide how the product is manufactured.
They are the ones that decide to increase pollution by 10% in order to save a couple of cents per product.
The free market is never going to address Climate Change. We need to force corporations to see pollution as a bad thing. By heavily taxing any sort of pollution created.
This would inevitably make things more expensive. But rather a bad economy than humanity going extinct. Since there is no point to an economy if there aren't any humans to enjoy it.
I feel like YOU are missing the point. Even tho you say exactly why this matters the most.
Yes market respond to demand. Compa oes DGAF whether they pollute, only that people buy. That's why the ONLY solution is that all these companies are regulated to pollute less. If everyone has to, then they are still equal and people won't buy a cheaper alternative that happens to be more polluting.
Hell, I'd go as far as to say that it only matters if the top 5-10 countries do it. If China, USA, and India don't do this, the entire world is fucked and there is nothing to be done by anyone else.
I see you have made a systematic analysis, ha! Unfortunately you failed to consider one small thing: [reverb bass boosted] individual choices
* 100 companies providing fossil fuels to 99% of the human race.
Source?
Well, the carbon footprint calculator I used may not be accurate, but for the same mileage on my car vs an electric car is about 1/2 the carbon... and I assume the electric car's footprint decreases even more over time...
Certainly, electric cars aren't solving all the problems, but reducing my carbon footprint by 1/2 over a 10 year period sounds like a pretty good start.
No one ever addresses the national security aspect either. OPEC can’t fuck with the economy as easily with electronic cars and trucks.
Yup, as we've recently seen, the federal petroleum reserve really isn't as plentiful as we'd like.
Recently my parents got a car for emergency situations (like dropping my sister to school when busses are cancelled and she can't bike because of rain). And when I did the research for a car with them, I realised just how good cars with sub 1L engines are (3-4l per 100km in the city). Sure, they are not gonna be fast, but they are still faster than the speed limit of 120km/h on our highways here. I am personally hoping to buy a rx8 or a na miata soon for enthusiast reasons. Modern transport should be 100% public.
Edit: grammar and spelling
if public transport is a valid alternative (cheaper, less crowded, more comfortable) i will use it. but currenly it is not. so i will drive my 1st gen yaris 1.0. besides 70€ of gas a month, there ate no other operation costs.
Economical retrofit kits for legacy vehicles would help reduce manufacturing pollution & reduce vehicle emissions, if carbine free electricity production is increased.
Ford and GM both sell electric "crate motors" for classic cars to switch them over to electric.
The problem is it's fundamentally changing the source of energy in a car. Even if you ripped out the motor and replaced it with an electric motor and battery Bank there would still be a whole fundamental sleuth of systems that would be missing inside the car. I think I better solution might be to look into converting cars to hydrogen instead.
Also feel free to ignore anything I just said I'm not no automotive engineer, just a nerd who used to tinker with cars when he was younger 😅
Yeah, that's the real problem. I wish hydrogen helped. Fuel cells and hydrogen are another way to store and release electricity, like batteries. Switching a car from gas to battery is a tricky proposition. Since they require more components to achieve the same result, delivering electricity to an electric motor, fuel cells would compound that problem.
If you want to go that route I think you should look more towards bikes and less towards cars.
If they're made instead of making fossil fuel vehicles, they do (addressing the cartoon, not the barely related added title) . Cars will still be made as many become no longer repairable. Which kind to build? Yes, better to make more electric buses and trains, but cars wont simply vanish in any scenario.
Yeah but they're way more fun to drive
The main issue in the push for electric cars, is that we're pretending that we can fix things with no lifestyle changes.
And for the richer people, that's probably true. But there's a big chunk of people for whom the electric car revolution means no more personal transport.
I accept that, but we need to invest in public transport exponentially more than we are doing. It needs subsidising up the wazoo so people outside the inner-city bubble can still get around. By just pretending that electric cars will reach affordable levels for the poorest, we're inviting trouble further down the line when they can't use their petrol cars any more.
Well, transportation is the biggest emitter. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions#:~:text=Transportation (28%25%20of%202021%20greenhouse,ships%2C%20trains%2C%20and%20planes.
And personal cars as well as trucks are the largest emitters among those. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58861
I do agree that there should be done a lot more to make this go faster. One of the most obvious things is immediately outlaw the production of gasoline suvs. They‘re inefficient and rather pricey so you wont hit anyone who‘s life depends on it. Then outlaw the production of any gasoline sportscars.
Obviously the expansion of public transport is still important but selling new v8 suvs demoralizes anyone trying to do the right thing.
The used market is going to be full of gas cars for a longtime. Look there of you need gas otherwise go electric if you can.
What about convert the old cars to electric?
There's a heavy CO2 cost to making batteries so even if you convert an ICE vehicle to electric, you'll have to drive it quite far to break even on the CO2 emissions from the factory.
No, buy new fossil fuel cars.
God damn these comments
Which ones?
Honestly didn't take too long to find a lot of people taking this take in the least generous way possible.
And who can forget the "I commute 50 miles each way I can't use any alternatives" folks as well who seem to think that the better future means absolutely no cars.
It means better alternatives to everyone having to own a car and take a car everywhere.
Just some points that I have not seen discussed-
- Time to refuel / practical vehicle range 1a. The cost involved in having charging installed on your property
- Weather. Snow. Effect of cold on batteries. I know everyone hates those evil SUV's, bit when there's 14" of snow on the ground your tesla/volt/insert your favorite EV ain't gonna cut it
- To the "just put in mass transit" crowd, do you feel that eminent domain is justified to take property from someone to fulfill this need?
Honestly not trying to troll, these are real questions that should be answered
And for the record, my vehicle is a compact sedan, getting on average 34-37mpg, so I'm not in that dick-size contest over who's truck has the bigger lift kit
Weather. Snow. Effect of cold on batteries. I know everyone hates those evil SUV’s, bit when there’s 14" of snow on the ground your tesla/volt/insert your favorite EV ain’t gonna cut it
How so? I live in Boston, where it gets cold and snowy. During the winter, the efficiency on my Bolt goes from 4.0mi/kWh (134.8 mpg equivalent) to 2.7mi/kWh to (90.99 mpg equivalent), and I park outside in the cold. Otherwise, it works just like any car I've had. Why exactly do I need an SUV?
I never said you need one. I make do without one, however there are plenty of times during our winters here the larger wheels/greater ground clearance would be extremely useful. Just because it doesn't work for you or me doesn't mean there are people it does work for.
1/1a. Yep. Public transit.
-
Oh no. How did people do it before in the past before SUVs?! Also, public transit.
-
Yes. A steong public transportation infrastructure. As we are going to experience worst and worst weather that challenges the survival of the human race, we will need to make sacrifices.
The discussion was about EV's, you missed the point. But ill bite.
1/1a. My relatively short daily commute of 20 minutes turns into 1:10. My time is more valuable than money, so no. 2. "Before the SUV" people didn't have to commute much further than down the street for work, so no. 3. Cool. You first.
Gonna further add, if there is 14" of snow on the ground and the roads aren't clear, then with 99% of the SUVs, Trucks, and cars sold today, you aren't, and you shouldn't, be going anywhere.
That's a design issue of the vehicle anyway, and not inherently related to the ICE vs EV drivetrain.
-
What if I told you buying an EV is more about not paying for gas than it is about fighting climate change.
#sobbing, crying, utterly inconsolable.
All I want is small, cheap, reliable economy boxes back. Simple, uncomplicated, user servicable, cheap cars. Engine, transmission, differential, a cab, lights, wind down windows. Without an unnecessary extra 5 miles off wires for the equally unnecessary half ton of electronics and plastic.
Unfortunately that seems to be an unreasonable ask nowadays.
Here's another "fun" fact, with every 3 miles you drive you will polite about 1 straw of microplastics from the cars tires.
Here's a fun fact because I work in a lab that studies micro and nanoplastics:
Of all the plastics we have studied, tire particles are THE FUCKING ABSOLUTE WORST. They leach all sorts of nasty shit.
Source?
You know how you have to buy tires every few years because they "go bald"? As in, they've lost that material that was once tread? That material isn't just disappearing, it flies off the tires in the form of tiny particles that are in the air and water. It's actually really toxic too, way more than other plastics. Fun fact EV tires are even more toxic.
Source: I work in a toxicology lab studying microplastics.
Keeping an old car is better, but having one that works is even better than that. Cause, you know, eventually cars stop working. That's a thing.
I think electric cars address climate change Once we stop using coal and gas powerplants
Cause then all we are doing is shifting it
Not true. Large-scale power plants are WAY more efficient at turning fossil fuels into work than internal combustion engines. Even if all electric car power was generated by coal (it's not, almost half of electricity generation now is nuclear + renewables), electric cars would still have net emissions that are half of gas cars.
It's a process that is absolutely underway and making great progress, even the USA now generatea more from solar than from coal, many countries like Scotland are already producing over 90% of their electrical use from renewables with only 2% from fossil fuels.
It's worth noting too that these numbers are only grid based usage and a lot of solar is direct use, often being stored in an electric car rather than sold to the grid - with rooftop solar at home and at work it would be possible to use a car without requiring any of the oil extraction, transport and refining faculties. I don't know how many people it would take using solar cars before a single oil well goes untapped but I do know if we get to a point where no one is using gas stations then that'll be an awfull lot of horrible polluting infrastructure we don't need, just carrying the fuel through wires instead of in tanker lorries is a huge saving alone.
Only if we go balls deep on Nuclear
Looks at state of world...
Oh we're going balls deep in Nuclear my friend. Just not the kind you're talking about.
That's not a huge problem. Chernobyl and Five Kilometer Island were old reactor designs, and Fukushima mostly sustained an earthquake+tsunami (it would fully succeed under better corporation oversight)
Mmmm, spicy sexy times indeed.
Ah yes, that "lets do nothing and say we're saving the climate" take straight out of bill gates' think tank. Stop watching kurzgesagt.
What's wrong with kurz gesagt?
Gates-funded eco porky. People watch them for their science videos then get sucked into neoliberal propaganda. Like it's one thing to be biased (everyone is) but it's a complete other to be parroting think tank talking points verbatim.
Maybe you should start. They highly likely do more for climate change than you do.
Oh look, another anti-car meme from someone who clearly doesn't understand cars. Keep it up, Lemmy. One day your relentless negativity will achieve something, and I'll laugh all the way to my grave because it'll be the exact opposite of what y'all wanted.
But you understand cars right? Pray tell, what is wrong about this post. We all obviously need your divine knowledge, ofc which I presume will also have cited sources right.
Bike 45 miles each way to work and tell me it's still a viable solution for everyone, everywhere.
Try to build a rail network that adequately covers 3.8 million square miles without driving your country into blinding debt.
Tell me that I need to haul a cello that I value more than my own life in the rain.
Squeeze enough groceries for a family of four to eat for a week into bicycle saddlebags.
But as I mentioned elsewhere, the more smug and sour you act, the more the average person is going to oppose you simply because you're an absolutely insufferable asshole. Then again, if you had social skills, you probably wouldn't be here in the first place because you'd have friends (and maybe a fucking clue).
Go eat uranium, you smug piece of shit.
Electric cars are indeed much worse for the climate at production time than combustion cars likely will be throughout their entire lifetime.
But this matters little, as the electric car is not made to be the perfect alternative, it is instead made to be the "weird in between solution" that we need to bring as many devices as possible to use a common power source and get people acquainted with the concept, before moving to the actual solution.
The next steps will be better battery technology because, let's face it, lithium gel batteries suck, and proper power sources.
In the end, I guess it's kind of a "chicken and egg" situation.
Electric cars are indeed much worse for the climate at production time than combustion cars likely will be throughout their entire lifetime.
Break even point is currently around 13k miles though it depends on where you live.
And that's not even counting the growing market of battery recyclers.
I found this analysis quite interesting:
I listened podcast/interview (one of the latest Making Sense podcasts by Sam Harris) with a person who studies climate change and the ways to address it. And she disagrees with your statement. She said that just couple of years of typical electric car use is required to offset the production, and the rest is all green.
I often wonder how much better battery technology would be today if batteries had become a more popular solution than gasoline back in the day.
It’s weird to think that electric vehicles (albeit primitive ones) existed over a hundred years ago.
Imagine if instead of rewarding Reagan for having the Iranians keep the hostages so he could rip the solar cells off the White House, we;d rewarded Carter for recognizing the trap oil was.
I’d argue trains are the solution for most city applications.
Rural areas can keep ICE’s if cities of tens of millions dispense themselves of cars.
Great, I agree too, but go ahead and start lobbying the US government to build more.
I'm all for your suggestions, but the fact of the matter is we need solutions yesterday and to build what you're talking about will take 10 years of lobbying alone. California HSR is going to be another 10 years and they're already building it.
EVs are a stopgap measure, we all know it.
So you want to keep drilling for oil forever? Oil wells, pipe lines, refineries, more pipes, trucks carrying liquid fuel... when you could just get rid of all that and have renewable powered cars?
There's a brief window where if you look at it from a very careful angle ICE is briefly better in some ways than electric, long term electric is the only option.
When such actually exist, do get back to us.
