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xkcd #2948: Electric vs Gas
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this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2024
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Electric cars is not the solution. Sure, it's an improvement, but for a real solution you need to get people out of personal vehicles on onto public transportation. Trains, trams, busses, whatever. Build it in a way that doesn't suck. Assuming american, the US had (past tense) amazing train/tram networks decades ago. Every warehouse had a rail spur, and since walking was considered ok people weren't obese fatasses.
I drive a scooter. It is possible to live without a car, although it does have some difficulties sometimes. If your job is within 10 miles of your home or less, then you don't need a car for your commute. If I can do it so can you. I'd still rather take a bus, if it existed.
Just came back from Tokyo. Tokyo's public transportation is awesome. You do also need to walk a lot at times and the first few days our legs were quite sore. But towards the end of the trip I can feel my leg strength again, felt healthier, and did not miss my car at all. To go to certain places, you do have to plan a little bit ahead, for example, a day trip out to Mt. Fuji area requires booking tickets because right now there's a ton of tourists. But within the city, the subways are so convenient.
I want an EV. I think its 98% the right choice for me. I also 100% with you. Cars are a terrible solution at a certain density, which is what most industry and thus where people live makes sense.
My job is within 10mi of my home. If I walk there, I get there in 2 hours. If I take public transportation, it takes me 1h45m to 2h20m depending on the day.
I also live in a community where our electricity is from 90% renewable resources, 10% nuclear. Switching to an electric car is a 100% reduction in carbon usage for my commute. Using the bus isn't.
Why not get an electric bike then? Reasonable price tag, will get you to work within a reasonable timeframe, significantly less congestion on roads, and charges with that renewable energy without using a lot of it.
Also, their point was that adding infrastructure for public transport (aka improving the public transport you're complaining about) will have a huge effect on reducing greenhouse gas emissions across a population and is more easily electrified. Your focus on an individual case is irrelevant to their argument.
Is it really? Are you positive?
How is your electricity generated. Coal, natural gas, or oil? Congratulations, your carbon usage is HIGHER with an EV than with an ICE! Is it hydro? Go look at the methane produced by those huge reservoirs. I haven't seen the calculations, but it's not neutral.
Oh, I know. You use solar and/or wind. Now look up the environmental costs of producing those. And of mining the special metals needed for the batteries. Or if you're nuked, the costs of mining uranium.
Switching to an EV is not the simple "zero carbon" solution you seem to imagine it to be.
Because building non renewable power doesn't have a carbon cost right? And buying a petrol powered car doesn't have a carbon cost, right?
I'm talking about my commute. The carbon cost of driving to work from my home.
Don't strawman if you want your argument to be taken seriously - because what I read above translates to
The issue with this stance is that it's one of those all-or-nothing points of view. Sure it's better to have good public transportation, but in a lot of places there won't be for the foreseeable future. Sure it's better to use bicycles, but sometimes it's just not an option.
Electric cars won't fix traffic, but for the planet they're still a vast improvement. It's like a viable 95% solution that is dismissed because there might a 100% one somewhere in the next 200 years.
Not it isn't. Every single individual person who decides to live without a car is an improvement. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.
I think they were trying to say that every individual who uses their car less is an improvement.
I live outside Boston, which has among the best transit in the US but it doesn’t take me everywhere. My town is quite walkable but also hilly and with weather. I do choose to walk, or ride the train when I can, but I still need a car. Improving this enough for most prople to dispense with cars will be a very long time. In the meantime, my use of EV, walk, train is a huge improvement of my brother in the Midwest using ICE car for everything
TINY ELECTRIC GO CARTS
Friend and coworker of mine was recently in a deadly accident on her way to work on a scooter. Those vehicles are great but on a road that is still primarily built for cars (and is now inhabited by ever more massive giant pickups) it can be a serious safety risk.
This is really the heart of it. It's an infrastructure problem. Frustratingly, this is the most difficult and time consuming problem to solve.
I've lived in a city with really good transit, and even then, I'd prefer a car if it were affordable here.
Idk why ppl are down voting this, bro is literally just advocating for public transportation
Ig it's all the insecure pickup truck bros
Edit: typos
I think people (not me, I agree with glitchdx, overall) are probably down voting because it's a classic example of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, with a healthy dose of smug mixed in. Smugness is a great dialectical tactic if you hope to entrench people deeper into their views, rather than convince them to consider alternatives through reasoned discussion.
Do I agree that ideally we'd have robust public transit and increased usage of smaller, greener personal transport solutions? Of course I do.
But, incrementalism is progress. Valuable progress. We could argue whether it's more likely to get us to the aforementioned vision of robust public transit or not, but history has proven time and time again that progress takes time and is resisted tooth and nail by monied interests. I don't like it either. I want to wave a wand and have everything change. OP is right. Electric cars are not the solution. But treating symptoms while you work on curing the disease is best practice.
Seems to me that bro is arguing against EVs when that may be the best choice in an individuals control. Even if we’re all for public transportation, that takes years and millions to improve, so EVs may be the best choice available for the time being
Not everyone lives where public transportation is really feasible. He'll EVs aren't even practical where I live.
So we shouldn't bother with it anywhere then?
You're missing the forest for the trees
I never said that, thanks for speaking for me I really appreciate it though. I am simply saying moving away from ICE just isn't feasible everywhere right now.