Electric cars are to save the auto industry, not the environment.
Electric cars are to save the auto industry, not the environment.
184 comments
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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.
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same for norcal, around bayarea, constantly getting the nagging, why arent you driving instead of taking the bus.
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It just sucks if 10 minutes by car/a little more by bike become 45 minutes by public transit, once an hour until 8pm.
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thats a little overexaggerating, at most its takes twice as long depending on which bus and route you are taking.
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Need to pick your battles tbh.
If you tell every driver to give up driving, the planet ain't getting saved.
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Need to pick your battles tbh.
Trump admin cuts $60M for bullet train. Can railway from Dallas to Houston still happen?
The high-speed rail project intended to connect Houston and Dallas in just 90 minutes.
We literally cannot build trains in this country because we self-sabotage every opportunity.
Houston is getting $4B to redo I-45 but can't be spared $60M on state mandated planning for an already established rail route.
This isn't a question of abolishing cars. It's a question of abolishing trains which we appear dead set on doing.
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You can't really expect a man advised by the CEO of the world's most valuable car company to make a decision in favour of public transport.
And frankly the man would cut his own dick off if he thought it would be of use to the poor.
In any case, the real alternative to cars was staring us in the face all through COVID. How many people wake up every day, jump into 2-3 tons of their own personal metal, drive for an hour, only to sit staring at the same screens they were looking at through Remote Desktop for 18 months, then do the same thing to get home?
But we can't have that forever, because fuck us.
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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.
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Nice. A flase dichotomy so the right can cut EV subsidies as well as not spending on public transport.
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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).
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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..
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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You're not wrong, but Sabine Hossenfelder is not a good source for well, anything (except physics, which she has excellent grounding in).
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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 ?
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Still should better than ice but yeah replacing car with another car is hardly solution to anything environmental
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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.
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Particulates are bad, sure, but they're not what's causing climate collapse.
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Climate collapse should more accurately be called global ecological collapse. Emissions are only one part of the problem, and the hyper focus on emissions allows other problems like plastics or habitat destruction to go unsolved. They’re all connected though. Our ability to fight climate change is intricately connected to how healthy the global ecology is.
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Always important to remember in this debate: electrification of transport is not just about carbon and climate. It's about public health, not to mention public sanity.
The filthy noisy combustion engine was never compatible with dense cities, which is where most people live these days. Anyone who has been to one of the few places in the world where urban transport has been completely electrified will testify to the difference it makes to be free of the internal combustion engine. It's night and day.
Let's not lose sight of the wood for the trees.
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Motorway noise won't be reduced by electrification:
Graph: Car noise sources, ICE drivetrain with a notchy transmission.
The little table about cars and trucks compares the crossover speeds above which tyre noise surpasses drivetrain noise.Meaning: The constant traffic roar in the suburbs will continue, because at dual carriageway speed, eliminating drivetrain noise has minuscule effect on total noise.
Urban planning won't be improved:
Heavy metal pollution will be reduced:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1352231012006942
As, Hg and Se exhaust emissions were dominated by fuel combustion while Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn exhaust emissions were dominated by lubricant oil combustion.
Microplastic pollution will increase:
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This is nitpicking.
My point was that electric cars, as a drop-in replacement for ICE cars, increase the quality of life in cities. And substantially.
Go to Shenzhen and you will see what I am talking about.
The overall energy issue is irrelevant to that. The motorway noise issue is irrelevant to that.
Also: the graph you post on particle pollution, with its title "far more particles", is misleading. It refers to tyres specifically. But particles also come from brakes and, of course, combustion. The overall increase is minimal, and very dependent on the speed of the vehicles - which can be reduced in cities.
Particles aside (it's an issue, yes), EVs emit zero gases. They are hugely quieter at lower speeds. The difference it makes in cities is big and real.
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Motorway noise won’t be reduced by electrification.
They will in slow speed zones. Motorcycles are the worst offenders
Urban planning won’t be improved.
Surely, but the image you show depict 2 entirely different situations. Trying to compare them is dumb. It also has serious implications.
Microplastic pollution will increase.
Sure. That's something, but not the only source of pollution.
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I'm failing to see how the first image is relevant. Isnt that comparing cars and trucks, not electric and ICE?
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Are you some kind of source-posting diety? I submit myself for worship
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Let’s not lose sight of the wood for the trees.
I agree.
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You wood say that, wouldn't you?
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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).
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efficient closed loop
you carry oxidizer?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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Kind of, right? That depends on a great many assumptions, and if you adjust them slightly, you get a different result. For example, if the U.S. were to switch from SUVs to small sedans and hatchbacks, the CO2 savings take many more years to obtain.
In other words, OK sure go EV, but the main targets should be what they always were: drive less, and drive small cars. Oh, and don't be fooled into thinking EVs solve a problem when they don't.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Not where these people live. Most conservatives don't live in cities.
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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.
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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.
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Yeah this. It's kinda wacky how serious they are about it.
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I'm not disagreeing with the post, but mass transit is completely non-existent where I live. We have so far to go.
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Sure, some places basically require personal transport. Some of it because it is really rural, some of it because it is build to require cars (which is something that can be changed, although it takes time). The problem with cars being the default for everything in everyones mind is just, that possible alternatives aren't even considered and thus even more car requirements are locked in for decades to come.
You can't get rid of cars, not everywhere and in many places not right now. But you have to start and look for alternative ways to manage things so you can reduce the need over time.
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Don't know where you live, but to put this into perspective: it's the same situation here and I live in The Netherlands (outside of the major cities). Even in a rich, flat country, the size of a post stamp, we cannot make mass transit work outside of larger cities. I agree that we need mass transit, but it's only one solution for the mobility puzzle. Cars also fit in there as a puzzle piece, especially in areas where the population density is lower.
So from my perspective, no, cars aren't just for the rich.
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I also live in the Netherlands and live in a commuter town of 80k inhabitants. There are a lot of bus routes in this town but they are all designed for commuters going to Amsterdam or for people going to the town center. If I want to visit a friend on the other side of town by bus I have to take multiple buses and waste a lot of time on waiting. I usually take the bike when I visit them since that’s faster than going by bus. But if I have to bring lots of things or it’s raining heavily or I know that I’m going home after midnight I take the car, since public transportation is just not a good option to take. Or if I want to visit another town that isn’t on route to Amsterdam it takes me twice as long to get there by bus compared to taking the car. Majority of homes in this town have a car since public transportation or the bike doesn’t satisfy every transportation need they have. And I rather want all these cars to be electric since that is conducive for the air quality.
It’s just not cost effective for a town this size to have dedicated bus routes that connect every corner of town to each other. And it’s even worse for smaller towns.
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It's probably not anywhere near the same situation. I lived a year in Nijmegen in the Netherlands and a year in Duesseldorf in Germany. I've ridden my bike from Duesseldorf to Belgium and back, including rural areas.
Where I live, the nearest bus route is 7km away, and it only goes downtown. I almost never go downtown except for concerts or sporting events, but that bus doesn't run after 6pm.
I can't bike. I've been stuck in this house since the market crash that happened in 2007-2008, I've been here 18 years and in that time I've seen two people try to commute on bikes, they both disappeared after less than a month. I hope they're alive.
I have seen more than a dozen bikes on the roadside in memorial of people who died. It's just deadly for bikes. Tons of huge trucks on narrow curvy lanes with no shoulder, just a ditch. And high speeds.
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well yeah but that’s just because modern western urban planning is kind of absolute shit, it isn’t from some sort of hard limit of means.
china has such extensive public transport that it has become a popular political position to advocate building less high speed rails and shit on both sides of their political aisle.
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Cars also fit in there as a puzzle piece, especially in areas where the population density is lower.
When there's 1 farm per 5 km maybe. In 1920, you could get from Savanah to Boston just by taking trains and streetcars; every neighborhood was served by atleast a tram.
The USSR found it worthwhile to build rail lines to remote settlements, without stops, a few times a day a guy would just drive a 2 train locomotive and stop if he saw anybody.
In some rural parts of Japan, you have lines it's just 1 railroad, and every 20 miles is an unmanned station where it splits into 2 for the trains to pass, for like 10 stations. So you have 200 miles worth of suburbs being served by 40-50 workers running 20 3 car trains, that arrive every 30 minutes or so. The unmanned stations tend to have tons of bikes, they probably have buses too.
Average cost of owning a car per day is 20USD or so. A single railroad line that allows just 1000 people to not pay for a car does not cost 20,000 USD a day to operate. This is not including the cost of road building and maintenance. But even if it did, cheap transit is a public good; transit isn't supposed to be revenue neutral. Roads aren't revenue neutral.
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From my perspective, you have to be rich to drive. The so-called poverty line is now what I and everyone I know aspires to one day reach, but secretly know we won't. If you're not wealthy and you're driving, you have made a choice that demands compromise from every other aspect of your like. Though, likewise with not driving... But you can't be not wealthy AND drive AND be a single parent of three, for example. And since you can't sell the kids, you WILL figure out how to live without a car.
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See how Japan handles that problem: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7ltkiq (jump to 19:42)
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My area has no local bus routes but it does have on demand shuttles via our county's senior services. That doesn't help with commuters or people trying to go shopping or to the doctor etc though. The biggest challenge is for young adults just getting started making low wages but needing to be able to afford housing, food and transportation.
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absolutely. the debate when we were kids, and some, many in the city wanted light rail, which was ultimately voted down. my buddy who lived out in the sticks argued, it wouldn't benefit him way out there. I should have pointed out he already benefits from the sewer and water infrastructure extended to far out communities like his. should have asked him to justify why the city supports him living out there.
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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
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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.
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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
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As long as a majority of Americans live in suburban areas, car dependency will continue.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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True dat. I remember how quick they were to start criticizing remote work. Saying how it isn't fair to the office building owners when people work from home. Less traffic & congestion was probably one of the few upsides of the pandemic to me.
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why not both
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The money wasted in electric car subsidies is much better spent on mass transit and cycling and pedestrianization initiatives, all of which move far more people at much less cost per person. Electric cars are being posited as the solution (as opposed to drastically improved mass transit) because that's the only way auto companies can stay relevant and maintain their supremacy
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Also we should be looking to reduce car use because car infrastructure is incredibly expensive and environmentally destructive.
Electric cars still need ashphault, make tire dust, require salted roads. Roads will still have surface water run off contaminated and artificially heated damaging natural water ways. Roads will need to be repaved more often due to EVs weighing more.
By the end of day, we are barely getting ahead environmentally with EVs if at all. Some EVs like an electric hummer will generate more carbon through their lifecycle (production, use, and disposal) than an ICE compact car.
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It's all about protectionism for an obsolete car industry. If we legalized golf carts, and ATVs, most families in the suburbs would buy one of those. They'd use it for groceries, school runs, dentist appointments, and getting coffee down the street. Their main car would sit idle the majority of time, because it's a hassle to drive a large car. It would make living in suburbia someone more tolerable, as you would see your neighbors more in golf carts.
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thanks, henry. your horrible ideas still echo throughout history to this day. elon's taking notes.
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chinas BYD wouldve destroyed the OVERPRICED ev companies of the us, wish it did.
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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.
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So. This one is complicated.
Part of the issue is that we want to have an auto industry in the US; being utterly dependent on a foreign country for the majority of your transportation isn't a great idea. Yes, the big 3 auto companies should be doing basic electric instead of high-end luxury electric (...that usually doesn't work super well...), but they need to get competitive in that market. Super cheap electric cars from China would undercut the US auto companies so badly that they would likely end up being bankrupted. At that point, Chinese companies could charge whatever the fuck they wanted, because we'd have no options.
And, more than that, the big 3 auto companies directly employ about 600,000 people, and millions more indirectly (as parts suppliers that do nothing but supply the auto companies); losing those companies means losing millions of jobs. And not just jobs, but often union jobs.
There's a certain value in trade agreements, as well as a certain value in protectionist trade policies. But, in this case, it would make more sense for the gov't to take partial ownership of the big 3--through stock purchases--and fund development of competitive EVs. Much like China does through their domestic economic incentives and subsidies.
...And then also fund public transit infrastructure.
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Think tanks say that constantly, what are you talking about?
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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.
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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 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
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You have a very city centric view. And yes this meme does hint at advocating for 0 cars. This is not the only reply you've gotten about this. And I know you guys love to tout the whole "most people live in cities now" while also ignoring the fact that it's just barely half and half of humans in general don't even live in the west. Those in Asian countries have completely different lives and routines to what you would all expect. Most of which do have access to public transit and they still have need of individual transport.
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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.
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bUt oUr pRoFit MaRGiNs!
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Now that people think Musk is a Nazi because of a gesture, electric cars aren't the solution anymore.
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You are conflating two seperate issues.
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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
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The Slate and Aptera are promising smaller and affordable North American EVs.
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Well said.
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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.
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I wish there was some way you could sue the government for doing this.
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Eh, they'd just raise taxes to pay for it.
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Lol
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Your title is correct not the post you linked
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