gemini://bbs.geminispace.org/u/stack/13042

No cars is better than any cars of any kind -- that is true; public transit, density and sensible city planning are much better.

In the meantime, electric cars do offer a reasonable-seeming solution for short suburban commutes with lots of time to recharge, in places where infrastructure is available.

But I still think we are fooling ourselves about pollution (unless we are in Norway or some place that does not use coal). Batteries should not be equated to fuel - they hold fuel. Think of batteries as $20,000 fuel tanks - fuel tanks with holes, losing 15% to 40% of their content with every charge (battery efficiency is far from 100%). The fuel itself comes substantially from the coal-burning plant you can't see, where poor people live.

Add to that all the problems I mentioned - and a bunch I didn't such as extreme weight causing road wear with asociated costs (and pollution); lack of electric infrastructure to support even a small fraction of going full electric; lack of parts, information and repair facilities, extreme cost of simple repairs along with ridiculous cost of battery replacement; proliferation of "you own nothing" add-on monthly charges for features... Not to mention political instabilities and suffering caused by increased mining in poor countries and the likes of Musk with the "we will coup whoever we want" attitudes.

And then there is the fire hazard. If you ever saw a lithium battery fire, you would probably stay as far away from one as possible. Gasoline is nothing compared to lithium, which burns hot and fast releasing toxic fumes, even underwater. A lithium cell ignites on contact with air -- or water, from a small puncture, overheating, or a misadjusted charger; the remaining 500 kilos of lithium will follow seconds later.

There are tons of people faced with tens of thousands of dollars in repair charges from driving in the rain or scraping the bottom of the car while turning around. Or being stuck charging their car for tens of hours with an extension cord during a family vacation. Or waiting for their phone app to refresh, because the car won't charge unless the manufacturer permits. Or having to enter the exact address of where you are charging the car to be allowed to charge.

Elon claims no other person has done more for the environment. More damage, that is. Each Tesla represents a net negative in the fight for a cleaner environment. Tesla would be bankrupt had Biden not inadvertently bailed them out by tripling the money supply and providing free loans. Too bad.

You can make your own decisions - I have no stake in this battle (other than the air I breathe). I hate polluters, and I hate self-promoting psychopaths spouting bullshit, which is why this has been pushing my buttons. I am also sad to see well-meaning people getting caught up in inadvertant bullshit activism while inflicting actual harm to the very cause they are trying to advance.

I wish electric cars solved our problems. Unfortunately they don't; trillions of dollars in subsidies are masking the stark reality that we are just digging a deeper hole while slapping each other on the backs, while the likes of Musk are multiplying their fortunes burning the planet to the ground.

another thing I was thinking of is that all of these are issues because of the sheer mass of humans on this planet. it's all small potatoes if we had about a quarter of the population, but then again, we rely on this fragile infrastructure we've built for ourselves in order to promote progress on a massive scale.

if progress were the only goal we could do it all with way less people. but it's not.

@gritty I disagree with the idea that overpopulation is causing these issues. When a small portion over the global population is responsible for the majority of these issues, painting everyone as responsible is pretty shitty. This is a management issue.

@corscada hmm that's also fair. my apologies. what I was getting at was that with the scale of how many of us there are, small issues are actually large if accounting for lots of people. I wasn't trying to say everyone is responsible for the issues with electric cars.

for example, cars in themselves can be fine, it's just the sheer number of them across the globe, and the fact they are replaced fairly often in certain parts of the world. I agree, though, that if resources were responsibly consumed by all that this would be much less of an issue.

"Replaced fairly often" is a fallacy. Most cars are driven until they fell apart. It's only that this is done by the 2nd, 3rd or 10th owner in a poorer part of the world.

I would like to add that while we argument about how to avoid cars those who profit from the environment depletion laugh at us. Me and you have no choice about owning a car. The alternative is to not have a job or not being able to drive your kids around and probably die statistically earlier alone or homeless. The only sensible action is to help change society to a more "rural", less mobile form, all on a political level; all this while you keep drinving a reasonably good and safe car.

I don't think a car-centric rural model of society is really the way of the future. Better zoning laws and urban development to make living in cities more affordable and more attractive is going to be a key, but also reconceiving the concept of public transportation as a public good rather than a service to be run at a profit will help out significantly outside of urban and suburban areas.

Public transportation, like high speed internet, is only unviable in rural areas because current models are so fixated on them being run as profitable businesses rather than focusing on the good they do for communities. Not every private car can be taken off the road, but many are unnecessary.

If people knew they could walk 10 minutes and catch a bus into town once every 30 minutes or so for a reasonable fee and get where they needed to go, how many would really need to maintain a car, with all its associated costs?

Those who ride 1:15 to work with the bus coming every 30 minutes, while the car drive is about 40 minutes and starts anytime. Both ways. It adds up to 6 hours per week, almost a full working day or the amount of time a healthy person invests in sports every week.

This is a trivial use case. The call for personal sacrifice goes nowhere as it lacks realism. And it's not the we really are that busy: society asks for long working hours; quick intelligent results are not often honoured. What gives? Mobility, family, hobbies.

Better go for a systematic change of opportunities: what if work, the market and the school are all within 20 minutes by foot? That is a change!

I'd like to add that around where I live public transit is seen as unsafe by a lot of people, especially in off hours. Not sure how to change that perception and/or reality.

I failed to mention that insurance rates appear to be much (even several times?) higher for electric cars, according to some reports...

@karel: true, driving is usually faster in many (most?) places. But I've lived in NYC most of my life, where driving is just not an option and public transit is decent, mostly. Millions of New Yorkers just take the subway to/from work. We've learned to spend the time wisely - reading, resting, watching movies on our phones, chatting with strangers (NYC is amazing for casual conversations), or just thinking or daydreaming. Not so bad.

Sure, commuting takes up some time compared to the instant gratificaiton of hopping in your car and driving. As @stack says, you can reclaim some of that time. I think that many people would be quite content to give up the costs associated with car ownership if they had a feasible alternative. To operate a car where I live would cost me a whole month's of my part of the rent, between the car payment, insurance, etc, each month.

Of course, choosing to live in a rurally as you advocate for is also a personal choice. If you don't need to be out in the sticks, you can get more frequent public transportation options in higher density areas, and still have reasonable access to rural areas.

Electric cars: reprise

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