Comment by _heimdall
14 hours ago
Electric cars aren't a magic bullet. We need to drive less, not scrap ICE vehicles and buy new electric vehicles made on the other side of the planet with globally sourced materials and shipped to the US.
14 hours ago
Electric cars aren't a magic bullet. We need to drive less, not scrap ICE vehicles and buy new electric vehicles made on the other side of the planet with globally sourced materials and shipped to the US.
Do they have to be a magic bullet?
Switching from ICE to electric is a much smaller ask than switching from personal cars to... bicycles?
Is it really? Electric vehicles require a lot of resources to produce, and those resources are produced globally and shipped overseas multiple times. The batteries are only expected to hold up for 7-10 years, ask my 2014 Volt how the hybrid battery pack is doing.
I get that a change in lifestyle is more difficult for the individual than a change in what we are buying. My point, though, was that only the former is going to have a much greater impact.
Why not encourage people who can reasonably cycle to do so? It's not a magic bullet either, but it's no less magic than EVs.
Why not both? Encourage cycling when possible, and when not, an EV.
Looking at American commute distances however, cycling, even with an e-bike, is likely not a reasonable option.
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With a correspondingly smaller decrease in CO2 output. We're in a Climate Catastrophe on the edge of Global Tipping Points, remember!
Sarcasm aside, I think this is why people have generally stopped caring as much. What we are being asked to do (buy new shiny things for some estimated small percentage decrease in lifecycle CO2 output) does not match the messaging.
FWIW I cycle almost everywhere.
Switching from ICE to electric is a much smaller ask than switching from personal cars to... bicycles?
Bikes are awesome. I do 95% of my trips by bike. It's healthy, cheap, and has very low amortized emissions. Everybody can repair a bike with a small amount of training.
More countries/cities have to do bike-centric road design.
If there was some investment most of us could switch to public transit. The problems people have with transit are mostly around there isn't enough of it to be useful - when /where it is useful people use it.
That's not the full story, you're right that they "could switch", but would they actually?
Good, working and efficient public transit still means having significantly less comfort compared to having your private vehicle. Pretty much the only exception is using the metro in a congested downtown area at peak traffic (still, your metro experience will also be degraded by the peak traffic), or perhaps if parking your vehicle will be very difficult. And i say this as someone in a rather big city in Europe who is currently only using public transit. And there is a lot of stuff that i'd like to do but i can't do since i currently don't have access to a car or motorbike.
People don't just want "useful", at least the majority of people in developed countries also want "comfortable", and "nice", and "easy", and "enjoyable". A peak-hour metro ride or missing your tram by one minute is none of that.
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Switched from driving to biking and my life is 10x better, js
True but also building a new electric car consumes many order of magnitudes more resources (and it will keep consuming them) compared to a bicycle.
But hey, at least you get to keep 99% of your comfort while making 50% less emissions! (if it really is that much).