I mean, while we still have so much car centric infrastructure in the states, they can be a useful transition.
I say this as someone who primarily commutes by bicycle btw. Public transit in my area is piss poor. Unpredictable buses, no light rail. Hell there aren’t even sidewalks everywhere.
My wife recently got a fully electric car, and I support that move. She is not ready to go car free. But at least we are not necessarily burning fossil fuels to power trips to the grocery store. I think the closest power plants to us are nuclear and hydroelectric. Im sure there’s a coal plant in the mix too tho.
Would never give elon a cent of our money though
I think people who commute farish in a car daily should be first to get electric cars, and then people who use cars less than daily for groceries or something, and lastly people like me who drive in the same town once a month or less.
I can’t buy a metro line for my city, I can make sure my next car is electric. Buying an electric car is morally superior to buying a gas car.
You wouldn’t download a metro line. Or would you?
The main attractor to me is that with an electric car, you could theoretically be energy independent. Same goes with an ebike.
Eg, Solar -> battery -> EV/ebike
No need to be relying on rotten dinosaurs dug up out of wherever, with a million middle men and taxes.
I agree with you in spirit, but the reality is you would not actually be energy independent. The parts that you’re talking about, for the car and the batteries and repairing the car, those are going to be produced somehow. So even if your fuel is produced by solar panels, there are still fossil fuels involved in the manufacture of everything. That’s still a massive improvement over burning gas while you drive.
What materials does an electric car require that an electric bike does not?
All stages of the production process can be electrified or done through biofuels
I’m confused. Cars have many components that bicycles lack. We were comparing gas to electric, now we’re comparing vehicle types. OK, but maybe that’s worth a new thread.
In theory all stages could be lots of things. But they are not right now, and they won’t be in the medium run. I’m down with aiming for the future, but it’s not here yet, and we can’t justify current decisions with future contexts.
Are tyres and batteries not the main ones that are harmful to produce?
the bullshit safety and regulatory nonsense
This is basically the philosophy of the Amish. I’ll pass.
I didn’t say you shouldn’t buy any electric car. Maybe you replied to the wrong comment?
Yes, recognizing there is a wider environmental impact than the fuel your vehicle uses means you must give up all technology. What a reasonable conclusion to take from that comment.
Oil and gas has its hooks in almost every facet of our lives unfortunately and our absolute reliance on fossil fuels won’t end even if all our ICE cars were instantaneously converted to EVs. Paints, rubbers, resins, soaps, fibers/clothing, plastics, adhesives, dyes, weaponry, electronic semiconductors, building materials, healthcare/pharmaceuticals, etc are made with oils and gas in process and material. Nearly every part of my “acoustic” bicycle is also made with the help of fossil fuels on top of any used for transport on top of any used to create the food I eat to power it.
Though, 99% reliant on fossil fuels is still better than 100% since that’s about all the power we have as regular people who have no direct say on global or domestic policy.
Exactly we also need to work on materials… Federalizing the legalization of cannabis would go a long way into fixing the materials industry. Plastics need to fully be taken out of the supply chain for packaging, and replaced with biodegradable hemp based plastics. Polyester also needs to be removed from the clothing supply chain. I have several shirts that are hemp cotton blends that are amazing. China is beating is on hemp production… We should be crushing this gap.
It’s better to transition private cars now because that’s going to take years in and of itself and it’s relatively easy and fast to swap out the centralized power plants for greener options later. Swap out one dirty power plant for a green plant and everything electric connected to it is instantly greener in turn.
Even if the US went all in on public infrastructure today, it would still take decades
Not giving any money to Musk though, there are other options.
You’re so right…using electricity to drive here in Texas is so much less carbon intensive than gasoline powered engines it’s not even close. Switching to an EV instantly makes a huge difference in your carbon footprint
@cm0002 @ByteOnBikes yes, but the idea that EV’s solve things makes people think it is okay to not be all in on PT.
And it’s not okay.
Can you point at one person who thinks that?
Or is this whole thing just about making up arguments and then attacking them to sow division between people who would otherwise be united against fossil fuels?
@bstix Elon Musk
Even he is pro-fossil despite his ownership of one of the largest EV manufacturers. I really don’t think his motives are entirely clear. Looking at the Cybertruck I would argue that he’s actually trying to destroy EVs, just as he caused distraction from public transport with his Boring company project. In my opinion, he definitely belongs to the second group, who is arguing and even doing things in bad faith.
To paraphrase Alan Fisher, electric cars fail to solve the biggest problem with cars: The fact that they’re still cars.
I generally agree with this sentiment: fuck cars in general, but we can’t discount the reduction in oil demand associated with EVs. Transportation accounts for 50%ish of total emissions. That’s a big piece of the pie in terms of emissions reduction. Further, storage and reduction don’t translate at a 1:1 ratio. If you reduce, you’re much better off than storing in terms of carbon.
Do we need a much better transportation system? Absofuckingloutley. EVs can help transition, at least in the short term but I see hybrid of trains/buses and micromobility as the path forward
The car industry didn’t want EVs. Much of it still doesn’t
They prefer EVs over public transport.
Yeah, that’s true
No company in the world supports neither EV nor anything eco-friendly and if there ever is it won’t last because of corporate greed
The Chinese are creating a bunch of affordable EVs which could move the dial on climate but the west is generally blocking them via tarrifs
Hey boys, we’ve got a representative for the car industry over here who knows all their secrets!
Come on kaffiene, spill the tea! Is the car industry behind Team NSYNC, or all about Team Backstreet Boys??
Oddly enough your sarcasm doesn’t motivate me to comment. Google is available
buying a tesla feeds the orange
You think the car industry needs saved? How so? Gas or electric, there’s never been a lull in people purchasing cars. Quite the opposite, most of the time. It’s not like cars were on a production decline before ev’s started rolling in and saved the day with the few percentage of car shoppers buying them.
Buy Tesla’s what?
Tesla’s thinking duh
Seems like it’s an outdated opinion, or a pro-ICE car one. Fossil fuel is here to stay and a lot of car maker is slowing down the electric car adaptation and goes into hybrid instead. EV will not save the car industry unless countries ban ICE car, which might be a few decades away globally from actually materialise. There’s still infrastructure lacking for people to charge their car, there’s still battery fire for them to worry about, and there’s still range anxiety.
And despite all that, people who decided to purchase an EV 5 or so years ago does help to push the thing to wider market, and that’s a good thing. Of course it’s better if people swap to multimodal commuting, but right now a lot of places doesn’t have that privilege.
In general, EV alone isn’t gonna save the planet, there’s shit tons of thing to do before we move toward that goal, and EV is part of that thing.
Fossil fuel is here to stay
Um, as a nonrenewable resource, I think we can disagree.
We will run out, and sooner than most people think.
The problem we should be trying to solve is how can we still manufacture things, without fossil fuels?
All the green technology today still depends on fossil fuels in their manufacturing. If we can’t figure out alternatives, and fast, it won’t matter what kind of vehicle you use. Even bikes will be obsolete if you can’t make tires or lubricant.
This is nonsense. We find oil faster than we use it most years, proven reserves have been an upward trend basically forever. If we completely stopped looking for oil we still have about 50 years left at the current rate and we have bigger problems if we haven’t slowed consumption in 50 years.
I didn’t say that we’ll run out in our lifetime, but we will run out. It’s a finite resource.
85% of crude oil is turned into refined fuels, to be burnt, for energy. If we simply go rid of that we would be drastically increasing the supply for non fuel needs. This will both be much better for the environment, and give us a much bigger buffer to create effective alternatives to things like oil based plastics, lubricants, and material processing components.
While I completely agree with you, consumers are slowly moving that way, regulations are slowly moving that way, and costs of fuel will eventually move that way quicker and quicker. Either the car industry listens because people will jump ship to the brands that embrace it or go to the potentially more sustainable and environmentally friendly public transportation. At this point it’s a smart competitive decision to start building the R&D, manufacturing, and supply chains for widespread EVs. You don’t want to be on the back foot when it does become necessity.
Yeah, there is transition but the transition has been slowing down due to lack of demand. People prefer hybrid/plugin than full electric. If the pain point hasn’t been solved, we wouldn’t see too much of a transition in this decade.
Honestly moral superiority needs to get taken out of climate change as a whole. It’s a global issue that needs political solutions. Nobody’s individual actions are gonna change their nation’s heating systems from gas, grids energy make up to solar, or billionaires to climate activists.
@houseofleft @ByteOnBikes political solutions in democracies occur when the consensus flips from one view to another: the individual action needed is to reduce your own #carbonfootprint as best you can, discuss your views sensitively with family and friends and vote. Societal attitudes change quite quickly, eg acceptance of same-sex marriages, so there is no reason why attitudes towards the #climatecatastrophe may not shift favourably and drive political change
so says br***sh petroleum anyways, straight up complete ahistorical bullshit, actually learn some history just once just fucking once, acid rain didnt get fucking fixed because “CoNsUmErS dEcIdEd To Be ReSpOnSiBlE aNd StOoPeD bUyInG tHiNgS wHiCh ReSuLtEd In SuLfUr PoLlUtIoN” it got fixed because governments around the world pushed by organized demands from working people lead by scientists made it illegal to not use filters that would capture the sulfur, the ozone hole, remember that? u know how it got fixed it fucking wasnt because “CoNsUmErS dEcIdEd To Be ReSpOnSiBlE aNd StOoPeD bUyInG tHiNgS wItH oZoNe EaTiNg ReFrIgErAnTs In ThEm” it was solved because governments were forced by the people to issue policy that banned the use of such refrigerant. And the story is the same with water, and air pollution, and with basically everything else.
But now when it comes to the most important fight for our survival and the preservation of our environment were are supposed each individually do our bit and buy the right thing, FUCK OFF with ur fossil fuel propaganda, we will NEVER win this fight if we are reduce to mere “CoNsUmErS”.
@linkhidalgogato it seems I stand corrected…
Yes, for sure!! I hope my call for policitcal action didn’t come across as “don’t do anything and wait for politicians to sort it out!”.
I was trying to get at the need for collective discussion and action, over the idea of a climate change fix that’s based on people’s feeling superior for their individual actions, especially because without political change, a lot of even the individual changes we need to make (more heatpumps, EVs over ICEs, etc) are only accessible to those with sufficient wealth.
Not everyone runs on moral superiority.
As an EV owner, and I approve this message
Cars, car infrastructure, people preferring to live far out and drive to work – those are choices that can be made individually and collectively in a society-respecting way.
Driving an ICE car is a choice that affects the entire planet. When you do that, you’re doing something immoral no matter what.
Driving electric essentially illuminates the most immoral aspect of the entire driving your car thing. It is a moraly superior choice, and you should feel good about it.
And now that we removed “if we all drive the world will end” from the discussion, we can in a civilized manner discuss and decide how many cars and where do we want.
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Oh, sorry, this is lemmy, lemme quickly correct myself: burn every Tesla you see to stick it to the billionaires! Revolution starts today!
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…wtf does Tesla have to do with the military industrial complex? Are you just saying words?
It’s funny that you accidentally brought up a more interesting point. If we decided that every adult in the world should own a car, starting tomorrow, there would be massive problems with resources such as gasoline, roads, batteries, electricity. It really would not scale up very well.
