this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
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Fuck Cars
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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.
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.
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
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.
Well, they solve the pollution problem in built-up areas and they solve the CO2 problem if you increase solar and wind power. The one thing they don't solve is the congestion problem.
The congestion problem, the microparticles from tires problem, most of the noise problem, the physical safety for pedestrians and cyclists problem...
Of all the problems with cars in cities, EVs solve one of them (air polution from burning fuels) and that only if the makeup of the generation infrastructure for the electric grid is mainly renewables or nuclear.
The CO2 problem is a pretty big problem to solve, to be fair. I charge my EV at night when the ejection is really cheap because it's nearly all wind power.