7 ms·

Maybe that would be a good thing? Without need for parking, commercial districts could get denser and denser, and people could have nice large homes far away f

by JeffL 10y ago

Maybe that would be a good thing? Without need for parking, commercial districts could get denser and denser, and people could have nice large homes far away for cheaper than ever. If the cars aren't causing pollution or gridlock, what's so bad about living in the suburbs?

wahnfrieden 10y ago
>If the cars aren't causing pollution There's the rub
seanp2k2 10y ago
Electric cars cause pollution; they run on mostly coal or natural gas and have very toxic-to-mine, manufacture, and dispose-of batteries. They also emit just as much particulate emissions as normal cars: http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/electric-car-particulate-matter/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/electric-car-particulate-m... The way to "save the planet" is to not drive. Driving a 5000# vehicle around thinking you're doing good for the environment is just the marketing genius of the car industry in 2016.
- maratd 10y ago
  > have very toxic-to-mine, manufacture, and dispose-of batteries. This is absolutely false. Lithium is not toxic to mine at all. It isn't even "mined". http://cleantechnica.com/2016/05/12/lithium-mining-vs-oil-sands-meme-thorough-response/ http://cleantechnica.com/2016/05/12/lithium-mining-vs-oil-sa... > Electric cars cause pollution They cause zero pollution when you have solar panels on your roof and the car is properly scrapped after you're done with it. > The way to "save the planet" is to not drive. This is silly and impractical.
  - eyelidlessness 10y ago
    > They cause zero pollution when you have solar panels on your roof and the car is properly scrapped after you're done with it. Unless you factor in manufacturing.
    - maratd 10y ago
      Why? If you're recycling/biodegrading 100% of the old vehicle and producing the new with solar energy, you should have zero pollution.
  - ams6110 10y ago
    There's more than lithium in the batteries, and other components such as Cobalt or Arsenic are not exactly nontoxic. On balance however, lithium ion batteries are less toxic than alternatives. Realistically, at present most EV owners will not charge their cars from solar panels but from the utility mains and that means coal-generated electricity in many if not most areas. Car manufacturing involves a tremendous investment of energy to mine and produce steel, aluminum, rubber, plastics, and electronics. Recycling itself consumes more energy, and in many cases raw virgin product is cheaper than recycled. Not driving is impractical. Driving less, when possible, is worth considering. Right now if you need to buy a car, the most environmentally friendly choice is probably a used (no new manufacturing) fuel-efficient conventional car.
    - ChuckMcM 10y ago
      It is perhaps an artifact of the bay area but there are many many Tesla vehicles here and many of them seem to use the superchargers for charging[1]. But the question of pollution and CO2 comparisons between ICE vehicles and electric ones, comes down firmly on the side of the electric vehicles (for the case of California at least). The thermal efficiency of converting gas to electricity is over 47% and the closest an ICE can come is about 38%. Lots of additional information from the EIA here [2]. [1] A friend of mine who owns one said the only thing worse than the 20 minute charge time is waiting 20 minutes to plug into an available spot. [2] http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/pdf/sec17.pdf http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/pdf/sec17.pdf
      - ams6110 10y ago
        It probably is, because there are no superchargers within 100 miles of where I live, and perhaps not coincidentally, Teslas are a very rare sight.
      - sah2ed 10y ago
        > [1] A friend of mine who owns one said the only thing worse than the 20 minute charge time is waiting 20 minutes to plug into an available spot. Actually it would be a lot more efficient if your friend charged at home or at work rather than drive all the way to a supercharger station. You would do well to point your friend to this PSA [1] by Elon Musk and J B Straubel during the Q&A at Tesla's shareholder meeting some months ago. [1] https://youtu.be/O1aPRKSuXr0?t=650 https://youtu.be/O1aPRKSuXr0?t=650
  - wycx 10y ago
    In addition to bainal brines, lithium is also produced by mining spodumene from pegmatites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spodumene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spodumene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegmatite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegmatite
- billh 10y ago
  >Electric cars cause pollution; they run on mostly coal or natural gas. There's also a ton of energy going into the cracking of crude into its constitutions parts before it even enters the supply chain for use in ICE vehicle. Further, centralized power generation does a much better job at filtering and removing toxic elements from its discharge stream than gasoline/diesel vehicles filtering mechanisms do. Notwithstanding the above, fossil fuel electric plants can be removed from the grid and replaced by cleaner energy solutions without having to replace or modify the consuming vehicle.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- threatofrain 10y ago
  It's not a requirement that electric vehicles principally derive energy from fossil fuel infrastructure. Electric vehicles are the most flexible vehicles in terms of dependence on any specific energy source or infrastructure. In Germany, solar power is much more widespread, and so it is more likely that a German electric vehicle user would be riding in a vehicle charged from solar power. This is not to say anything about solar power or Germany, but rather to speak to the flexibility of the electric vehicle. Electric vehicles can depend on an infrastructure running on nuclear energy, or anything else, making it extremely adaptive to the ecological and energy needs of the future. On the other hand, traditional combustion engine vehicles absolutely depend on fossil fuels, and they depend on a massive infrastructure that is specific to supplying fossil fuels. For a traditional combustion vehicle to shed its utter dependence on fossil fuels would mean finding an alternative and abundant fuel source to combust, and even then it would require a highly specific infrastructure to deliver those alternative fuels.
- Zigurd 10y ago
  When vehicles don't crash, they don't have to be crashworthy, and don't have to weigh two tons. That, in turn will cut particulate emissions from brakes and tires, and cut the environmental impact of manufacturing inputs.
beambot 10y ago
Or better yet: Reclaim parking lots and roadways and turn them into urban green spaces and parks!
- agumonkey 10y ago
  There were plans in the past of subterrain roads/tunnels so cities would be a place to live, not to move.
gozur88 10y ago
>Without need for parking, commercial districts could get denser and denser, and people could have nice large homes far away for cheaper than ever. If people are living farther away from their jobs, you're likely to get more congestion, not less.
- nindalf 10y ago
  If this scenario has a majority of cars autonomously driven, congestion is less of a problem. The cars would cooperate to solve congestion issues that individual human drivers struggle with. Also, as a passenger you're probably sleeping or being productive within the car, so the increased commute time is less of a problem.
  - Tiktaalik 10y ago
    > The cars would cooperate to solve congestion issues that individual human drivers struggle with. Does this effect overcome the added amount of cars on the road from people who can now drive that wouldn't be able to before? I'm skeptical.
    - gozur88 10y ago
      That was my point. If I buy a van that drives itself I can tolerate much longer commutes - I'll just put a bed in the back and sleep my way to work. So what if it takes three hours. Incidentally, I was talking with a government transportation engineer recently, and that's what keeps them up at night - trips that are too long or just too inconvenient today become doable with self driving cars.
- kevan 10y ago
  Theoretically autonomous cars will decrease congestion through better driving patterns and maybe coordinating with each other, meaning we could support a lot more traffic with the infrastructure we already have.
  - ams6110 10y ago
eyelidlessness 10y ago
Suburbs destroy public life, create anxiety and a sense of atomization, and turn natural spaces into scar tissue. Even if you could perfect transportation technology, suburbs are the least optimal configuration for humans to live in the world.
- ams6110 10y ago
  I like living in the suburbs. Dense urban areas create anxiety for me.
- int_19h 10y ago
  Dense urban areas create anxiety for me, while suburbs give the nice quiet retreat with plenty of open space, and no random annoyances. I bet I'm not alone in this. Don't assume that your subjective personal experiences translate to everyone. Here's a question for you. If suburbs are "the least optimal configuration", then why did urban sprawl occur in the first place? Why did so many people leave the cities and sought bigger homes on wider lots?
  - jacalata 10y ago
    Tragedy of the commons.
    - int_19h 10y ago
      This would imply that there isn't enough space for everyone. Is that true, though? It feels like most dense concentrations of people are created artificially - either directly through borders (e.g. Haiti vs Dominican Republic), or indirectly through economic limitations (have to live close to where jobs are and commute is too expensive etc). If so, then this is a solvable problem. One other point I wanted to address. One negative side of sprawl is how it affects natural environments - but, again, does it really have to, or do we do it just because it's the easiest and cheapest way to implement it? It feels like living less densely could actually be beneficial for the environment if done right, compared to the cities. Consider: a metropolis will always carve a chunk out of nature and replace it with a dense grid of roads around high rises, completely ruining the ecological system in the affected area - heck, our cities even have their own microclimates now, because of how much heat we pump out at once in a single place. On the other hand, a single residence does not have a significant impact; and if you space them out sufficiently, you can preserve the original environment in that space between. Infrastructure is trickier and more invasive, but we've seen some trends towards more localization recently (e.g. with residential solar, composting etc). Who knows, perhaps we can actually make this description from "The Diamond Age" a reality? "The prevailing architecture here, among those who had not adopted neo-Victorian precepts, was distinctly subterranean; as if these people were somehow ashamed of their own humanity and could not bear to fell even a handful of the immense Douglas firs that marched monotonously up the tumbling slopes toward the frozen, sodden ridge of the Cascades. Even when it was half buried, a house wasn't even a proper house; it was an association of modules, scattered about here and there and connected by breezeways or tunnels."

by JeffL 10y ago

wahnfrieden 10y ago

>If the cars aren't causing pollution There's the rub

seanp2k2 10y ago

Electric cars cause pollution; they run on mostly coal or natural gas and have very toxic-to-mine, manufacture, and dispose-of batteries. They also emit just as much particulate emissions as normal cars: http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/electric-car-particulate-matter/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/electric-car-particulate-m... The way to "save the planet" is to not drive. Driving a 5000# vehicle around thinking you're doing good for the environment is just the marketing genius of the car industry in 2016.

maratd 10y ago
> have very toxic-to-mine, manufacture, and dispose-of batteries. This is absolutely false. Lithium is not toxic to mine at all. It isn't even "mined". http://cleantechnica.com/2016/05/12/lithium-mining-vs-oil-sands-meme-thorough-response/ http://cleantechnica.com/2016/05/12/lithium-mining-vs-oil-sa... > Electric cars cause pollution They cause zero pollution when you have solar panels on your roof and the car is properly scrapped after you're done with it. > The way to "save the planet" is to not drive. This is silly and impractical.
- eyelidlessness 10y ago
  > They cause zero pollution when you have solar panels on your roof and the car is properly scrapped after you're done with it. Unless you factor in manufacturing.
  - maratd 10y ago
    Why? If you're recycling/biodegrading 100% of the old vehicle and producing the new with solar energy, you should have zero pollution.
- ams6110 10y ago
  There's more than lithium in the batteries, and other components such as Cobalt or Arsenic are not exactly nontoxic. On balance however, lithium ion batteries are less toxic than alternatives. Realistically, at present most EV owners will not charge their cars from solar panels but from the utility mains and that means coal-generated electricity in many if not most areas. Car manufacturing involves a tremendous investment of energy to mine and produce steel, aluminum, rubber, plastics, and electronics. Recycling itself consumes more energy, and in many cases raw virgin product is cheaper than recycled. Not driving is impractical. Driving less, when possible, is worth considering. Right now if you need to buy a car, the most environmentally friendly choice is probably a used (no new manufacturing) fuel-efficient conventional car.
  - ChuckMcM 10y ago
    It is perhaps an artifact of the bay area but there are many many Tesla vehicles here and many of them seem to use the superchargers for charging[1]. But the question of pollution and CO2 comparisons between ICE vehicles and electric ones, comes down firmly on the side of the electric vehicles (for the case of California at least). The thermal efficiency of converting gas to electricity is over 47% and the closest an ICE can come is about 38%. Lots of additional information from the EIA here [2]. [1] A friend of mine who owns one said the only thing worse than the 20 minute charge time is waiting 20 minutes to plug into an available spot. [2] http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/pdf/sec17.pdf http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/pdf/sec17.pdf
    - ams6110 10y ago
      It probably is, because there are no superchargers within 100 miles of where I live, and perhaps not coincidentally, Teslas are a very rare sight.
    - sah2ed 10y ago
      > [1] A friend of mine who owns one said the only thing worse than the 20 minute charge time is waiting 20 minutes to plug into an available spot. Actually it would be a lot more efficient if your friend charged at home or at work rather than drive all the way to a supercharger station. You would do well to point your friend to this PSA [1] by Elon Musk and J B Straubel during the Q&A at Tesla's shareholder meeting some months ago. [1] https://youtu.be/O1aPRKSuXr0?t=650 https://youtu.be/O1aPRKSuXr0?t=650
- wycx 10y ago
  In addition to bainal brines, lithium is also produced by mining spodumene from pegmatites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spodumene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spodumene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegmatite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegmatite
billh 10y ago
>Electric cars cause pollution; they run on mostly coal or natural gas. There's also a ton of energy going into the cracking of crude into its constitutions parts before it even enters the supply chain for use in ICE vehicle. Further, centralized power generation does a much better job at filtering and removing toxic elements from its discharge stream than gasoline/diesel vehicles filtering mechanisms do. Notwithstanding the above, fossil fuel electric plants can be removed from the grid and replaced by cleaner energy solutions without having to replace or modify the consuming vehicle.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
threatofrain 10y ago
It's not a requirement that electric vehicles principally derive energy from fossil fuel infrastructure. Electric vehicles are the most flexible vehicles in terms of dependence on any specific energy source or infrastructure. In Germany, solar power is much more widespread, and so it is more likely that a German electric vehicle user would be riding in a vehicle charged from solar power. This is not to say anything about solar power or Germany, but rather to speak to the flexibility of the electric vehicle. Electric vehicles can depend on an infrastructure running on nuclear energy, or anything else, making it extremely adaptive to the ecological and energy needs of the future. On the other hand, traditional combustion engine vehicles absolutely depend on fossil fuels, and they depend on a massive infrastructure that is specific to supplying fossil fuels. For a traditional combustion vehicle to shed its utter dependence on fossil fuels would mean finding an alternative and abundant fuel source to combust, and even then it would require a highly specific infrastructure to deliver those alternative fuels.
Zigurd 10y ago
When vehicles don't crash, they don't have to be crashworthy, and don't have to weigh two tons. That, in turn will cut particulate emissions from brakes and tires, and cut the environmental impact of manufacturing inputs.

beambot 10y ago

Or better yet: Reclaim parking lots and roadways and turn them into urban green spaces and parks!

agumonkey 10y ago
There were plans in the past of subterrain roads/tunnels so cities would be a place to live, not to move.

gozur88 10y ago

>Without need for parking, commercial districts could get denser and denser, and people could have nice large homes far away for cheaper than ever. If people are living farther away from their jobs, you're likely to get more congestion, not less.

nindalf 10y ago
If this scenario has a majority of cars autonomously driven, congestion is less of a problem. The cars would cooperate to solve congestion issues that individual human drivers struggle with. Also, as a passenger you're probably sleeping or being productive within the car, so the increased commute time is less of a problem.
- Tiktaalik 10y ago
  > The cars would cooperate to solve congestion issues that individual human drivers struggle with. Does this effect overcome the added amount of cars on the road from people who can now drive that wouldn't be able to before? I'm skeptical.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    That was my point. If I buy a van that drives itself I can tolerate much longer commutes - I'll just put a bed in the back and sleep my way to work. So what if it takes three hours. Incidentally, I was talking with a government transportation engineer recently, and that's what keeps them up at night - trips that are too long or just too inconvenient today become doable with self driving cars.
kevan 10y ago
Theoretically autonomous cars will decrease congestion through better driving patterns and maybe coordinating with each other, meaning we could support a lot more traffic with the infrastructure we already have.
- ams6110 10y ago

eyelidlessness 10y ago

Suburbs destroy public life, create anxiety and a sense of atomization, and turn natural spaces into scar tissue. Even if you could perfect transportation technology, suburbs are the least optimal configuration for humans to live in the world.

ams6110 10y ago
I like living in the suburbs. Dense urban areas create anxiety for me.
int_19h 10y ago
Dense urban areas create anxiety for me, while suburbs give the nice quiet retreat with plenty of open space, and no random annoyances. I bet I'm not alone in this. Don't assume that your subjective personal experiences translate to everyone. Here's a question for you. If suburbs are "the least optimal configuration", then why did urban sprawl occur in the first place? Why did so many people leave the cities and sought bigger homes on wider lots?
- jacalata 10y ago
  Tragedy of the commons.
  - int_19h 10y ago
    This would imply that there isn't enough space for everyone. Is that true, though? It feels like most dense concentrations of people are created artificially - either directly through borders (e.g. Haiti vs Dominican Republic), or indirectly through economic limitations (have to live close to where jobs are and commute is too expensive etc). If so, then this is a solvable problem. One other point I wanted to address. One negative side of sprawl is how it affects natural environments - but, again, does it really have to, or do we do it just because it's the easiest and cheapest way to implement it? It feels like living less densely could actually be beneficial for the environment if done right, compared to the cities. Consider: a metropolis will always carve a chunk out of nature and replace it with a dense grid of roads around high rises, completely ruining the ecological system in the affected area - heck, our cities even have their own microclimates now, because of how much heat we pump out at once in a single place. On the other hand, a single residence does not have a significant impact; and if you space them out sufficiently, you can preserve the original environment in that space between. Infrastructure is trickier and more invasive, but we've seen some trends towards more localization recently (e.g. with residential solar, composting etc). Who knows, perhaps we can actually make this description from "The Diamond Age" a reality? "The prevailing architecture here, among those who had not adopted neo-Victorian precepts, was distinctly subterranean; as if these people were somehow ashamed of their own humanity and could not bear to fell even a handful of the immense Douglas firs that marched monotonously up the tumbling slopes toward the frozen, sodden ridge of the Cascades. Even when it was half buried, a house wasn't even a proper house; it was an association of modules, scattered about here and there and connected by breezeways or tunnels."