5 ms·

Electric cars are doing fine. ICE cars apparently aren't, despite the low oil prices. Just have a look at recent news about Ford, Tesla, Volkswagen, Audi...

adrianN 7y ago
If we want to stay below 2° we need to completely stop selling ICE cars in the next few years. I don't see that happening.
- pedrocr 7y ago
  We need to put a price on carbon and let the economy figure out how to adjust. Trying to set piecemeal policies like stop selling X product in Y time is not feasible. We already have a method by which to coordinate globally, trying to invent a new one for this won't work.
  - adrianN 7y ago
    I agree, but I don't see a (sufficiently high) price of carbon coming either.
  - neltnerb 7y ago
    Unfortunately I think it's too late for a carbon tax. Regulations are the only thing that we know works and can possibly work on the time scale required. Market forces would have maybe had time to work ten years ago... Edit: To quote unattributed from a friend that does this stuff for work, I don't think they'll mind as long as their name isn't attached: "I think it’s a distraction from more effective policy. Emission standards like CAFE have worked better than carbon taxes have and also have caused zero national protests in France. Decarbonizing is an infrastructure replacement problem, which is capital intensive. It needs solutions that encourage, subsidize, and mandate green capital investment. Carbon taxes affects capital decisions at the discount rates of corporations (10%) or consumers (20%ish), which gives them a short time horizon. They also don’t really kick the green tech adoption laggards in the butt enough to get to 99% decarbonization."
    - kolinko 7y ago
      if’s not too late if you make carbon tax equal to the cost of carbon capture. for coal power plants it would be just 30% extra
      - neltnerb 7y ago
        This is what I thought several months ago, but my friend convinced me otherwise. Targeted strategies like energy standards for light bulbs or CAFE standards for vehicles have actual data demonstrating that they work and work quickly. To clarify, I'm not saying "no carbon tax" but rather "carbon tax is insufficient because the time scale is too short". This is an opinion piece, but it is the national academy of sciences at least. https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/117/16/8664.full.pdf https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/117/16/8664.full.pdf
- close04 7y ago
  Or manufacture fewer cars in general and migrate as much as possible to alternative means of transportation (public transport, cycling, even car sharing, etc.) since these can have a far cleaner lifecycle. Even if you mostly keep it in the garage your car (EV or ICE) will have a hefty contribution to global emissions at least due to the end to end manufacturing process. We are manufacturing ~100 million cars per year. The US has ~2 cars per household and ~0.8 cars per inhabitant [0]. The EU has ~0.5 cars per inhabitant [1]. And the necessary infrastructure to support the estimated 1 billion cars around the world also has a huge impact. Switching to EVs is a step forward but as long as we convince ourselves that owning 2 EV saved the planet we're not actually tackling the issue. If we want to reduce carbon then all we have to do is tax it accordingly. Include it in the price of everything. Your car, home, food, roads, etc. Nobody considers the carbon impact of building a 400sqft / 350mp home today, the lawn, the asphalted driveway, etc. They'll build it, drive a Prius or a Model X, and sleep thinking they save the world one car at a time. Include the carbon tax in the price and some may reconsider. [0] https://www.autonews.com/article/20180123/MOBILITY/180129900/study-shows-rise-in-u-s-vehicle-ownership-per-person-household https://www.autonews.com/article/20180123/MOBILITY/180129900... [1] https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/size-of-the-vehicle-fleet/size-of-the-vehicle-fleet-10 https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/size-of-t...
  - bpizzi 7y ago
    > Nobody considers the carbon impact of building a 400sqft / 350mp home today, the lawn, the asphalted driveway, etc. They'll build it, drive a Prius or a Model X, and sleep thinking they save the world one car at a time. There may be a big difference thought: you build your home once or twice per lifetime (even less if we look at it on a macro POV), whereas you spit C02 in the atmosphere every single day by commuting to work. I won't do the math, but I'd bet the second scenario as a far more CO2 cost that the first one.
    - close04 7y ago
      My point was that people literally do not think of the impact of their other actions because all they see around them is "buy an EV to save the climate and show you care". The average new passenger ICE car puts out ~120g CO2 per Km (a smaller car/engine even less). [0] At EU's 12000Km/year driving average that's <1.5t CO2/year. A house (in the UK but likely representative) is estimated to generate 50-80t of CO2 to be built. [1][2] One can assume that since building a house is already very expensive very few will actively use the even more expensive "greener" materials and construction methods. The lifetime footprint will also be considerable between watering the lawn, heating the house, keeping the lights on, etc. And living in a suburb means you'll pretty much have to use a car because public transport can never efficiently cover spread out neighborhoods of individual houses. I've read estimates that an ICE generates ~24t CO2 over its lifecycle while an EV generates ~18t. A hefty 25% reduction but still considerable. Yet all you hear is "buy an EV" because manufacturers push for it and people like their status symbol and virtue signaling. Their other actions contradict their purported intention of trying to clean up. The charitable interpretation is that people don't understand how things contribute to pollution and the media coverage of EVs does little to dispel that. If you want to tackle CO2 emissions one of the best ways is to include the tax in every product and service according to its share of emissions. *Full disclosure, I drive a small ICE car to the tune of ~0.5t CO2/year. And while this will change soon I am fully aware I am not saving anything but my public image even if my overall carbon footprint is likely way below average. [0] https://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/average-co2-emissions-from-new https://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/average-co2-emissions-f... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/oct/14/carbon-footprint-house https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20... [2] https://citu.co.uk/citu-live/what-is-the-carbon-footprint-of-a-house https://citu.co.uk/citu-live/what-is-the-carbon-footprint-of...
- lazyjones 7y ago
  It won't happen, that's right. And people will start reconsidering these arbitrary goals.
- Cthulhu_ 7y ago
  Transportation is 28% of greenhouse gas emissions in the US [1]; this includes cars, trucks, ships, trains, and planes, but the EPA source does not have a breakdown of it. But my point stands: while yes, the amount of ICE cars should be reduced, it'll have a relatively low impact. All of the areas in [1] should find ways to lower their emissions footprint. There are companies building trucks using renewables, but it'll take a long time (and development, and likely financial incentives) before the current active truck population has been converted. And there isn't a viable solution for flying yet. Trains could run on renewables but that would require a massive overhaul of the US infrastructure, and it wouldn't be able to compete with flying (in terms of time, capacity, price) if you go across the country, even if it's a high speed train / maglev / hyperloop system. Tldr, don't stare yourself blind on just one aspect, and definitely don't start blaming the individuals, they can't make an impact even if they all change their ways - it's big companies, industries, etc, things at scale that need to have an overhaul. [1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...
  - adrianN 7y ago
    28% is huge. If there were a small handful of things we could change that would stop climate change, it wouldn't be such a big problem. Even if it were 100 1% things, it would still be relatively easy.
- qqssccfftt 7y ago
  If we want to stay below 2 degrees we need to stop selling cars.
  - atom058 7y ago
    I love in a larger city in Sweden with Well-functioning public transport and where they have made it more difficult to travel by car in much of the inner city. But still, there are so many cars going around! Hundreds and hundreds of cars, travelling the same routes everyday. I'm starting to become frustrated with people around my age that keep moving to the suburbs; essentially making it mandatory for them to own cars for decades to come. One friend even moved to a another city about 50km away: he commutes by car from there. It is just insanity. I don't think we have the luxury for everyone to have their own cars anymore. We should stop selling them (both EV and ICE). There is also such a disconnect between what people say and do. They'll do some recycling and eat a bit less meat and feel satisfied that they are helping. But at the same time, they go to work by car, fly between major cities, think that New Zealand would be a great vacation spot, and buy new phones, TVs and clothes as often as they can. The "corona lifestyle", where people work from home, consume less and stop all international travel is a start. But if course, with this solution there would be a lot of economic hardship as well (as we can see now). It feels a bit hopeless sometimes. Like we already lost, but we just haven't realized it yet.
- jeffdavis 7y ago
  I do. Electric cars are already better for a lot of urban/suburban lifestyles. A few tech improvements will make them so much better that many ICE cars in these areas will have negative utility. Tons of high-quality used cars will hit the market, driving the price close to zero, and eliminating the new ICE market (why buy a $30K new ICE car when you can get a used ICE car that's almost as good for $5K?).
- marcosdumay 7y ago
  Or do active capture after we migrate the electrical grid to renewables.
IAmEveryone 7y ago
The one news item about Tesla I've heard of is that Elon Musk has gone full "LIBERTY & DEATH!", including something close to the sort of nervous Twitter breakdown that seems to be the (literal!) rage among people in leadership positions these days. While Musk always had this strange quirk where he's both supremely successful and prone to superficial, belligerent forwards-from-grandpa-style opinions on unrelated matters, his current state seems distinctly worse than ever before. My theory is that Tesla is hurting really bad under the current circumstances, putting enormous pressure on him. Tesla also has the problem that, unlike traditional car manufacturers, they don't have much of a lobby in Washington to bail them out, especially under the current administration. And even in California, they probably have neither the numbers nor the strong unions with long-established political power that GM has in and around Michigan. Plus California has far more other business further diminishing Tesla's standing in comparison.
- sitkack 7y ago
  Unironic how the lack of a union puts the company a greater risk of collapse.

adrianN 7y ago

If we want to stay below 2° we need to completely stop selling ICE cars in the next few years. I don't see that happening.

pedrocr 7y ago
We need to put a price on carbon and let the economy figure out how to adjust. Trying to set piecemeal policies like stop selling X product in Y time is not feasible. We already have a method by which to coordinate globally, trying to invent a new one for this won't work.
- adrianN 7y ago
  I agree, but I don't see a (sufficiently high) price of carbon coming either.
- neltnerb 7y ago
  Unfortunately I think it's too late for a carbon tax. Regulations are the only thing that we know works and can possibly work on the time scale required. Market forces would have maybe had time to work ten years ago... Edit: To quote unattributed from a friend that does this stuff for work, I don't think they'll mind as long as their name isn't attached: "I think it’s a distraction from more effective policy. Emission standards like CAFE have worked better than carbon taxes have and also have caused zero national protests in France. Decarbonizing is an infrastructure replacement problem, which is capital intensive. It needs solutions that encourage, subsidize, and mandate green capital investment. Carbon taxes affects capital decisions at the discount rates of corporations (10%) or consumers (20%ish), which gives them a short time horizon. They also don’t really kick the green tech adoption laggards in the butt enough to get to 99% decarbonization."
  - kolinko 7y ago
    if’s not too late if you make carbon tax equal to the cost of carbon capture. for coal power plants it would be just 30% extra
    - neltnerb 7y ago
      This is what I thought several months ago, but my friend convinced me otherwise. Targeted strategies like energy standards for light bulbs or CAFE standards for vehicles have actual data demonstrating that they work and work quickly. To clarify, I'm not saying "no carbon tax" but rather "carbon tax is insufficient because the time scale is too short". This is an opinion piece, but it is the national academy of sciences at least. https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/117/16/8664.full.pdf https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/117/16/8664.full.pdf
close04 7y ago
Or manufacture fewer cars in general and migrate as much as possible to alternative means of transportation (public transport, cycling, even car sharing, etc.) since these can have a far cleaner lifecycle. Even if you mostly keep it in the garage your car (EV or ICE) will have a hefty contribution to global emissions at least due to the end to end manufacturing process. We are manufacturing ~100 million cars per year. The US has ~2 cars per household and ~0.8 cars per inhabitant [0]. The EU has ~0.5 cars per inhabitant [1]. And the necessary infrastructure to support the estimated 1 billion cars around the world also has a huge impact. Switching to EVs is a step forward but as long as we convince ourselves that owning 2 EV saved the planet we're not actually tackling the issue. If we want to reduce carbon then all we have to do is tax it accordingly. Include it in the price of everything. Your car, home, food, roads, etc. Nobody considers the carbon impact of building a 400sqft / 350mp home today, the lawn, the asphalted driveway, etc. They'll build it, drive a Prius or a Model X, and sleep thinking they save the world one car at a time. Include the carbon tax in the price and some may reconsider. [0] https://www.autonews.com/article/20180123/MOBILITY/180129900/study-shows-rise-in-u-s-vehicle-ownership-per-person-household https://www.autonews.com/article/20180123/MOBILITY/180129900... [1] https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/size-of-the-vehicle-fleet/size-of-the-vehicle-fleet-10 https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/size-of-t...
- bpizzi 7y ago
  > Nobody considers the carbon impact of building a 400sqft / 350mp home today, the lawn, the asphalted driveway, etc. They'll build it, drive a Prius or a Model X, and sleep thinking they save the world one car at a time. There may be a big difference thought: you build your home once or twice per lifetime (even less if we look at it on a macro POV), whereas you spit C02 in the atmosphere every single day by commuting to work. I won't do the math, but I'd bet the second scenario as a far more CO2 cost that the first one.
  - close04 7y ago
    My point was that people literally do not think of the impact of their other actions because all they see around them is "buy an EV to save the climate and show you care". The average new passenger ICE car puts out ~120g CO2 per Km (a smaller car/engine even less). [0] At EU's 12000Km/year driving average that's <1.5t CO2/year. A house (in the UK but likely representative) is estimated to generate 50-80t of CO2 to be built. [1][2] One can assume that since building a house is already very expensive very few will actively use the even more expensive "greener" materials and construction methods. The lifetime footprint will also be considerable between watering the lawn, heating the house, keeping the lights on, etc. And living in a suburb means you'll pretty much have to use a car because public transport can never efficiently cover spread out neighborhoods of individual houses. I've read estimates that an ICE generates ~24t CO2 over its lifecycle while an EV generates ~18t. A hefty 25% reduction but still considerable. Yet all you hear is "buy an EV" because manufacturers push for it and people like their status symbol and virtue signaling. Their other actions contradict their purported intention of trying to clean up. The charitable interpretation is that people don't understand how things contribute to pollution and the media coverage of EVs does little to dispel that. If you want to tackle CO2 emissions one of the best ways is to include the tax in every product and service according to its share of emissions. *Full disclosure, I drive a small ICE car to the tune of ~0.5t CO2/year. And while this will change soon I am fully aware I am not saving anything but my public image even if my overall carbon footprint is likely way below average. [0] https://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/average-co2-emissions-from-new https://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/average-co2-emissions-f... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/oct/14/carbon-footprint-house https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20... [2] https://citu.co.uk/citu-live/what-is-the-carbon-footprint-of-a-house https://citu.co.uk/citu-live/what-is-the-carbon-footprint-of...
lazyjones 7y ago
It won't happen, that's right. And people will start reconsidering these arbitrary goals.
Cthulhu_ 7y ago
Transportation is 28% of greenhouse gas emissions in the US [1]; this includes cars, trucks, ships, trains, and planes, but the EPA source does not have a breakdown of it. But my point stands: while yes, the amount of ICE cars should be reduced, it'll have a relatively low impact. All of the areas in [1] should find ways to lower their emissions footprint. There are companies building trucks using renewables, but it'll take a long time (and development, and likely financial incentives) before the current active truck population has been converted. And there isn't a viable solution for flying yet. Trains could run on renewables but that would require a massive overhaul of the US infrastructure, and it wouldn't be able to compete with flying (in terms of time, capacity, price) if you go across the country, even if it's a high speed train / maglev / hyperloop system. Tldr, don't stare yourself blind on just one aspect, and definitely don't start blaming the individuals, they can't make an impact even if they all change their ways - it's big companies, industries, etc, things at scale that need to have an overhaul. [1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...
- adrianN 7y ago
  28% is huge. If there were a small handful of things we could change that would stop climate change, it wouldn't be such a big problem. Even if it were 100 1% things, it would still be relatively easy.
qqssccfftt 7y ago
If we want to stay below 2 degrees we need to stop selling cars.
- atom058 7y ago
  I love in a larger city in Sweden with Well-functioning public transport and where they have made it more difficult to travel by car in much of the inner city. But still, there are so many cars going around! Hundreds and hundreds of cars, travelling the same routes everyday. I'm starting to become frustrated with people around my age that keep moving to the suburbs; essentially making it mandatory for them to own cars for decades to come. One friend even moved to a another city about 50km away: he commutes by car from there. It is just insanity. I don't think we have the luxury for everyone to have their own cars anymore. We should stop selling them (both EV and ICE). There is also such a disconnect between what people say and do. They'll do some recycling and eat a bit less meat and feel satisfied that they are helping. But at the same time, they go to work by car, fly between major cities, think that New Zealand would be a great vacation spot, and buy new phones, TVs and clothes as often as they can. The "corona lifestyle", where people work from home, consume less and stop all international travel is a start. But if course, with this solution there would be a lot of economic hardship as well (as we can see now). It feels a bit hopeless sometimes. Like we already lost, but we just haven't realized it yet.
jeffdavis 7y ago
I do. Electric cars are already better for a lot of urban/suburban lifestyles. A few tech improvements will make them so much better that many ICE cars in these areas will have negative utility. Tons of high-quality used cars will hit the market, driving the price close to zero, and eliminating the new ICE market (why buy a $30K new ICE car when you can get a used ICE car that's almost as good for $5K?).
marcosdumay 7y ago
Or do active capture after we migrate the electrical grid to renewables.

IAmEveryone 7y ago

The one news item about Tesla I've heard of is that Elon Musk has gone full "LIBERTY & DEATH!", including something close to the sort of nervous Twitter breakdown that seems to be the (literal!) rage among people in leadership positions these days. While Musk always had this strange quirk where he's both supremely successful and prone to superficial, belligerent forwards-from-grandpa-style opinions on unrelated matters, his current state seems distinctly worse than ever before. My theory is that Tesla is hurting really bad under the current circumstances, putting enormous pressure on him. Tesla also has the problem that, unlike traditional car manufacturers, they don't have much of a lobby in Washington to bail them out, especially under the current administration. And even in California, they probably have neither the numbers nor the strong unions with long-established political power that GM has in and around Michigan. Plus California has far more other business further diminishing Tesla's standing in comparison.

sitkack 7y ago
Unironic how the lack of a union puts the company a greater risk of collapse.