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Electric car sales drive toward cleaner air, less mortality
- 11235813213455 4y agoWhat would also be ideal is that people use smaller, lighter vehicles, slower too, but max speeds should be regulated anyway. Electric energy really shines for light vehicles, not really in the Tesla trend (2T with 500kg batteries). It doesn't make a lot of sense to travel alone in 2Tonnes personal vehicles, for an average travel of a few kilometers, mostly in city
- DangitBobby 4y agoRange anxiety is going to drive battery weights up for a while still, probably. The only way people will adopt EVs than can only go 50 miles on a charge is if they become much cheaper than ICEs, IMO. Like, on the order of $5k. Even then, the fear of being crushed by an SUV would be a barrier to adoption.
- adgjlsfhk1 4y agothe 5k EV that can go 50 miles exists and is called an E-bike :)
- yCombLinks 4y agoI can't get groceries or ride to work in the rain on an ebike. And I've biked to work for years, I'm not antibike. But it doesn't solve the same issues.
- thethethethe 4y agoYou can get a cargo bike with a rack on the back or a tub in the front. My ebike can hold over 150lbs on the back and I took it grocery shopping back before I lived in walking distance of grocery stores
- 11235813213455 4y agoIf you exclude work and food, what's the remaining usage of a bike? leisure? I've been 100% bike for all my adult life 20 years long, half of it commuting, half remote work, groceries up to 20kg (I carry crates on my handlebar), rain is annoying, but it's like people on motorbike, with proper clothes it's fine, but it's indeed less easy than a personal car. but not so much about natural elements, more because the cities are built for cars
- timbit42 4y agoYou can put groceries in an Organic Transit ELF or a BetterBikes PEBL. These are enclosed, recumbent, tadpole trikes with room for the driver along with two small children, one adult, or groceries.
- DangitBobby 4y agoTotally. But I doubt those will see wide adoption either.
- 11235813213455 4y ago> the fear of being crushed by an SUV would be a barrier to adoption or trucks and buses, as a cyclist the difference is even worse, but speed regulation really helps for that fear
- njarboe 4y agoThese $5k cars already exist. The Hongguang Mini has about a 100 mile range and sells for about $5k in China. Let me buy one. The US has a high level of safety requirements on cars not just to protect people but also to protect domestic auto manufactures from cheap auto imports.
- mlindner 4y agoIf your hypothesis was true then there wouldn't be similar safety requirements in most advanced countries, even those without local auto industries.
- _greim_ 4y agoAnecdotally, range anxiety drove me to pay an electrician to run a 50 amp circuit to my garage for faster charging, which has gotten us out of many "oh crap we have to leave in an hour and only have 10% charge" tight spots. It was crazy expensive since the electrician had to run a conduit around the entire house, but still an order of magnitude cheaper than buying a higher-range car.
- rootusrootus 4y agoYou can buy a 19.2kW level 2 charger now that will add just over a mile a minute of range (though I don't believe any consumer EVs are on the market just yet which support that rate). For a few more bucks (more than a few, really, but still attainable) it's possible to install a 25kW DC charger at home that would probably work with most EVs today. I've no need for it myself, we just charge at regular old 32A from a 14-50 wall socket, but it's interesting to watch the market evolve. Maybe 19.2kW will become the new normal.
- doubled112 4y agoI can't figure out why vehicles all need to be massive living rooms on wheels. People drive pickups to the office. Laptops must be a heavier load than I remember. Ford won't even sell anything smaller than a compact SUV in North America. Even discounting electric cars, imagine the environmental savings that could have been made if subcompacts became the norm instead?
- samtho 4y ago> Ford won't even sell anything smaller than a compact SUV in North America. Did they stop selling the focus? It’s among one of the best selling vehicles of all time.
- rootusrootus 4y agoYes. The only cars Ford sells now are the Mustang and the Ford GT. Sales were slipping on the sedans and hatchbacks because the crossovers get good enough fuel efficiency in comparison but are a lot more useful as a daily driver.
- toast0 4y ago> Ford won't even sell anything smaller than a compact SUV in North America. It's easier to meet US fuel efficiency standards with larger cars. There's ramps on the standards, so small cars are disappearing; small trucks are already gone. An 80s s-10 or similar with a regular cab and small engine is low weight, fairly small footprint, decent mpg, etc. A 2020 small truck built in the same footprint, but with a 40 year newer drivetrain would be pretty useful, but nobody will sell those in the US. Yes, you couldn't fit more than two people comfortably and three if you squeeze; yes, you couldn't (or shouldn't) tow anyhthing of stature; but it would be great for people who need an ocassional truck for furniture or dirt or etc, and don't need people carrying capacity. Light pickup truck hybrid could sip gas, and stuff the batteries under the bed for plug-in range, and also keep weight on the rear. Kei trucks look fun too, but hard to import them.
- rootusrootus 4y ago> I can't figure out why vehicles all need to be massive living rooms on wheels. Because we have a free market and that's what people buy. Unless you think you can gain enough political advantage to force people to bend to your will, persuasion is probably the best strategy. The top three vehicles by sales in the US are all light duty trucks, so to a rough approximation the people you need to convince are "everybody."
- Tade0 4y agoYou mean the ultimate stage of vehicular evolution, the humble golf cart? I lived in Italy for a couple of years and it appears to be the case there. The most popular SUV-ish car back then, as explained to me by my Italian friend, was the Qashqai. Anything larger is just awkward. Also for cars they often shop local, because Italian brands know their customers well and offer vehicles which out of context are just plain weird, like the 4x4 Fiat Panda. There's still a lot of congestion, but smaller cars manage it better because you can squeeze three of them in two lanes on intersections if need be. Also with few SUVs on the road you see many more other modes like scooters and even Tuk-Tuks.
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- alanwreath 4y agoThe reduction in CO2 emission resulting from EV's is definitely a win for the environment. What I didn't see from the article or its linked report was anything surrounding the effects of increased battery waste resulting from popularizing EV's.
- jdlshore 4y agoWhat battery waste? Batteries are highly recyclable.
- jaclaz 4y agoAre they? Old lead battery are highly recyclable but AFAIK the type used in EV's (and in many electronic devices such as laptops and phones) such as Li-Ion are not (easily) recyclable right now. Hopefully by the time discarded batteries will increase in number there will be solutions, but right now there are only some "pilot" plants/technologies, see: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56574779 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56574779 And: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29110314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29110314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29128408 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29128408
- rootusrootus 4y agoIt is not particularly economical to recycle EV batteries yet because they're still worth a lot more on the secondary market for non-mobile use. When we have a surplus of them, it will be cheaper to reclaim the lithium from the old batteries than it is to mine new lithium.
- ceejayoz 4y agoA lot of those batteries are going to find a second use in home powerbanks. They remain useful in that scenario (where remaining power-to-weight ratio matters less) much longer than in vehicles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNbsiZcwGSY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNbsiZcwGSY (I also suspect a significant portion of the "what about EV externalities?!" concern got seeded by the oil industry.)
- seydor 4y agoObligatory all models are wrong
- HDThoreaun 4y agosome are useful
- kleiba 4y agoElectric cars are great and all, but there's a few things that keep me from buying one (so far). First, there's the price. I know that some countries subsidize the purchase of an EV but without such support, electric cars are still targetting the upper end of the market when compared to traditional cars of the same size and with comparable features. Added to this is a latent feeling of mine that an electric car might lose value even faster than traditional cars already do. I mean, we all know from experience with battery powered devices (of the hand-held kind), how batteries deteriorate over time, and I think this impression is inevitably associated with electric cars, too, whether it's actually relevant in practice or not. Second, but perhaps equally important, is that I currenly live in Europe. And unlike what you may be used to from suburban North America, I neither have a driveway here nor does my house come with an underground parking garage for its tenants. I park on the road. Sometimes quite a distance away from my house. So, charging over night is out of the question - which means that the only option for charging would be at the equivalence of a traditional gas station. Except, short of any super charger infrastructure in my vicinity, I have a hard time imagining spending 30 minutes every time the car runs empty. I have a larger family, and although 30 minutes might not seem much to you, it's definitely a considerable amount of time to me. I realize there are quite a bit of advantages to EVs, and I would really love to enjoy them. But I just feel that these two points alone are sort of a deal breaker at the moment. I hope things are going to get better, though.
- mikeyouse 4y agoYep, they're definitely not a silver bullet for every use case. Cities have started recognizing the limits to electrification for people with cars and without dedicated parking and have began installing charging infrastructure street-side though, so that's one possible way forward. https://trojan.energy/products/hub https://trojan.energy/products/hub
- jbverschoor 4y agoIn Amsterdam you just charge on the street. Almost every street has 2 or 4 charging parking spots.
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- legulere 4y agoParticulate emissions have been dropping already since decades through optimizations. Electric cars certainly reduce particulate emissions a lot further, but tire and break wear has become a significant part of particulate emissions. The best really would be to keep cars out of highly populated areas and provide good public transportation and provide walkable and bicycle-safe infrastructure.
- ceejayoz 4y ago> Electric cars certainly reduce particulate emissions a lot further, but tire and break wear has become a significant part of particulate emissions. Doesn't regenerative braking reduce both tire and brake wear?
- avelis 4y agoBrake wear for sure.
- ihattendorf 4y agoBrake yes, I don't see how it would help tire wear (assuming you slow down at the same speed). Electric cars typically have higher tire wear because of the increased weight + typically higher torque/acceleration.
- ceejayoz 4y agohttps://www.nokiantyres.com/company/news-article/there-is-a-common-misconception-related-to-electric-cars-in-reality-tires-will-last-for-a-long-time/ https://www.nokiantyres.com/company/news-article/there-is-a-... > Tires on a modern electric car will wear down much slower than in a car with a traditional internal combustion engine. This is due to good traction control. The driver assist systems reduce slipping by utilizing the electric motor's rapid power adjustment. This system is much quicker than in ICE vehicles, where it is based on braking and limiting engine RPM, Liukkula says. I dunno if anyone's done a good scientific study on this.
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- rqtwteye 4y agoI just spent a few days in Cairo. The air there was a good reminder of how bad the air can be with less stringent emission regulations. I can’t wait for the day when all cars are electric. There are other problems with cars in general but cities will become way nicer once ICE cars are gone.
- acdha 4y agoAgreed. My mother’s family has lived in the Los Angeles area since the 1950s and there is this constant cycle where some improvement is proposed, people loudly proclaim the economy will be devastated, the change is made, the economy booms, and nobody wants to go back. My aunts remember not being able to see houses on the other side of the street due to smog, I remember visiting LA in the 80s and getting headaches every time, and I want the latter to be as alien an experience for my son as the former was for me.
- irusensei 4y agoAn electric truck can cover a lot less ground with a full battery charge than a diesel truck with a full tank am I right? What happens to the price of essential goods like food and medicine since the cost of transportation to poorer areas? Does it prevents more deaths or does it exacerbates issues like infant mortality on poor areas?
- AnthonyMouse 4y agoThe cost per mile for electric vehicles is lower, not higher, and improves the more miles you put on them.
- irusensei 4y agoDo you have a source on that? I understand diesel is a very efficient fuel.
- rootusrootus 4y agoDiesel is slightly more power dense than gasoline, but usually more expensive to purchase. The capital costs are much higher, as are the maintenance costs. You don't buy a diesel to save money, you buy it for torque. Electric is so much cheaper that the only reason EVs haven't abruptly taken >50% of the market is because capital cost remains fairly high and charging availability is still low compared to liquid fuels. Normally, efficiency improvements significantly smaller than the EV advantage result in dramatic movements in buying patterns.
- brianwawok 4y agoAsk any trucker or do basic MPG math. Moving a loaded semi 500 miles is like $260-350 in diesel. Moving the tesla semi 500 miles is like $50 at $0.13 per kWh.
- xnx 4y agoHere's some of the math on diesel vs. electric: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2022/12/08/teslas-new-semi-truck-will-be-great-if-you-get-your-electricity-wisely/?sh=5f090dda2b5a https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2022/12/08/teslas...
- hwestiii 4y agoWeird headline.
- foxyv 4y agoJust the reduction in noise and air pollution is more than enough to justify banning new ICE cars. Anyone who lives anywhere near a big highway knows what I'm talking about. For instance: When a car shakes your windows because some jerk thinks it's okay to turn his car into a fog horn.
- aliqot 4y agoWhat are the effects of the mining, reconditioning and disposing of battery minerals? I ride a bicycle, so the effects of that are easy to imagine, some steel, some rubber, etc. But in wanting an electric car, I get stopped by the worry about children and the disadvantaged being the ones mining these resources at their own peril, and 20 years from now being the ones shipped our recycled batteries.
- ceejayoz 4y agoPlaying that game gets complex. Do you count 9/11 as a ICE externality because it partially stems from US/Saudi relations due to the oil market?