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The reality is that electric vehicles are a fools errand. The real winning strategy is one that overall reduces dependency on vehicles, and moves more to walkin
by ecshafer 4y ago
The reality is that electric vehicles are a fools errand. The real winning strategy is one that overall reduces dependency on vehicles, and moves more to walking, biking, and mass transit. This would mean actually making hard decisions and having policy changes though. You lower the CO2 produced by orders of magnitude compared to even electric vehicles.
- tuatoru 4y agoThat would be a great place to live, and several decades from now, it may exist. Several decades from now is too long to wait for an energy transition.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y agoWe went from "We're going to the moon" to landing on the moon in under a decade. We could make this transition that fast if we really wanted to, the problem is there are a whole lot of entrenched interests in not making this transition.
- adrianN 4y agoGoing to the moon required building a couple of rockets. Changing how most cities look like requires a lot more material and a lot more manpower.
- ecshafer 4y agoWe can do a lot that would help. We can build electric mass transit (trains, street cars, busses). We can legally mandate that roads have large sidewalks / bike lanes and limit the size of rods. We could remove stroads completely. With how often roads go under maintenance, those rules would be able to be implemented fairly quickly. Remove zoning restrictions that limit density, or make artificial space like setback requirements and parking requirements, then let infill development do the work. There is a lot that can be done with the stroke of a pen and will be fixed naturally over time.
- 2devnull 4y agoNo cars for poor people. I think that’s the obvious direction we’re heading. Congestion pricing. The private jets will still fly off to Davos every spring.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> private jets will still fly off to Davos every spring I’m surprised nobody has proposed a synthetic jet fuel mandate for private jets. It’s defensible. It would jumpstart demand for a fuel we’ll need for general aviation. And it lets folks keep flying.
- wpm 4y agoAs a former poor person, fine. I hated my car.
- nickspicer1993 4y agoGovernments will need to subsidise EVs and create better mass-transit for those that cannot make the switch, but this is really a personal decision based on their own pros and cons. In a fully renewable grid how is using public transport over your EV orders of magnitude lower?
- tomrod 4y agoIndeed, and my push Jevon's paradox. Really, its one arrow in a portfolio of changes needed.