3 ms·

I think you need to check your math. There are 14 times more of these electric mopeds, etc than cars, but they only have 4x more impact than the EVs. So one E

by hedora 3y ago

I think you need to check your math. There are 14 times more of these electric mopeds, etc than cars, but they only have 4x more impact than the EVs. So one EV displaces about 3.5x more carbon emissions than the mopeds. To make the 2030 halve our emissions deadline, and 2050 net zero deadline with just little city vehicles, we’ll need to abandon the suburbs, exurbs and rural buildings and infrastructure that we already have, and replace it without producing any additional emissions. Also, in the US, most cities that experienced significant growth after ~ 1950 need to have their new parts razed and rebuilt to accommodate public transit routes and add walkable amenities. None of that can possibly happen at sufficient scale in the next 7 years, and it certainly would have massive environmental impact if it did. Alternatively, we could switch all cars to EV’s, use existing construction and infrastructure, and get a > 75% reduction in transportation carbon, even without cleaning up the power grid. In reality, we are already cleaning up the grid, and time of use subsidies are doing a good job of moving time-shiftable demand to high-production times, when the grid is cleaner. EVs are currently one of the biggest, easy to time shift loads. So, we can have a 90% solution to transportation carbon, or go for a 97.5% improvement (rounding the 3.5x improvement moving to mopeds would give up to 4x), but then emit way more carbon than total transportation emissions while we rebuild an unprecedented number of cities all at once. I’m all for public transit, and think all new urban / suburban housing should be built along high capacity transit corridors, but doing that isn’t going to solve global warming in time.

fulafel 3y ago
> I think you need to check your math. There are 14 times more of these electric mopeds, etc than cars, but they only have 4x more impact than the EVs. So one EV displaces about 3.5x more carbon emissions than the mopeds. This is not the case. The cited 4x in oil demand is just a part of the main problem (CO2 emissions). E-car carbon emissions over the lifecycle are still ~50% of fossil fuel cars, due to their large manufacturing co2 footprint and impact of the 10-100x higher electricity usage to power them. The battery sizes body masses are O(100x) bigger than e-bikes and energy usage per km O(10x) bigger.
Enginerrrd 3y ago
Also I'd just like to add: everyone forgets that not everyone lives near an urban center. It'd be fine to get rid of 90-95% of the internal combustion cars/trucks and then move on to the next biggest target. We don't need to jump to 100% on everything.
- camgunz 3y ago
  This is harder than you'd think. There are something like 282 million cars in the US. Let's say we want to replace half of them with a zero emissions EV, so 140m, and those cost $25k. That's $3.5 trillion we're gonna burn, plus idk, dealing with 140m waste ICE cars. This is not a problem we're gonna solve with EVs any time soon.
  - Enginerrrd 3y ago
    Oh I understand the difficulties, I have designed a bunch of charge stations. (Civil Engineer) Most of the grid infrastructure I know of in my area is near capacity too and can't really accommodate new hookups. My point is just that I see a lot of 100% goals and I'd really like to shift the narrative to 90-95%.
    - camgunz 3y ago
      Hah! Yeah ok fair. I think along with the 90/95 thing I'd like to see us think more in terms of incentives, trajectories, and underlying causes. People are practically entirely the products of systems and cultures, and whenever we're try interventions at the exit of the function they're uniformly despised.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
camgunz 3y ago
I basically agree. We can't rebuild our cities in 7 years, so we have to "patch" cars to be zero emissions. How do you get tens of millions of people to do that in 7 years though? Keep in mind average yearly income is something like $45k and most Americans have less than $500 in savings--not exactly a market ready to wholesale replace their cars. I think it's clear that if you want to halve transportation emissions in 7 years you have to ban their current ICE car, and the only way you get away with that is to give them a comparable EV. We still have to build out mass transit and rezone everything, and also hit the mute button on NIMBYs everywhere, but short term you have to do a swap, like immediately. The money required for this is... astronomical, it's at least trillions for an ICE/EV swap, but you also need subsidies for auto manufacturers and developers, and you also need to weather the political storm of essentially stealing cars (a huge part of American culture) and putting grocery stores in the suburbs.

by hedora 3y ago

fulafel 3y ago

> I think you need to check your math. There are 14 times more of these electric mopeds, etc than cars, but they only have 4x more impact than the EVs. So one EV displaces about 3.5x more carbon emissions than the mopeds. This is not the case. The cited 4x in oil demand is just a part of the main problem (CO2 emissions). E-car carbon emissions over the lifecycle are still ~50% of fossil fuel cars, due to their large manufacturing co2 footprint and impact of the 10-100x higher electricity usage to power them. The battery sizes body masses are O(100x) bigger than e-bikes and energy usage per km O(10x) bigger.

Enginerrrd 3y ago

Also I'd just like to add: everyone forgets that not everyone lives near an urban center. It'd be fine to get rid of 90-95% of the internal combustion cars/trucks and then move on to the next biggest target. We don't need to jump to 100% on everything.

camgunz 3y ago
This is harder than you'd think. There are something like 282 million cars in the US. Let's say we want to replace half of them with a zero emissions EV, so 140m, and those cost $25k. That's $3.5 trillion we're gonna burn, plus idk, dealing with 140m waste ICE cars. This is not a problem we're gonna solve with EVs any time soon.
- Enginerrrd 3y ago
  Oh I understand the difficulties, I have designed a bunch of charge stations. (Civil Engineer) Most of the grid infrastructure I know of in my area is near capacity too and can't really accommodate new hookups. My point is just that I see a lot of 100% goals and I'd really like to shift the narrative to 90-95%.
  - camgunz 3y ago
    Hah! Yeah ok fair. I think along with the 90/95 thing I'd like to see us think more in terms of incentives, trajectories, and underlying causes. People are practically entirely the products of systems and cultures, and whenever we're try interventions at the exit of the function they're uniformly despised.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

camgunz 3y ago

I basically agree. We can't rebuild our cities in 7 years, so we have to "patch" cars to be zero emissions. How do you get tens of millions of people to do that in 7 years though? Keep in mind average yearly income is something like $45k and most Americans have less than $500 in savings--not exactly a market ready to wholesale replace their cars. I think it's clear that if you want to halve transportation emissions in 7 years you have to ban their current ICE car, and the only way you get away with that is to give them a comparable EV. We still have to build out mass transit and rezone everything, and also hit the mute button on NIMBYs everywhere, but short term you have to do a swap, like immediately. The money required for this is... astronomical, it's at least trillions for an ICE/EV swap, but you also need subsidies for auto manufacturers and developers, and you also need to weather the political storm of essentially stealing cars (a huge part of American culture) and putting grocery stores in the suburbs.