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>A car centric life is not sustainable for the planet. How so? If we waved a magic wand and all cars became EVs powered by renewable energy, what would be unsu

>A car centric life is not sustainable for the planet. How so? If we waved a magic wand and all cars became EVs powered by renewable energy, what would be unsustainable?

matsemann 3y ago
We have mostly EVs sold in Norway the last few years. It's not been so great: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23939076/norway-electric-vehicle-cars-evs-tesla-oslo https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23939076/norway-electric-...
- yCombLinks 3y ago
  The problems in this article seem to all stem from excessive subsidies for EVs causing cars to become more widespread. That's far different than in the US where cars already dominate all infrastructure. Here, a transition from ICE to EVs would be way better and more realistic.
jamil7 3y ago
The fact that they’re still vastly less efficient than mass public transport, bikes or just walking.
- JoshTriplett 3y ago
  I'd love to see public transit that can go from arbitrary-point to arbitrary-point door to door in the same amount of time as a hailed EV could. I genuinely really would. I've never seen a proposal for such a system, only proposals that are less time-efficient than that.
  - cassepipe 3y ago
    You don't go arbitrary to arbitrary, you make the most of the transportation system and you walk/bike the last part. Of course the city has to be designed in a way where it's not a pain.
    - JoshTriplett 3y ago
      > You don't go arbitrary to arbitrary Yes, I currently do. Not being able to do that is a downgrade. We can and should do better than telling people to accept a worse solution.
  - jamil7 3y ago
    That would be one of the least efficient ways to move people at scale around a city, which just enforces the original point.
    - JoshTriplett 3y ago
      It's more efficient than requiring parking. And define "efficient"? People's time and effort have value, as well, and saving time and effort is a win. If a proposed solution is "it takes longer to get from place to place, and additionally requires walking or biking", many people will rightfully consider that proposal worse.
      - jamil7 3y ago
        > And define "efficient"? Capacity, cost per passenger, environmental impact, space efficiency. How does a hailed EV scale to every person in a city that needs to move around without the massive congestion problems we already see in car dominant cities?
        JoshTriplett 3y ago
        > Capacity, cost per passenger, environmental impact, space efficiency. Those things certainly have value. (Environmental impact most of all, that one is actually urgent to solve.) People's time and effort also has value. We have different values for the tradeoffs between them. I care about environmental impact; let's have EVs powered by clean power, and let's have them be repairable and upgradeable so that they don't regularly become obsolete waste. I do not care about capacity or space efficiency except insofar as they indirectly cause problems like congestion and sprawl, and both of those may be possible to address in other ways (e.g. eliminating parking, which is why I didn't claim that everyone owning their own EV and most of them sitting unused most of the time is an ideal solution); neither of those is as important as people's time and effort. There are other possible utopias, and other potential ways to handle transit. But I'm always going to start from a premise of "how can we achieve the same or better on human time and effort", rather than telling people they have to accept transportation that takes longer and doesn't actually get them directly to where they're going.
schmorptron 3y ago
The tires, rubber emissions account for a decent chunk of ocean pollution. https://www.thedrive.com/news/tire-dust-makes-up-the-majority-of-ocean-microplastics-study-finds https://www.thedrive.com/news/tire-dust-makes-up-the-majorit... Still, if you solved those issues as well (and there is progress afaik?) it'd be fine. Cars are handy, and a necessity if you live somewhere rural. just keep them out of cities as much as possible, except for larger transports and emergency vehicles.
abdullahkhalids 3y ago
It's not just energy and CO2. Roads and spread out human development disrupts ecosystems and natural water flows. They result in the death of species, plants, animals, insects. Mining the material required to build cars and infrastructure also has significant ecological impact. Please note that less than 18% (likely around 10%) of the world's population own cars [1]. 5-10x the number of the current cars in the world, even if they are EVs, will have more than a 5-10x impact on the environment since ecological systems are non-linear in nature. [1] https://www.motorbiscuit.com/number-car-owners-world-less-think/ https://www.motorbiscuit.com/number-car-owners-world-less-th...

>A car centric life is not sustainable for the planet. How so? If we waved a magic wand and all cars became EVs powered by renewable energy, what would be unsustainable?

matsemann 3y ago

We have mostly EVs sold in Norway the last few years. It's not been so great: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23939076/norway-electric-vehicle-cars-evs-tesla-oslo https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23939076/norway-electric-...

yCombLinks 3y ago
The problems in this article seem to all stem from excessive subsidies for EVs causing cars to become more widespread. That's far different than in the US where cars already dominate all infrastructure. Here, a transition from ICE to EVs would be way better and more realistic.

jamil7 3y ago

The fact that they’re still vastly less efficient than mass public transport, bikes or just walking.

JoshTriplett 3y ago
I'd love to see public transit that can go from arbitrary-point to arbitrary-point door to door in the same amount of time as a hailed EV could. I genuinely really would. I've never seen a proposal for such a system, only proposals that are less time-efficient than that.
- cassepipe 3y ago
  You don't go arbitrary to arbitrary, you make the most of the transportation system and you walk/bike the last part. Of course the city has to be designed in a way where it's not a pain.
  - JoshTriplett 3y ago
    > You don't go arbitrary to arbitrary Yes, I currently do. Not being able to do that is a downgrade. We can and should do better than telling people to accept a worse solution.
- jamil7 3y ago
  That would be one of the least efficient ways to move people at scale around a city, which just enforces the original point.
  - JoshTriplett 3y ago
    It's more efficient than requiring parking. And define "efficient"? People's time and effort have value, as well, and saving time and effort is a win. If a proposed solution is "it takes longer to get from place to place, and additionally requires walking or biking", many people will rightfully consider that proposal worse.
    - jamil7 3y ago
      > And define "efficient"? Capacity, cost per passenger, environmental impact, space efficiency. How does a hailed EV scale to every person in a city that needs to move around without the massive congestion problems we already see in car dominant cities?
      - JoshTriplett 3y ago
        > Capacity, cost per passenger, environmental impact, space efficiency. Those things certainly have value. (Environmental impact most of all, that one is actually urgent to solve.) People's time and effort also has value. We have different values for the tradeoffs between them. I care about environmental impact; let's have EVs powered by clean power, and let's have them be repairable and upgradeable so that they don't regularly become obsolete waste. I do not care about capacity or space efficiency except insofar as they indirectly cause problems like congestion and sprawl, and both of those may be possible to address in other ways (e.g. eliminating parking, which is why I didn't claim that everyone owning their own EV and most of them sitting unused most of the time is an ideal solution); neither of those is as important as people's time and effort. There are other possible utopias, and other potential ways to handle transit. But I'm always going to start from a premise of "how can we achieve the same or better on human time and effort", rather than telling people they have to accept transportation that takes longer and doesn't actually get them directly to where they're going.

schmorptron 3y ago

The tires, rubber emissions account for a decent chunk of ocean pollution. https://www.thedrive.com/news/tire-dust-makes-up-the-majority-of-ocean-microplastics-study-finds https://www.thedrive.com/news/tire-dust-makes-up-the-majorit... Still, if you solved those issues as well (and there is progress afaik?) it'd be fine. Cars are handy, and a necessity if you live somewhere rural. just keep them out of cities as much as possible, except for larger transports and emergency vehicles.

abdullahkhalids 3y ago

It's not just energy and CO2. Roads and spread out human development disrupts ecosystems and natural water flows. They result in the death of species, plants, animals, insects. Mining the material required to build cars and infrastructure also has significant ecological impact. Please note that less than 18% (likely around 10%) of the world's population own cars [1]. 5-10x the number of the current cars in the world, even if they are EVs, will have more than a 5-10x impact on the environment since ecological systems are non-linear in nature. [1] https://www.motorbiscuit.com/number-car-owners-world-less-think/ https://www.motorbiscuit.com/number-car-owners-world-less-th...