Electric cars don’t solve every problem with private vehicle ownership but they’re certainly a step in the right direction. Most EVs average an equivalent of more than 100mpg versus most ICEs, which are around 30-40. You can also power an EV with renewable resources. This isn’t possible with ICEs (yes, I know you can power certain diesels with biofuel, but it’s horribly inefficient).
“Buying a new car is worse than keeping an old one” is an incredibly situational phrase that has a million exceptions for so many people.
Buying a new car is worse than keeping an old one
Also, what do you think happens to your car when you replace it with an electric car? Do most people just drive their old cars into the ocean when they upgrade?
My frustration comes from the fact that hybrids exist and are not used nearly as enough as they should (all cars should have been mandated as hybrids a decade ago) and this would reduce the downsides of electric car production.
I’m not defending ICEs here, I just think the overall environmental credentials of electric cars at this point in time isn’t as good as hybrids.
I fully expect this to change in the future but I’ve got entire fleets of vehicles which are less than 5 years old being replaced by electric and that makes no sense.
Also cars generally are just a terrible solution to mass transport. We already have the most environmentally friendly option known to man. Bicycles and trains.
Edit: for further information on hybrid vs electric see this analysis:
Yes, which is why I’m downvoting you.
I’m huge into going green, going mass transit, and everything else, however, most people cannot fit into one worldview, which is why this is more nuanced than your meme suggests.
As an example The Midwest in the states does not have mass transit, so they have to drive. So trains and bikes are out. Hybrid still uses gas, and for the vast majority of them they will be on the freeway, so a hybrid is basically the same as an ICE car anyway, so yeah, I’ll push them into getting EVs if what they’re doing is commuting. However than it gets more nuanced to “is this for roadtrips”, because then maybe hybrid is better.
Which is why again I say it’s a person-to-person basis. For you maybe a hybrid is the only option, but saying EVs are wrong for everyone is a very naive approach.
Yeah. America isn’t the world.
Plenty of countries have functioning public transport.
America is not the exception, you can survive without cars.
“Buying a new car is worse than keeping an old one” is an incredibly situational phrase that has a million exceptions for so many people.
Yeah, but this still holds a lot of water. More often than not people buy a new car to have a new car or even worse they buy one specificcally because they are misguidedly trying to lessen their carbon footprint.
More often than not people buy a new car […] trying to lessen their carbon footprint.
This seems very hard to believe.
Try looking it up. That might help
Just because I wanted to be sure I am not being mistaken for some reason I just googled a couple different search terms for motivations to buy a new car.
None of the results is even close to confirming your ludicrous quote from above.
So again I am baffled by how confidently wrong you keep on posting here.
But by selling there old car more people can affort to buy a newer cars and fade out old cars wich overall is going to decrease carbon emissions because newer cars are on average more fuel efficent.
But yes Consuming less is still important
Remember kids, if you’re not solving climate change entirely in one single step, there’s no point in trying.
Seriously, what a brain dead argument lol
I think it’s under the premise of, of you have a functional car. It you got rid of that and bought an electric, you aren’t helping anything.
There’s a lot wrong with this video as most videos on EVs from 2016. The data is sources for electricity production is actually over a decade old now (Sep 2013) and it rationalizes that the electric cars will break down before the grid ever moves towards greener sources. This is a very silly notion considering solar is straining the grid with too much power at times, times where EVs could charge. They can also charge over night encouraging nuclear power to be more financially feasible as nuclear relies on a base load as they don’t like to turn off.
They’re not a silver bullet and in some cases like the Hummer EV they are worse than an old car but if you have to drive a lot it is completely less carbon intensive than an ICE for most EVs.
Here’s a still pretty old but more nuanced video: https://piped.video/watch?v=6RhtiPefVzM
The greenest car is a train car.
Every car on the road being converted to electric with magic wouldn’t fix climate change. If you didn’t also get trucks and SUVs it may not even move the needle Personal car use is not a major cause of climate change. It just doesn’t matter compared to industrial and commercial emissions.
Of course it won’t fix climate change in one go, but doing so would remove a major fossil fuel dependency for your average Joe and make them much more likely to vote against fossil fuels.
Put another way, how many people driving gas cars would vote in favor of heavy taxes on fossil fuel use?
Now, how many would vote that way if they personally didn’t have any dependencies on fossil fuels?
Also, highway vehicles account for 1.5 billion tons of GHGs being emitted each year, that’s 11% of the global yearly GHG emissions, so yeah, it definetely would “move the needle”. In the US specifically it’s as much as 20% of our nations emissions.
And yeah I already know the next argument “bUt YoUr JuSt UsInG fOsSiL fUeLs To ChArGe It” - except you’re not necessarily, in my area (part of CA), you can choose to have 100% of your electricity provided by renewable sources for a small monthly premium ($18/month). Additionally in CA, all new homes are being built with solar power, which further increases your ability to charge without fossil fuels.
And in the areas that isn’t true, it’s at least getting groundwork laid down to make it true. An electric car can be powered by renewable energy, a fossil fuel car must be powered by fossil fuels.
There are a lot of steps to solving climate change beyond “buy an electric car”, and you’re right that industrial and commercial pollution accounts for the majority, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be pushing on all fronts.
We’ve already waited way too long to act, we can’t afford as a species to say “well, I’m not going to change my car until the industrial polluters get their shit together”, we have to push in Every possible direction, all at the same time to make progress, and electric cars overtaking fossil fuel cars is a big part of that.
There’s a lot of work to be done globally until electric cars are 100% green, both in terms of power infrastructure and the processes to create them, but there’s no way forward with gas cars, so we need to start moving over as a society now, phasing out the production of gas cars with electric
Plus, ev’s keep the pollution out of the cities and places we tend to live in.
Yeah! It keeps it in India and Madagascar, fuck those guys.
What’s the matter with you? Who stole your lunch money?
Didn’t realize I needed an /s
TYL
Keeping an old car is better, but having one that works is even better than that. Cause, you know, eventually cars stop working. That’s a thing.
We will never consumer our way of of a problem capitalism created. And public transit is nearly always a better solution to spending on car infrastructure.
… but… If you’re gonna buy a new car anyway, they have the potential to cause less climate impact (although they’re still environmentally devastating in other ways). As power generation becomes cleaner, so too do the cars. ICE cars are already about as environmentally friendly as they’re gonna get, but EVs still have a lot of potential improvement (both in emissions and in things like material mining).
Although the tire microplastics is gonna get worse.
I think electric cars address climate change Once we stop using coal and gas powerplants
Cause then all we are doing is shifting it
Only if we go balls deep on Nuclear
That’s not a huge problem. Chernobyl and Five Kilometer Island were old reactor designs, and Fukushima mostly sustained an earthquake+tsunami (it would fully succeed under better corporation oversight)
In countries that generate almost all of their electricity from renewables, they are better tbh. Although more environmentally damaging to produce.
The problem is more like that cars that use fossil fuels have a very much lower efficiency rate than electric cars. So theoretical if you use the same amount of FF for the energy production and use that for electric cars it would be more efficient. But that shouldnt be the solution.
My electric car was manufactured ONCE. It’s powered by 99% green power (hydroelectric). It burns no gas/diesel, requires no oil changes. I intend on keeping it for 15+ years (my last vehicle got to 16 years before the electrical system fried).
It is better by literally every measure short of walking everywhere.
Hey how about bike man
How do i bike 30 miles each way? Even ignoring infrastructure needs and how bad most road surfaces are and how biking is death on a highway…
Guess I’ll keep pouring lead additive into my '65 Galaxie, then. Woo! 10 miles per gallon!
If you can, use public transport and ride a bike.
If you can’t, using the same private vehicle for a long time, while not ideal, is acceptable.
Buying a brand new electric car to replace a relatively new ICE is not a great solution.
No doubt your logic is based on the carbon footprint of two cars - the old ice and the new BEV.
Where that logic falls down is the old ICE becomes a more affordable efficient used car that can replace an older ICE that it blowing blue smoke. Further, new BEV become used BEV in a few years. Used BEV are becoming quite affordable and cost effective. They are also far outlasting their projected battery life.
Finally, demand for BEV increases R&D on more efficient storage technologies that are cheaper and have a smaller environmental footprint.
Yes, more and better public transport should be a thing. But the US is just too big - and in many cases too empty - for ubiquitous public transport to be cost or environmentally efficient.
I disagree strongly about the US not being suitable for public transport.
There are large cities that could introduce effective metro services and that would be a vast improvement.
Rural areas can remain ICE/BEV.
In the US everything is rural. Did you ever see a map of it?
My brother in christ are you dense? No. Parking the 65 Galaxy and buying a new ev is most definitely better than driving it. 10 miles to the gallon is horrendous.
Well it’s a two start program.
- All of the citizens buy an electric vehicle
- The government produces clean energy
So it shifts the responsibility onto the government.
where are you from that your government produces your electricity?
I mean I lot of countries have national owned power generation, it’s certainly upto the government what gets built where.
Recently my parents got a car for emergency situations (like dropping my sister to school when busses are cancelled and she can’t bike because of rain). And when I did the research for a car with them, I realised just how good cars with sub 1L engines are (3-4l per 100km in the city). Sure, they are not gonna be fast, but they are still faster than the speed limit of 120km/h on our highways here. I am personally hoping to buy a rx8 or a na miata soon for enthusiast reasons. Modern transport should be 100% public.
Edit: grammar and spelling
if public transport is a valid alternative (cheaper, less crowded, more comfortable) i will use it. but currenly it is not. so i will drive my 1st gen yaris 1.0. besides 70€ of gas a month, there ate no other operation costs.
You fotgot taxes, repair and insurance costs…
You don’t factor in:
- tires
- oil changes
- repairing broken parts
- insurance
- the loss of value over time
fair points, a 1 litre car like this which is considered very safe basically costs nothing to ensure. i mainly forgot because it’s technically part of a company fleet of a family member, and they just pay the minescule bill.
it is a toyota. there are no broken parts.
i am not planning to sell it, it was already worth less than 1500€
oil doesn’t really cost much either, especially because i change it myself.
tires last really long and if you buy slightly used ones from someone who sold their car you can save a lot of money.
Well, then there’s also a bunch of other stuff I didn’t mention:
- cleaning the car costs a little every now and thrn because you mustn’t do it in your driveway
- speeding tickets and other violations occur depending on how well you abide by the rules
- TÜV et al. cost a little every few years
- some parts may break due to bad luck - even Toyota cannot prevent stone chips on your windshield
There are a lot of small hidden costs which all add up, even on cheap cars.
