Love it. People look at me like I’m crazy for trying to go greener, and I see this stuff online all the time.
“Haha EVs are so dangerous! Look at the fire hazard” like you aren’t literally parking a tank of explosive gas in your house every night
“It doesn’t have nearly the range of gas” They say while driving a massive truck that needs filling every week, meanwhile my charger at home is needed once a week and costs 1/6th a tank of gas
“Solar doesn’t even cover the entire electric bill” Sure, it only halves it…
So much simping for big oil companies. Always reminds me of this from the Simpsons
This is an informal fallacy, “letting perfect be the enemy of good.” You have to feel out people who are doing this and try to determine what their angle is. Usually they have one, some kind of asinine hobby-horse or ulterior motive, and you need to figure out quickly if they’re arguing in good faith or not.
Because usually they’re not, and inevitably you’ll find that as soon as you’re done addressing one point they’ve moved the goalposts somewhere else.
I just heard this phrase, and I’m so happy because I’ve needed a word for it. People who do this annoy me so much. Like with EVs especially. “Well we should be using mass transit_.” Yes, we should, but that will take a very long time. Let’s take a good solution now, which is better than the bad solution that is currently being used, and we will continue to build and push for the perfect solution at the same time.
Strive for perfect, but accept a good solution in the meantime.
But it’s not a good solution. In fact it’s not a solution at all. EVs aren’t going to save the environment, they’re going to perpetuate our reliance on personal vehicles.
Oh my god, that’s literally the point of the whole comment. You are offering a perfect solution, while the only alternative you offer is a bad solution. EVs are not perfect. They are an okay solution that is better than remaining on ICE.
That was literally the point. Small towns with populations of <10,000 are not going to build rail in the next decade. I would love for them to, but they’re not going to! So you’re solution for them to get to town where groceries are is to… continue using ICE while sitting on their hands waiting for rail/bus service that is not coming? If that’s your best solution then it’s not a solution.
Oh my go that’s literally the point of my whole comment. You stated that EVs are a good solution. They are not a solution at all.
It’s not a matter of perfect being the enemy of good, it’s a matter of people mistakenly thinking that personal EVs are a solution. They are not a solution at all, they only serve as placebo to make people feel good while while continuing the same habits and relying on the same infrastructure that caused all this in the first place.
That was literally the point. Continuing with the same sprawling, oversized infrastructure built for personal, usually single-occupancy vehicles is not going to solve climate change. We are so far gone the only real, actual, solutions are in fact drastic, society changing measures. So your solution is for us to keep doing the same thing we already are but with 20% less pollution? While the earth is already past the 1.5C global warming mark? If that’s your best solution then it’s not a solution.
EVs are here to save the automobile, not the environment.
We are always going to need some cars, even with the best public transit available.
Builders, for example, need to transport their supplies to construction sites, etc.
I think thats where EVs are going to be a solution, and in the meantime they can be a stopgap to reduce emissions while improving the infrastructure.
Let’s take a good solution now
So, you got yourself a bicycle (e- or otherwise) yet?
Yeah? I even go grocery shopping with mine.
I’m yet to own my first car, but I certainly appreciate when people getting one go for EV over ICE.
I’m currently learning to drive but I think, unfortunately, my first car will be ICE.
- I live in a rented flat, so no way I can install a charging point.
- The prices of the paid charging points near me mean that it’s close to parity with petrol here (UK).
- The insurance on EVs is much higher than ICE at the moment, this is doubly important because as a new driver I’ll be paying a lot for the next 2 to 3 years.
I’ll be looking into various different vehicles when I’ve passed my practical test so I’m not ruling EVs or PHEVs yet, but it’s looking unlikely.
I can totally understand that, I think its not a wise option to buy a new ICE car, but a cheap used older car can be a good option until you are able to buy an EV.
I have an ICE car as well, because it just didnt make sense for me to buy an EV a few years ago, I couldnt afford it and there wasnt a suitable one available in Germany.
I do use my bike quite a lot, so I dont think its too bad.
Yeah a lot of people here are just like “Don’t own a car at all” and don’t know how most of the US is laid out. When a commute is 20 minutes by car and 2 hours by bus, it’s hard to still justify the bus. I’ll for sure be pushing for better bus service and transit, but I can’t force my wife to sit on a bus 4 hours a day just out of principals. EV is a good solution, but I’ll push for the better solution at the same time.
Never mind how the US is laid out, a lot of people – myself included – do not want to and will never live in an urban environment. I realize that makes the “fuckcars” contingent salty, but that’s just tough shit for them.
I’m big on urbanism and walkable cities and absolutely don’t mind people who don’t want to live in cities. We don’t tend to argue rural areas shouldn’t exist, but rather point out that suburban areas have a lot of problems and are way more common than they should be, when looking at demand for mixed use development, walkable cities, etc.
For what it’s worth, for most of human existence rural towns existed without need for cars, so there’s still some truth to the idea that America has been rebuilt for the car, even in rural areas. There’s a variety of explanations out there for why and how they worked, but one I’m a fan of is how many rural towns would organize around a central “main street”, and keep the houses near it while the rest of their land spread outward. That way food, entertainment, and neighbors were all still easily accessible despite the large average amount of land.
And tbh, even setting that aside, I don’t think many urbanists actually have an issue with rural areas. The movement really focuses on suburbia. A lot of the problems stem from suburbs being spread out like rural areas, but with city level amenities, without paying the amount of taxes to get those amenities that far out. Most notably, paved roads are extremely expensive to maintain and gas taxes are not high enough to pay for it. But to some extent most services suburbs get are going to be subsidized by those living in a nearby city, because it’s just so much cheaper to provide those services when everyone lives closer together. And besides the subsidization, suburbs (unlike both cities and rural towns) just have a lot of qualities to them that make them bad for the environment and unpleasant and dangerous to live in - I understand not wanting to live in a city, but no one thinks hour long commutes through rush hour traffic is a positive.
