Most of the criticisms that come from the right are solvable problems, such as lack of chargers, electricity coming from dirty sources, or lithium mining. We pretty much know how to solve all those at this point. Just a matter of doing it.
Criticisms that come from the left tend to be more fundamental. Things like car-based cities being too spread out, infrastructure costs spiraling out of control, or having the average person operate a 2 ton vehicle at speeds over 60mph and expecting this to be safe. None of those are specific to EVs, and are only solvable by looking at different transportation options.
But solving problems costs money! We need to be transferring those dollars to our wealthy donors, not spending them on public improvements!
How is lithium mining a solvable problem? Genuinely asking
Oceanic sources. The projects getting underway are focusing on brine pools like California’s Salton Sea, but sea water sources of lithium in general are basically indefinite, and can work anywhere with a coastline. Other harvested salts may also produce useful byproducts, and you may even be able to run it as part of a general desalination plant for freshwater.
Not to mention there are advances with lithium recycling, both in facilities and new processes to make it more efficient.
Also, wouldn’t it be an option at some point to switch to other resources? There is so much money being thrown at alternative battery technology
Now, this is interesting!
Seawater contains 230 billion tons of lithium, compared to just 21 million tons in conventional land-based reserves. Lihytech estimates that extracting just 0.1 per cent of all lithium from seawater would be enough to meet humanity’s technology needs.
Source: https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/kaust-spinout-will-extract-lithium-from-seawater/
The problems you’re describing from vthe right and the left are really the same problems. They’re just expressing their perception of them differently. Infrastructure solutions and spiraling costs are more challenging in less dense areas where the right tends to hold more sway. It isn’t a simple, cost effective answer. Yet.
People don’t want to change the status quo or inconvenience themselves slightly in any way for the greater good. People want a magic drop in replacement that magically “fixes/solves” the environmental crisis and allows life to continue on as is. (So they don’t have to take “yucky” public transit)
What really needs to be known though is life has to somewhat drastically change so we can make the world a healthier place for generations to come in the future.
You’re being downvoted because you’re right. I’ve had people argue that EVs still aren’t a good alternative because they may require a bit more effort every once in a while. Like, charging for 30 minutes at a charger on a long road trip vs just gassing up. Other than that they are pretty much a drop in alternative and people still balk at them.
Then trying to get them to use public transit instead? Doesn’t even matter if it’s more convenient, they’re stuck in their ways and will refuse to change ever.
Get out of your ruts people. Just because “this is the way things are” doesn’t mean it’s the best way. Ffs the amount of midwesterners who come to my city to visit and think we’re being “unsafe” by using the train, just get out of your mindsets.
get out of your ruts
But thinking critically is hard and I’m lazy!
What’s kinda funny is we already have a mode of public transit almost everybody, even those who drive everywhere, use: elevators. Buses, trains, etc. are only seen as “yucky” because most people (at least in America) don’t use them and refuse to spend their tax dollars on them, leaving them to be used primarily by the poor and desperate. But when you have public transit that is used by everybody, like elevators, you find they’re well-funded and well-kept, and absolutely no one will bat an eye about having to use it.
It really boils down to 2 things. First is the obvious comfort, they think it’s more comfortable to be in a car. But that is broken down with traffic. You bring up traffic and they’ll complain for hours about it.
Second is fear. They won’t admit it but they’re just terrified because they just hear of the big bad city and think stepping on a train is a one way ticket to getting stabbed, while never having any real knowledge of what it’s like.
Commuted for a decade - never got stabbed, but got mugged a number of times. My parents told me repeatedly how fantastic catching the tram, train, bus etc. was - they loved catching it in on a Sunday at 11am and leaving around 2pm. They never did the 8am rush hour crunch or 6pm post-school commute. Public transport can be as fancy as you like, but if you need to travel via a rough area and the transport lacks security…
So what’s the solution for people like me that live 10 miles from the closest shop, 15 miles from the kids schools and 10 miles to the closest train station and we have no bus services that serve the village?
Well either you could move to a different location if you want to, convince your community and local politicians to build better infrastructure, or realize that you are a minority, an edge case that usually is not adressed in these talks because a few people in remote locations using a car doesn’t hurt if we could get rid of car dependency in densely populated areas where the vast majority of humans live.
Vote to allow more dense, mixed-use, transit-oriented development as well as more and better public transit. In many cases there’s a chicken-and-egg problem of NIMBYs blocking new, denser development because of fears of bringing too much traffic, but the public transit that would allay those fears isn’t built because there’s not enough density.
And so what happens is places get stuck in a trap of perpetual car-dependence, which is bad for the environment, bad for the economy, and bad for social equality (cars are super expensive and thus a particular burden on lower income folks, and many people with disabilities simply can’t drive).
The only way to break the cycle is for people to recognize what’s happening and intentionally vote their way out of it.
“Vote to allow more dense, mixed-use, transit-oriented development as well as more and better public transit.”
But I don’t want that. My neighborhood is great, and I don’t want to turn it into my local small city or my local big city. Plus, what you’re describing is very expensive, and taxes are already high.
On bike those distance are fine. Ebikes exist also. Either way I’d rather life and society adjusted itself to a slower commute than the danger and depression of car based transportation infrastructure. I used to ride my hike one hour to get groceries and an hour back. Those who are disabled can ride the bus and train. A lot of changes need to be made. Infrastructure and people need to change. I’d rather have a car free safe road for walking and riding my bike. We will all live longer to just from exercise and safer travel in general.
Getting two kids 15 miles on a bike will be fun. So would getting a weeks shopping home on one.
People need cars. It’s a fact of life.
I’m convinced a lot of the fuck car people are people in their 20s with no kids who live in the city where they can heavily rely on good public transport and not have a need to travel too far.
I totally get the sentiment but it’s just not practical for a lot of us. To get people away from cars the local authority would need to practically fill the roads with small extremely regular buses that go all over the place. You’d never wait more than a couple of minutes outside your house for a bus to arrive to go somewhere.
Yeah, society, as it is now, is designed around cars. That’s kind of the entire point of the fuck cars idea. We shouldn’t have built our society with the assumption that everyone should need a car, and we should start transitioning towards something more efficient and sustainable.
deleted by creator
Try arguing that people should bring their own bags to the grocery store. Responses get hilarious quickly.
Inconvenience is mild to say the least. If i had to commute by public transit or bike. it would increase my commute from 15mins to well over 3hrs on foot, 1hr on Bike 4hrs public transit with obnoxious transfers instead of just a nice easy loop or stop nearby, no , no. has to take multiple routes, change buses, stamp tickets…at that point, ill just get an oil change every so often. my cars are paid in full. Ownership means something. Convenience. My music, I don’t have to endure 30 other passengers going to work with misery on their faces to stare and smell at. I don’t have to worry about shameless vagrants harassing people on that commute. No sweat, I got AC…Cars are not going to be beat by public transit. The gap can close with better infrastructure but people, hate people. they want to be left alone and are free to do and go anywhere they choose with the modern day Horse.
In some cities, e.g. Vienna, public transport already beats cars. For playing your own music I have some mid/low-range noise cancelling and can watch movies
some cities like Vienna. whats the population of Vienna? How many people Live Not in Vienna? Cars to the rest of us make sense.
I tell people yes do get an EV for your next car. But also use this chance to really think about if you need the car at all. Or does every adult in the household need a car each. Our city is trash for everyone having to own a car.
Best is to run your car to the ground. Then get an EV if you must own a car.
Unfortunately mass transit that works for everyone is the enemy of vehicle manufacturers.
And the rich. They need to differentiate themselves somehow from the poor
Optional first class for higher price could be used for this.
That’s a good idea
Live in a not so small town in Germany. I haven’t had the need to have a car after I have been living for 9 years.
I commute with bike to work, take public transport when it’s a farther journey.
Until I have a daughter a couple of months ago. I realize that I really need a car. :(
It’s hard to have a baby without a car. It’s for sleep, for nappy changing, your closet and your pantry. Those first few years especially. If you need one even for a few years it’s totally understandable.
Yeah. It’s very difficult. Going to pediatrician for example. Or if it’s raining. It’s so troublesome to bring a baby with a bike in that situation.
The cargo bike boom has brought us some really decent ways to transport small children and stuff by bike, I actually think it’s quite possible to use is you live in a not so small town. There are accessories to weather proof the cargo area, there are Iso-fix mounts for child seats and once the child can sit by itself it’s usually quite a joy for them as well. These bikes are also protecting the child in case of a fall much better than you would think.
However I really do understand that a car is significantly more convenient. I live in rural Germany and there distances can easily amount to 10-15km one way to run errands such as going to the pediatrician. It’s just a bit much, particularly with a toddler. And the car really does become storage for clothes and all that, you can just park it and everything in there is dry and safe, all that makes the car very attractive. Also a decent cargo bike with kids-friendly accessories will run you as much as a cheap small used car, although only the initial cost of course.
The key to bad weather is decent clothes, and children can easily be weather proofed for the most part. My kid is three now and I’ve seriously considered switching over to a bike, but only to replace the second car that I frequently use because my partner will need one to go to work anyways. But running the car cost me around 250€ every month (I keep track of every expense except cleaning) and that is only as long as nothing major breaks. Upkeep of even a large cargo bike is a fraction of that.
Sounds great! I still don’t think that a cargo bike is very safe. Especially for a baby. :(
It definitely crosses my mind, that I’d do that if the kid is getting older. But definitely not before 2-3 years old.
I haven’t bought a car yet. I’m still in paternal leave so I can manage to do everything. Once I start working, let’s see how well we are doing without a car. :)
Even in America, I have seen a fair few parents carrying their kids around by bike. It seems it’s not totally impossible, though you may need to put your bike through some upgrades.
I don’t dare to bring my now 3 months old baby with bike. The weather is still "summer"y now. In winter I wouldn’t do it. I myself have fallen down from bikes at least 4 times in the last couple of years. I can’t imagine if that happens while I’m taking my baby with bike.
I bet those people are doing it for economic reasons, not environmental ones. A bicycle is probably the most dangerous form of transportation for you to have your kid on.
How us bicycle more dangerous than cars?
Sure cars have all the safety features for people on the inside, but on a bike you’re exposed to much slower speeds and better field of view. Bike accidents have much smaller fatality rate than car accidents.
Unless of course you mean cycling among cars is less safe, but that argument just confirms that cars are unsafe, not bikes. Bikes are not dangerous. Cars are.
It wouldn’t be any dangerous if car and bike infrastructure was structurally separated (and if there were far fewer cars).
But they aren’t.
That should be changed, shouldn’t it?
Of course, but if my vehicle was the only vehicle in the world, I’d still feel like a 2 year old kid on the back of my bike going 7 miles is more dangerous than on a bus, train, or even a car over the same distance.
It’s possible, but it’s really obnoxious and shitty. Especially if the weather is too cold for a new born to be outside.
New born parents is one of the few true excuses to use a car over a bike, imo.
But that’s okay, we’ll still need roads for emergency services anyway so it’s okay if some people use them.
I have two kids and use a bike (for ecological reasons). I realize I’m incredibly lucky my area has very good and safe biking infrastructure. Had to upgrade to a electric cargo bike when the second one came about, but I don’t regret at all, it’s more’confortable and safer for the kids. I do own an old ICE car, which I considered replacing with a new EV, but since I drive maybe a few hundreds of kilometers per year, I figured it’d make more sense to keep the old diesel than to replace it.
If I could guarantee that my job is remote forever, or have it written in my contract, I would sell my car.
I live a short bike ride away from the shops. I have some side bags for the ebike I built so lugging groceries isn’t too much of an issue.
The biggest shift is learning you wouldn’t shop the same way you do with a car. With a car you go to a big supermarket and load up a trolley. Spend over a hundred for a week’s worth and drive home. With a bike you kinda just buy as needed for the next couple days. You do more trips throughout the week which is kinda nice too. Forces you to get out of the house more. Benefit I realised when doing this was vegetables were less likely to just die out in the fridge since I bought as needed. Which meant I spent a little less overall.
Do you have access to food, stores, etc using public transport? How do you go about buying stuff and bringing it back home?
Your car will be worth less the longer you hang on to it. You can sell it and hang on to the money until your company tries to get everyone back in the office.
This is likely not going to be the case for the classics (old->modern-day). A Honda Jazz will lose it’s value, a classic Aston? Less likely - even static some of them are works of art.
Ok but what if the Aston isn’t cared for properly and left out to rust? Then the price will go down!
Is my bringing-up-a-small-edge-case helpful? Does pointing to 1% of situations refute the general case or further the discussion in any meaningful way?
Simply pointing out that not all cars will depreciate in value. Well maintained ones should continue to hold their value until oil prices and taxes make them out-of-reach for the average citizen. Let us not forget that 80 percent of vehicles are bought in the second-hand market… Nobody has raised the prospect of killing that market off yet in a policy sense (of which I am aware).
Best is to run your car to the ground.
Absolutely not if you have an older ICE car with bad gas mileage and/or a diesel. Even getting a NEW EV would be better for global warming and the health of your fellow humans than continuing THAT shit show.
Of course, as per the OP, bicycle and mass transit is still much better than any EV, but the really bad emissions cars should NOT stay on the road until their “natural” death unless absolutely necessary.
I don’t understand. I thought there’s more emissions being made from the creation of the EV and its lithium battery than using the remaining life of a gas beater.
They offset the Co2 used in production at around 40k miles, but the batteries are extremely recycleable as battery banks for solar systems, or as raw material for new batteries since it is already out of the ground and they have processes to recycle it now. The gas burned by a car can never be recycled or reused and is extremely inefficient in moving a vehicle. Not to mention the toll extracting fossil fuels is having on this planet. EVs get almost 200 mpg equivalent because of their efficiencies of motors and aerodynamics.
The idea is the concentration of lithium production can be more controlled (and recycled?) as opposed to leaving gas guzzlers out on the road. Plus the distribution of gas to gas stations and such.
As much as I want an EV. My country is just not set up for a smooth transition to EV yet. Until then it’s best to just not give the auto industry more sales and run what you have until you’re realistically ready.
That’s a commonly believed myth. In reality that’s only true for the most efficient ICEs, not the ones I mentioned.
Source?
I’m entertained by the fact that everyone gets hung up on how EVs are still not totally green because the electricity comes from coal fired plants or that there’s still manufacturing emissions and stuff…
It’s like, yeah, but compared to an ICE car, which has all the same problems (environmental cost of manufacturing the vehicle, mining and refining the fuel, transporting it, etc) but EVs don’t actively pollute nearly as much during use, and they speak as if these are of equal environmental cost, and they’re not. Additionally, ICE vehicles need a lot more oil to operate that needs to be changed and disposed of every few thousand miles.
It’s like doing less harm isn’t valuable to the people arguing against it, but then again, those are probably the same people who drive their V8 truck to get groceries.
Plus there are plenty of people, like myself, who live in areas where the electricity comes from mostly renewable sources.
Me too. I’m pretty well surrounded by nuclear and hydro-electric here in southern Ontario.
A yes, renewable nuclear energy.
Somewhat renewable through breeder reactors.
Still, nuclear energy has a very good carbon footprint (unlike coal plants) and the public image of them being polluters was a joint disinformation project by Greenpeace and the oil companies in the early 2000s. Greenpeace backpedaled hard on their stance in the recent years.
It’s like, yeah, but compared to an ICE car, which has all the same problems (environmental cost of manufacturing the vehicle, mining and refining the fuel, transporting it, etc) but EVs don’t actively pollute nearly as much during use, and they speak as if these are of equal environmental cost, and they’re not. Additionally, ICE vehicles need a lot more oil to operate that needs to be changed and disposed of every few thousand miles.
None of that is the real problem with electric cars.
The real problem with electric cars is that they’re still cars, which means they embody the same arrogance of space as regular cars. In other words, they take up too much space – both while driving and while parked – physically forcing trip origins and destinations further apart and ruining the city not only for pedestrians, cyclists and transit riders, but even also for the drivers themselves.
(That last link is from the perspective of a car enthusiast, by the way.)
I’m not going to argue with you on that point, I think cars are too big in the first place. With electric vehicles they can be reconfigured to ebikes or something much, much smaller. but I’m only mentioning the ICE vs EVs cost of manufacturing and how “green” they are. It’s a step in the right direction; it’s not the whole journey. Walkable cities and more compact designs of metro areas is still something that needs to be done, but it’s an entirely separate argument to the one I was making.
As someone who primarily drives because I live in a small suburb in the middle of a farm region, I’d be happy to park at the edge of a larger city and walk/bike/e-scooter/transit my way into the city. I think transit costs and the costs associated with most of the bike/e-bike/scooter services to be a bit high, given that I just drove to the city in the first place, but that’s a minor gripe among the plethora of other issues it could and would likely solve to have the city more pedestrian friendly.
Personally, given where I live, I’m more or less obligated to have a car, and if that car is a PHEV or full EV, would benefit the world overall; maybe not by a lot, but certainly more than using ICE vehicles to get around.
I just visited the US and I was dumbfounded how insane your city planning is. Like you literally can’t just make a short shopping trip on foot. You’d have to walk half an hour to even reach basic stores because the sprawl is so bad (City in CA with about 100k inhabitants) and then there are parking spaces everywhere. Like atleast half to 2/3 of the land space is used for parking. And ofc most parking is planned so they can accomodate everyone which means they’re always atleast half empty.
I live in Canada, we’re not any better. And for someone who lives here, it doesn’t make sense to me either.
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Also, charging from the electrical grid means EV’s immediately get future improvements in CO2 usage when the grid improves its mix of power sources.
Larger engines (such as those in power plants) are also generally more efficient. And RVs don’t use oil to drive the oil to where the car can get oil - we have the grid (a modern wonder of the world) to do that for us.
The magical Nirvana solution that will turn our society into Star Trek still isn’t here, so we need to obstruct less harmful solutions while failing to offer anything usable.
They will continue to astroturf any and all arguments no matter how stupid to see what sticks. We must continue to refute these idiotic claims and progress towards cleaner air
Environmental impact is still less than ICE, yes, but until we figure out a better way to process lithium and make batteries last longer hybrids still have a smaller environmental impact over the lifetime of the vehicle. Eventually we need to cut out petrol entirety of course, but until we get clean batteries the better short-term solution is hybrids when a vehicle is strictly necessary, and bikes or waking in all other cases. An electric motorcycle might be a good short-term solution too, but as of now battery manufacturing is unacceptably dirty. But as you said, it’s still better than ICE. I just think hybrid would be better as a transition while the technology is improved.
Actually hybrid cars aren’t more green than electric cars. As much as electric cars aren’t perfect, they are by far the greenest option. Don’t trust oil lobbies :)
I agree that battery tech needs to be better. We also need to put in the work now to improve the grid so that when there’s wide scale adoption, the grid won’t collapse under the strain.
For the most part it’s a transit issue… we simply cannot move that many watts of power.
For the rest of it, and hybrids versus full electric vs bikes vs walking, that’s a much larger discussion, since not everyone will be able to adopt something more green than a highly efficient vehicle (whether hybrid or EV or otherwise)…
My main point is that they’ll argue dumb crap like manufacturing, that causes so much pollution, and say it in a way that almost seems like they think that ICE cars are better for that, somehow?
It’s like, we know it’s not “carbon neutral” or whatever… it’s just carbon massively reduced and that’s the point Carl.
Hybrids are often times even worse dan pure gas cars. Don’t believe the oil lobby.
From a practical standpoint, hybrid cars make no sense. You inherit the problems of both electric and fossil and you gain pretty much nothing. I don’t understand why they are still being made.
I understand the electric bit is cheaper and more efficient in city traffic while the fossil bit is more supported over long distance travel.
It seems intended for the teething stage where the charging point infrastructure isn’t rolled out extensively enough for pure EV usage, and public transport doesn’t do the thing.
I see a risk in complacency where the final steps aren’t taken of rolling out charging points and buffing transit because hybrids are “good enough”. Probably not a massive risk though as fossil’s stigma grows and fuel prices rise.
It also moves most of the population that is produced away from where people live and so out of their lungs.
Public transport is awesome…
It just doesnt always go where everyone needs to go
Bikes are great right until you have to do large grocery shopping or get to a place far away.
I cant do without a car where i live.
That argument will be thrown at every god damn step we make towards a better planet. It’s not valid.
Electric cars will not save the planet. Electric cars will save the car industry.
But they’re a whole lot better for the planet than gas cars. And cars won’t go away till we make alternatives. Which we should do as quickly as possible, but will still take a while.
… so long as you’re not leasing them, the lifetime energy cost is night and day.
The current rhetoric against EVs is reminiscent of the rhetoric against nuclear power. Yes, it’s not great. Yes, it’s not renewable. However, it gives us more time to more deeply address these issues. The successful anti-nuclear Green Peace campaigns against nuclear have done immeasurable damage to the environment in the long-term (I’m now convinced they were a big oil sock puppet all along). The same could be said for the anti-EV crowd, but the “EVs are sexy” campaign seems to be gaining more traction this time round.
Make no mistake though, the “EVs are just as bad” is a myth perpetuated by big oil.
If you can do a bike, then please do a bike (or a scooter, or one of the many options). If you can’t, then an EV is a good choice. If you can’t afford an EV. But never, ever, lease.
It’s not good enough. Cars are a bigger problem than their immediately obvious issues like pollution.
??? I hugely disagree that cars are a bigger problem than green house gas pollution. I can live in an unwalkable city. I probably can’t live on a +4°C earth.
Designing a city to be hostile to cars takes more vehicles off the road than trying to push people into electrics. Less cars (of any type) in the city means less health hazards means billions saved means billions to use on climate change research. Please don’t forget that tires are the major polluting factor right now, not exhaust gasses. I strongly believe this is more effective than trying to slowly push people into electrics which will still pollute the air with microplastics and make a ton of noise when they race through the city. Lithium is also not particularly clean to mine, so I’d prefer it was used to make batteries for bikes and other similarly sized vehicles. The world does not have the mining and processing capacity to support converting everyone to an electric car.
I usually visit my closest city for one of two reasons: 1) I have some kind of appointment or 2) I know some who lives there. Right now I’m able to drive there and park on the street. What should my alternative be once the city is “hostile” to cars? Remember, I live 30+ minutes away by car and take a highway to get there.
I think co2 ghgs global warming is by far the biggest environmental catastrophe coming our way. So the most important factor will be how will it impact co2 emissions.
As I said, we should make alternatives to driving in cities as quickly as we can. But that will still take a while. What are you suggesting in the mean time? Not going places?
EVs are much better than gas for minimizing co2 emissions. I think we should encourage them as a transitional solution till we have trains and walkable or bikeable cities.
I think we should encourage them as a transitional solution till we have trains and walkable or bikeable cities.
This is my problem. I don’t think we’ll ever reach that point when we accept half-solutions. It wouldn’t take more than a single decade to uproot our city design if we had any ambition left, but alas.
Our disagreement is that I think the societal cost of cars is more than you think, not that I think electric cars are a bad transitional step. But I also think that we live under an economic model that will kick, fight and scream the whole time we try to uproot such a massive portion of it, being the oil industry. It’s possible we just can’t fix it at this point except by radical change. I don’t have ultimate solutions, I’m just wary of electric cars because lithium mining is just as bad as oil drilling from a different direction and electric cars will kill just as many kids in the street as combustion cars.
By all means make electric vehicles- just please not cars.
Cars are simply not a good method of individual transportation, regardless of what energy they consume. Theyre just too big.
You’re still lugging around 1500 to 2000 kg of steel, glass & plastic to move around little more than your butt. You can do something more efficient than that, assuming the infrastructure is rigged up to handle it.
Yup, not ideal. But the available infrastructure is the key point as you said. A lot of places in the US there just isn’t an alternative.
Actually, they are not common yet because car manufacturers knew they could potentially lose profit as it`s simpler (mechanically ) machine and thus car should break less and they would sell less as result.
The problem is that the real way to cut down on emissions would be to accept that not every good can be available at any time and that’s a bitter pill to swallow.
We have tuna caught in South America, hauled to Thailand for canning and hauled back to the US to be sold. Turns more profit than local catches because the megacorporations can save a couple bucks on worker salaries. And that is just an example, it’s not just the food industry, hauling shit to hell and back and back to hell and back is common practice.
Doesn’t even have to be unavailable at times. They could can it in north America if they wanted to. Outsourcing jobs (read: exploiting foreign countries and their workers) should be heavily taxed if not banned in most industries
You mean exploiting, right? :)
Yes. Auto correct haha
If I could hop on a train from the country side or ride my bike 20m on a dirt road or ice and winter to get to a store I’d be happy but that’s not happening
Could happen soon, has happened before in most places.
If you live in a city or its suburbs maybe, I live a 20 minute drive away from civilization. Not going to get public transit out there any time soon unfortunately.
I’m the same, the typical answer I get told is to move lol
They act like I don’t want to live in the woods
If I could hop on a train from the country side
Yes please!
This reminded me of that Caojiawan metro station built in the middle of nowhere lol
Spoiler
Please govt start doing what the US railroads did in the past, why is expanding train structure approached with such scepticism outside of asia 😭 public transport should not be viewed as a profit machine IMO
My nearest city has got the right idea by making public transport in general more like a right - I can bike 30min from my village to free (staffed) bike parking, and get around on the city’s free shuttle bus.
There’s another shuttle (or, BRT as it skips loads of bus stops) free for hospital workers and paid for everyone else, which jumps between various shopping/housing areas, hospitals and main train station. I used to take it a lot as the drivers could freely divert off route to skip traffic, due to not needing to stop at every single bus stop. Sadly it gets very packed at multiple times of day, wish it was a tram or metro sometimes TBH
Caojiawan metro station
That station was just built ahead of other development (which is a sensible thing to do), this is what it looks like now:
Bikes sound like a great idea until you decide to live in the hills/mountains, or a place where it rains/snows often, or you need to buy more than 4 bags of groceries, or you live in a desert, or you are moving furniture.
eBikes really take the sting out of hills.
I live where it snows a lot, winter tires are a must, but so long as bike lanes are properly cleared it’s not really a problem (big IF I know), until it gets to -25C or colder the cold isn’t really a problem (you warm up fast peddling, I normally find myself unzipping my jacket).
My cargo bike is enough for me to take 2 weeks of groceries for 4 people. The largest thing I have transported has been a fridge (which funnily enough couldn’t fit in my EV). the bike is rated for 200Kg, but I would bet it can take more if you don’t mind going a little slower. I have also transported lawn mowers, bar stools and a rocking chair. For anything bigger than that 30bucks on a uhaul is more than worthwhile, although I look forward to electric uhauls.
Yeah, I live in Montreal which gets like 90 inches of snow annually and can get down to the -20s Celsius regularly in the winter. And yet I (and many others) still bike throughout the winter. Turns out having good protected bike infrastructure and plowing it regularly in the winter makes biking perfectly practical even in the middle of a cold, snowy winter.
In fact, two of the best cities for biking in North America are Montreal and Minneapolis, both very cold and snowy in the winter.
You will be surprised how much grandmas with grandma trolley can carry.
E-bikes still have a massive carbon footprint compared to regular bicycles, and the battery efficiency is very adversely effected by high heat (deserts) and low heat (snow) .
Either way, a car, even if its an EV, will be the better pick for every situation I stated above.
E-bikes still have a massive carbon footprint compared to regular bicycles,
The comparison is not between regular bikes and e bikes but between e bikes and cars. E bikes win this.
Either way, a car, even if its an EV, will be the better pick for every situation I stated above.
A 3000€ gaming machine will be better in any task than a 500€ office pc. But as long as the office pc is sufficient, why spend the extra money?
E-bikes still have a massive carbon footprint compared to regular bicycles
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. If you’d prefer to use a purely pedel bike go right ahead, but I find having a boost for heavy loads and hills makes biking preferable in situations it otherwise wouldn’t be. My battery is a 0.8kwh battery, which is more or less 15 iPhone batteries strapped together. My car is a 65kwh battery, literally 100x bigger for only 10x the range. While hard to find info, my understanding is my car is one of the more efficient ones out there too.
battery efficiency
Never comes into play, my bike has a 40km range with no load and no pedaling so typically even in winter the battery is far bigger than most trips I would take. There is also a longer range option (I think 100km) and you can quick swap the batteries if you really wanted to marathon. I do take the battery inside in winter as starting it warm does help it alot. I probably would be more hesitant to take heavy things in particular if I didn’t have the battery.
Either way, a car, even if its an EV, will be the better pick for every situation I stated above.
Well no, if you look at my comment I do own a car (bolt euv). I literally couldnt take the fridge in the car, i had to go home and grab my bike which could carry it. I use my bike because my city has good infrastructure that makes it quicker than driving. No need to hunt for parking, and the exercise is nice. Being able to use it while lightly intoxicated is also a plus.
Keep coping loser. Many of us will be trying to actually fix the mess.
Lifecycle emissions of ebiking can be a couple times lower unless you eat very green. Its been regularly over 100F here and I wish it was a desert so I didn’t have to also deal with humidity: I’ve ridden in thunderstorms and think its nicer than riding the middle of the sunny summer days. Either way, still better than driving in traffic. For moving large things, a car is not any better. And driving around a moving van every day would be a huge waste when you can just use them when you need them and drive a much better vehicle (a bike) when you don’t.
Ebikes actually have a lower carbon footprint compared to regular bikes, because they go more kilometers in their lifespan.
You can make more than 100 ebike batteries with the same amount of lithium as one electric car battery.
Twice of something that isn’t very big in the first place.
Please tell me more about how easy it is to move furniture with a VW Polo!
Right lol, you either use a truck or rent a uhaul for that kind of business.
Exactly. And in a hilly/mountainous area, you get a bike with multiple gears (21 gear bikes are not a rarity even in the north german plains where I live) or with electric motor support. If you need to get a lot of groceries you either do groceries more often or get a cargo bike. For bad weather there’s clothing.
Nobody says a bike is perfect for everyone. But the vast majority of people live in urban environments and don’t need to haul tons of cargo daily. Bikes are a piece of the puzzle and if only those people had a car who actually need one often it could be a huge piece.
21 gear bikes are not a rarity even in the north german plains where I live
It is not amount of gears that matter, it is range of transmission that does.
For bad weather there’s clothing.
Yeah, it seems a lot of people just don’t know or don’t want to know what proper clothing is. Maybe they don’t even know it exists.
Nobody says a bike is perfect for everyone.
Well, anyone who can’t use bike will use powered wheelchair.
It is not amount of gears that matter, it is range of transmission that does.
You are completely right. I just don’t want to get too nerdy here.
Yeah, it seems a lot of people just don’t know or don’t want to know what proper clothing is. Maybe they don’t even know it exists.
Which is surprising given how many people I see wearing super expensive outdoor/hiking jackets to go from the parking lot to the supermarket every time a drop of rain falls.
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You picked a subcompact car, rather than a vehicle that any person with more than one braincell would pick for moving furniture, such as a truck.
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You 100% will have a better time doing everything else I said in even a subcompact like the Polo than a bicycle.
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But I don’t need a bigger car 99.999 percent of the time. Why should I buy a bigger one and pay it while not needing it instead of take a rental when I need to?
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Please read my other comment.
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If only you could pedal a bike like you peddle that bullshit argument.
Finland would like to talk with you. At the end of talk your world will be shattered. Your ribs will be shattered as well.
One thing that would go a long way in helping with that would be if we improved the quality of urban schools / parks to the point where fewer people felt like they had to move to the suburbs to start families.
Yes, that would help, but that would require major reworking of large areas. Additionally, having a large density of population all living on top of each other presents its own unique problems.
Really, its a situation where different people and places need different solutions. Some can use public transport and bicycles, and some cannot. And unless the Earths population becomes so large that every square inch of the planet is as dense as a place like Kowloon, cars will continue to fill a use that bicycles and public transport can never fill.
And unless the Earths population becomes so large that every square inch of the planet is as dense as a place like Kowloon, cars will continue to fill a use that bicycles and public transport can never fill.
Cars didn’t exist until 200 years ago and didn’t gain the depandance they have now until 60ish year ago. Cars will cease to exist sometime in the future.
We’re living in a small bubble in history where cars exist, the question is if we want to gradually reduce dependancy on cars now, or wait for the forceful bandage removal.
but that would require major reworking of large areas.
Yes, that’s precisely what will be required. There’s no getting through this without implementing massive changes to our way of life. Everyone wants there to be some kind of easy get-out-of-jail-free card, but that’s not how it’s going to be.
I lived on top of a steep hill where it gets icy and we still rode bikes. You learn pretty quickly. You should watch mountain biker down mountain races on YouTube. People are more like mountain goats than you know!
How often are you going to move furniture?
Most of the people spouting the “everyone should ride a bike” stuff don’t have to feed a family of 4+ people.
I keep getting really confused reading comments like this, then remembering “Ah, yeah, probably an American who doesn’t have a small supermarket with all the everyday stuff literally next door”
Sorry that I live in a state with a size as big as your county, and a city with a population as large as a lot of countries.
In order to get everything that close you’d have to stack people on top of each other in slums like the kowloon.
I would much rather drive a mile to the store than to live in a little box stacked on top of other people.
But I guess we should just tear down hundreds of cities like mine and start all over to make them bike friendly. 🤣
Weird take.
No, you don’t have to stack people at all. A small store with 2-3 employees servicing a neighbourhood would very easily be profitable and convenient. You’d need to walk 10 minutes instead of 30 seconds if people were more spread out, but much better than the US big box store surrounded by the parking moat.
Assuming you’re talking about US suburbs, the only change would be some franchise buying a single house in a neighbourhood, bulldozing that and building a small store. That is, if it wasn’t illegal to do that due to zoning laws.
I live in a neighbourhood with a mixture of apartment blocks, parks and stores. When I step outside my apartment block, I can either walk 30 seconds to the store, the park, the vet, etc. People who live down the road from me might need 5 minutes to get to those places as they’re a bit farther away from our local store hub.
Of course big stores with much more variety and less commonly bought things exist, for that you do need some form of transport, even here. It’s just not necessary to go there to buy pasta and sauce to cook for dinner, for example.
How many people live in a desert? How many people live in the hills/mountains? Most people don’t.
Yeah fuck them. If they dont do what I do then then can go to hell am i right. Pls like and subscribe, 5 likes and ill turn into the hulk and rip my weiner off
“Bikes don’t work for some people, therefore why bother? Let’s all just drive.”
Good strawman 😍 How do i send a super like?
“Most people”, where? Because most people in, let’s say, Norway, live in areas with hills and mountains. The US isn’t the whole world you know.
You have no idea how people in Europe live. I live in Germany. Norway has 5 urban people for every rural living person: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/NOR/norway/urban-population
And still, the urban areas in Norway ain’t actually flat. I know, I live here.
Nearly every person in South California, which is an incredibly high density of population? The entire bottom half of California is practically a desert, literally home to one of the hottest deserts in the entire planet the Mojave which contains the appropriately named Death Valley.
How about the people that live in parts of Arizona, Nevada, Utah, much of southern Texas, and New Mexico? And thats just in the United States. What about people in other continents like Africa and Asia? Large areas of those continents contain entire countries whose borders never leave desert or hills and mountains. Nearly the entire Middle East and top half of Africa is desert. A large part of Australia is desert, its like more than 50% of the continent. 1/5 of the entire land area of Earth is a desert.
Buses, trains, subways, and trams?
I don’t understand how hydrogen didn’t win the race. Transports and explodes just like gasoline. Make car go fast. Doesn’t degrade like lithium. Can be “mined” by throwing electricity at water during times of excess generation by renewables. When you burn it, it turns into water. Has none of the national security concerns of distribution of lithium mining and production in other countries.
Hydrogen for cars is a nonsense. It is so inefficient. Unless you are making it from oil, which why the oil companies are pushing it, you lose loads of energy making it. Then it has to storages and transported, which is hard. Then the car use of it is inefficient too.
So ignoring the oil industries’ “blue hydrogen”, and looking only at “green hydrogen”, you are looking at about 22% of the energy generated ending up pushing the car forward! With an EV it is about 73%. So hydrogen car are over 3 times more expensive to run.
Plus you can just plug in an EV anywhere. With an EV, if need be, you can charge, slowly, off a normal home socket. Of course, normally, you fit faster charging at home.
Hydrogen cars is lie pushed by big oil.
To be fair, i think it may have some use for fleet vehicles like taxis and long range buses because these are applications where being able to refill in minutes at a fuel depo you already run actually matters as compared to the stress you would put on a large battery fast charging day in day out. I also believe that Japan has a nuclear plant that is being built with the capacity to efficacy generate hydrogen directly. That being said, for personal vehicles I can’t really see the market of people who need that fast of a refil being large enough to reach the economies of scale necessary to be practical.
Afaik it has a higher energy density than common batteries, so it could be useful in things like aviation where this is the main concern and you can build special infrastructure to support it.
The frustrating thing is that a car running on hydrogen works really well, has a pretty long range and can be refueled quickly, so it looks like a good alternative. It’s only when you ask how that hydrogen was made and how it arrived at the refueling station that things start to fall appart.
What about hydrogen fuel cells? They got 79% efficiency and can replace batteries of EVs right?
Yes, but turning electricity into hydrogen doesn’t have 100% efficiency, during transport, storage and filling the car with hydrogen you lose some of it and only then you get to the fuel cell, which isn’t very efficient in itself. And then you lose a bit more (although very little) in the electric motor. All this amounts to the 22% of the guy above (didn’t check the number btw, but it sounds plausible)
and can replace batteries of EVs right?
Toyota bet on this and it didn’t go anywhere in the US. They’re pivoting to battery EVs.
Even countries that invested heavily in hydrogen are pulling back - like Denmark eliminating all hydrogen stations. https://energywatch.com/EnergyNews/Renewables/article16432608.ece
You can use liquified hydrogen which need to be chilled and insulated, and will evaporate away in a short time if not properly sealed
Or you use compressed hydrogen which means you are basically carrying an IED that weighs several hundred kilograms with the amount of pressure inside the gas tank
And hydrogen combustion is as others have said, inefficient.
Another issue is that you also need to use basically pure oxygen if you want to use a hydrogen fuel cell, otherwise the catalyst inside the cell would get poisoned
And well, there is a car that did all that, the Toyota Mirai, but that also pretty much ended in commercial failure, due to lack of hydrogen filling infrastructure and a whole load of other reasons.
Everybody keeps talking about all the problems storing hydrogen, but that’s just quitter talk. You know how you solve 'em quick and easy? You simply combine the hydrogen with some carbon to make a convenient liquid fuel! As a bonus, you don’t even need to develop fancy new fuel cell tech: you can burn it in the same engines we already have.
(Half of me is serious, and the other half is making a Key & Peele style “motherfucker that’s called gasoline” joke.)
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Key & Peele style “motherfucker that’s called gasoline”
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Hydrogen currently doesn’t produce, store or transport well. This means it is not as economical as gasoline.
Not really a fan of lithium batts either. We’re going to end up with some environmental problems down the line but its the most economically viable tech we have at present if we’re intending on living the way we currently live.
You need green energy to produce climate friendly hydrogen. This is a LOT more inefficient than to just use that green energy directly in EVs. Thus green hydrogen is also expensive and most importantly it is needed in the industry. It’s the same with e-fuels.
As I understand it, the big issue is energy density? A tank of gasoline takes you quite far compared to an equivalent tank of hydrogen.
And don’t get me wrong, lithium batteries are super bad at this too, but I do think that has been a limiting factor for H cars.
And then there’s the whole tire dust issue which is definitely a conversation worth having.
Wdym super bad? Most new EVs go like 500km on a charge
Yeah, but they require somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand pounds of batteries to do so. Some of the more egregious ones need multiple thousands, e.g. the electric hummer whose battery alone is heavier than an ICE Honda Civic. Whereas a dozen gallons of gasoline (roughly 72lbs at 6lb/gal) can power that same ICE Civic for a nearly equivalent range, while causing much less wear & tear on the roads, and likely releasing less tire particulates due to the reduced weight. Of course it still releases CO2 and other nasties…
But yeah, the energy density of EVs is still super bad. It’s just “good enough” that we’re making it work.
Production is wildly inefficient and the storage and transfer of the stuff is quite tricky.
Because right now we don’t have that much excess energy… Therefore it’s just a waste of energy to use it, because it is way less efficient. AND on top of it an hydrogen car also needs a battery just a smaller one. So it has all the downsides without any upsides. The only upside is that you can recharge your car faster and it has some more range. But both those things don’t matter for the average consumer
It makes sense for long haul trucking and aviation vs batteries, at least for now, but it doesn’t scale well for most common consumer vehicles. Any hydrogen vehicle needs to be a hybrid because there isn’t the fine tune fuel ratio control you get on traditional gasoline.
I don’t think any average person would know of these advantages. So theres a general lack of education about the topic.
There is also a hydrogen refueling network problem to overcome. Before public electric charging stations existed, electric people could charge at home and install their own chargers where required so the electric industry has been able to partially side step that issue at the beginning.
Finally I think it just doesn’t seem sexy. To a casual bystander it’s like gas in, pay, then drive as usual.
Hydrogen might get more prominent in the heavy vehicles, with few more innovation.
probably because of infrastructure. electric charging stations were one of the first around and if you ask a new car buyer to choose between two renewable fuel sources, they’ll chose the one with the most stations. In the US at lease, hydrogen stations have always been few and far between, and often quite pricey.
But I can’t put a 75” TV and a 48 pack of Pepsi on the back of a bike duh.
This is my usual trip to the store so I feel your pain!
Why the hell do you keep buying TV and 48 pack of Pepsi every other day? Do you get anger issue or something ?
I can. The Pepsi can be strapped to my rear seat, and the TV can go in my surfboard rack. My surfboard is 81 inches, so the TV should fit. For more cargo room those kiddie carriers that tow behind, carry more than just kids.
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And then a tornado hits, harder
And then an asteroid hits
No worries, I have a few ponchos and heavy duty “umbrellas.”
Tarps, how do they work???
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“My mom helped me install the Bicycle Pegs, Hop on Babe. Let’s go to the pub, did you bring money, imma bout to get wasted on buy one get one Mich Ultras. If your dad gave you big bills this time then i want to get a Pabst Blue, ya hurd?”
Meanwhile, basically every Dutch students “dates” by bike, and most of London dates via the Underground.
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It’s sad. that’s what it is. imagine being with 50+ other dudes on the london underground all with your ‘dates’ ,oh yeah…or the bike ride home, are they holding her hand and trying to keep balance? 👌
oof. imagine attracting a quality mate with your inability to be independent or have ownership of anything meaningful. No wonder you all hate America. :D
It would be great if our public transit system in the US was funded enough to actually be useful for more than just occasional, highly specific trips.
Came to say the same. Where I live (Bay Area), we have a train system that works great if you are in a supported area. If not, I don’t imagine the bus system is very convenient. I want something like the NYC subway system. I want it to be inconvenient to drive, compared to regular trains. I’d never drive to San Francisco because it’s a hassle. I want all destinations to be like this (by making the alternative more attractive, not by making driving worse).
I remember saying it about 10 years ago:
You can see the culture shock in how progress works across different countries:
Japan, let’s build a shockingly fast and quiet train! USA, here’s an electric car that drives itself.
Imagine if all the posting just to shit on biking and public transit just rode a bike or something instead of sucking on a tailpipe for dear fucking life.
Blocking anybody who has to argue in bad faith, I have better things to do with my time then listen to your disengenuous bullshit.
I bus nearly everywhere but I’m lucky I’m in a city and have access to transit. Build more transit!
This reminds me, I need to work on getting a bike.
If you use it every day and can afford it, maybe look at brand electric bikes! They’re a bit like bikes, but sturdier and on bad/rainy days and whatnot it really motivates to have the motors help. They’re almost like motor scooters, if you ever had one.
Is ebike theft an issue? I’m paranoid about my push bike that I have no idea how I’d leave an ebike out.
Yes it is but you can get cheap insurance, just like you would get for a motor scooter or a car.
Yes, although I try to take precautions to prevent or catch it. For shopping I carry two u-locks and a wheel wire for my loaner ebike, and on my personal dutch-style non-e bike I rely on the built-in lock and chain.
Out of the several years I’ve owned my personal bike, there has been one attempted theft (they made off with my light, action cam, and bike computer) and that was during an hour long shopping close to midnight.
Look into whether your area has secure bike parking, such as within train stations with key card access, maybe ones attached to your local authority’s office, or even run by any local bike charity of some sort.
I personally have left my loaner ebike locked up in train station keycard storage overnight while visiting another city, there are cameras everywhere which is reassuring, and the bike was untouched when I returned for it. On a separate occasion I left some of my clothing on the locked up ebike to dry, and they were exactly how I left them when I came back to ride home.
Nowadays I just try my best not to use general public access bike parking lol
Edit: should also mention that I keep all my bikes indoors now when at home. Last time I kept my old one out, cats kept pissing on & scratching the wheels, and it rusted so badly
They’re definitely something I’m looking at. 🙂
I’ve gotten to use a class 3 direct drive before, and it was nice. Ideally, a gravel e-bike is what I’d target.
I’d kind of like to get something I can use all around since I would only have one, and my area has some nice bike trails.
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