Let's be straight about this: It ain't electric cars. Its e-bikes
I'll take a bike over a car any day, but for people who were going to drive? An electric vehicle will save oil usage over an ICE one.
This article says there are 2 million electric cars on the road in the US.
At 20 gallons of gas per month x 12 months x 2 million, that’s…
480 million gallons of gas saved.
That’s just the US.
There’s also no motor oil in these vehicles.
My Bolt EUV uses automatic transmission fluid in the transfer case to reduce the RPMs of the motor to the wheels. Traditionally ATF is refined from crude, but you can use a synthetic replacement. As far as I know it doesn't have any grease fittings either, so it's all sealed in on bearings and the like. Don't get me wrong though, it's a massive reduction in petroleum usage though.
It’s helpful to remember too that the problem isn’t using petroleum, the problem is burning it.
As long as it’s properly disposed of using petroleum based lubricant doesn’t cause climate change.
Exactly, and petroleum really is a wonder material, it has so many amazing uses besides burning it but instead we decide to do the absolute worst thing with almost all of it
31.5 gallons in a barrel so your math shows 15Mbbl saved
Article says 1.8Mbbl
I'm missing the discrepancy
The article says 1.8 per day
Well, it's both. From the article, 2-3 wheelers do account for 60% of the drop: 
Oh this is so fucking typical. “EV” or electric vehicles never means e-bikes when it would benefit e-bikes (for example, EV subsidies = electric car subsidies) but when it conveniently makes electric cars look better, oh look an e-bike is an EV! 😒
Isn't this article very clearly referring to Asian adoption of scooters, not a bunch of New Yorkers on e-bikes?
Strange that the parent comment is downvoted for highlighting the fact that electric bikes (and scooters & trikes) continue to make more of an impact.
For me personally, since I got my electric bike 2 years ago, I use it at least 90% of the time to commute to work (unless the weather is too miserable).
This article says 1 million electric cars were sold in just 2023.
I'd love one! By fuck me, I clicked a Lemmy link earlier and it was $7,000 USD. Did you want gears with that? Another $1,300.
All for a bike that won't hit 40mph, which is hella dangerous on the open road. Couldn't move out of danger fast enough. Had a 150cc scooter, never again, 250cc or bust.
But still, a gas scooter burns so little gas, I'd forget to look at the tank, had no idea what gas cost at the time.
You should be demanding dedicated and separated bike infrastructure
Chicken and egg problem for sure. I've been trying to convince my community/towns to try to build dedicated safe bike infrastructure for neighborhoods to schools at least. With the hope this can expand from there (plus more people just used to riding bikes!).
And secure bike parking!
That would be great! But I doubt anyone wants to put the $$$ into building a 30-mile bike lane on a rural highway out to my camp in the swamp. And that's about the only place I go that really uses gasoline.
We don't all live in cities, and some like me, find the idea appalling. (Been there, done that my whole life.) I'm quite happy on the very edge of town, where's there are plenty of rivers, woods, creeks, trails and swamps to explore. But I just can't safely bike to those places.
Obligatory "your 1% edge case doesn't invalidate the point" comment.
Many many many many people could bike if there was infrastructure.
Again - it's not a once size fits all solution. But you should still advocate for better bike infrastructure where applicable.
There's a lot of FuckCars people who ask for too much. We don't need to go completely car-less, and that's an unattainable goal for a lot of reasons.
Most US cities have <5% of people using bikes as their main commute method, and around 20-30% doing work from home. What can we do to get to 20% of commuters on a bike while maintaining WFH numbers? That alone would be transformative. Tons of cars off the road, and enough bike usage to demand city councils dedicate more to bike infrastructure.
That's like claiming cars are too expensive because you can't afford a Tesla.
I bought a wonderful ebike from REI for $1,300. You don't need to buy the fancy luxury models.
$7k for an ebike? There are tons of good options for <$2000. Hell, you can get budget models on Amazon for around $300.
And most cities have bike lanes on city streets for a reason. However, if you need to commute to work that requires you traversing a highway, then yeah, ebikes are definitely not the solution for you.
When I lived in Eastern Europe, I bought a foldable E-bike for the equivalent of 500 USD from Decathlon.
My commute was 10km one-way. It was better than the bus. The thing still runs after 2 years of intense use and 2 years of complete neglect.
You want an ebike that hits 40mph?
I go to work 50/50 by electric car or analog bike. Most of those barrels saved it's me
Still a vehicle in a pure sense.
Yeah which is always weird. How many of those people weren't just riding normal bikes before vs downsizing from a car. I'm on my 3rd EV and would love to bike if it were an option where I live, but if I went with a bike, I'd just be replacing another EV.
Assuming you could feasibly bike, it would probably still be environmentally better to use the bike, mostly because it is more energy efficient at moving a single human places because it doesn't have to move a whole car frame, and in most places a fair amount of power is still from fossil fuels, so less would be needed. Also the other benefits of biking.
but also factor in what it takes to charge those batteries because that is fossil fuel somewhere down the line.
You're soooo behind the schedule. That was the anti-EV talking point 5 years ago. You were supposed to move to 'but did they factor in the battery production??' (which they do) and now use one of 'but is the grid ready for so many EV?' or 'there are no EVs below $30.000'!!. You're welcome.
No, even those are the old talking points! Now it’s “EVs have batteries that are very heavy, so they generate lots of tire particulates, which is way worse than the tailpipe emissions of ICE cars, which somehow magically don’t also have tires or something, and aren’t also getting heavier every year.”
Why wasn't I told about the new talking points? I though we agreed all new talking points will be shared during Monday meetings. I will have a word with Kevin about this.
You skipped brakes. For a short time generating brake pad particulates was the talking point, until they discovered what “regen” meant
They did.
Naturally, less oil being burnt means less CO2 emissions. BNEF estimates that electric vehicles currently prevent 112 million metric tons of CO2 emissions per year. And this is net emissions reductions, also taking into account the emissions from extra electricity generation.
edit: so the article claimed to have factored electricty generation. Cant believe you are the one being downvoted this hard. As someone who worked in the renewable energy research institute, each time people equal ev to 'clean' automatically I get crazy. The article especially mentioned china, who has a significant portion of electricty generated by coal. Even its by oil, it would produce more co2 for energy loss in conversion. The article has no merit with such flawed comparison
The article literally states they factored in charging the battery, which is the main reason they are being down voted. Read the dang article if you are going to criticize it.
is less oil dug up and burned?
Why did feel a need to poohpooh electric cars for such a weird reason?
if there is no difference in the actual oil extraction and burning, then it does no good.
A little less yeah, considering that there has been an increase in renewables for grid power, also it's much more efficient burn oil/natgas/etc. in a big powerplant than in an ICE car, so less is needed overall.
So yes. It does help. But electric trains are still better lol And we need more renewable grid power
This is bullshit where is the proof also the electric batteries are mined by.kids in.the cpngo
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
