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EVs Can’t Fix a Global Epidemic of ‘Car Harm,’ Study Finds (www.bloomberg.com)
submitted 7 months ago by mondoman712@lemmy.ml to c/fuck_cars@lemmy.ml
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[-] Sanctus@lemmy.world 42 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

EVs were never here to save the world. They were here to save the car industry.

Edit: a lot of those replying to me feel the need to say this is a good thing. The point is, most of this drip feed is for profits. As people, we can adjust to sudden changes in our environment. Fear of this is the killer. The little death that whispers to us this is alright. The world is spiraling drastically. It will take drastic measures to save our civility and ourselves.

[-] TheRealCharlesEames@lemm.ee 35 points 7 months ago

Less pollution is nice

[-] Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 7 months ago

Yeah, people sometimes don't understand diversity of tactics. The problems that cars cause are a pain and really bad for our mental health, but without climate change being a factor they're not going to drive us extinct.

[-] PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml 9 points 7 months ago

Too bad that's a lie since they still have all the polluting aspects of car production and wear items (tires, brake pads, pumps) plus way more electronic waste. The only thing they dont' have is specific tail-pipe emissions, which on the balance is the least important part of car pollution.

[-] CurtAdams@urbanists.social 20 points 7 months ago

@PowerCrazy @TheRealCharlesEames No. Tailpipe emissions are far and away the worst thing coming out of a car, because they are destroying the climate of the entire earth. If unchecked, it will destroy every ecosystem extant on the planet and kill most humans. 1.7 million deaths a year is truly, epically awful, but still not even a small fraction as bad.

[-] PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml 5 points 7 months ago

Wait until you hear about how much emissions a single cargo ship emits. Or a commercial Jet, or Cruise ship, or a coal plant.

[-] MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca 15 points 7 months ago

Oh no! Other problems exists that we should also tackle! You’ve won the argument!

[-] PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml 2 points 7 months ago

The problem is cars. Not how they are fueled.

[-] MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca 7 points 7 months ago

And as we reduce car dependency, should those cars keep burning gasoline?

[-] PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml 2 points 7 months ago

If old cars could be converted to electric easily, then you'd have a point. But every single electric car sold is ~1 additional car on the road, and extra cars are worse for the environment then fewer cars.

[-] Mr_Fish@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

Wow, there are multiple sources of pollution. Who woulda thunk it?

a single cargo ship

For the amount they carry, it's fuck all. They're so huge that economy of scale works overtime.

[-] 0110010001100010@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

Not to mention (at least here in the US) roughly 60% of our power generation is fossil fuels. So you just shift the tailpipe emissions somewhere else. Assuming you don't charge at home with a solar setup or something.

[-] CurtAdams@urbanists.social 20 points 7 months ago

@0110010001100010 @PowerCrazy Even if it runs off fossil fuel produced electricity, an EV produces about 1/3 as much emissions because it's so much more efficient. With 40% renewable, it's only producing 1/5 as much, and dropping as the % of electricity from renewables continues to soar in the US.

[-] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 14 points 7 months ago

And some of us live in Jurisdictions with 90%+ renewable electricity. My EV emissions are practically non-existent.

[-] PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml 3 points 7 months ago

pity about all the other problems cars cause.

[-] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 5 points 7 months ago

They're really the only option in rural areas like where I live at this point. I'd like to see more busses (we have hourly service along a nearby main road to only a single destination) but until we make them self driving and electric to reduce operating costs, there's simply no way the district could afford to run them frequently enough to be a viable alternative to cars.

I did use busses extensively while I lived in the city though. I wish they were cheaper (or free) though.

[-] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

Your EV still had manufacturing emissions for raw materials and building the car, transport emissions getting the car to the dealer, shares a portion of road maintaince emissions, and will have "end of life" emissions when the car is scrapped.

Your EV emissions are not "non-existent".

[-] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 4 points 7 months ago

See, the problem with that math, is that it ignores the fact that I would own a car regardless. A gas vehicle would have similar (yes EVs have slightly higher manufacturing emissions) base emissions, in addition to the tailpipe. They cancel out when you compare car to car. My emissions, compared to driving a gas model, are non-existent, which I guess is a clarification that you need.

Unfortunately for my total emissions, I live in a rural area, there isn't even a bus that would get my kids to hockey practice, let alone games in a 2 hour driving radius.

[-] thefartographer@lemm.ee 13 points 7 months ago

As power generation scales up, so does efficiency across individual applications. On the scale of cars, DC motors are far more efficient than ICEs. It's not by design, but EVs do work out to be more efficient than ICEs in this example.

But the same point about power generation still holds true with transportation, which is why mass transit is a better investment overall, but good luck to us convincing anyone of that.

[-] SuiXi3D@fedia.io 7 points 7 months ago

Less, but not none.

[-] spez_@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

Say goodbye to the Amazon rainforest, as we're mining there for the batteries

[-] MrLee@aus.social 19 points 7 months ago

@mondoman712
We know how to fix this...
Increase Urban density around new suburban "nodes" Make those nodes walkable 15 minute citties. Link nodes to other nodes with mass transit and bike lanes.

[-] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 15 points 7 months ago

You can swap one car for another, and it still won't change the immense harm caused by the infrastructure that these different cars depend on.

Rubber tire dust is still the same with EVs, probably more due to their weight.

Swaths of green space being taken up by 8+ lane highways and parking won't just go away because an EV is using it.

The harm to pedestrians and cyclists will not change because we have more EVs.

If we don't reduce our dependency on cars, then "car harm" will never go away.

[-] Grimy@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

EVs are here to get us off oil. A car free society will take decades and we just aren't going to go from gas cars straight to no cars, it's simply not realistic.

Singling out EVs with headlines like these or talking about how EVs are still polluting through tires and what have you even when it's a fraction of ICE vehicles is being an oil industry mouthpiece.

[-] mondoman712@lemmy.ml 2 points 7 months ago

It's not realistic to replace every single car with an electric one. It will take an insane amount of resources that we can't spare. We definitely should only be making electric cars but we need to have a lot less of them.

this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2024
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