EVs
EVs
344 comments
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Or just be me, WFH and never leave the house
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If only employers cared. It has been nice, now my employer is rolling out a arbitrary but mandatory 4 days return to office policy. In like 8 years of employment I never needed to be there that much. Whatever, 100% remote job market looks decent for me, hopefully find a better place soon.
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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.
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But solving problems costs money! We need to be transferring those dollars to our wealthy donors, not spending them on public improvements!
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How is lithium mining a solvable problem? Genuinely asking
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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.
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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.
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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.
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If I could guarantee that my job is remote forever, or have it written in my contract, I would sell my car.
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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.
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Do you have access to food, stores, etc using public transport? How do you go about buying stuff and bringing it back home?
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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. :(
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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get out of your ruts
But thinking critically is hard and I'm lazy!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Try arguing that people should bring their own bags to the grocery store. Responses get hilarious quickly.
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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.
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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.)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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 :)
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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.
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It also moves most of the population that is produced away from where people live and so out of their lungs.
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That argument will be thrown at every god damn step we make towards a better planet. It's not valid.
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Electric cars will not save the planet. Electric cars will save the car industry.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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
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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:
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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.
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You live in a place designed around cars, that's the problem. Society worked fine without cars for a good long while. We could have adopted trains, bikes, and buses without the car and things would be going swimmingly. The idea is to fix our bad town planning so that it's reasonable to get to any destination using any mode if transportation.
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You live in a place designed around cars, that’s the problem.
Exactly. Then Europeans downvote people who say they need a car, because their country/city/state/whatever has terrible planning or public transit.
Not my fault I need a car. Stop blaming me. I didn't design the city. I didn't plan where the public transit will go.
Do you really think I love paying $1200+ per year for insurance, $120+ per week for fuel, and $20,000-80,000 for a new vehicle when mine borks itself?
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You live in a place designed around cars, that’s the problem.
Worse: they may live in a place bulldozed to make way for cars. Plenty of car-dependent places used to have good places for walking, good transit services, all that jazz, but it was all torn down to make room for cars.
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Bikes are great right until you have to do large grocery shopping
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I was expecting the bakfiets video, but the old Amsterdam grocery stores one is good as well.
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In my city public transport is free, anyone can get anywhere else via train or bus cheaper than via car, there is even bicycle dedicated road that goes trough city and connects dozens of neighboring towns and cities but I admit that car is just so much more convinient to use. It's all about comfort or fear of loosing one, rether than it would be impossible to give people alternative to use.
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WTF kind of public transport are you used to? 😂
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Man I was gonna type something about how it's because your city is designed around car centric infrastructure and density and cargo bikes and shit but honestly there ain't no way I'm gonna say anything to you that hasn't already been said.
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I think there's this misconception that the US is basically NYC or dirt-road farmland, and the reality is that there's a lot of in-between. I live <20 minutes from the closest mall by car, yet even transportation or food delivery apps (e.g. uber, uber eats) essentially don't serve my area, so forget public transportation.
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Or it snows.
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My car is in the shop for some tricky troubleshooting.
I've been doing my weekly grocery shopping with my foldable bike and dog trailer. I live in a rural area, so it's a bit of a trip. I don't particularly enjoy it, especially the hauling the load home. It would probably be bearable with a bit of electric assist on the bike.
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Bikes also aren't great for snow, heavy rain, or extreme temperatures.
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Bikes are better than cars in snow, however. A fat bike's tires 'float' across the surface of the snow, like snowshoes, and can handle any snow depth. Regular mountain bikes and commuter bikes with knobby tires handle a few inches of snow quite well, because the knobs capture snow between them, and snow sticks to snow. Cars, on the other hand, need a vast expenditure of effort to plow the snow off the road surface, so they don't slide around in a few inches of snow, or get stuck in deeper snow.
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There's no bad weather, only bad clothing
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But I can’t put a 75” TV and a 48 pack of Pepsi on the back of a bike duh.
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This is my usual trip to the store so I feel your pain!
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Why the hell do you keep buying TV and 48 pack of Pepsi every other day? Do you get anger issue or something ?
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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.
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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).
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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.
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Would have been great if stanley Meyer was still alive.
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I bus nearly everywhere but I'm lucky I'm in a city and have access to transit. Build more transit!
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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.
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Imagine if people understood that not everyone lives where they can ride a bike or take public transit.
Stop blaming people for being born into a country that essentially requires cars.
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And gas prices would drop
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This reminds me, I need to work on getting a bike.
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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.
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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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Not possible where I live, not enough public transport, not enough bike lanes and too far to travel Daily
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Yeah I have zero public transit, no bike lanes, no sidewalks, no shoulders on the road - just two fast curvy lanes and a ditch. The last time I walked to the corner store I had three people stop and offer me a ride because it is too dangerous to even walk. Forget biking, no one is that stupid here. Well maybe a couple, I've seen bikes painted in memory of dead riders on the side of the road.
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Sounds like you live in a garbage area
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Yeah, never begrudge people for driving since they often do because there is no reasonable alternatives. Begrudge people for not voting for more public transport, better (denser) zoning, and removal of mandatory ridiculous parking requirements.
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That's what they all say. I usually assume people are just to lazy to ride their bike or feel like public transport is too much of an inconvenience. Nobody ever wants to "downgrade" and thus this planet is utterly fucked.
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Pro tip don't assume
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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.
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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.
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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.
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You will be surprised how much grandmas with grandma trolley can carry.
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Please tell me more about how easy it is to move furniture with a VW Polo!
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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.
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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.
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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!
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Finland would like to talk with you. At the end of talk your world will be shattered. Your ribs will be shattered as well.
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How often are you going to move furniture?
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If only you could pedal a bike like you peddle that bullshit argument.
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Most of the people spouting the "everyone should ride a bike" stuff don't have to feed a family of 4+ people.
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How many people live in a desert? How many people live in the hills/mountains? Most people don't.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Production is wildly inefficient and the storage and transfer of the stuff is quite tricky.
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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
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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.
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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.
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Hydrogen might get more prominent in the heavy vehicles, with few more innovation.
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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.
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How bout electric bikes? 😊
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They're the best!
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I’m biased towards e-bikes, at least the batteries are much smaller.
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They work well with trams and trains
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Good for commutes under 30kms IME.
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Why aren't EVs that green?
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Manufacturing, generation of electricity with heavy use of fossil fuels (could be changed and is changing in many places, luckily) and particulate matter (for example through tire wear) mainly.
Still better than ICEs though.
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There's plenty of issues with making a fully enclosed vehicle sustainable regardless of drive train. Just the amount of metal needed of any kind.
They will probably always be needed for last mile deliveries or people with certain disabilities. That said, if we could get most North American cities to just 20% bike usage for people's major commuting choice, that'd be transformative.
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Yes, we should tax ev owners so we can afford more sustainable infrastructure
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Gas vehicle owners too I hope?
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As a EV owner, I'm fine with that.
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Yeah but everyone "needs" an e bike nowadays, which compared to regular bikes is another step back.
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which compared to regular bikes is another step back.
I initially assumed that too, but it turns out that e-bikes are even more efficient than regular bikes. In other words, holding the total amount of (food calories + electricity kWh) constant, an ebike rider can go farther than a regular bike rider on the same amount of energy.
I also recognize that it's easy to fall into a gatekeeping attitude of considering e-bikes as "cheating" compared to regular bikes, but us cyclists have really got to work hard to get over it because it's not helpful.
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I'm pretty sure the cyclists out on the bike path appreciate when I pass them and take point for a few minutes. They have my 6'3"/192cm frame sitting tall and creating a nice wind break for them for a few, then I resume my full speed.
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I see it as a bridge between cars and bikes, and both have a time and place. My area is pretty flat and I do it partly for the health benefits so I won't get an e bike. But if you have tons of hills, want to haul cargo or have a longer commute I can see it. It can be a "gateway drug" for people that wouldn't otherwise buy a bike.
My concern with e anything are the tons of batteries that will need to be properly disposed of in the coming years and how many can't or won't be.
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Why yes, yes it would.
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And inconvenience my schedule? No way
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This is actually a legit excuse. If someone is working more than one job to afford rent, are we just going to tell them to walk an hour back and forth to the grocery store every day for food?
If the solution is for people to do things that require more time, the first step is to make sure people have more time.
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Walk
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Why walk across town when you can dance?
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Dance across the town
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We also don’t have enough lithium to replace every car with an electric.
On some level it has to be public transit and better infrastructure or ecofascism.
No one wants the former so they’ll take the latter.
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Not true. There is more than enough lithium in the world for every person to have an EV. This is not even accounting for new battery chemistries like sodium ion that don't use lithium.
I still want more public transport though. Trains are remarkably easy to electrify and don't need batteries.
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The problem isn't the quantity of lithium, the problem is the ecological damage of mining that much lithium.
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I mean, the ecological damage is directly correlated with the quantity extracted. i also made a big ol post showing how there's not enough though so i agree on the damage but think its both.
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i'd rather live. no thanks. german bike lanes are the worst. also i'm not riding my bike 20km every day, not happening. i'm depressed enough.
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Should try UK bike lanes. They don't exist, and when they do they only go until the next intersection.
You can change infrastructure to deal with all your issues.
Dunno if it was the part of germany I biked but god damn! That was the safest I ever felt on a bike!
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I don't know where you live but where I live, riding bike is good and public transport also. Besides: how would biking make you more depressed? Wouldn't it rather be a good thing to do some sports?
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Understandable. I ride 26 km a day to work and bike lanes in my city suck. You either ride on the most left part of it and risk getting hit by a driving car or you ride on right and risk getting doored. And if you don't keep a meter distance to parked cars it's already part your fault.
Also had my first crash after a few weeks because a motorist didn't see me. And I never had a crash in my almost 10 years and ~175000km of driving cars.
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I knew a guy when I lived in Germany who rode his bike 20km one way (40km per day) to work every day. That guy was nuts!
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I do the same. Almost my entire route is car free, I'd say I have to cross 2 or 3 roads.
You can't tell me how much of an improvement it is to my life. I used to stand in traffic 2 hours a day, this is the best switch I've done.
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I don't know about you guys, but I'm giving up on public transport and going for a driving license.
Reasons include constantly late buses and trains, constant errors in signal systems and track systems, people talking loudly on phones or playing games on full volume, completely packed trains so people have to stand within centimeters of eachother.
Just got sick of all of it and realized I had enough.
It's like with everything - trying to make maximum profits means quality goes to the bottom. I rather pay for fuel and cars and have my own car then deal with that shit anymore. I want to be happy, not sad.
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That may be specific to your area, transit where I live is pretty dang consistent
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Yeah of course it is. But aren't people loud and annoying on the public transport where you live?
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EVs are basically cars, but more expensive.
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Were it so easy. Take for example Italy, there is no way to use bikes and public transports: bike will get you killed since nobody here see value in bike lanes - when they do, they fuck it up somehow - and public transportations works/exists only in big cities.
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"as many as possible"
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... my point being, if "as many as possible" is a low percentage then the first panel is right isn't it?
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Can /c/fuckcars go back to their space now, please? I've blocked you annoying people for a reason... I love biking and public transport, but no... I'm not selling my car.
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Humans starved to death frequently before the invention of the car simply because they couldn’t carry enough food. So tragic.
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I buy all of my groceries by bike, no problems whatsoever. If this is not doable where you live, your built environment might be constructed incorrectly. Vote for some politicians who are planning to undo that mistake.
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I can carry my groceries on my bike pretty easily. How out of shape are you?
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Very. And I’m actually in shape comparatively.
I live in a very hilly city with very few sidewalks. Even going a block away typically needs a car to be safe. A car is a necessity even in the city because of its layout. Ya, it’s a fixable problem but let’s be honest. You can’t bitch about people not using bikes in a place that’s not safe to use them. Change needs to come from the top down.
I’m 230lbs at 5’11”. I’m obese. I’m also probably healthier than about half the people I know.
I’d love to change, but with degenerative disc disease it’s tough to walk through the store at times, let alone actually work out. I threw out my back standing in line at the post office last week.
Where I live, there’s a lot of elderly people. It’s a very aged population. I’d imagine they’re going to struggle to be healthier just like I would. So expecting biking and walking out of this area is just not going to happen.
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Even if you need a car to deliver, it doesn't need to be your car. Work-vehicles properly scaled to their job are fine.
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That's what I do every other day though?
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