Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 595 posts

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#271

Post by ljf »

sokoloff wrote: post #189
netsharc wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously a trailer would not be a clever idea, but Nio already has cars with swappable batteries, for short distances you could just install a battery pack which is maybe 20% battery and 80% empty space https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNZy603as5w

It’s enough of a pain in the ass to swap summer and winter tires, and that’s something that (some) people only do twice a year. I can’t imagine people wanting to swap battery packs (either themself or by making an appointment at a service center) before and after every long trip.

Ideally they could just come to my home or workplace and swap the batteries out there while I am doing something else (if it is going to take longer than 30 mins)

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#272

Post by Vinnl »

flomo wrote: post #138
epolanski wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's one of the biggest promoters of inequality. I am an European who studied at OSU in Columbus for a semester and it was absurd to me how on one side there was lots of work downtown, yet you could live 20 miles of it and it would take you two hours by public transport to get there, an odyssey. People without a car, insurance, poorer parts of the society were cut off from the job market for not having a way to c…

In the USA, the working poor generally don't work downtown, and it's really the industrial areas where there is awful transit service. So cheapo used cars are a must for these folks. There is some awful HN bias here where young healthy well-paid tech workers live in some boogie part of SF/NYC/Boston/etc and enjoy the "car-free lifestyle" (and I've been there), without any idea how the other half lives.

Wasn't GP specifically complaining about the other half not being able to enjoy the "car-free lifestyle"? (/not be forced to use the car to live their life.)

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#273

Post by Vinnl »

paulcole wrote: post #162
grg0 wrote: post #31

Cars in cities, let alone designing cities around cars, is one of the greatest tragedies of modern life.

At least in the US people absolutely fucking love their cars. They will lie about how much they hate them but ask them to actually change their behavior and you get nothing but a litany of excuses.

There are probably more reasons for that, but if it's the only thing that allows me to get somewhere, of course I'd love it.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#274

Post by pjmlp »

fragmede wrote: post #149
pjmlp wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way cheaper than gasoline, that is why.

What's interesting is that the price of electricity in the EU makes EVs not competitive on that basis.

EV are still not competitive when most of us live in flats, and most would never even consider buying one given their prices if it wasn't for the subsidies.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#275

Post by flomo »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #234
flomo wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, "company towns" were another issue that cars solved.

On what planet do you think that people living in company housing could afford cars? People living in company housing were the poorest of the poor. Please just....stop. Stop trying to talk about how poor people lived or live.

Correct, it was a terrible situation despite the lack of cars.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#276

Post by pjmlp »

SoftTalker wrote: post #30
pjmlp wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way cheaper than gasoline, that is why.

That’s all a matter of taxation. Modern refining does not produce diesel/kerosene as a leftover unless you want it.

Indeed, just like buying EVs is a matter of subsidies.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#277

Post by masklinn »

alistairSH wrote: post #207
timewizard wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems you want to ignore half the problem.

I’m still not sure what point you’re trying to make… you claimed cities can’t exist without cars. Yet London and Paris and Rome and damn near every big city in Europe did predate cars by centuries.

Not just Europe either. Tokyo was not named after the Tokyo Motor Vehicles Ltd.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#278

Post by pjmlp »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #225
beardyw wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK about one third are automatic but make up three quarters of new registrations.

I don't know if EVs and hybrids are very popular in the UK but they are all automatics.

Hybrids are surely not all automatic, unless the one we own suddenly changed.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#279

Post by jeffbee »

azinman2 wrote: post #22
10-1-100 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also worth noting that with modern emissions standards (and transition to EVs), over 50% of handful particulates come from tires, brakes, road surface wear, and resuspended dust: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/non-exhaust-particulate... I don't think there's any healthy level of private cars coexisting with humans in a city, without even considering the more immediate harms from crashes, etc.

Wonder if anyone is working on ways for breaks and tires to be less harmful, or polluting?

Normal car designers who aren't drug-addicted sociopaths have already more than solved this problem. If you put hard, narrow, high-lifetime tires on small diameter wheels you get a car that it more efficient, quieter, cheaper to operate, and pollutes less in terms of particulate matter. If you are Elon Musk you sell a car with totally inappropriate summer racing tires on 20-inch wheels and the owners have to replace the whole set every year.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#280

Post by bcrl »

rangestransform wrote: post #246
netsharc wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, imagine EVs that have removable add-on batteries that you'd only plug in for the longer trips.. Like the Thinkpads with the "bigger battery" humps: https://sm.pcmag.com/t/pcmag_ap/photo/l/lenovo-thi/lenovo-th...

This is a stupid idea because you’d have to make fasteners and high voltage interfaces that can survive an order of magnitude more cycles than they have to for a fixed pack. It would also be significantly more difficult to use the pack as a stressed member of the car structure. It’s better to just have less batteries and use them more efficiently through weight savings.

Do you realize that one of the reasons for the swappable batteries on various Thinkpads is so that you can hot swap batteries without powering down or rebooting?

I've never had an issue with the connectors for the batteries of the ThinkPad, and being able to swap in a spare fully charged battery has been very helpful many times when out doing field working all day long. What is an issue are the little plastic tabs on the batteries that break off over time. However, usually the batteries have already lost a lot of their lifespan by the time that happens, and since the batteries are removable they can be replaced without opening up the system or melting glue with heat as is the case on most modern cell phones. Seems like a win to me!

Post reply on HN