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With electric cars, your "engine" (motor) brakes for you. This is something that already happens in ICEs though: you can just let the car roll, don't drive in a rush etc.
However, everyone is in a rush: illegally overtaking, tailgating, honking... The conditions and social behavior on the road push for inefficiencies.
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Cars are a 20th century fix for the lack of easily available, comfortable, and fast public transportation. It's a shame the USA got stuck in the mid-20th century on that front.
I look forward to seeing public transportation that begins a few feet from my front door and arrives a few feet from my destination, without changing vehicles partway through, for arbitrary destinations.
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A lot of people need trucks for their work. Hispanics in gardening and construction in particular.
Europe has plenty of gardeners and construction projects too, but I see at most one pickup truck per decade and it is always someone who definitely doesn’t need one and drives like they’re in a mad max movie. If you think all truck owners actually need one, count how many of the ones you see are carrying some load and do the math.
US-style pickups exist mostly because of weird tax and emissions rules which should be harmonized with cars.
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A lot of people need trucks for their work. Hispanics in gardening and construction in particular.
Europe has plenty of gardeners and construction projects too, but I see at most one pickup truck per decade and it is always someone who definitely doesn’t need one and drives like they’re in a mad max movie. If you think all truck owners actually need one, count how many of the ones you see are carrying some load and do the math.
Audi had an interesting proposition regarding making electric cars actually clean the air as opposed to just avoiding emissions: https://www.audi-mediacenter.com/en/press-releases/audi-urba... ICE cars already do that in a way, as they suck a significant amount of air through their intake filters (CADR = displacement x RPM). Audi's filter was supposed to have been more fine-grained to catch brake dust and tire partic…
Air cleaning scene: https://youtu.be/lpmxrgrbKDc (French)
(He was responsible for first poisoning the air by burning tires, so that he could demonstrate his machine to the potential Japanese investors)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Zizanie_(film)
This Audi proposal is somewhat similar in my mind. They want to profit from both parts, providing both the problem and the solution. I'm not against it per se.
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Europe has plenty of gardeners and construction projects too, but I see at most one pickup truck per decade and it is always someone who definitely doesn’t need one and drives like they’re in a mad max movie. If you think all truck owners actually need one, count how many of the ones you see are carrying some load and do the math.
The average UK gardening truck is something like this: https://www.ford.co.uk/vans-and-pickups/transit-chassis-cab or the ubiquitous Hilux. The "I need an unreasonably large vehicle to take my kids to school" niche is filled by Land Rover, which are still slightly smaller than the F150. US-style pickups exist mostly because of weird tax and emissions rules which should be harmonized with cars.
This is the truth and is basically protectionism for the Big 3 American automakers. Don't look for this to be fixed anytime soon. The system is working as intended.
Audi had an interesting proposition regarding making electric cars actually clean the air as opposed to just avoiding emissions: https://www.audi-mediacenter.com/en/press-releases/audi-urba... ICE cars already do that in a way, as they suck a significant amount of air through their intake filters (CADR = displacement x RPM). Audi's filter was supposed to have been more fine-grained to catch brake dust and tire partic…
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I clean the air because my lungs capture car particles.
That's why I have an e-bike, so I breathe less when cycling/commuting into the city.
[0] (2012, french) https://www.ors-idf.org/nos-travaux/publications/les-benefic...
I'm glad that they address the increased tyre wear pollution. I'm not entirely(!) convinced that EVs only have slightly increased wear as there seems to be plenty of reports of EVs going through tyres a lot quicker though estimates do seem to vary from about 30% to 50% more wear. (Also great that the report mentions the importance of walking/cycling for city transport)
The original Tesla Model S went through a set of tires every 15k miles, not because of anything inherent to EVs, but because they came standard with super-soft Michelin Pilot Sport tires which give slightly higher grip than high-mileage tires. You can put harder compound tires on that last 50 or 75k miles.
As a driver of a diesel car: Sure thing. But driving style is what is behind this result. With electric cars, your "engine" (motor) brakes for you. This is something that already happens in ICEs though: you can just let the car roll, don't drive in a rush etc. However, everyone is in a rush: illegally overtaking, tailgating, honking... The conditions and social behavior on the road push for inefficiencies.