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The electric car as a talisman of false hope

jussipasanen.com

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Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#101

Post by raaaaraaaa2 »

Denzel wrote: post #13

His argument distills to: solve it all-at-once, or don’t solve it at all. This is an uninteresting and uninspiring line of thinking that ignores the nature of socially dynamic systems which don’t exist in a world of instantaneous cause-and-effect. His conclusion states that electric cars make a difference, but they don’t make a real difference: “I do think they can slightly reduce unsustainability” but “by switching…

"real reduction in emissions" ...real problem is : Is your electricity 'clean' ?

In France for sure : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France

in China I don't think so : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China ...however local pollution is zero so that's huge benefit for large cities of course.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#102

Post by petra »

endymi0n wrote: post #51
Denzel wrote: post #13

His argument distills to: solve it all-at-once, or don’t solve it at all. This is an uninteresting and uninspiring line of thinking that ignores the nature of socially dynamic systems which don’t exist in a world of instantaneous cause-and-effect. His conclusion states that electric cars make a difference, but they don’t make a real difference: “I do think they can slightly reduce unsustainability” but “by switching…

This comment hits the nail on the head. Plus, what the OP conveniently ignores, is that electric cars aren‘t a talisman, but a bridgehead. If electric cars succeed on a large scale, it means we solved making electricity storage fast, dense and cheap enough to put them on the road. Putting that technology into the electric grid and combining it with renewables will enable dirt cheap, limitless energy, which will contr…

Also, the article doesn't explore whether electric cars could be manufactured in a more friendly way.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#103

Post by kaolti »

The author has a point.

Out of all the other industries dominated by massive corporations - and we know how they go about doing business - the first priority to save the planet is for John Doe to buy a new product! Also, let's create a culture where we feel justified to shame people who don't do it.

Of course nothing is black and white. I love electric cars and will probably get one. I think they're really cool and would love to do my bit in keeping things green.

BUT at the same, you got to see a bit of irony in the whole thing don't you?

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#104

Post by jaimex2 »

What an absolute garbage piece.

Solving environmental impact is extremely political and is fought every step of the way by those with vested interests.

This adds nothing to help improve things, it actually does the opposite.

Yes, we know if we went back to pre-industrial revolution we'd stop impacting the planet. Good luck with that.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#105

Post by growlist »

sokoloff wrote: post #77
growlist wrote: post #66

We could for example: 1. Incentivise retrofitting of electric transmissions to cars with internal combustion engines 2. Disincentivise the introduction of new models, visual updates etc. to existing cars via taxation 3. Incentivise durability and repairability - force car makers to produce cars that are modular and easily repaired, enforced limits on pricing of spare parts, force open-sourcing of designs etc. Of cour…

> Incentivise retrofitting of electric transmissions to cars with internal combustion engines What would that do to help? Modern transmissions are fairly efficient (basically anything with a lockup torque converter is now very good and any manual or computer controlled manual transmission is excellent in terms of efficiency). I can’t see what an electronic transmission on an ICE engine would do that would possibly pa…

Removal of the ICE in favour of electric I meant, in case I wasn't clear. Massive amounts of power etc. are required to produce the chassis, bodywork etc. - it makes sense to get a lifetime's use out of them rather than throw away the whole thing just because the ICE has gone out of fashion.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#106

Post by wffurr »

agumonkey wrote: post #26
charlesism wrote: post #10

Alot about our system of roads and cars strikes me as crazy. Most of the vehicles on the road have only one person in them, yet weigh as much as an elephant. Nobody drives under the speed limit, which is typically fast enough to result in hundreds of thousands of fatalities every year anyways. Every neighborhood designed primarily for these idiotically heavy vehicles, that occasionally drive over pets and children wh…

The worst part about it IMO is traffic light and stops. In a city, if you can drive around 20mph (25 maybe) uninterrupted, you get in most places very fast, very pleasantly and with fuel savings since you never slow down. Instead of a smooth flow, you get drivers that do: - high accelerations - nervous braking - idle engine running between 30 - 60 seconds (120 max?) Pure waste. Maybe I'm asking for a problem too comp…

That's annoying and wasteful but hardly the worst part. Murdering children (the rallying cry of Dutch cycle infrastructure was Stop de Kindermoord) and the massive CO2 emissions destroying our climate are the worst part.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#107

Post by [deleted] »

pankajdoharey wrote: post #64
Denzel wrote: post #13

His argument distills to: solve it all-at-once, or don’t solve it at all. This is an uninteresting and uninspiring line of thinking that ignores the nature of socially dynamic systems which don’t exist in a world of instantaneous cause-and-effect. His conclusion states that electric cars make a difference, but they don’t make a real difference: “I do think they can slightly reduce unsustainability” but “by switching…

"But overall, they are too little too late. An electric car is still a car, and permeates our car-dependency the same as any other car." .... Well yeah..., till Startrek's teleportation is invented.

[deleted]

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#108

Post by baud147258 »

acd wrote: post #34
lawlessone wrote: post #27

Electric vehicles would make a huge difference to me and many others that suffer from asthma. Moving the emissions away from the vehicles , away from city centres and roads to the factories and power stations where they can be controlled would save thousands of lives. Our children will look at us how we look at people during the industrial revolution. And a gradual change is better than no change at all.

Very true many countries in Europe has shifted to diesels due to lower co2 but they make the air dirty. Dirty air is bad for asthmatics. Hybrid gasoline/biogas can be as co2 efficient as diesel if not more with a lot cleaner tail pipe air. Almost zero local emission with 10kw batteries and upwards.

The shift to diesel was also caused by a lower price of gas and a lower consumption for medium and long distances.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#109

Post by srfilipek »

agumonkey wrote: post #26
charlesism wrote: post #10

Alot about our system of roads and cars strikes me as crazy. Most of the vehicles on the road have only one person in them, yet weigh as much as an elephant. Nobody drives under the speed limit, which is typically fast enough to result in hundreds of thousands of fatalities every year anyways. Every neighborhood designed primarily for these idiotically heavy vehicles, that occasionally drive over pets and children wh…

The worst part about it IMO is traffic light and stops. In a city, if you can drive around 20mph (25 maybe) uninterrupted, you get in most places very fast, very pleasantly and with fuel savings since you never slow down. Instead of a smooth flow, you get drivers that do: - high accelerations - nervous braking - idle engine running between 30 - 60 seconds (120 max?) Pure waste. Maybe I'm asking for a problem too comp…

> high accelerations

Acceleration does not waste energy (other than speed related things like wind resistance). This is a myth that is perpetuated without merit, but probably because it's typically associated with overall aggressive driving, which implies bad braking habits.

Max efficiency is typically near peak torque for internal combustion engines [0]. For EV's, electric motors are actually most efficient at higher RPMs [1].

Fuel efficiency can be measured by breaking habits alone.

Edit: sources:

[0] https://i.stack.imgur.com/RE4SM.png

[1] https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-fcf541de83bd871b9ba92d...

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#110

Post by michaelt »

Denzel wrote: post #36
eptcyka wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument isn't that doing _something_ is bad, it's that the amount of effort people put into obtaining their shiny non-paleolithic-compost-fueled-but-rather-battery-powered 2 tonne sledgehammers would be better spent changing policies that operate on organizational rather than individual units. How about we just stop buying as much shit from halfway across the world? Global trade requires us to spend stupid amoun…

You didn’t rebut any of my points. First, can you not buy an electric car and advocate and enact organizational or systematic change? They’re not mutually exclusive. Second, how do dynamic systems composed of many independent, self-directed agents change? Instantaneously or over some period of time? How long is that period of time? Probably much longer a period of time than it takes to purchase an electric vehicle (…

  They’re not mutually exclusive.
Well, you can only spend a given dollar once.

So if for example the government spends $$$$ to put an EV charging point in every street light, that's $$$$ they didn't spend making busses more appealing.

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