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The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric

lehtimaeki.medium.com

61–70 of 114 posts

Re: The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric

#61
post #51
post #4

> It’s like the old-school nerds refusing to adopt graphical user interfaces in the 80s. It’s a mindset that once gotten rid of, looking back you can’t understand why you ever thought that way. … which is exactly what most power users are still doing with terminals and tooling that is as old as modern computing. Did he just inadvertently argue against his own point? There are many great arguments for EVs, but this te…

Very few power users forego GUIs. Your IDE is (probably) a GUI, your browser is (probably) a GUI, so are many other things. A more nerdy argument would be virtual memory addresses, automated testing, better compiler warnings, etc.

I've made a pretty successful career out of just a terminal and vim, which drives 95% of what I do work wise. I only need the browser for slack, zoom and jira.

And jira I could interact with through vim/emacs if I really hated myself. Slack and zoom I mostly view as distractions from work.

It honestly would make sense for me to use my laptop for browser-based work and be entirely terminal-only with my workstation. Lots of people like us still exist in the workplace. I'm not even 40 yet.

Re: The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric

#62
post #24
post #8

Petrol cars have significantly longer driving range, which is important for transport efficiency. Petrol cars are significantly cheaper to buy. Petrol cars refuel significantly faster than electronic cars recharge. Petrol cars don't have a costly battery which degrades over time and pollutes.

> Petrol cars have significantly longer driving range, which is important for transport efficiency. 95%+ you charge at home or at work and a single fully charged battery is by far enough for daily use. > Petrol cars are significantly cheaper to buy. Life-time analysis of anything but very cheap cars this doesn't really hold up. > Petrol cars refuel significantly faster than electronic cars recharge. Not relevant most…

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Re: The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric

#63

I would buy an electric car but the problem I have living in a terraced house is charging it. I don’t have off road parking and the street I’m on can’t easily accommodate chargers on the pavement.

On my old street (...not Old Street) in central London they installed standard ish plug in the lampposts with this RFID reader that let them know who to charge for the electricity. Seemed to work pretty well. Not sure how easy it is to get them installed though.

Re: The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric

#64
post #8

Petrol cars have significantly longer driving range, which is important for transport efficiency. Petrol cars are significantly cheaper to buy. Petrol cars refuel significantly faster than electronic cars recharge. Petrol cars don't have a costly battery which degrades over time and pollutes.

- Very few trips are long enough to deplete an EVs battery - EVs have significantly lower Total Costs of Ownership - To refuel your petrol car, you have to make an extra trip to the petrol station. While your EV is simply charged where it is parked overnight - The extraction, refinement and transportation of petrol pollutes way more than that EV battery will

> - Very few trips are long enough to deplete an EVs battery

Ever drive to vacation by car? Or visit relatives a few hours away? Not all of our trips are inner-city or in a similarly small radius. So if you don't want 2 cars, electric is not an option.

> - EVs have significantly lower Total Costs of Ownership

Doesn't help with them being way more expensive in acquisition. There is also no used car market for them AFAIK. This will all change in the future but currently they are no option for many people just because of the price.

> - To refuel your petrol car, you have to make an extra trip to the petrol station. While your EV is simply charged where it is parked overnight

At least in theory.. in practice you maybe use a big garage shared with others and it does not have any sockets.

> - The extraction, refinement and transportation of petrol pollutes way more than that EV battery will

Nice claim but I doubt that. It's always hard to do these comparisons fairly but battery manufacturing and disposal is very dirty business.

Re: The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric

#65
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few power users forego GUIs. Your IDE is (probably) a GUI, your browser is (probably) a GUI, so are many other things. A more nerdy argument would be virtual memory addresses, automated testing, better compiler warnings, etc.

I've made a pretty successful career out of just a terminal and vim, which drives 95% of what I do work wise. I only need the browser for slack, zoom and jira. And jira I could interact with through vim/emacs if I really hated myself. Slack and zoom I mostly view as distractions from work. It honestly would make sense for me to use my laptop for browser-based work and be entirely terminal-only with my workstation. Lo…

Same here! Under 40, and have been using debian, bash and vim for over 25 years in both my private and professional life (as a python dev). Oh and weechat for libera IRC of course ;)

Re: The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Very few trips are long enough to deplete an EVs battery - EVs have significantly lower Total Costs of Ownership - To refuel your petrol car, you have to make an extra trip to the petrol station. While your EV is simply charged where it is parked overnight - The extraction, refinement and transportation of petrol pollutes way more than that EV battery will

> - Very few trips are long enough to deplete an EVs battery Ever drive to vacation by car? Or visit relatives a few hours away? Not all of our trips are inner-city or in a similarly small radius. So if you don't want 2 cars, electric is not an option. > - EVs have significantly lower Total Costs of Ownership Doesn't help with them being way more expensive in acquisition. There is also no used car market for them AFA…

-- you could rent a petrol car for your vacation trip once a year, or make a charging and sleeping stop, or use fast chargers along the route (also not yet available everywhere)

-- you could private lease an electric car

-- I agree that it is not an option for everybody, everywhere. But with a little effort it will be for a lot of people in a lot of places

-- See this video for a comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oVrIHcdxjA&t=2s

p.s. nice nickname

Re: The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric

#67
post #39

I don't like to discuss EVs in public because things quickly devolve into an inquisition if one doesn't fully embrace the messaging, but I'll bite. From an enthusiast perspective, I have no issues with an electric powertrain. The concept has a lot of promise once the implementation matures. The current issues I have with electric _powertrains_ (not vehicles) are: Relatively short battery lifespan, high replacement co…

Well written!

I still can't get over the fact that every (haptic!) button is replaced by some touch screen interface. I think it is pretty normal to change the air conditioning while on the road. Now it is kind of dangerous to change it because I need to look for the touch button.

Yeah it looks nice, but until I get haptic feedback from a touchscreen, please don't remove buttons/knobs which are often used while driving.

Re: The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric

#68
we compromised with hybrid - because theres no electric charging in our building then we considered ones where you can take the battery inside and charge it but the range is ~60miles. Our commute is 80miles one way with no ability to charge at the other end. Next one will be electric though.

Re: The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric

#69
post #30

I don't actually like cars or driving enough to deal with being an early adopter. That's basically for enthusiasts to deal with. Though lately the idea of a hybrid pick up has been enticing. Seems like they are just starting to exist. The new ford one looks almost perfect except its not 4wd. The section about noise though is right, idk why we torture our selves with noise pollution. And how did people ever start to t…

> In general Im frustrated by this whole idea of fixing the climate by having individual consumers change their habits.

I'm not really down with that either. Especially since the preferred policies center around 'nudges' which in practice are giveaways to wealthy and rubber hoses for the poor. Along with a Pollyanna hope that the magic of the market will deliver us a Unicorn without policy makers having to think hard and stick their necks out.

I'm probably like you, I'm not enthused about getting in my car and driving with all the other schmucks while watching for bicyclists and errant pedestrians.

I feel there is a need to reduce the need for cars. But that's a 50-100 year plan at this point. So we're stuck with cars and going electric is best worst option at this point.

Re: The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric

#70
post #39

I don't like to discuss EVs in public because things quickly devolve into an inquisition if one doesn't fully embrace the messaging, but I'll bite. From an enthusiast perspective, I have no issues with an electric powertrain. The concept has a lot of promise once the implementation matures. The current issues I have with electric _powertrains_ (not vehicles) are: Relatively short battery lifespan, high replacement co…

>As for the environmental aspect, well, I'm probably going to regret saying this openly. We live in a fully industrialized world. Unless we're all willing to go back to using wind power to transport cargo and carriages to transport people, while simultaneously getting the world population back to pre-industrial levels, it's a bit too late. I don't think you're going to be saving anything with your EV. The messaging around this topic is akin to a man who burned his house down and is now discussing smoke alarms. It's too late, my friend.

It's definitely not too late, this sort of defeatist attitude is not only wrong but dismissive of the dangers.

> I don't think you're going to be saving anything with your EV.

This is also dead wrong, a quick switch to EV will substantially reduce the amount of carbon pollution, no need for mass killings.

We simply need the government too provide right incentives to switch to cleaner and less energy usage

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