A 7,000-Pound Car Smashed Through a Guardrail. That’s Bad News for All of Us.
Vehicles are getting way too heavy to be safe.
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EVs are extremely heavy too.
Yes, but they wouldn't have to be, if not for people wanting a giant SUV with 400 miles of range. The weight goes up nonlinearly, because people aren't willing to compromise on lifestyle for the benefit of those around them. And then they expect us not just to tolerate their lifestyle, but actually subsidize it.
Without them necessarily being SUVs, in North America, distances between cities or municipalities are pretty big. Such a trip would be 2 hours in Europe, but in North America it can easily go up to 5 hours or more.
Either we find a way to charge a car in 2 minutes, or find an alternative, otherwise we need big batteries and they will inevitably increase the weight of the car.
I regularly drive 6 hours to see family. I wish there were reliable chargers partway. I don't think they'd have to be 2 minutes. 40-50 minutes and near restaurants would be fine for me. Most importantly, they have to have similar uptime to a gas station. Eg, the current out-of-order rate for Chargepoint, Blink and other non-Tesla charging networks is far too low in my experience to rely on for long distance drives. Too high a risk of being stranded.
I'm in Texas and will have to pay a $300 registration tax on my ev for it being "heavy and destructive and not paying fuel tax". My ev is a 2018 Fiat 500e and weighs 2900lbs. I'm tired of this argument especially when plenty of trucks weigh anywhere from 4500lbs (for the smallest examples) to quite literally 80k. Raise the fuel tax and you'll solve heavy vehicles virtually overnight.
Before anyone gets on my case I'm fully aware that not all evs are as light as mine, but plenty are lighter than an f150.
It's an interesting problem. We want people to ideally just drive less, and use EVs when they do, but EVs are heavier for the same vehicle and don't buy fuel that's usually taxed to help cover vehicle infrastructure costs. So they can cause extra wear and don't pay for it. I'm not sure how to solve that future problem other than tolls maybe?
Same way we can fund everything else: tax the rich, cut mitary spending.
That doesn't solve the issue though.... We want to tie driving more to paying more.
Right now, fuel taxes work decently well as heavier vehicles tend to burn more and the more you drive the more fuel you need too. EVs don't operate the same way, and we don't want electricity in general more expensive to cover roads as that doesn't encourage people to drive less.
"We want to tie driving more to paying more."
Why? Because it's fair? I don't really give a shit if it's fair, we need functioning infrastructure and incentivizing people to pay less into that system is counterproductive.
Being expensive demonstrably does not reduce driving in any significant way. The near-total lack of functional alternatives needs to be addressed.
They won't stay that way forever. Our battery tech is far from hitting theoretical limits of kwh per kg.
None of which will matter if all you can buy is big SUVs.
Yes, as mentioned in the article they can be 30% heavier for the same vehicle
Electric cars often weigh around 30 percent more than a gas-powered counterpart, because big vehicles require enormous batteries to propel them hundreds of miles between charges.
Yes but the sedans still come in under the guard rail safety limit.
Sure, so will bikes... The concern is that the infrastructure is unsafe for a good portion of current and future vehicles on the road. Say what you will about people buying vehicles that are too big for their needs, they still deserve safety never mind all of the people with legitimate needs for those vehicles.
They sure do deserve safety, So we should make sure the vehicles they can buy are safe. Upgrading the entire country's safety infrastructure for the ego of pickup and full size SUV drivers is not acceptable.
And those who have legitimate needs for those vehicles deserve to die?
Not very many people have a legitimate need. And if you want to upgrade safety to the point it would stop a Semi/Box truck then you're spending way too much money. That's why those vehicles require a special license to operate. It would be more feasible to put in massive amounts of light rail freight if you're that worried about safety. Also, work vans are a thing in 90% of the world.
Ok now you have to be trolling... Work vans are like 9000lbs
Actually not. Ford's is 3500. Mercedes straddles 5k depending. Opel's is at 4k. It's basically an enclosed body with one or two seats and an engine. It was never going to be super heavy on its own.
The sedans aren't that heavy though. They're under the 5,000lb limit
