Buying a new car is not better than keeping an old one

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Electric cars are indeed much worse for the climate at production time than combustion cars likely will be throughout their entire lifetime.
But this matters little, as the electric car is not made to be the perfect alternative, it is instead made to be the "weird in between solution" that we need to bring as many devices as possible to use a common power source and get people acquainted with the concept, before moving to the actual solution.
The next steps will be better battery technology because, let's face it, lithium gel batteries suck, and proper power sources.
In the end, I guess it's kind of a "chicken and egg" situation.
- Electric cars are indeed much worse for the climate at production time than combustion cars likely will be throughout their entire lifetime.
  Break even point is currently around 13k miles though it depends on where you live.
  https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/when-do-electric-vehicles-become-cleaner-than-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/
  And that's not even counting the growing market of battery recyclers.
  
  and what kind of vehicle you're replacing. Replacing a small compact ICE with an EV? Probably a longer amount of miles.
  Replacing a Ford/GM Mega superduty emotional support truck with an EV? probably much lower.
  
  In much of Southern US, they've got three kinds of vehicles. Massive new shiny trucks, really old gas guzzling reality size trucks, and speed bumps for the first. You can't see out of a compact car as you are always in a valley of truck.
  
  What are they supposed to do? Not drive a truck? They have an office they have to commute to! Think of all the people who would totally make fun of them (read: not care at all).
  
  accurate representation of Southern mentality. The Women want a Truck because they feel unsafe in a little car with massive monsters blasting past at 80MPH and Men want them because they've got very small peepee.
  
  I found this analysis quite interesting:
  https://www.carboncounter.com/#!/explore
- I listened podcast/interview (one of the latest Making Sense podcasts by Sam Harris) with a person who studies climate change and the ways to address it. And she disagrees with your statement. She said that just couple of years of typical electric car use is required to offset the production, and the rest is all green.
- I often wonder how much better battery technology would be today if batteries had become a more popular solution than gasoline back in the day.
  It’s weird to think that electric vehicles (albeit primitive ones) existed over a hundred years ago.
  
  Imagine if instead of rewarding Reagan for having the Iranians keep the hostages so he could rip the solar cells off the White House, we;d rewarded Carter for recognizing the trap oil was.
- I’d argue trains are the solution for most city applications.
  Rural areas can keep ICE’s if cities of tens of millions dispense themselves of cars.
  
  Great, I agree too, but go ahead and start lobbying the US government to build more.
  I'm all for your suggestions, but the fact of the matter is we need solutions yesterday and to build what you're talking about will take 10 years of lobbying alone. California HSR is going to be another 10 years and they're already building it.
  EVs are a stopgap measure, we all know it.
  
  I have no interest in lobbying the US government on this.
  
  well then please don't shoot down the next best alternative. We would love HSR, hell even faster trains through areas like the Midwest, but no one is building them and no one wants to lobby for them. Until then we're stuck in this car-centric hell, and EVs are the best alternative. (Again, we all know they're not the best, they're the best alternative)
  
  I have no interest in lobbying the US government because I’m not American.
  
  It shows in how clueless you are about the US. Very little mass transit is actually viable. People can't afford to spend 4 hours getting to and four hours getting back from their 10 dollar an hour job. Worry about what is going on where you actually know something about.
  
  The US was built on mass transit. Pre WWII the US was covered in electrified interurban lines, it wasn't until the 50s when the car started to become really popular that these were dismantled and your cities demolished to make way for more highways. Many people could easily benefit from new transit options if they were installed, while for others changes to land use (such as ending single family zoning) would also be need to be made.
  
  @mondoman712
  You are partially correct.
  The dismantling of public transit in the US started in the 20’s, not the 50’s. GM, other auto and truck manufacturers, and the oil industry began buying up street car and train companies through proxies and then shutting them down. They also used government influence to make them unprofitable.
  A former head of GM was made transportation secretary in 1948 and used the department of defense budget to build the highway system, further damaging any chance public transit had of taking hold here.
  By the late 50’s we had all but destroyed any hope of having a mixed transit system.
  The US wasn’t built by public transit though, it was built by car and truck. Public transit in the post industrial era has always been a pipe dream on the periphery for Americans.
  Manifest destiny’s “go west, young man” has morphed into “go into debt, purchase cars and houses, young man.” And like “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” it has always been a lie.
  With the legalized bribery system known as lobbying in this country we never had a chance at being anything but a facade of democracy propped up by corporate avarice.
  
  We'll put, but I disagree with you on this point
  The US wasn’t built by public transit though, it was built by car and truck.
  Many US towns and cities started as railroad towns, and they grew due to rail connections. They had local streetcars around which new suburbs were built. Downtowns were originally walkable and mixed use. Only later were they destroyed to make way for urban freeways and parking, and the post war housing boom's racist policies brought about single family zoning and car dependant suburbs.
  
  So you want to keep drilling for oil forever? Oil wells, pipe lines, refineries, more pipes, trucks carrying liquid fuel... when you could just get rid of all that and have renewable powered cars?
  There's a brief window where if you look at it from a very careful angle ICE is briefly better in some ways than electric, long term electric is the only option.
  
  When such actually exist, do get back to us.

289 comments