this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
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Imo, it’s because EVs are dumb, expensive, and so far inefficient due to how many batteries are needed for the cars vs how far they can go on a single charge.
Having less cars on the road in general would do more to cut carbon emissions - EVs should replace fossil-fueled cars, yes, but we should be advocating for more public transit and alternative forms of transit like walking and biking before looking towards replacing regular cars with EVs.
I get the appeal of saying something provocative like "EVs are dumb" (which could be initially interpreted as an advocacy for ICE cars), and then clarifying your position. Makes for an interesting comment.
However, it's a technically incorrect way to phrase it. Buses, for example, can be ICE or electric. It's not dumb to have public transit electric. You're (correctly) advocating for public transit over personal vehicles, but you shouldn't frame it as electric being a negative. In both personal and public transportation, electric tends to be far better. The only exception atm is for longer trips. Even then though, having a 20 minute break to charge every 300 miles isn't terrible for humans as we get to stretch our legs for a bit, and it's not so much longer than a 3 minute break every 400 miles.
Overall, no EVs are not dumb, they're the future of both personal and public transportation. We should lean towards public, but that public should be electric.
Listen, I am a huge urbanist, would love to see the US and the world transition to car-alternative transit modes. The reality is, cars are not disappearing. Even in the most transit friendly countries, cars still make up an enormous portion of the modes of travel. We need EVs as much as we need alternative modes to be feasible.
I'm gonna post this link to a former comment of mine, since this subject comes up a lot. Neither EVs nor public transit is a magic bullet.
The efficiency of public transit depends on ridership; nowhere in the world does it actually achieve 100% occupancy for more than a few minutes at a time, and nothing is more wasteful than a train running a circuit with only one passenger. At least by my calculations, it would take an average occupancy rate increase of 1.6x (for electric light rail) to 2.4x (for electric busses) over pre-pandemic levels for US public transit to reach parity with EVs, both in terms of electricity per passenger mile and tons of raw material per capita (such as steel, aluminum, copper, glass, and plastic). We'd need higher occupancy than the trains in Europe and the busses in Taiwan. Whether or not that's geographically possible in North America is an open question.
Ebikes are great, no question there, but thanks to parasitic drain in cheap chargers, they use 1/3rd the energy a typical EV does (kWh per passenger-mile, adjusted for occupancy but not speed), when they should use only 1/10th. That's a problem I expect to see solved in the next year or so, but it's a great reminder that nothing runs on magic.
As I say in the linked comment, public transit has critical advantages in the fields of urbanism and human-centric city design. I like trains and busses, and I vote for them every chance I get, it just bothers me when people conflate these advantages with environmental impact.
More work from home would help too