Where I live there is 0 public transport. I charge my EV with my own solar panels. So I think I am okay.
You shouldn’t live there.
Yes, though not always as accessible.
The problem with electric cars is two fold as far as I understand it:
- The electricity it uses is not sustainable.
- It has lots of tracking etc and in some cases remote control.
The problem with EVs is that in almost all ways other than local pollution they are just as bad as ICE vehicles. They
- need massive amounts of asphalted space for roadways and parking
- use this space very inefficiently and cause traffic congestion at any given spike in traffic
- drive urban sprawl and thus make housing less sustainable (more sewage,water supply, electric supply, heating, roads/person required)
- urban sprawl stretches everything far apart and makes public transit much less feasible so people who can’t drive cars struggle to get places, for example kids can’t walk to school or take public transit, instead must be driven
- are loud (because tyres rolling is the driving source of noise)
- are dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists
- their dangers and tendency to cause traffic congestion inhibit other, more efficient and sustainable modes of transport so that when not regulated properly, they take over all of the streetscape as is evident in most western places
Also, those tires on asphalt are one of the leading contributors to environmental pollution from all the shedded microplastics.
YES, can’t believe I forgot that point.
Tracking is not unique to electric cars, just new cars.
Large power stations are more efficient than small engines.
Many electric car owners also have solar panels.Refining enough fuel to transport an average car 100km uses enough energy to transport an average electric car 50km. That’s just refining, not including searching for or collecting the oil, or transporting the fuel to fuel stations.
It’s so much electricity that most oil refineries have dedicated coal or gas power stations.As long as you are only considering cars, electric cars are superior in almost every way, and are constantly getting better.
A diesel bus is still better than an electric car (although an electric bus would be better still). Trains and trams would be ideal, but require more upfront cost, so are easier for lazy or corrupt politicians to oppose.
Good point about tracking being a newer car problem.
Sadly where I live busses are not accessible to me since:
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They are infrequent.
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They do not have a ‘live map’ so make me extremely anxious since I don’t know where I am nor where to stop the bus.
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I would suggest different downsizes:
- EVs are much heavies, and they wear down the road, and everything else
- tire particles are going to be the next problem after fossil fuels
Solution: trains, more trains, even more trains.
Bike/Electric scooter + public transport is a peak mobility, but public transport isn’t even built for that :(
Fr, if the British gov stopped arresting every one who rides an electric scooter then the bus might actually be an attractive option
Well I mean Ireland doesn’t arrest electric scooters but you can’t bring them into transport because, ahem, batteries can explode.
so can a lot of things
I mean from engineering perspective batteries in the board part do get damaged when you damage the board by hitting the floor, and they have increased chances to catch fire when your charge them. And when they do, they fucking destroy everything around. You can’t really stop it either.
Key point: when you charge them. There is no reason to assume that would happen in tram or something.
Trains and buses have banned them anyway so it limits their use as a last mile solution as you typical need them both ends of the public transport
Not in South FL. Our trains have designated bike racks on the interior and our busses have bike racks on the front. I take a train to work every day, it’s really nice.
Like ~15 years ago I heard peter singer saying that the emissions from the lifetime use of a car were lower than those from making it, so you should only ever buy a second hand car.
That was before widespread EVs though.
I often wonder how long you have to use a 2nd hand gas car for, before the emissions outstrip those of making a brand new EV.
threeish years apparently, given you run it on green electricity.
Well, there is a good chance the data is distorted for fossil interests. It’s from 2021 too!
2025 vehicles are miles ahead! (Literally).
They have those solid-state batteries that charge in 5 minutes. There is the lightyear prototype that was insanely expensive…but it could run for decades given optimal light, and 40km/h or bellow speed with it’s solar panels.
source is polestar and rivian, as noted in the graphic.
solid-state batteries are not yet viable at vehicle scale.
lightyear went bankrupt in 2023.
Oh, nice…
That’s what I get for forgetting we live in Warhammer 2k
We could always stop doing that.
I’m struggling just to earn enough breathing space to think. I need a lot of time, and I dreamed of self-sufficiency for a while now. Even have my own Lemmy idea related to Solarpunk.
yeah we can’t have nice things
Something even easier to implement than public transit is treating e-scooters and e-bikes like first class citizens. Governments love to restrict their speed to make them uncompetitive with cars without an easy legal alternative.
As a cyclist, electric motorbikes are already a thing and belong in the traffic lanes. I’m not sharing a cycle path with idiots doing 40mph.
Yeah I’ve got an e-bike and there’s no way those motorcycles belong in the bike lane. If the motor can send you that fast, it’s no longer a bicycle…
I was thinking of getting an electric motorcycle at one point but a regular bike is so much cheaper and I don’t really need it.
Instead of limiting the bikes’ speed, what’s stopping the government from simply enforcing a speed limit on the bike paths?
I doubt speed is an adequate consideration here. Especially considering lack of dedicated protection like helmets and other coverings. Access, usability, price (assuming rental), and dedicated protected lanes for travel are much more important, but harder to manage.
I’m talking about owning your own e-scooter. It’s not hard to gear up for the ride. Protected lanes with limited speeds are an ideal, but the truth is that you need bursts of more speed on most of our sprawling suburbs in the US.
It’s also collectivizing the solution rather than expecting us each to address the problem on an individual level that doesn’t change the status quo one iota.
I would love public transit if it didn’t add an hour each way to my commute
It would be faster if it didn’t have to squeeze past the private cars filling the lanes
For me, I usually accept around +50% of travel time for the convinience of beeing able to browse lemmy, watching videos or reading in general on public transport. Then it doesnt feel like I wasted my time like I would have taking the car.
Stupid sexy skeletor
Depends on population density. Even if there was passenger train service on the existing lines here, a lot of people would need a vehicle to get to the station, and I don’t think public buses / vans could cover all the roads at a reasonable schedule.
But, also, you don’t have to get very dense before public transport is better than individual vehicles for intracity trips.
If public transit was valued by the local government, the city would be built in a way to make that work ok. If cars are valued, the city is built to be driven in.
I agree, by the time you really deserve the term “city” you should provide public transit as a community good and it can be made so that most people want to use it.
I’m in the “city” of Cove, Arkansas. It’s a 15 minute drive to the nearest produce section, and I have to work remotely because there aren’t computer programmer jobs within a reasonable commute.
At low densities, EVs are the way to go. The more dense, the more public transit makes sense.
I do still wish passenger rail service was restored along the line through here to the county seat; there are days it would save me a drive.
I could see some very well-meaning folks in local government being boxed in by citizens on one side that make their luxury SUVs and even more luxurious pickup trucks into major parts of their identities, and then the various layers of government above them driving the standards that make all of our towns samey-looking stroads. I’m in the US if that wasn’t obvious, and the car-centrism runs deep.
I’m a middle aged dude and my house was build multiple decades before I was born. Back then my neighborhood was designed 100% for cars. They even put in drainage ditches that precluded the addition of sidewalks. But several years back the township did paint a walking path down one side of my street.
The new neighborhoods built in the last decade are mostly the same as far as being car-only. They usually have sidewalks and you will see people taking walks or children playing. But it’s only local recreation, to walk the dog or to visit a neighbor. If you need to go to the grocery store, it’s time to hop into the 2-3 ton family vehicle.
I will give my local government and developers credit though, that some recent projects have been to create what look like islands of walkable community. I have look through the businesses and see if they have groceries and the like. From what I’ve seen the neighborhood seems to be densely packed expensive apartments and townhomes that were rapidly built en masse, and then in the center there’s a grassy field and some breweries and restaurants and stuff. So possibly some very American designs going on there.
From what I’ve seen the neighborhood seems to be densely packed expensive apartments and townhomes that were rapidly built en masse, and then in the center there’s a grassy field and some breweries and restaurants and stuff. So possibly some very American designs going on there.
I used to live in one of these kind of complexes. It was even next to a river with a nice little 2 mile trail along it. At first I thought it would be cool to live within a short walk of things. There was a convenience store that was quite nice. However, the owner told me that the complex told them they couldn’t sell nicotine products “to keep homeless out”. That shouldve been a red flag. Then the convenience store closed in favor of a fancy coffee shop. Then a fancy German restaurant with outdoor seating. Suddenly I felt like I lived in an outdoor mall. The site for that apartment complex was previously used for the states death row so I guess it’s still an improvement from that.
eww, yeah I can see that happening and a lot of people liking it too.
Even though our suburban neighborhoods are designed to be pro-car and anti-community, the one nice thing about the single family home and little fenced in yard setup is that I can keep some natural beauty close by.
A universal building exemption would push a lot of things in the right direction
That’s great if public transport goes from near where you are to near where you want to be, in a reasonable time.
For me that’s not the case. Anywhere I want to go takes 27 changes over at least 5 hours for a net distance of three miles; it’d be quicker to hop backwards blindfold on a bent pogo stick.
That’s what decades of car centric urban design does to everyone; any transportation other than a car is treated as a second class
Three miles is like the Perfect distance to ride a bike. Why even get into a car?
But I have to be together with people!
I’d rather drive my bike to work.
A lot of cities were designed around cars. In Cities Skyline you can just bulldoze entire neighbourhoods and completely change the roads and transit. Unfortunately in real life you can’t easily bulldoze people’s homes, and transit networks can take a decade to build.
Global warming is a problem now, and perfect is the enemy of good enough. We know EVs aren’t the ideal solution, but it’s important part of a solution that involves improved transit, better quality of life in dense population centers AND EVs for neighbourhoods that were built in a car-centric past. Maybe in 100 years the suburbs won’t exist and there won’t be any need for cars, but if we wait 100 years to have perfectly designed transit friendly neighbourhoods we’ll all be fucked.
I agree, but, this country, unfortunately, is built around cars now, and I certainly can’t walk to work as it would take hours, same with biking.
We need more public transportation, but we also need electric cars.
I am even more
hostile to capitalismsustainable, I use a bike.It’s amazing how much it takes for some to reach the conclusion that systemic change is both necessary and requires… systemic change. As in systems changing. As in greater change than your individual decision to ride an EV or ICEV or public transit. Change that would make it exponentially more intuitive for you to choose the most sustainable one of those options.
Especially if mass transit is not feasible for you, this post is not to shame you or call on you to try and do it anyways. It’s a recognition that riding mass transit is not feasible or intuitive for most people, and a call to make mass transit available to more people rather than investing all that time and energy into the wild goose chase of EV adoption.
The crying indian really did a number on us.
