I mean sure. But my gas vehicle is purely recreational, it gets a few hundred miles a year at most. I really enjoy teaching myself car maintenance and repair with it. Being an 80s car, it’s super roomy in the engine area and easy to work on.

No one is dying because I own and drive this car today. Someone might’ve died mining the lithium for my Tesla however.

This is all to say that your comment is reductive.

In defense of GP, their comment is properly reductive as this is how things generalize when deployed large-scale. Your smog may not kill anyone and my smog may not kill anyone, but it's also true that X% greater in emissions leads to Y% more premature deaths, so some extra Y% people are going to keep dying if these emissions are not reduced.

I don't think GP meant it to be personal. But Kant's categorical imperative does work in some cases, so it's worth remembering.

If someone died mining our hypothetical battery, that is a choice they made (assuming that we all know working in mines is dangerous). OTOH we have little choice in breathing in smog... clean air is a communal resource we all have to share.

And the problem isn’t your gas vehicle that you rarely use, it’s the general concept of everyone from Volkswagen to our local auto sports enthusiasts thinking their smog doesn’t really matter that much.

I assume there's a mortality rate for software developers. Is it therefore the software developers fault if they die on the job? Should we shrug a point out that that career was their choice?

Does this thinking extend to other activities? The mortality rate for sleeping in non zero after all....

I guess I’d draw an analogy to astronauts, firefighters or race car drivers. Obviously mining, firefighting, space flight and racing should be made as safe as possible from a worker’a rights perspective. But anyone going in to those careers hopefully understands the risks!

And thanks for the reply, I was wondering what the downvotes were about — my comment apparently was blasé, especially since many miners frequently don’t have much other economic opportunity.

The problem isn't electronics itself. The problem is a frankly evil combination of artificial technical and legal barriers that prevent you (or your local car repair shop) from being able to do fixes and checkups yourself. In a nicer world, you'd have standardized interfaces and tools released to facilitate repairs of the complicated systems in cars.

OBDII has been legally standardized on all cars for years. However it only covers basics, every engine is different on details and so you can't get far on the standard alone.

I wonder how much of the additional complexity is actually necessary for lower emissions.

More to the point, how much of the complexity is an excuse to charge $4000 at the dealership for something an independent mechanic could do for $495 except that there is some kind of DMCA nonsense in the car to prevent that on purpose.

Most of the complexity arises from using feedback loops in the engines similar to other control systems in industry. There are also similarities to techniques used in electronics.

You can like something without wanting to go back to it. It's nice being able to fix your own car, but great fuel efficiency and low emissions is also nice.