If the Census Bureau is to be believed, 80% of Americans live in an urban area (presumably that is talking about metro areas). https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/g...

A town of 2500 people counts as urban in the census[1]. There is nothing "urban" about a small town of 2500 people.

[1] https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/reference/GARM/Ch12GARM.pdf

Your reference says that's an "Urban Place" and that "Urban Areas" are bigger. The post you responded to linked to something that said 220 million live in 486 "urbanized areas". Since there are many more than 486 towns above 2500 people, I think the 80% number refers to "Urban Places" and not "Urban Areas."

EDIT - it seems the number of what we'd normally call urban is around 70% with about 10% in "Urbanized Clusters" which seem to be "Urban Places" that we think of as suburbs??

And I would be one of them. I might live in an big apartment building in a city of over 10,000 but we do not have an airport. We do not have a costco. We have car dealers, but not the honda dealer I need for my recalled airbag (nearest is 400km away). And my particular urban area is not where my parents live. Urban or not, I still have to drive considerable distances for nearly everything.

Driving your own car to an airport is usually not a great idea even if you have one that can make the trip easily.

There's not much of an alternative if you live 100 miles from the airport. Even if you could find an Uber the cost would exceed the parking fee.

And that's fine, keep your ICE car. The point is, you're not the majority. Look at google maps, it's millions of people in suburbs, two cars in the driveway, driving to the grocery store and to work is the majority of the reason they use it. They think they need range, but really, you could convert a lot of those two-car household into having 50% EV.

At least, right? Even among the families regularly taking regular 100+-mile trips I doubt many of them take both cars.

>And that's fine, keep your ICE car.

In any change there are always winners and losers. It does strike me that some people here are in for a lot of pain when the inevitable change comes along.

Of course, you can always think of someone losing out in any shift, but I can’t see how the current course is sustainable. For the people who do need longer range we’ll have some combination of carve outs and specialty EVs, I imagine.

From a purely carbon-reducing standpoint, such people shouldn't get an EV until their house is already festooned with solar panels. The carbon saved by driving an EV is less than the carbon saved by putting solar panels on the roof. If there are no panels installed, that 50% EV in the driveway is just virtue signaling.

That's not true for a variety of reasons.

For people who commute regularly they can consume as much or more power from driving as their house does daily. For many people solar isn't an option for practical reasons (e.g. trees) and others have HOA restrictions. Also a used EV can often be had for far cheaper than any solar install.

In Georgia, the state offered rebates one year on EV leases that when combined with the Federal rebate made the 2 year lease of a Nissan Leaf cost nothing. When those 2 year leases expired many people opted not to purchase the vehicle resulting in a glut of Leafs on the market that had low miles for $5-15k. I bought one in 2017 and used it as a daily driver for a 50 mile commute for 3 years before we moved.

The last 3 homes I owned in Georgia would not have been suitable for solar. They all had 40-60ft tall pines on at least 3 sides in both my yard and neighbors that would have limited production significantly. The roof lines on two of those homes would have only permitted only about 4Kwh systems and even without the shade they'd never come close to the consumption of the home.

Also in Georgia the power companies are unregulated and so I had the choice of purchasing power from an EMC and the option of paying a few cents more per kilowatt to invest in the Co-Op's solar farms. And being a Co-Op, they also paid out annual dividends on both regular and solar power.

>> When those 2 year leases expired many people opted not to purchase the vehicle

THAT is truly wasteful. Using a new product and then tossing it aside when it isn't shiny anymore. It creates a glut of used cars which depreciates all use cars... eventually resulting in many perfectly good vehicles being scrapped before their time = huge carbon emissions. The 'three Rs' start with Reduce and Reuse for a reason.

Why's it any more wasteful than any other kind of used car?

I believe the point was that it's more wasteful than continuing to drive a perfectly serviceable older vehicle, not that leasing is inherently any more wasteful than trading in for a new late-model vehicle every year or two.

Well, in most cases buying out a lease is an unwise financial decision. Encouraging people to lease with subsidies and then driving down the cost of second-hand EVs doesn't seem like a bad way to go if your goal is to spur adoption.

That really depends on where you live. Nuclear isn't so bad. And my power company is building giant seas of solar farms, constantly getting bigger. What would be the point of me replacing that with my own?

Even besides this, installing solar panels is a big investment. Maybe you just needed a new car and decided to opt for electric.