You're arguing against a straw man of your own making. No one is positioning EVs as the solution for generating clean energy. They are a solution for electrifying transportation which is a prerequisite for moving transportation from fossil fuel generation to clean energy. Moreover, the current average blend of energy sources in the US grid is already much cleaner than burning gasoline, and on top of that virtually all charging stations are powered by 100% renewable energy.
> EVs generate half their lifetime pollution before even being driven on the street,
This is an argument in favor of EVs. Solar panels also produce all of their emissions prior to being plugged into the grid. This is precisely the mechanism by which they reduce carbon output relative to fossil fuel energy sources which have a large upfront carbon cost and then an even larger ongoing cost. It's the same deal with EVs.
> 3 tonnes personal steel cages transporting 1 person
Well, we have to have some way of getting around, and most of the US is not dense urban area. Space is plentiful in the US, and anyway "steel cages carrying one person" isn't optimizing for space, not carbon emissions. Any sort of utopian restructuring of US transportation is going to involve way more carbon up front for decades to solve a relatively small part (transporting humans) of a problem that we need to have solved in decades.
> This is just another chapter of the "don't worry we'll magically figure it out sometime in the future (_cough cough_ after I got my dividends and retire)"
This kind of vapid, incorrect cynicism isn't helpful and probably violates the site rules. We already largely know how to drastically reduce our emissions--clean energy and electrification. EVs are part of the electrification story. There's not much to "magically figure out" except how to make renewable energy viable for base load generation economically, but since any anti-car transportation solution is completely ignoring economy (not necessarily to be confused with "the economy") anyway, we can elide the "economically" requirement for base load generation in which case we already know how to get from here to there. In whichever case, EVs involve much less "magic" to solve than any anti-car alternative.
I think the parent is arguing against this premise.
You argue from a value system, in which cars for personal transportation, are an axiomatic condition. Not only that, cars, no matter their size, going as fast as geometry allows it, are an inherent fixture.
Solutions like EVs are a solution to carbon emissions, but only within this value system.
I can think of plenty of other solutions, all of them old-skool tech. Driving more frugal cars with high mpg (which will be lighter, smaller), would be a low-tech solution that anyone can implement today. However, since this is not in your value system, it does not occur to you. Since your value system is the dominant one, American car manufacturers no longer even want to put this solution up for sale. Not requiring people to commute, is another low-tech way we can curb carbon emission. Taxing cars by weight is a low-tech bureaucratic solution. A true forest of automated speed cameras to push top speeds down, and thus fuel consumption down, yet another one. Zoning which allows amenities in walking and biking distance is another, and infrastructure making walking and biking be safe, not having to worry about getting run over by 3-ton EVs, would be yet another low tech solution.
None of the above curb quality of life. But rather, they exist in a world that cannot be imagined.
> EVs involve much less "magic" to solve than any anti-car alternative.
This quote is a perfect encapsulation of your solipsism. You cannot even imagine these other solutions, and if you do, they appear magic. While this "magic"is the reality on the ground in so much other parts of the world. Even within the US, they exist.
EVs will not be a solution to curb carbon emissions. It is because EVs fundamentally do not address the root causes of why we have these emissions in the first place. The wasteful use of energy on personal transportation, caused by overly heavy, overly fast vehicles, having to drive over overly long distances, for even the most basic daily needs.
What if we could eliminate the need for cars in many areas by creating infrastructure that's vastly more efficient, cheaper, safer, and healthier to use? We already have a lot of this technology (bikes/trains/buses/trams + relevant infrastructure). Building this would be expensive and create a lot of pollution. Does that mean we shouldn't try?
> What if we could eliminate the need for cars in many areas by creating infrastructure that's vastly more efficient, cheaper, safer, and healthier to use?
Yes, that would be so great. Many neighborhoods in the US could accomodate it too. Roads are wide, there's absolutely space for different kinds of road use, side by side. And a lot of neighborhoods predate car travel, everything before the 30s or so, we know, as a historical fact, that they can totally be liveable without a car, if only it was safe for other road users to do so.
> Does that mean we shouldn't try?
Absolutely. The investment in safe road infrastructure, providing transportation options, has so many benefits.
You're making so many baseless and incorrect assumptions about my value system and thought process that it's very hard to assume you're arguing in good faith. You're welcome to try again without making assumptions about my beliefs or capacity for imagination.
I think it is impossible to put the personal vehicle genie back into the lamp. Any future climate solution cannot involve decreasing the quality of life for the typical american (or western person, i'm using american as a catch-all term).
EV is the compromise already.
But I already do that and considering current gas prices in Germany an EV is cheaper to operate. It's the next small step that short sighted humans are willing to take. I would rather take it than not.
Demanding that we stop driving cars would require a land value tax to encourage densification of downtown. Considering how many people are against letting people live in the place they want to live that's not an option. A car is effectively a tool to undermine the rent seeking done by land owners. If you can just drive away from the oppressor his power diminishes by how far you can get away from him. That's the true source of sprawl.
Those things change in small steps one generation at a time. Our best bet right now is to find carbon solutions that are compatible with the current set of values.
>"pie in the sky"
I think that's where we disagree. I don't think it is at all. Much of the US city infrastructure is build before the 30s. These neighborhoods could accommodate biking, walking, (and yes, together with cars)... much more easily. They don't, it's because every single road is completely dedicated to multi-lane car traffic. It's basically unsafe for others.
Slowing traffic down (top speeds mainly), would really only take bollards and paint. That is just a mental change; basically accept we need to share the road safely. It's unreal to me that such a small, almost insignificant shift, triggers such intense resistance.
But this is an unpopular idea among anti-car people because it's insufficiently punitive toward drivers. Specifically, they often advocate for fewer, lower throughput highways even though that only pushes traffic out into the side streets, endangering pedestrians. (This isn't a straw man, I've had that debate with people in my own city about removing a major thoroughfare, essentially to spite drivers).
Please not. But maybe underground, then yes, sure why not.
> removing a major thoroughfare, essentially to spite drivers)
I don't really know the particular situation. I hope it was not out of spite! That'd be sad. (I do understand fwiw - how it can come across like that). I do think a city should never accommodate high speed traffic, only maybe on an interstate or a truly segregated roadway. A lot of these high-speed corridors are through residential areas, it's just plain dangerous, noisy, polluting. There's a reason nobody wants to live next to a high speed road, and if they do, it requires a lot of empty buffer space (huge front yards, basically) to make it tolerable.
> lower throughput highways
Again, not knowing the particular situation, since this can be very context dependent, and maybe we have radically different examples in mind, so ymmv, fwiw, etc... Just as an example: in my town, a recent a high throughput highway was reduced from 4 to 2 lanes. That did not reduce throughput. It did decrease top speeds, no more mad max style passing and jostling, and fewer accidents. Basically, cars now toddle along in single file, at a civilized clip, but no longer that accordion of rushing and breaking from light to light anymore. It also is so much safer for people crossing the road, or biking. It took decades to make this happen. When trying to get these, most drivers at these public planning meeting could just not imagine that removing lanes has any kind of net good. After two years now of this conversion, which is positive is so many ways (it does not even inconvenience drivers, only curbs their worst impulses), every other similar proposal still face this same kind of opposition. This mindset is completely ingrained to such a degree that it almost seems monomaniacal.
Every vision of a low-carbon future requires many things to change. You're saying we should let the current slow movement on electricty generation be an excuse for not moving on EVs (despite the fact that they're an improvement regardless). You could similarly argue that the slow movement on EVs should be an excuse from not improving electricity generation (despite the fact that there are improvements regardless).
Whataboutism about one vision is worthless until you have a better vision, where we can compare the practical and political tradeoffs between them.
But yeah that would require work, let's just cry about losing convenience and continue perpetuating the same cycle again, since we have no options but to commit to our clearly unsustainable model
Personally, I’d prioritize suboptimal solutions which prevent a rise in ocean temperatures.
2. A pun.
While "make everything dense again" is kind of the end-goal, the way we get there isn't so much by "forcing" people to move into dense urban areas. At least, not unless you consider markets to be a form of coercion, in which case everything is "forced" all of the time and I have no argument for you. What happens is that we stop overplanning zoning codes, let commercial and residential zones mix, and allow the market to do it's job rather than just lining the pockets of whoever bought into the neighborhood 30 years ago.
As to your point about urban chauvinism, I do want to point out that while New Urbanism (the thing you're talking about) is really prevalent in urban spaces, so are NIMBYs. It's not so much "everyone should live like us"; it's an argument between people who want city centers to actually be cities and people who still think mixed-use land is the path to crack-era Manhattan. Dense urban spaces are already so desirable now that pretty much every formerly-cheap neighborhood has been gentrified to the hilt. If more people want to live in a dense urban area, then why shouldn't the housing market be allowed to cater to that desire and expand the urban core outwards or upwards?
[0] Though I may be wrong about this. Part of the reason why Amtrak still exists in it's current form is because it's a de-facto subsidy from Acela[1] riders to rural towns with no airport links.
[1] Me: Mom, can I have a Shinkansen?
Mom: No, we have a Shinkansen at home.
Shinkansen at home: acela.jpg
I don't think anti-car people call for rural public transit as much as they ignore rural, suburban, and exurban areas altogether. They call for "banning cars" (or drastically reducing them) without articulating how this would actually work outside of dense cities.
> While "make everything dense again" is kind of the end-goal, the way we get there isn't so much by "forcing" people to move into dense urban areas. At least, not unless you consider markets to be a form of coercion, in which case everything is "forced" all of the time and I have no argument for you. What happens is that we stop overplanning zoning codes, let commercial and residential zones mix, and allow the market to do it's job rather than just lining the pockets of whoever bought into the neighborhood 30 years ago.
I'm kind of fine with this (I like walkable neighborhoods!). I would like more mixing of residential and commercial (more, smaller shops), but I think it's a foregone conclusion that this would result in the kind of dramatically increased density that makes European-style public transit ubiquitous (a lot of people like space, and there's a lot of it in the US). I certainly don't think that's going to happen on a time scale that allows us to skip EVs while meeting climate targets like the OP suggests.
> As to your point about urban chauvinism, I do want to point out that while New Urbanism (the thing you're talking about) is really prevalent in urban spaces, so are NIMBYs. It's not so much "everyone should live like us"; it's an argument between people who want city centers to actually be cities and people who still think mixed-use land is the path to crack-era Manhattan.
I'm not sure what New Urbanism is, but I would be fine with urban people quibbling about how urban spaces should look (I live in a major US city); however, this debate isn't scoped exclusively to cities.
> Dense urban spaces are already so desirable now that pretty much every formerly-cheap neighborhood has been gentrified to the hilt. If more people want to live in a dense urban area, then why shouldn't the housing market be allowed to cater to that desire and expand the urban core outwards or upwards?
I don't think this is true except perhaps in NYC or the Bay Area. But in general I don't think anyone has a problem with the concept of expanding urban density (although there's surely some NIMBYism from people who don't want their suburb to be the target of urban expansion).
EVs, like carbon offsets, are a necessary part of a carbon-zero future, but they don't actually get us any closer on their own.
But that would still reduce the problem by a factor of what? 100? With all the other side effects of needing smaller roads, reducing congestion, ... .
> Are you proposing that replacing ICE vehicles with EVs is not an essential part of a long-term, low-carbon future?
Hm yes, a sustainable future won't be made of 3 tonnes personal steel cages transporting 1 person. There are 1.5B personal vehicles on earth right now, replacing every single one of them with the EV equivalent will just displace the problem (EVs generate half their lifetime pollution before even being driven on the street, then you have to take care about recycling, mining the raw materials, &c.)
This is just another chapter of the "don't worry we'll magically figure it out sometime in the future (_cough cough_ after I got my dividends and retire)"