this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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Fuck Cars

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[–] [email protected] 109 points 1 year ago (5 children)

They also reduce noise pollution

And reduce the propping of petrostates

And can be fueled, in theory, almost anywhere there are buildings (including your own home/work)

And that fuel can also, in theory, come from fully sustainable sources

They also help normalise the usage of renewable energy (this is a factor that shouldn't be overlooked, imo)

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

They also do all those things much worse than transitioning away from car dependence.

And they give people an excuse to not move away from cars.

And they are so much heavier and deadlier than ICE cars at the same speed that they may actually actively discourage other modes, like walking or cycling.

edit: Look, I think every car should be an EV. And I also think there shouldn't be many cars because cars still suck. Both can be true.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

And they are so much heavier and deadlier than ICE cars at the same speed that they may actually actively discourage other modes, like walking or cycling.

whether a car has an ICE or a battery is the last thing on my mind when avoiding them

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

It doesn't matter what your thinking about when a vehicle hits you...

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This should go without saying but what’s on your mind about a car doesn’t change how deadly it is when it hits you.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

And also pedestrian desth rates undoubtedly effect how safe people consider car free transportation options.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Since much of the noise pollution from cars comes from tire noise, I doubt EVs will reduce noise pollution that signifcantly.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's not tire noise I'm hearing in bed at 1am while some yahoo is treating residential roads like a racetrack.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That is because many cities/politicians refuse to enforce reasonable noise limits on automobiles. It should have never been legal/normalized to have exhausts loud enough to need hearing protection while outside of the vehicle.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That shit ain’t legal, it’s just not enforced.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Legal where I live, and in many states too.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

those ppl will create noise at whatever cost lmao, I bet they'll start attaching external speakers at some point to compensate for the lack of engine noise

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Near motorways where they go high speed the reduction will be negligible, but is material around lower speed streets.

Something not mentioned is the significantly reduced brake dust as most EV braking is regenerative.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Is this really substantial? With a skilled manual driver or a clever automatic gearbox, the majority of braking should be engine braking. It seems to me that regenerative braking is typically replacing what would be engine braking, the unplanned stops still use friction brakes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Regen braking can be significantly stronger than engine braking. Unless your battery is at 100%, it can essentially replace all friction braking outside of emergency stops.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Noise pollution is a function of speed.

At low speeds, it's mostly engine noise. At highway speeds, it's mostly tire noise.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Also Pedestrian crash avoidance mitigation (PCAM) systems are great, and will be required on all new vehicles soon.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

You could also potentially use them as a solution for more efficiently allocating energy, less by pumping energy back into the grid, and more by running home power from the car battery during peak hours, rather than having to produce too much energy during off hours, having to shut down the power during peak hours or provide limited access, or having to provide power for less people. You can make the power go further, and especially for renewables which have potentially less consistent energy production (the nice part being that peak demand roughly lines up with peak production for solar power, at least, in the summer). But none of that's really an attractive proposition to the american car buyer who wants to travel as far as possible at the drop of a hat, and you have to make car batteries larger and the cars themselves less efficient to compensate for this power draw and power storage that may or may not be happening at any given moment, so it's sort of self-defeating with the american car market.

Obviously, it isn't really a more equitable or more efficient solution broadly than doing something like pumping water uphill. Or trying to limit demand in the first place by decreasing surface area of homes, by moving towards multiple units in one building, increasing r-values by using better building materials you could shell out for with a larger amount of occupants, yadda yadda urban design garbage. Stuff that generally is antithetical to car-centric infrastructure and thus electric cars. You also potentially run into problems where the as the grid as a whole becomes less relied upon, they make less money, and then the grid starts to fail further in a positive feedback loop. Poor people can't afford rooftop solar and electric cars, because most of them can barely afford rent and aren't really the ones making those decisions anyways.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

They also reduce noise pollution

Only at low speeds. At high speeds for a modern car the tyre noise is louder that the engine noise, and since electric cars are heavier they would be noisier.

And reduce the propping of petrostates

Replace mining oil with mining rare metals. Not a big improvement.

They also help normalise the usage of renewable energy (this is a factor that shouldn't be overlooked, imo)

Why? Electric cars are causing a huge load on the grid and will continue to do so. In countries that haven't managed the load and invested heavily in renewable capacity, those EVs are powered by fossil fuels.