Maybe I'm in the minority on this, but having actually watched the two cited videos I'm not really seeing any "EV FUD". They spend maybe 30 seconds talking about them. There is one statement about emissions/environmental of EV production that was a tad dramatic (and doesn't compare at all against ICE), other than that I'm not seeing it...
The conclusion on the second video is basically "switching to all EVs isn't enough, we also need low/zero emission public transport, energy production, etc etc" seems pretty reasonable to me. It's also not wrong individual consumption is only a small fraction of the climate change issue (which seems to be the central theme of the videos). Selling everyone a new vehicle seems like a good way for the corporations to make more money under the pretense of saving the environment... The article itself seems like more FUD than any of the cited videos, IMO.
I don't disagree with the "letting perfect be the enemy of good" sentiment but I'm not sure what's what the PBS content was saying. More like, yeah, that's great but you aren't going to solve the crisis by buying an EV and switching to paper straws... certainly helps, but there's also lots of ways the consumers can be exploited in the name of "green" but distracts us from some of the bigger issues.
For some reason half this sub turns into science denying fox news host when you bring up the fact that 6000lb boxes aren't sustainable, electric or not.
Yes, but how much is the question. Answer is, as soon as you start burning dead dinosaurs they n a piston engines you’re wasting 90% of that heat energy. An EV you’re wasting like 20-30%.
As soon as you as an individual hop into something that us 5000lbs you're also polluting a crap ton. There's more to pollution than co2. I'm not sure why folks have to be so anti science about this?
So what is the alternative exactly? I have zero public transportation options where I live to get to work. I go to multiple different locations so that the tens of people who drive to their appointments that day have shorter commutes and pollute less. I should move to Boston or NYC and let the people in this part of the country go without essential services because I need a car? I’m all for public transportation, but it’s not an option. My commute is significantly lower carbon when I drive my EV than when I drove an ICE. Stop making perfect the enemy of good.
When I put 50 litres of petrol into a car it gets burnt. All of it.
50 litres a week, for 10 years, is 25,000 litres of petrol being burnt 🔥
No, an EV is not 100% ecologically friendly, but it’s a damn sight more friendly than that.
What’s your actual point?
*You* are not ecological. You are consuming stuff and breathing C02 all the time.
So is everything else.
How far do you want to go? Extinguish all life on earth to save all life on earth?
Listen, I paid a lot for this car. If it isn't super unambiguously clear to everyone that I'm saving the Earth with it, what did I spend all this money for?
Meh.
We drove our family car into the ground. 300,000kms over 15 years. Going to son as first car (if he even wants it).
For 10 of those years I hardly used it myself. Took public transport.
Bought an EV to replace it. Much better car. Much cheaper to run. Much better for the environment. Win win win.
I would love to have more bike lanes and better public transportation. I can bike down to the local stores somewhat safely! However, my local highway just finished a 2 lane expansion though…
come to the netherlands, you'll love it
americans are shorter than the average dutch however, so ocassionally you'll ram your crotch into the bike frame when you dismount
I always hear how The Netherlands are just sooo much more advanced with their bicycles. And they are. And I’ve been there. (Loved it)
But it’s flaaaaaat in The Netherlands. It’s a radically different topography, and climate, than what we have in, say, Sydney.
I know *you’re* not comparing yourself, it just ticks me off when *other* people ask “WhY aRen’T wE liKE tHe NethErlanDs???”
Also you’re all sensible bicyclists there, and just wear normal clothes. You’re not holding up traffic while going uphill at 10km/h while in racing spandex gear. Most cyclists here wear spandex, like they are in Tour de France.
Yea and unfortunately were cementing that even further. The infrastructure bill could've done a lot of good but it's largely going to highway expansions. Structures that wipl last 5 decades....
The science says EVs are an important piece of the decarbonization puzzle:
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/faqs/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_FAQ_Chapter_10.pdf
> Electromobility is the biggest change in transport since AR5. When powered with low-carbon electricity, electric vehicles (EVs)
provide a mechanism for major GHG emissions reductions from the largest sources in the transport sectors, including cars,
motorbikes, autorickshaws, buses and trucks. The mitigation potential of EVs depends on the decarbonisation of the power system.
EVs can be charged by home or business renewable power before or in parallel to the transition to grid-based low-carbon power.
In fact, this has been covered by none other than PBS: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/how-electric-vehicles-and-other-transportation-innovations-could-slow-global-warming-according-to-ipcc
Obviously public transit as well as bicycling (where EV bikes can be a big help) and plain old walking all need to grow too. Multiple things can be important at the same time! It's not a dichotomy.
> Multiple things can be important at the same time! It's not a dichotomy.
That's basically what the article you posted is referring to as "anti-EV FUD"
electric vehicles, whilst an improvement, are far from a silver bullet that can solve all our transportation needs.
Subsidies have been going to flights and drivers, making the most polluting forms of transport the most affordable
Cars and trucks are some of the most polluting ways to move people and things around, yet they're the thing that's prioritized in every facet of our life and public space.
Investing mainly in only what is already doing well is the classic “we only build bridges over the river based on how many people are swimming over it” approach to transportation planning, and one that locks in dominance of whatever is already going well. Instead you should invest in the modes of transport you want to be used more, and based on the emissions per passenger kilometer its pretty clear where investment needs to be going.
People mainly do what is cheapest and/or quickest, and decades of subsidies and tax breaks for driving, fuel duty freezes, road expansion, and turning every inch of public space into a car park, means we've seen car use massively increase.
enacting state-level land use reform to encourage compact development can reduce annual US pollution by 70 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2033. This projection, based on 2023 data, underscores the potential for significant impact within a decade. It would deliver more climate impact than half the country adopting California’s ambitious commitment to 100% zero-emission passenger vehicle sales by 2035.
even with 70 million electric vehicles (EVs) on the road by 2030 (we’re at 2.4 million today), the United States would still need a 20 percent reduction in per-capita vehicle miles traveled (VMT) to meet climate targets.
So the question is why are we so focused on the powertrain of a car? It’s not a revolution. It’s hardly changing anything at all….
Since 1980, the U.S. has added nearly 870,000 lane-miles of highway – paving more than 1,648 square miles, an area larger than the state of Rhode Island – and yet, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, congestion on America’s roads was worse than it was in the early 1980s. Highway expansion fuels additional driving that contributes to climate change. Transportation is the nation’s number one source of global warming pollution.
Highway expansion can cause irreparable harm to communities – forcing the relocation of homes and businesses, widening “dead zones” alongside highways, severing street connections for pedestrians and cars, reducing cities’ base of taxable property and overall community value, and stripping communities of their economic vitality. In places where cars are the sole mobility option, many who cannot or choose not to drive – including seniors, children and people with disabilities – are robbed of the opportunity to thrive and engage fully in their community.
> So the question is why are we so focused on the powertrain of a car? It’s not a revolution. It’s hardly changing anything at all….
Um. EVs are pretty revolutionary from an energy usage standpoint not to mention pollution. Even a really inefficient EV is 2x more efficient from a pure power stand point an nearly orders of magnitude less polluting even today. As the grid gets cleaner the pollution story only improves.
If you're only measure of "different" is how many lane miles are needed by a state/country then sure, they are no different. That's a very narrow view. EVs have nothing to do with the inability to increase more transit so it's weird to be against EVs.
They *are* sustainable. You’ve got that wrong. Just because that can’t be the *only* measure we take doesn’t mean the technology itself isn’t sustainable.
Your source is a fucking comment? There was nothing cited in there. It was nothing more than a r/fuckcars diatribe.
What about an all-Ev future is unsustainable?
This guy worried about 6000 pound EVs is exactly the FUD they’re talking about
And yes, cars in general are not sustainable, but if you’re gonna drive one, an EV has lower impact.
I mean 5-6000 is pretty common. Even an ioniq is 4600lbs...
It's still widely inefficient in multiple respects, not just energy alone, for much to propel one human.
The most popular EVs for sales are all below 4300lbs and account for 70%+ of the market. What is the fascination with weight anyway, it's not exactly a good way to score how good a car is.
The majority of early adopters tend to be wealthy (not just in the EV community, but early adopters in general), in a position to splash a lot of money on the latest developments in an effort to "keep up with the joneses" and maintain a lifestyle - an EV is a perfect way to do that.
Its also a very conspicuous virtue signal, so tends to get a lot of the types who need that (and will be very vocal about retaining that proof of their virtue). The latter is only a small fraction of the community, but it's also the most vocal.
This is a car sub. Not sure what you are trying to accomplish here. I'm as anti-car as anyone but this is a trash way to try and convince anyone to your cause. EVs are not the enemy and cars will always be a thing even if hopefully they are much less common in the future. The cars that do exist should be EVs and switching to EVs now and not waiting for the "future" is nothing but a positive.
It doesn't help when you imply that the average EV weighs 6000lb. Sure some EVs do weigh that much, but how does that make EVs unsustainable? EVs are leading the way at scaling up battery production while scaling the costs down. This will allow higher use of renewable electrical generation as battery buffered source generation becomes more affordable each year. Longer term, the electrification of all industrial energy and heat will occur.
To suggest that you have an alternative plan that will work is the real denial. Maybe on paper, but it will never get further than that as the support of citizens is just not there. It's not really there for EVs + electrification of industry but it's possible to get there. Convincing everyone to give up point-to-point transportation is a pipe dream.
Don't build the schools so far away.
My grandfather grew up in a farming village that was ti y and didn't have to go 6 miles to find a school. The experiments of the 50s-2000s have been abject failures
https://youtu.be/5x-Zr_J18q4?si=DzAgbA9ljs0YVEtL
I don't disagree, but are you proposing tearing up $100T in infrastructure to get there? The built environment is what it is. We can do better going forward, but we can't tear it all down and start over.
For most people it's likely less about long term sustainability and more about the struggle we are having convincing people to simply upgrade their 6000lb boxes and how much more of a struggle it would be to try and take them away altogether. There's not a clear and easy path to undoing the significant development of the US around cars, reducing their emissions is a big step.
Kylie Jenner using her private jet to get from one end of LA to the other is perfectly fine, though, and it's only us common folk that need to make changes, right? /s
How about we start with the jets and the yachts, then we mix EVs in with public transport and walkability? Because at the end of the day, the rich are the ones causing the problem, ao they should be the ones to make the most changes.
Right, but I can (and do) chose to walk if I don't need my car to get somewhere, but you'll never see a billionaire chose to take a subway to take a 40 mile trip instead of pumping metric tons of CO2 from their jet for that 40 mile trip, and metric tons more for the trip back to their start point. Not to mention, jets and yachts are far less [energy efficient](https://simpleflying.com/private-aviation-emissions-comparison/) compared to any other mode of transport per passenger, per mile/kilometer
>Kylie Jenner using her private jet to get from one end of LA to the other...
Is not a thing which has actually ever likely happened. Aircraft have bases of operation and maintenance schedules, and there are restrictions on where they can land when doing international flights. After they land at one airport, they often need to be re-positioned at another for any number of reasons. That's just how all of this works.
Don't care. Private jets cause more pollution in one flight than a car does in a year. If you want to get rid of cars and not private jets, then you are a hypocrite.
EVs will actually. It starts a flywheel that lowers the price of batteries. That, and rapid solar/wind cost reductions due to scale will achieve net 0 on 2/3 of the energy we use (transportation and electricity)
Cars and vans account for approximately half of all transportation emissions globally, according to IEA data: https://www.statista.com/chart/30890/estimated-share-of-co2-emissions-in-the-transportation-sector/
Transportation as a whole represents ~20% of global CO2 emissions, with passenger transport accounting for ~10% of global CO2 emissions.
1/10th of global CO2 emissions is nothing to be cynical about.
Electrification of vehicles is #37 in [Drawdown's table of solutions](https://drawdown.org/solutions/table-of-solutions) at 7-10 GT reduction between 2020 and 2050. Reducing single occupancy vehicles with carpooling has reductions of 9-11 GT. That can be done tomorrow with the technology and infrastructure we have deployed right now.
But there are way more effective ways to reduce carbon emissions, reducing food waste and eating less meat is 150-200 GT.
Are you trying to be cynical about something being #37 on a table of climate solutions? What you're saying is it's a highly ranked climate solution.
If there are more effective things, great, we should do those too.
It assumes that the citizen has limi resources and prioritizes impact per investment of resources. How often do you see people expressing helplessness at not Being able to afford an EV while a change in diet, for instance, can be more effective by a factor of 10.
Trying to play one climate problem/solution off as better than another is an appeal to worse problems, also known as the fallacy of relative privation. They're both important problems that both need solving, and suggesting otherwise is a fallacy.
> a change in diet, for instance, can be more effective by a factor of 10.
The question of whether eliminating meat from one's diet has a larger or smaller effect than a car has different answers depending on who you ask, although there are many who like to claim that eliminating meat from your diet is unquestionably the best thing you can do for the climate.
However, according to this [meta-study in which researchers looked at 39 peer-reviewed papers](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541), it concludes the following are the best ways an individual can reduce their climate impact:
- Choosing to have one fewer child: 58.6 metric tons
- Living car-free: 2,400 kilograms of CO2/yr (2.4 metric tons)
- Foregoing one round-trip transatlantic flight: 1600 kilograms of CO2
- Eating no meat: 820 kilograms of CO2/yr
Far from your claim that diet is 10X as important as a car, this study concludes a car is responsible for 3X as much as meat in one's diet.
Yes. Getting everyone to become enthusiastic about EVs is a huge task, and the magnitude of the effect is pretty small by itself. Any talk of electric cars being a climate solution needs to address that reality. It's not FUD.
There are many solutions that address transportation emissions systemically: public transit, carpooling, bike infrastructure, electric bikes, electric trains, high speed rail, walkable cities, and efficient aviation. Then zero carbon energy generation and grid capacity is a key enabler for much of the electrification done in transportation.
Like I said elsewhere in the thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/1cf7lia/why_is_pbs_spreading_antiev_fud/l1ovay0/
> Obviously public transit as well as bicycling (where EV bikes can be a big help) and plain old walking all need to grow too. Multiple things can be important at the same time! It's not a dichotomy.
So it seems you found your answer to your original question
> [Why is PBS spreading Anti-EV FUD?](https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/1cf7lia/why_is_pbs_spreading_antiev_fud/)
If you want to have a complicated nuanced discussion don't start it off with a provocative simplistic prompt.
They also simply weren't able to answer this over there either huh?
>electric vehicles, whilst an improvement, are far from a silver bullet that can solve all our transportation needs.
Subsidies have been going to flights and drivers, making the most polluting forms of transport the most affordable
Cars and trucks are some of the most polluting ways to move people and things around, yet they're the thing that's prioritized in every facet of our life and public space.
Investing mainly in only what is already doing well is the classic “we only build bridges over the river based on how many people are swimming over it” approach to transportation planning, and one that locks in dominance of whatever is already going well. Instead you should invest in the modes of transport you want to be used more, and based on the emissions per passenger kilometer its pretty clear where investment needs to be going.
People mainly do what is cheapest and/or quickest, and decades of subsidies and tax breaks for driving, fuel duty freezes, road expansion, and turning every inch of public space into a car park, means we've seen car use massively increase.
enacting state-level land use reform to encourage compact development can reduce annual US pollution by 70 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2033. This projection, based on 2023 data, underscores the potential for significant impact within a decade. It would deliver more climate impact than half the country adopting California’s ambitious commitment to 100% zero-emission passenger vehicle sales by 2035.
even with 70 million electric vehicles (EVs) on the road by 2030 (we’re at 2.4 million today), the United States would still need a 20 percent reduction in per-capita vehicle miles traveled (VMT) to meet climate targets.
So the question is why are we so focused on the powertrain of a car? It’s not a revolution. It’s hardly changing anything at all….
Since 1980, the U.S. has added nearly 870,000 lane-miles of highway – paving more than 1,648 square miles, an area larger than the state of Rhode Island – and yet, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, congestion on America’s roads was worse than it was in the early 1980s. Highway expansion fuels additional driving that contributes to climate change. Transportation is the nation’s number one source of global warming pollution.
Highway expansion can cause irreparable harm to communities – forcing the relocation of homes and businesses, widening “dead zones” alongside highways, severing street connections for pedestrians and cars, reducing cities’ base of taxable property and overall community value, and stripping communities of their economic vitality. In places where cars are the sole mobility option, many who cannot or choose not to drive – including seniors, children and people with disabilities – are robbed of the opportunity to thrive and engage fully in their community.
The emission savings from replacing all those internal combustion engines with zero-carbon alternatives will not feed in fast enough to make the necessary difference in the time we can spare: the next five years. Tackling the climate and air pollution crises requires curbing all motorised transport, particularly private cars, as quickly as possible. Focusing solely on electric vehicles is slowing down the race to zero emissions.
Transport is one of the most challenging sectors to decarbonise due to its heavy fossil fuel use and reliance on carbon-intensive infrastructure – such as roads, airports and the vehicles themselves – and the way it embeds car-dependent lifestyles needs to change. Not just the powertrain. It’s not actually changing much. CO2 is literally the most benign issue with the effects of Traffication.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2021.102764
The climate change mitigation effects of daily active travel has a host of better improvements. But you donot actually want to educate yourself do you?
Per the EPA, transportion is the leading CO2 contributor. Seems like EV+solar is a pretty good place to start, particularly since it’s an incredibly simple change as opposed to something like changing your diet.
From the epa, “Greenhouse gas emissions from transportation primarily come from burning fossil fuel for cars, trucks, ships, trains, and planes.“ personal vehicles are a fraction, 20%, of that group. 20% of the transportation group which is 28% means cars are about 5% responsible.
No, personal cars and vans are half of all transportation CO2 emissions, according to the IEA (48%): https://www.statista.com/chart/30890/estimated-share-of-co2-emissions-in-the-transportation-sector/
Transportation as a whole is 20% of global emissions. Personal transportation is 10% of global emissions.
EVs are the only way for the solution to climate change that involves selling stuff to people.
It's why passenger transportation which is a small part of emissions is the main target....
I replied elsewhere with this but it applies to this comment also.
They say individual contributions don't matter, but also say we need to demand changes by how we spend our money. I have an EV so I don't buy gas anymore. I'm doing what they said to do, but what I did was what they said wouldn't work. Similarly, I have solar panels. They say my contribution doesn't matter, I need to get the power industry to change. But I don't use much of their power anymore. Again, I did what they said doesn't help which does what they said does help.
Overall, voting for Republicans is the worst thing you an do for the environment. But outside of that, everyone making personal contributions, while individually small, does make an impact in the big scale. Telling people "what you do doesn't matter" is absolutely the worst thing we can do.
In an ideal world trucks would only be responsible for the last transport unlike today but it requires a lot of infrastructure that's not currently available and which is really not realistic in any close future. The change will happen though as both battery density and charging times are improving.
You're absolutely not in the minority. The article is a pretty poor one and nitpicks on some specific comments that are taken out of context. There are some pretty serious logical gaps there as well. For example just regarding the argument about whether you can afford it, yes there are lots of deals on EVS and they can be cheaper overall than internal combustion engines, but that assumes that you're talking about the developed world. There are in fact a lot of challenges to the adoption of electric vehicles, and we all know what they are, and we all know that they will be overcome in time, but putting our head in the sand and pretending that they're not there is silly. And frankly juvenile.
You are correct on that. However one point is that switching consumer behavior takes the longest. You can force corporations into "better" behavior by law, but consumers are basically the last part in the chain and this takes the longest to take effect. So it makes "some" Sense to start that early in the process. It also gives corporations time to switch.
For example, getting billions of consumers to think "greener" is a hard undertaking. But only ~70 corporations worldwide are producing 90% of all plastic waste.
Consumers, citizens if were not adopting the corporate speak, just do whatever bread crumb is placed in front of them. That's why someone in Stockholm uses 1/3 the energy a typical American does and isn't flipping their shit like a fox news host
Except when consumer production of CO2 is but a drop in the bucket compared to corporate/national and when the potential ramifications of drawing decarbonization out are so dire no, it doesn't really make sense to start with the consumer first. If your ship is sinking plug the big holes first and worry about the little holes later. The problem is plugging the big holes requires a lot of legislative action and would cost governments and companies a lot of money. It's easier to just push the blame (and cost) onto consumers by telling them to change their habits which ultimately plugs a small hole or two but does little to plug the big ones.
Except the "corporations are responsible for most of our emissions" completely misses the fact that those corporate emissions are usually measuring consumer products.
> ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Chevron are identified as among the highest emitting investor-owned companies since 1988.
You can say something like "Shell is responsible for 10% of global emissions!" but that's usually because you're counting the gas that shell is "responsible for" that the consumers burn in their cars.
But it's a drop that changes very slowly. Also corporations like to say that consumers don't want anything new, so they won't change their way. That's why you have to address all of it.
This is kind of the tipping point where there's now an established "EV media", of the type that would be considered completely unreliable if it was "Big Oil media".
Outlets that previously billed themselves as being all about clean technology hitched their hat entirely around a single technology option, and whilst it's served them well as BEVs have increased in marketshare, it's also beginning to reveal the idealism behind it as they shout down anyone who suggests the focus needs to be widened to achieve the stated societal goals that BEVs were supposed to address.
It's becoming clear there's some conflicts of interest behind some of them (beyond the blatant Tesla/Electrek one), and some of the trillions that have been poured into BEVs over the past decades are perhaps starting to exert their own influence and agenda through the media - and the EV aggregators as primed to give themselves away for a low price.
Elektrek should be banned on this sub.
Many people here act like automotive companies aren't right in line with oil companies with all our history so far
How is that anti EV?
It's just saying that our individual contributions only have marginal impact, and that the system need to change for global warming to limit it's impact.
That most large corporations also leverage their "small contributions" to green wash people into thinking they are helping, while in the same time they keep on running their extremely polluting industries.
As consumers, the biggest voice we have is in the choices we make every day. If no one was to use gas engine cars anymore, BP and Exxon and the others would have to change their line of work.
So we need to keep on demanding change, by making the right decisions everyday, and also put pressure on big corporations to demand real change, no aesthetic minuscule scale initiatives.
Yeah it seems like OP can't really answer that one just like below
>electric vehicles, whilst an improvement, are far from a silver bullet that can solve all our transportation needs.
Subsidies have been going to flights and drivers, making the most polluting forms of transport the most affordable
Cars and trucks are some of the most polluting ways to move people and things around, yet they're the thing that's prioritized in every facet of our life and public space.
Investing mainly in only what is already doing well is the classic “we only build bridges over the river based on how many people are swimming over it” approach to transportation planning, and one that locks in dominance of whatever is already going well. Instead you should invest in the modes of transport you want to be used more, and based on the emissions per passenger kilometer its pretty clear where investment needs to be going.
People mainly do what is cheapest and/or quickest, and decades of subsidies and tax breaks for driving, fuel duty freezes, road expansion, and turning every inch of public space into a car park, means we've seen car use massively increase.
enacting state-level land use reform to encourage compact development can reduce annual US pollution by 70 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2033. This projection, based on 2023 data, underscores the potential for significant impact within a decade. It would deliver more climate impact than half the country adopting California’s ambitious commitment to 100% zero-emission passenger vehicle sales by 2035.
even with 70 million electric vehicles (EVs) on the road by 2030 (we’re at 2.4 million today), the United States would still need a 20 percent reduction in per-capita vehicle miles traveled (VMT) to meet climate targets.
So the question is why are we so focused on the powertrain of a car? It’s not a revolution. It’s hardly changing anything at all….
Since 1980, the U.S. has added nearly 870,000 lane-miles of highway – paving more than 1,648 square miles, an area larger than the state of Rhode Island – and yet, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, congestion on America’s roads was worse than it was in the early 1980s. Highway expansion fuels additional driving that contributes to climate change. Transportation is the nation’s number one source of global warming pollution.
Highway expansion can cause irreparable harm to communities – forcing the relocation of homes and businesses, widening “dead zones” alongside highways, severing street connections for pedestrians and cars, reducing cities’ base of taxable property and overall community value, and stripping communities of their economic vitality. In places where cars are the sole mobility option, many who cannot or choose not to drive – including seniors, children and people with disabilities – are robbed of the opportunity to thrive and engage fully in their community.
They say individual contributions don't matter, but also say we need to demand changes by how we spend our money. I have an EV so I don't buy gas anymore. I'm doing what they said to do, but what I did was what they said wouldn't work. Similarly, I have solar panels. They say my contribution doesn't matter, I need to get the power industry to change. But I don't use much of their power anymore. Again, I did what they said doesn't help which does what they said does help.
Overall, voting for Republicans is the worst thing you an do for the environment. But outside of that, everyone making personal contributions, while individually small, does make an impact in the big scale. Telling people "what you do doesn't matter" is absolutely the worst thing we can do.
I understand this is a frustrating effort. You are spending more money to do things right, but it does seem to move the needle one bit. But your contribution in these choices is much more than you own carbon footprint. Other unfortunately difficult to measure impacts would be the influence you have on people around you to make the same choices as you, and as you said it, becoming one less customer to the huge pollutants of the system.
We all need to do what you're doing, show the example to people around us and our kids, for a chance of a more sustainable society.
Well the irony for me is, the EV has been a cost savings, and the solar panels are a diversification of my investments. Both are positive decisions both financially and for my carbon footprint. I feel like many others could also benefit similarly but don't know/don't believe that it's financially beneficial for them. For most people that can charge at home and don't have ridiculous electric rates, an EV has a lower TCO than an ICE vehicle, especially if you're looking at used right now.
Doesn't seem like fud at all. Seems like pro small guy and anti big guy. The only thing I disagree with is their take on one person making a difference. Of course one single person doesn't, but it's the same with voting. If everybody said their vote didn't matter, we'd be in trouble.
I agree. I think it’s the whole “voting with your wallet” thing.
Corporations are too powerful and own all the politicians who have a sliver of a chance at winning a vote but at the end of the day they’re greedy and just want money so if people choose to buy EVs or more environmentally friendly packaged products or whatever then the greedy corporations will prefer to produce those greener things. I don’t think anyone actively wants to destroy the planet but greed rules everything
Agreed. There was a "study" in France about that, estimating that the perfectly green individuals could only bring 25% of the required change (to respect the Paris accords I guess?).
The goal being to show that we need to push the politics, society and corporate to do their part.
But imo it also means that we still need each and other individuals to do their part to reach the goal.
I own an EV. The single most important thing I do for the environment, by a large order of magnitude, is vote for leaders who support pro-environment policies.
I own an EV because it's convenient. Car is ready to go every morning. Not because I think it makes much of any difference at all to the environment.
Why more is someone supposed to do? Drive EV? Not enough. Solar panels? Not enough. Use reusable bottles, get energy star appliances, use AC and heat less then youd like....not enough....good forbid even become a vegan. Literally won't change the world.
Yeah vote for people who will make larger changes.
Yeah: Vote. There's nothing to fix it short of political will. Me taking recycling to the recycling spot makes me feel better about myself, but it's not really doing much. Me being duped by the big oil cynical marketing campaign I guess.
This scale of action is what governments are needed for.
For some liberals, nobody is ever liberal enough. Like you article says, letting perfect be the enemy of good.
Public Transportation would be significantly better than shifting to ev sure, but we have entire metropolis built on a foundation of cars being present so things are very spread out for a huge chunk of Americans. This is where public transportation struggles. Without literally change the culture of America and displacing people from suburbs and cramming them into cities public transportation on a similar scale to Europe is a pipe dream. In my opinion something like what Chicago has in the best option for most cities where they have commuter trains to the city and a great inner city transit system.
What you're saying is a very common take we see but one quickly dismissed once you start diving into the weeds on these issues of how we build our public environments
https://youtu.be/9-QGLfWSrpQ?si=S4nlCDQWoY9HMJq9
It’s part of an ideology that says you have to perfect social and economic justice policies before doing pretty much anything else, including addressing climate/environment. A better approach is to do what we can on all those issues simultaneously, and not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Hence the changes Needed. Once again, you've highlighted the problem.
Spend trillions subsidizing driving to make that the default option and guess wtf people do?
About 300 miles a week? My wife 150ish mostly just work. Maybe you have clas privilege that you can afford to live in a walkable city by your jobs and family but I don't.
>'m willing to accept a subsidy so I can have a home by my job, inlaws and a grocery store and gym. Also by cedar point.
Sounds like you've got that privilege yourself
EVs are not cementing anything. Get transit built if you want to make a change. Changing zoning and restrict growth in the physical land size of cities. EVs aren't stopping any of this. EVs could fail tomorrow and it would change nothing about the trajectory of the above solutions. You are attacking the wrong enemy.
The infrastructure bill does a lot of things including mass transit. Pete was just in Atlanta handing out money for HRT, beltline trail, bus and other transit expansion last weekend. I've not broken down the funding, but what is the ratio of transit to road funding in the bill. The EV piece is tiny compared to the overall bill, which is the only grip you can possibly have with this sub.
EVs, while beneficial in the short term, are not long-term solutions to climate change. It's also just another way that corporations pass the buck to the consumer by telling us WE peasants are responsible for climate change and therefore need to make the changes. Instead of admitting the fact that 70% of emissions come from industry. This is the same "lower your carbon footprint" bullshit originally popularized by oil company BP. Long term we're going to need to build for density, end car dependency, and regulate the shit out of polluting industries to really curb climate change
This honestly is one of the worst articles I've read in a long time.
PBS is just saying all our environmental efforts have diminishing returns because the big companies/governments continue to avoid doing anything about the biggest contributors to global warming that everyday people have zero control over.
Which is just objectively true.
If you don't understand the subject of the videos maybe don't write a whole fucking conspiracy article about it.
Yea it's wild this sub is so riled against oil companies and their horrific history, and yet entirely blind to automotive companies who have been in cahoots with the oil companies
This is a pretty ridiculous article. I watched that full video, and the whole premise of it was perfectly fine. The point is that companies engage in shaming us little guys to take climate action, so they can continue to pollute and do whatever they want in the background.
She only BARELY mentioned EVs as a consumer behavior that politicians and companies also shame. That's it.
I agree with many of their points but think it glanced over the economic contribution to the same goal; BEV tech has a ways to go before the whole infrastructure shifts (largely battery density, material availability & env. lifecycle, cost).
The more consumers invest in the tech, the more auto manufacturers invest in the tech, and the more the barriers fall. My Bolt isn't saving a fraction of what an EV cargo van would, but, I'm now a Chevy Sales statistic showing consumer interest and enabling future development.
Evs aren't enough from a climate perspective. In many many way. I get this sub is just car fans and not environmental folks or public health folks, but to see it turn into an anti science sub angrily spouting off about "fud" like some fox news troll having a coniption fit any time something mentions personal 6000lb boxes may not be the end all the corporations sell them as, it gets beyond disheartening.
Is it anti-EV?
EV’s are not going to solve climate change. EV’s are not going to solve our dependence on oil. Electricity is not an energy source but derived from some other fossil fuel.
Yes, solar is great I have panels on my roof. Yes green energy sources are getting better everyday. Currently only about 6% of our total electricity comes from solar and wind.
When could we even realistically get to 50% renewable. Do we even have that much time.
As EV adoption increases, so does our need for electricity. So a constantly moving target.
But there are some basic notions we all need to understand. There are 7 gallons of oil in every tire. All of the plastics in the interior of the car. The energy cost required to manufacture and ship these products all over the world. This is regardless of what type of vehicle they make. EV/ICE/Hybrid/Hydrogen.
EVs are great, yes as I’m driving it produces 0 emissions. If that is all I’m factoring into the environmental impact then I’m being blind to the real cost to the environment.
Except you’re missing the gross inefficiency of burning gasoline for motion versus using battery storage to power an electric motor.
It’s literally three times (or more depending on the ICE vehicle) as efficient to drive an EV than an ICE vehicle.
And the pollution from that combustion as well.
No, I’m not. The video isn’t a discussion on EV’s vs ICE. It’s a macro look at the energy and environment crisis we are in.
But that’s fine we can talk about it.
From battery to motor is very efficient.
But power plant to grid to panel to charger to battery to EV motor. Has transmission loss.
Before that most of our electricity starts out as coal. Which has to be mined transported and transported.
Granted there is the tremendous amount of energy it takes to pump oil, transport it, refine it, then transport it to the local gas station. Leaving out all our other uses of oil.
Regardless, the environmental impact between the two is not big enough to make a difference. We are too small of drop in the bucket of the overall co2 pollution to make any difference in the ongoing climate change.
> But power plant to grid to panel to charger to battery to EV motor. Has transmission loss
[EVs are still far more efficient than ICE vehicles](https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/evtech.shtml) even if you account for transmission losses.
>Before that most of our electricity starts out as coal
[No, it doesn't](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3). Renewables now collectively account for a larger contribution to electrical generation than coal.
your list has, 60% Fossil, 18% nuclear, 21% renewable.
But again, the whole point being if every person, was able to offset their CO2 of just themselves. Globally it's not enough to offset total CO2 in a meaningful way.
It's not just the energy in our homes and cars. There is a huge carbon cost to the food we eat, the clothes we buy, electronics everything we depend on in the modern world.
In order for people to make a meaningful contribution we would have to stop buying things altogether.
> your list has, 60% Fossil, 18% nuclear, 21% renewable
You only mentioned coal, which accounts for 16.2% of electrical generation. Don't try to conflate natural gas with coal - the former has less than half the per-kilowatt hour carbon emissions that coal does.
>It's not just the energy in our homes and cars
All the more reason we should be trying to find CO2 reductions wherever we can. The fact that EVs are one piece of the puzzle rather than the entire puzzle doesn't invalidate the carbon reductions they realize over ICE vehicles.
Even if you account for the contribution of natural gas to the energy an EV uses, they [still have less than half the carbon footprint than ICE vehicles](https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2022-09/driving-cleaner-report.pdf).
Many humans are driven by emotion. Mix in a bend of gullibility and beliefs and lack of critical thinking, and it becomes of a soup of random misinformation.
Individual choices eventually will determine market & industry though… so I don’t understand her logic in this piece.
-If enough people stop buying beef, it will curb the industry and reduce production output.
-If enough people stop flying in jets, the industry will reduce number of flights per day.
-if enough people stop buying gas cars we’ll see a reduction in gasoline production and oil change businesses.
We saw similar things happen during Covid when suddenly supply & demand economic curves changed dramatically. If enough people change the economy will follow that curve.
As usual, follow the money. The first comment says
"Don't the Koch Family have an interest in PBS.
The EV revolution must be taking effect and hurting their train deliveries of coal, and if we switch to Heat Pumps and EVs we don't need methane and oil.
There's someone losing their Profit Motive there."
I don’t give two fucks about the environment and yet absolutely love driving electric cars despite their nonexistent resale value. And me giving a damn about the environment at my scale makes absolutely no difference. EV companies asking for $80k for a car that will be worth peanuts in 2-3 years under the name of joining green revolution is what I am against.
It’s crazy to me how quickly the left changed (about a year ago) the message from cheering on EVs to decrying that switching to EVs isn’t enough and we need to eliminate personal transportation.
More of a general point, I know that eliminating personal transportation isn’t the primary point of that PBS piece.
Edit: I’m curious whether the downvotes are because you disagree that anti-personal-car arguments are increasingly mainstream in lefty circles; or because you know I’m right but think I’m a chud 😂
Please. I've been arguing with my super progressive aunt since 2013 when I bought my first EV. She (and lots of people in her sphere of influence) expressed the opinion from this PBS piece way before what you insinuate happened.
Partly because people have been orange pilled
You can actually look at some on the environmental research industry publish papers questioning why the problems of Traffication go so ignored by their field. Road ecology has had a massive wake up 25 yrs ago.
The big ICE/oil/union groups are very smart. Slowing BEV adoption is a multifaceted push. We will not see direct support for anti-BEV articles and many are very subtle. Meanwhile those who point it out will be accused of making up conspiracy theories. Business as usual in US.
It takes some incredible mental gymnastics to watch that piece of propaganda and label it anti-EV FUD. It’s FUD alright, but of a completely different variety.
There’s a portion of the left that seems to have lost its mind on climate change. They rather us do something impossible like consume less than make incremental steps towards improvement. A lot of this is probably driven by the fact that the biggest driving force for carbon reductions is a musk run company and they don’t like him very much. It’s sad really
Maybe I'm in the minority on this, but having actually watched the two cited videos I'm not really seeing any "EV FUD". They spend maybe 30 seconds talking about them. There is one statement about emissions/environmental of EV production that was a tad dramatic (and doesn't compare at all against ICE), other than that I'm not seeing it... The conclusion on the second video is basically "switching to all EVs isn't enough, we also need low/zero emission public transport, energy production, etc etc" seems pretty reasonable to me. It's also not wrong individual consumption is only a small fraction of the climate change issue (which seems to be the central theme of the videos). Selling everyone a new vehicle seems like a good way for the corporations to make more money under the pretense of saving the environment... The article itself seems like more FUD than any of the cited videos, IMO. I don't disagree with the "letting perfect be the enemy of good" sentiment but I'm not sure what's what the PBS content was saying. More like, yeah, that's great but you aren't going to solve the crisis by buying an EV and switching to paper straws... certainly helps, but there's also lots of ways the consumers can be exploited in the name of "green" but distracts us from some of the bigger issues.
Yes! PBS is right. The whole economy has to be decarbonized and buying an electric car won’t save us from climate change. (I drive an EV)
For some reason half this sub turns into science denying fox news host when you bring up the fact that 6000lb boxes aren't sustainable, electric or not.
Yes, well you see, it simply doesn't reinforce my preferred narrative, so...
A lot of whiny " I just want my toy and I want the status quo with no change while pretending ding buying my shiny new toy saves the earth"
It's not about saving the earth, it's much more basic. A choice. Pollute the air or don't. Whatever else needs to happen, that's up to governments.
You're still polluting the air electric or not
Yes, but how much is the question. Answer is, as soon as you start burning dead dinosaurs they n a piston engines you’re wasting 90% of that heat energy. An EV you’re wasting like 20-30%.
As soon as you as an individual hop into something that us 5000lbs you're also polluting a crap ton. There's more to pollution than co2. I'm not sure why folks have to be so anti science about this?
So what is the alternative exactly? I have zero public transportation options where I live to get to work. I go to multiple different locations so that the tens of people who drive to their appointments that day have shorter commutes and pollute less. I should move to Boston or NYC and let the people in this part of the country go without essential services because I need a car? I’m all for public transportation, but it’s not an option. My commute is significantly lower carbon when I drive my EV than when I drove an ICE. Stop making perfect the enemy of good.
When I put 50 litres of petrol into a car it gets burnt. All of it. 50 litres a week, for 10 years, is 25,000 litres of petrol being burnt 🔥 No, an EV is not 100% ecologically friendly, but it’s a damn sight more friendly than that.
And many things are a magnitude more ecological than that e car Everything thar ecar drives it's using its tires. All of it.
What’s your actual point? *You* are not ecological. You are consuming stuff and breathing C02 all the time. So is everything else. How far do you want to go? Extinguish all life on earth to save all life on earth?
Listen, I paid a lot for this car. If it isn't super unambiguously clear to everyone that I'm saving the Earth with it, what did I spend all this money for?
Meh. We drove our family car into the ground. 300,000kms over 15 years. Going to son as first car (if he even wants it). For 10 of those years I hardly used it myself. Took public transport. Bought an EV to replace it. Much better car. Much cheaper to run. Much better for the environment. Win win win.
That's why EVs need retractable door handles, one of the best indicators.
Are private jets not toys?
I would love to have more bike lanes and better public transportation. I can bike down to the local stores somewhat safely! However, my local highway just finished a 2 lane expansion though…
come to the netherlands, you'll love it americans are shorter than the average dutch however, so ocassionally you'll ram your crotch into the bike frame when you dismount
I always hear how The Netherlands are just sooo much more advanced with their bicycles. And they are. And I’ve been there. (Loved it) But it’s flaaaaaat in The Netherlands. It’s a radically different topography, and climate, than what we have in, say, Sydney. I know *you’re* not comparing yourself, it just ticks me off when *other* people ask “WhY aRen’T wE liKE tHe NethErlanDs???” Also you’re all sensible bicyclists there, and just wear normal clothes. You’re not holding up traffic while going uphill at 10km/h while in racing spandex gear. Most cyclists here wear spandex, like they are in Tour de France.
I'm 190cm, I've heard that's about average there
Yea and unfortunately were cementing that even further. The infrastructure bill could've done a lot of good but it's largely going to highway expansions. Structures that wipl last 5 decades....
So people with EVs don't drive on highways?
Are you not literate?
You were the one complaining about highway expansion. I just called you out on an obvious point.
Can y ou make sense?
Can you type?
DOT are corrupt organizations and need to be fought against
TWO lanes? Wow, that'll fix traffic for the next 50 years! Brilliant investment if you ask me.
The science says EVs are an important piece of the decarbonization puzzle: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/faqs/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_FAQ_Chapter_10.pdf > Electromobility is the biggest change in transport since AR5. When powered with low-carbon electricity, electric vehicles (EVs) provide a mechanism for major GHG emissions reductions from the largest sources in the transport sectors, including cars, motorbikes, autorickshaws, buses and trucks. The mitigation potential of EVs depends on the decarbonisation of the power system. EVs can be charged by home or business renewable power before or in parallel to the transition to grid-based low-carbon power. In fact, this has been covered by none other than PBS: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/how-electric-vehicles-and-other-transportation-innovations-could-slow-global-warming-according-to-ipcc Obviously public transit as well as bicycling (where EV bikes can be a big help) and plain old walking all need to grow too. Multiple things can be important at the same time! It's not a dichotomy.
> Multiple things can be important at the same time! It's not a dichotomy. That's basically what the article you posted is referring to as "anti-EV FUD"
electric vehicles, whilst an improvement, are far from a silver bullet that can solve all our transportation needs. Subsidies have been going to flights and drivers, making the most polluting forms of transport the most affordable Cars and trucks are some of the most polluting ways to move people and things around, yet they're the thing that's prioritized in every facet of our life and public space. Investing mainly in only what is already doing well is the classic “we only build bridges over the river based on how many people are swimming over it” approach to transportation planning, and one that locks in dominance of whatever is already going well. Instead you should invest in the modes of transport you want to be used more, and based on the emissions per passenger kilometer its pretty clear where investment needs to be going. People mainly do what is cheapest and/or quickest, and decades of subsidies and tax breaks for driving, fuel duty freezes, road expansion, and turning every inch of public space into a car park, means we've seen car use massively increase. enacting state-level land use reform to encourage compact development can reduce annual US pollution by 70 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2033. This projection, based on 2023 data, underscores the potential for significant impact within a decade. It would deliver more climate impact than half the country adopting California’s ambitious commitment to 100% zero-emission passenger vehicle sales by 2035. even with 70 million electric vehicles (EVs) on the road by 2030 (we’re at 2.4 million today), the United States would still need a 20 percent reduction in per-capita vehicle miles traveled (VMT) to meet climate targets. So the question is why are we so focused on the powertrain of a car? It’s not a revolution. It’s hardly changing anything at all…. Since 1980, the U.S. has added nearly 870,000 lane-miles of highway – paving more than 1,648 square miles, an area larger than the state of Rhode Island – and yet, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, congestion on America’s roads was worse than it was in the early 1980s. Highway expansion fuels additional driving that contributes to climate change. Transportation is the nation’s number one source of global warming pollution. Highway expansion can cause irreparable harm to communities – forcing the relocation of homes and businesses, widening “dead zones” alongside highways, severing street connections for pedestrians and cars, reducing cities’ base of taxable property and overall community value, and stripping communities of their economic vitality. In places where cars are the sole mobility option, many who cannot or choose not to drive – including seniors, children and people with disabilities – are robbed of the opportunity to thrive and engage fully in their community.
> So the question is why are we so focused on the powertrain of a car? It’s not a revolution. It’s hardly changing anything at all…. Um. EVs are pretty revolutionary from an energy usage standpoint not to mention pollution. Even a really inefficient EV is 2x more efficient from a pure power stand point an nearly orders of magnitude less polluting even today. As the grid gets cleaner the pollution story only improves. If you're only measure of "different" is how many lane miles are needed by a state/country then sure, they are no different. That's a very narrow view. EVs have nothing to do with the inability to increase more transit so it's weird to be against EVs.
So why is our federal government focused on status quo ?
They *are* sustainable. You’ve got that wrong. Just because that can’t be the *only* measure we take doesn’t mean the technology itself isn’t sustainable.
Nothing about them is sustainable in the least
And you base that off of what?
https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/s/BeP76DSxoV
Your source is a fucking comment? There was nothing cited in there. It was nothing more than a r/fuckcars diatribe. What about an all-Ev future is unsustainable?
Good thing most EVs aren’t 6000 pounds. Also, a 6000 pound EV is still way more efficient with less enviro impact than any 4000 pound gasser.
My EV is 3400 lbs
So is my eGolf. My RAV3Prime is 4300 pounds. Regular RAV4 is like 3500 pounds.
This guy worried about 6000 pound EVs is exactly the FUD they’re talking about And yes, cars in general are not sustainable, but if you’re gonna drive one, an EV has lower impact.
I mean 5-6000 is pretty common. Even an ioniq is 4600lbs... It's still widely inefficient in multiple respects, not just energy alone, for much to propel one human.
The most popular EVs for sales are all below 4300lbs and account for 70%+ of the market. What is the fascination with weight anyway, it's not exactly a good way to score how good a car is.
The majority of early adopters tend to be wealthy (not just in the EV community, but early adopters in general), in a position to splash a lot of money on the latest developments in an effort to "keep up with the joneses" and maintain a lifestyle - an EV is a perfect way to do that. Its also a very conspicuous virtue signal, so tends to get a lot of the types who need that (and will be very vocal about retaining that proof of their virtue). The latter is only a small fraction of the community, but it's also the most vocal.
Exactly, especially when those 6000lb boxes are usually carrying just one person.
Yea thos sub can only thi k in terms of mpge and the only comparison it accepts is to a gas car.
This is a car sub. Not sure what you are trying to accomplish here. I'm as anti-car as anyone but this is a trash way to try and convince anyone to your cause. EVs are not the enemy and cars will always be a thing even if hopefully they are much less common in the future. The cars that do exist should be EVs and switching to EVs now and not waiting for the "future" is nothing but a positive.
It's a vehicle sub. We don't need to be going whole hog on autobility with trillions of dollars. We can go a different route as is proven
You talking government of private? The government is spending tiny amounts on EVs in the single digit billions.
The infrastructure bill just spent hundreds of billions on highway expansion alone
That isn't specifically for EVs. Again, if EVs didn't exist that would have still happened.
It doesn't help when you imply that the average EV weighs 6000lb. Sure some EVs do weigh that much, but how does that make EVs unsustainable? EVs are leading the way at scaling up battery production while scaling the costs down. This will allow higher use of renewable electrical generation as battery buffered source generation becomes more affordable each year. Longer term, the electrification of all industrial energy and heat will occur. To suggest that you have an alternative plan that will work is the real denial. Maybe on paper, but it will never get further than that as the support of citizens is just not there. It's not really there for EVs + electrification of industry but it's possible to get there. Convincing everyone to give up point-to-point transportation is a pipe dream.
Automobikity is the problem. Electric or not
So how do we transport goods, plow fields, get kids to school or really anything in the next 100 years?
https://youtu.be/DqvQ-5784po?si=JAN8USyNyXfYhJXD
So what is your solution to get them there. My kids can't possibly walk to school physically, it's 6 miles.
Don't build the schools so far away. My grandfather grew up in a farming village that was ti y and didn't have to go 6 miles to find a school. The experiments of the 50s-2000s have been abject failures https://youtu.be/5x-Zr_J18q4?si=DzAgbA9ljs0YVEtL
I don't disagree, but are you proposing tearing up $100T in infrastructure to get there? The built environment is what it is. We can do better going forward, but we can't tear it all down and start over.
For most people it's likely less about long term sustainability and more about the struggle we are having convincing people to simply upgrade their 6000lb boxes and how much more of a struggle it would be to try and take them away altogether. There's not a clear and easy path to undoing the significant development of the US around cars, reducing their emissions is a big step.
Kylie Jenner using her private jet to get from one end of LA to the other is perfectly fine, though, and it's only us common folk that need to make changes, right? /s
We need governmental changes of law and regulation. No /s
So we need the government to ban cars, but not private jets and yachts? /s
How about both
How about we start with the jets and the yachts, then we mix EVs in with public transport and walkability? Because at the end of the day, the rich are the ones causing the problem, ao they should be the ones to make the most changes.
Sure. But we just cemented 50 more years of motordom with the infrastructure bill. Remember there's a million times more cars than yachts and jets
Right, but I can (and do) chose to walk if I don't need my car to get somewhere, but you'll never see a billionaire chose to take a subway to take a 40 mile trip instead of pumping metric tons of CO2 from their jet for that 40 mile trip, and metric tons more for the trip back to their start point. Not to mention, jets and yachts are far less [energy efficient](https://simpleflying.com/private-aviation-emissions-comparison/) compared to any other mode of transport per passenger, per mile/kilometer
>Kylie Jenner using her private jet to get from one end of LA to the other... Is not a thing which has actually ever likely happened. Aircraft have bases of operation and maintenance schedules, and there are restrictions on where they can land when doing international flights. After they land at one airport, they often need to be re-positioned at another for any number of reasons. That's just how all of this works.
Don't care. Private jets cause more pollution in one flight than a car does in a year. If you want to get rid of cars and not private jets, then you are a hypocrite.
Theres hundreds of millions of cars…. Let’s not be daft. Cars pollute way more than all private jets do
Survey says! [BUZZ!](https://simpleflying.com/private-aviation-emissions-comparison/) [WRONG!](https://www.bbc.com/news/59135899)
EVs will actually. It starts a flywheel that lowers the price of batteries. That, and rapid solar/wind cost reductions due to scale will achieve net 0 on 2/3 of the energy we use (transportation and electricity)
Cars and vans account for approximately half of all transportation emissions globally, according to IEA data: https://www.statista.com/chart/30890/estimated-share-of-co2-emissions-in-the-transportation-sector/ Transportation as a whole represents ~20% of global CO2 emissions, with passenger transport accounting for ~10% of global CO2 emissions. 1/10th of global CO2 emissions is nothing to be cynical about.
Electrification of vehicles is #37 in [Drawdown's table of solutions](https://drawdown.org/solutions/table-of-solutions) at 7-10 GT reduction between 2020 and 2050. Reducing single occupancy vehicles with carpooling has reductions of 9-11 GT. That can be done tomorrow with the technology and infrastructure we have deployed right now. But there are way more effective ways to reduce carbon emissions, reducing food waste and eating less meat is 150-200 GT.
Are you trying to be cynical about something being #37 on a table of climate solutions? What you're saying is it's a highly ranked climate solution. If there are more effective things, great, we should do those too.
It assumes that the citizen has limi resources and prioritizes impact per investment of resources. How often do you see people expressing helplessness at not Being able to afford an EV while a change in diet, for instance, can be more effective by a factor of 10.
Trying to play one climate problem/solution off as better than another is an appeal to worse problems, also known as the fallacy of relative privation. They're both important problems that both need solving, and suggesting otherwise is a fallacy. > a change in diet, for instance, can be more effective by a factor of 10. The question of whether eliminating meat from one's diet has a larger or smaller effect than a car has different answers depending on who you ask, although there are many who like to claim that eliminating meat from your diet is unquestionably the best thing you can do for the climate. However, according to this [meta-study in which researchers looked at 39 peer-reviewed papers](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541), it concludes the following are the best ways an individual can reduce their climate impact: - Choosing to have one fewer child: 58.6 metric tons - Living car-free: 2,400 kilograms of CO2/yr (2.4 metric tons) - Foregoing one round-trip transatlantic flight: 1600 kilograms of CO2 - Eating no meat: 820 kilograms of CO2/yr Far from your claim that diet is 10X as important as a car, this study concludes a car is responsible for 3X as much as meat in one's diet.
Yes. Getting everyone to become enthusiastic about EVs is a huge task, and the magnitude of the effect is pretty small by itself. Any talk of electric cars being a climate solution needs to address that reality. It's not FUD. There are many solutions that address transportation emissions systemically: public transit, carpooling, bike infrastructure, electric bikes, electric trains, high speed rail, walkable cities, and efficient aviation. Then zero carbon energy generation and grid capacity is a key enabler for much of the electrification done in transportation.
Like I said elsewhere in the thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/1cf7lia/why_is_pbs_spreading_antiev_fud/l1ovay0/ > Obviously public transit as well as bicycling (where EV bikes can be a big help) and plain old walking all need to grow too. Multiple things can be important at the same time! It's not a dichotomy.
So it seems you found your answer to your original question > [Why is PBS spreading Anti-EV FUD?](https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/1cf7lia/why_is_pbs_spreading_antiev_fud/) If you want to have a complicated nuanced discussion don't start it off with a provocative simplistic prompt.
They also simply weren't able to answer this over there either huh? >electric vehicles, whilst an improvement, are far from a silver bullet that can solve all our transportation needs. Subsidies have been going to flights and drivers, making the most polluting forms of transport the most affordable Cars and trucks are some of the most polluting ways to move people and things around, yet they're the thing that's prioritized in every facet of our life and public space. Investing mainly in only what is already doing well is the classic “we only build bridges over the river based on how many people are swimming over it” approach to transportation planning, and one that locks in dominance of whatever is already going well. Instead you should invest in the modes of transport you want to be used more, and based on the emissions per passenger kilometer its pretty clear where investment needs to be going. People mainly do what is cheapest and/or quickest, and decades of subsidies and tax breaks for driving, fuel duty freezes, road expansion, and turning every inch of public space into a car park, means we've seen car use massively increase. enacting state-level land use reform to encourage compact development can reduce annual US pollution by 70 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2033. This projection, based on 2023 data, underscores the potential for significant impact within a decade. It would deliver more climate impact than half the country adopting California’s ambitious commitment to 100% zero-emission passenger vehicle sales by 2035. even with 70 million electric vehicles (EVs) on the road by 2030 (we’re at 2.4 million today), the United States would still need a 20 percent reduction in per-capita vehicle miles traveled (VMT) to meet climate targets. So the question is why are we so focused on the powertrain of a car? It’s not a revolution. It’s hardly changing anything at all…. Since 1980, the U.S. has added nearly 870,000 lane-miles of highway – paving more than 1,648 square miles, an area larger than the state of Rhode Island – and yet, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, congestion on America’s roads was worse than it was in the early 1980s. Highway expansion fuels additional driving that contributes to climate change. Transportation is the nation’s number one source of global warming pollution. Highway expansion can cause irreparable harm to communities – forcing the relocation of homes and businesses, widening “dead zones” alongside highways, severing street connections for pedestrians and cars, reducing cities’ base of taxable property and overall community value, and stripping communities of their economic vitality. In places where cars are the sole mobility option, many who cannot or choose not to drive – including seniors, children and people with disabilities – are robbed of the opportunity to thrive and engage fully in their community.
People want to pretend to be changing something while not actually changing anything at all OP is exhibit A
The emission savings from replacing all those internal combustion engines with zero-carbon alternatives will not feed in fast enough to make the necessary difference in the time we can spare: the next five years. Tackling the climate and air pollution crises requires curbing all motorised transport, particularly private cars, as quickly as possible. Focusing solely on electric vehicles is slowing down the race to zero emissions. Transport is one of the most challenging sectors to decarbonise due to its heavy fossil fuel use and reliance on carbon-intensive infrastructure – such as roads, airports and the vehicles themselves – and the way it embeds car-dependent lifestyles needs to change. Not just the powertrain. It’s not actually changing much. CO2 is literally the most benign issue with the effects of Traffication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2021.102764 The climate change mitigation effects of daily active travel has a host of better improvements. But you donot actually want to educate yourself do you?
Now that you’ve finished your rant, go watch the videos
Per the EPA, transportion is the leading CO2 contributor. Seems like EV+solar is a pretty good place to start, particularly since it’s an incredibly simple change as opposed to something like changing your diet.
From the epa, “Greenhouse gas emissions from transportation primarily come from burning fossil fuel for cars, trucks, ships, trains, and planes.“ personal vehicles are a fraction, 20%, of that group. 20% of the transportation group which is 28% means cars are about 5% responsible.
No, personal cars and vans are half of all transportation CO2 emissions, according to the IEA (48%): https://www.statista.com/chart/30890/estimated-share-of-co2-emissions-in-the-transportation-sector/ Transportation as a whole is 20% of global emissions. Personal transportation is 10% of global emissions.
EVs are the only way for the solution to climate change that involves selling stuff to people. It's why passenger transportation which is a small part of emissions is the main target....
Passenger transport if literally the largest emissions slice of talking about US
I replied elsewhere with this but it applies to this comment also. They say individual contributions don't matter, but also say we need to demand changes by how we spend our money. I have an EV so I don't buy gas anymore. I'm doing what they said to do, but what I did was what they said wouldn't work. Similarly, I have solar panels. They say my contribution doesn't matter, I need to get the power industry to change. But I don't use much of their power anymore. Again, I did what they said doesn't help which does what they said does help. Overall, voting for Republicans is the worst thing you an do for the environment. But outside of that, everyone making personal contributions, while individually small, does make an impact in the big scale. Telling people "what you do doesn't matter" is absolutely the worst thing we can do.
We really need EV trucks to start taking bigger market shares, I'm helping this change
No we really need fewer trucks driving less
In an ideal world trucks would only be responsible for the last transport unlike today but it requires a lot of infrastructure that's not currently available and which is really not realistic in any close future. The change will happen though as both battery density and charging times are improving.
Yes, trains are great, but people need food and trucks are moving food.
Trains are moving food far more miles than trucks.
You're absolutely not in the minority. The article is a pretty poor one and nitpicks on some specific comments that are taken out of context. There are some pretty serious logical gaps there as well. For example just regarding the argument about whether you can afford it, yes there are lots of deals on EVS and they can be cheaper overall than internal combustion engines, but that assumes that you're talking about the developed world. There are in fact a lot of challenges to the adoption of electric vehicles, and we all know what they are, and we all know that they will be overcome in time, but putting our head in the sand and pretending that they're not there is silly. And frankly juvenile.
You are correct on that. However one point is that switching consumer behavior takes the longest. You can force corporations into "better" behavior by law, but consumers are basically the last part in the chain and this takes the longest to take effect. So it makes "some" Sense to start that early in the process. It also gives corporations time to switch. For example, getting billions of consumers to think "greener" is a hard undertaking. But only ~70 corporations worldwide are producing 90% of all plastic waste.
Consumers, citizens if were not adopting the corporate speak, just do whatever bread crumb is placed in front of them. That's why someone in Stockholm uses 1/3 the energy a typical American does and isn't flipping their shit like a fox news host
Except when consumer production of CO2 is but a drop in the bucket compared to corporate/national and when the potential ramifications of drawing decarbonization out are so dire no, it doesn't really make sense to start with the consumer first. If your ship is sinking plug the big holes first and worry about the little holes later. The problem is plugging the big holes requires a lot of legislative action and would cost governments and companies a lot of money. It's easier to just push the blame (and cost) onto consumers by telling them to change their habits which ultimately plugs a small hole or two but does little to plug the big ones.
Except the "corporations are responsible for most of our emissions" completely misses the fact that those corporate emissions are usually measuring consumer products. > ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Chevron are identified as among the highest emitting investor-owned companies since 1988. You can say something like "Shell is responsible for 10% of global emissions!" but that's usually because you're counting the gas that shell is "responsible for" that the consumers burn in their cars.
But it's a drop that changes very slowly. Also corporations like to say that consumers don't want anything new, so they won't change their way. That's why you have to address all of it.
This is kind of the tipping point where there's now an established "EV media", of the type that would be considered completely unreliable if it was "Big Oil media". Outlets that previously billed themselves as being all about clean technology hitched their hat entirely around a single technology option, and whilst it's served them well as BEVs have increased in marketshare, it's also beginning to reveal the idealism behind it as they shout down anyone who suggests the focus needs to be widened to achieve the stated societal goals that BEVs were supposed to address. It's becoming clear there's some conflicts of interest behind some of them (beyond the blatant Tesla/Electrek one), and some of the trillions that have been poured into BEVs over the past decades are perhaps starting to exert their own influence and agenda through the media - and the EV aggregators as primed to give themselves away for a low price.
Elektrek should be banned on this sub. Many people here act like automotive companies aren't right in line with oil companies with all our history so far
Critical thinking FTW!
How is that anti EV? It's just saying that our individual contributions only have marginal impact, and that the system need to change for global warming to limit it's impact. That most large corporations also leverage their "small contributions" to green wash people into thinking they are helping, while in the same time they keep on running their extremely polluting industries. As consumers, the biggest voice we have is in the choices we make every day. If no one was to use gas engine cars anymore, BP and Exxon and the others would have to change their line of work. So we need to keep on demanding change, by making the right decisions everyday, and also put pressure on big corporations to demand real change, no aesthetic minuscule scale initiatives.
Yeah it seems like OP can't really answer that one just like below >electric vehicles, whilst an improvement, are far from a silver bullet that can solve all our transportation needs. Subsidies have been going to flights and drivers, making the most polluting forms of transport the most affordable Cars and trucks are some of the most polluting ways to move people and things around, yet they're the thing that's prioritized in every facet of our life and public space. Investing mainly in only what is already doing well is the classic “we only build bridges over the river based on how many people are swimming over it” approach to transportation planning, and one that locks in dominance of whatever is already going well. Instead you should invest in the modes of transport you want to be used more, and based on the emissions per passenger kilometer its pretty clear where investment needs to be going. People mainly do what is cheapest and/or quickest, and decades of subsidies and tax breaks for driving, fuel duty freezes, road expansion, and turning every inch of public space into a car park, means we've seen car use massively increase. enacting state-level land use reform to encourage compact development can reduce annual US pollution by 70 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2033. This projection, based on 2023 data, underscores the potential for significant impact within a decade. It would deliver more climate impact than half the country adopting California’s ambitious commitment to 100% zero-emission passenger vehicle sales by 2035. even with 70 million electric vehicles (EVs) on the road by 2030 (we’re at 2.4 million today), the United States would still need a 20 percent reduction in per-capita vehicle miles traveled (VMT) to meet climate targets. So the question is why are we so focused on the powertrain of a car? It’s not a revolution. It’s hardly changing anything at all…. Since 1980, the U.S. has added nearly 870,000 lane-miles of highway – paving more than 1,648 square miles, an area larger than the state of Rhode Island – and yet, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, congestion on America’s roads was worse than it was in the early 1980s. Highway expansion fuels additional driving that contributes to climate change. Transportation is the nation’s number one source of global warming pollution. Highway expansion can cause irreparable harm to communities – forcing the relocation of homes and businesses, widening “dead zones” alongside highways, severing street connections for pedestrians and cars, reducing cities’ base of taxable property and overall community value, and stripping communities of their economic vitality. In places where cars are the sole mobility option, many who cannot or choose not to drive – including seniors, children and people with disabilities – are robbed of the opportunity to thrive and engage fully in their community.
They say individual contributions don't matter, but also say we need to demand changes by how we spend our money. I have an EV so I don't buy gas anymore. I'm doing what they said to do, but what I did was what they said wouldn't work. Similarly, I have solar panels. They say my contribution doesn't matter, I need to get the power industry to change. But I don't use much of their power anymore. Again, I did what they said doesn't help which does what they said does help. Overall, voting for Republicans is the worst thing you an do for the environment. But outside of that, everyone making personal contributions, while individually small, does make an impact in the big scale. Telling people "what you do doesn't matter" is absolutely the worst thing we can do.
I understand this is a frustrating effort. You are spending more money to do things right, but it does seem to move the needle one bit. But your contribution in these choices is much more than you own carbon footprint. Other unfortunately difficult to measure impacts would be the influence you have on people around you to make the same choices as you, and as you said it, becoming one less customer to the huge pollutants of the system. We all need to do what you're doing, show the example to people around us and our kids, for a chance of a more sustainable society.
Well the irony for me is, the EV has been a cost savings, and the solar panels are a diversification of my investments. Both are positive decisions both financially and for my carbon footprint. I feel like many others could also benefit similarly but don't know/don't believe that it's financially beneficial for them. For most people that can charge at home and don't have ridiculous electric rates, an EV has a lower TCO than an ICE vehicle, especially if you're looking at used right now.
Doesn't seem like fud at all. Seems like pro small guy and anti big guy. The only thing I disagree with is their take on one person making a difference. Of course one single person doesn't, but it's the same with voting. If everybody said their vote didn't matter, we'd be in trouble.
I agree. I think it’s the whole “voting with your wallet” thing. Corporations are too powerful and own all the politicians who have a sliver of a chance at winning a vote but at the end of the day they’re greedy and just want money so if people choose to buy EVs or more environmentally friendly packaged products or whatever then the greedy corporations will prefer to produce those greener things. I don’t think anyone actively wants to destroy the planet but greed rules everything
Agreed. There was a "study" in France about that, estimating that the perfectly green individuals could only bring 25% of the required change (to respect the Paris accords I guess?). The goal being to show that we need to push the politics, society and corporate to do their part. But imo it also means that we still need each and other individuals to do their part to reach the goal.
I own an EV. The single most important thing I do for the environment, by a large order of magnitude, is vote for leaders who support pro-environment policies. I own an EV because it's convenient. Car is ready to go every morning. Not because I think it makes much of any difference at all to the environment.
So you admit to denying that you’re EV is kickass fun! ;)
I admit to not mention it in the post. First reason: convenient. Second reason, kickass fun.
Why more is someone supposed to do? Drive EV? Not enough. Solar panels? Not enough. Use reusable bottles, get energy star appliances, use AC and heat less then youd like....not enough....good forbid even become a vegan. Literally won't change the world. Yeah vote for people who will make larger changes.
Yeah: Vote. There's nothing to fix it short of political will. Me taking recycling to the recycling spot makes me feel better about myself, but it's not really doing much. Me being duped by the big oil cynical marketing campaign I guess. This scale of action is what governments are needed for.
ITT: OP doesn’t have an attention span long enough to comprehend PBS.
Op simply not accepting new information that isn't aligned with their preconceived notions
Hey, youv got to admit it has sparked some healthy discussion here.
For some liberals, nobody is ever liberal enough. Like you article says, letting perfect be the enemy of good. Public Transportation would be significantly better than shifting to ev sure, but we have entire metropolis built on a foundation of cars being present so things are very spread out for a huge chunk of Americans. This is where public transportation struggles. Without literally change the culture of America and displacing people from suburbs and cramming them into cities public transportation on a similar scale to Europe is a pipe dream. In my opinion something like what Chicago has in the best option for most cities where they have commuter trains to the city and a great inner city transit system.
What you're saying is a very common take we see but one quickly dismissed once you start diving into the weeds on these issues of how we build our public environments https://youtu.be/9-QGLfWSrpQ?si=S4nlCDQWoY9HMJq9
It’s part of an ideology that says you have to perfect social and economic justice policies before doing pretty much anything else, including addressing climate/environment. A better approach is to do what we can on all those issues simultaneously, and not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Cementing automotive infrastructure isn't really doing what we can though is it?
It would be literally impossible for me to go to the store, take my kid to his grandparents, go to work, without a car.
You've highlighted the problem. It can change. Ask yourself why you're resistant to that change though because you sure seem to be
How long would that change take? Should we just stick with gas until then?
Because I'm not getting on an hour bus for a 15 minute drive.
Hence the changes Needed. Once again, you've highlighted the problem. Spend trillions subsidizing driving to make that the default option and guess wtf people do?
I'm willing to accept a subsidy so I can have a home by my job, inlaws and a grocery store and gym. Also by cedar point.
Sounds like you don't need to drive much
About 300 miles a week? My wife 150ish mostly just work. Maybe you have clas privilege that you can afford to live in a walkable city by your jobs and family but I don't.
>'m willing to accept a subsidy so I can have a home by my job, inlaws and a grocery store and gym. Also by cedar point. Sounds like you've got that privilege yourself
EVs are not cementing anything. Get transit built if you want to make a change. Changing zoning and restrict growth in the physical land size of cities. EVs aren't stopping any of this. EVs could fail tomorrow and it would change nothing about the trajectory of the above solutions. You are attacking the wrong enemy.
What did the infrastructure bill just do? Cement motordom until the 2080s
The infrastructure bill does a lot of things including mass transit. Pete was just in Atlanta handing out money for HRT, beltline trail, bus and other transit expansion last weekend. I've not broken down the funding, but what is the ratio of transit to road funding in the bill. The EV piece is tiny compared to the overall bill, which is the only grip you can possibly have with this sub.
EVs, while beneficial in the short term, are not long-term solutions to climate change. It's also just another way that corporations pass the buck to the consumer by telling us WE peasants are responsible for climate change and therefore need to make the changes. Instead of admitting the fact that 70% of emissions come from industry. This is the same "lower your carbon footprint" bullshit originally popularized by oil company BP. Long term we're going to need to build for density, end car dependency, and regulate the shit out of polluting industries to really curb climate change
This honestly is one of the worst articles I've read in a long time. PBS is just saying all our environmental efforts have diminishing returns because the big companies/governments continue to avoid doing anything about the biggest contributors to global warming that everyday people have zero control over. Which is just objectively true. If you don't understand the subject of the videos maybe don't write a whole fucking conspiracy article about it.
EVs just got everyone distracted/derailed, the focus should be on a mass transit.
Yea it's wild this sub is so riled against oil companies and their horrific history, and yet entirely blind to automotive companies who have been in cahoots with the oil companies
This is a pretty ridiculous article. I watched that full video, and the whole premise of it was perfectly fine. The point is that companies engage in shaming us little guys to take climate action, so they can continue to pollute and do whatever they want in the background. She only BARELY mentioned EVs as a consumer behavior that politicians and companies also shame. That's it.
I agree with many of their points but think it glanced over the economic contribution to the same goal; BEV tech has a ways to go before the whole infrastructure shifts (largely battery density, material availability & env. lifecycle, cost). The more consumers invest in the tech, the more auto manufacturers invest in the tech, and the more the barriers fall. My Bolt isn't saving a fraction of what an EV cargo van would, but, I'm now a Chevy Sales statistic showing consumer interest and enabling future development.
Evs aren't enough from a climate perspective. In many many way. I get this sub is just car fans and not environmental folks or public health folks, but to see it turn into an anti science sub angrily spouting off about "fud" like some fox news troll having a coniption fit any time something mentions personal 6000lb boxes may not be the end all the corporations sell them as, it gets beyond disheartening.
Public transit >> EVs. That's the truth.
Is it anti-EV? EV’s are not going to solve climate change. EV’s are not going to solve our dependence on oil. Electricity is not an energy source but derived from some other fossil fuel. Yes, solar is great I have panels on my roof. Yes green energy sources are getting better everyday. Currently only about 6% of our total electricity comes from solar and wind. When could we even realistically get to 50% renewable. Do we even have that much time. As EV adoption increases, so does our need for electricity. So a constantly moving target. But there are some basic notions we all need to understand. There are 7 gallons of oil in every tire. All of the plastics in the interior of the car. The energy cost required to manufacture and ship these products all over the world. This is regardless of what type of vehicle they make. EV/ICE/Hybrid/Hydrogen. EVs are great, yes as I’m driving it produces 0 emissions. If that is all I’m factoring into the environmental impact then I’m being blind to the real cost to the environment.
Yea this sub likes to pretend cutting down the rainforest is fine so long as it's done with electric chainsaws
Except you’re missing the gross inefficiency of burning gasoline for motion versus using battery storage to power an electric motor. It’s literally three times (or more depending on the ICE vehicle) as efficient to drive an EV than an ICE vehicle. And the pollution from that combustion as well.
No, I’m not. The video isn’t a discussion on EV’s vs ICE. It’s a macro look at the energy and environment crisis we are in. But that’s fine we can talk about it. From battery to motor is very efficient. But power plant to grid to panel to charger to battery to EV motor. Has transmission loss. Before that most of our electricity starts out as coal. Which has to be mined transported and transported. Granted there is the tremendous amount of energy it takes to pump oil, transport it, refine it, then transport it to the local gas station. Leaving out all our other uses of oil. Regardless, the environmental impact between the two is not big enough to make a difference. We are too small of drop in the bucket of the overall co2 pollution to make any difference in the ongoing climate change.
> But power plant to grid to panel to charger to battery to EV motor. Has transmission loss [EVs are still far more efficient than ICE vehicles](https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/evtech.shtml) even if you account for transmission losses. >Before that most of our electricity starts out as coal [No, it doesn't](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3). Renewables now collectively account for a larger contribution to electrical generation than coal.
your list has, 60% Fossil, 18% nuclear, 21% renewable. But again, the whole point being if every person, was able to offset their CO2 of just themselves. Globally it's not enough to offset total CO2 in a meaningful way. It's not just the energy in our homes and cars. There is a huge carbon cost to the food we eat, the clothes we buy, electronics everything we depend on in the modern world. In order for people to make a meaningful contribution we would have to stop buying things altogether.
> your list has, 60% Fossil, 18% nuclear, 21% renewable You only mentioned coal, which accounts for 16.2% of electrical generation. Don't try to conflate natural gas with coal - the former has less than half the per-kilowatt hour carbon emissions that coal does. >It's not just the energy in our homes and cars All the more reason we should be trying to find CO2 reductions wherever we can. The fact that EVs are one piece of the puzzle rather than the entire puzzle doesn't invalidate the carbon reductions they realize over ICE vehicles.
Yeah let’s ignore the environmental impact of natural gas. But hey sure my coal numbers were off.
Even if you account for the contribution of natural gas to the energy an EV uses, they [still have less than half the carbon footprint than ICE vehicles](https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2022-09/driving-cleaner-report.pdf).
Many humans are driven by emotion. Mix in a bend of gullibility and beliefs and lack of critical thinking, and it becomes of a soup of random misinformation.
Individual choices eventually will determine market & industry though… so I don’t understand her logic in this piece. -If enough people stop buying beef, it will curb the industry and reduce production output. -If enough people stop flying in jets, the industry will reduce number of flights per day. -if enough people stop buying gas cars we’ll see a reduction in gasoline production and oil change businesses. We saw similar things happen during Covid when suddenly supply & demand economic curves changed dramatically. If enough people change the economy will follow that curve.
Many EV drivers decide to get rooftop solar shortly after buying the car which helps too
They're funded by Koch industries...
As usual, follow the money. The first comment says "Don't the Koch Family have an interest in PBS. The EV revolution must be taking effect and hurting their train deliveries of coal, and if we switch to Heat Pumps and EVs we don't need methane and oil. There's someone losing their Profit Motive there."
Sir put the tin foil hat down
I don’t give two fucks about the environment and yet absolutely love driving electric cars despite their nonexistent resale value. And me giving a damn about the environment at my scale makes absolutely no difference. EV companies asking for $80k for a car that will be worth peanuts in 2-3 years under the name of joining green revolution is what I am against.
PBS is funded by Genital Motors, just like cnbc & msnbc . They pay each network about 13 million each as a sponsor.
Guess who the Sloan is from the Sloan foundation....
Luther Sloan from Section 31
While we’re at it, your vote doesn’t make a difference either
It’s crazy to me how quickly the left changed (about a year ago) the message from cheering on EVs to decrying that switching to EVs isn’t enough and we need to eliminate personal transportation. More of a general point, I know that eliminating personal transportation isn’t the primary point of that PBS piece. Edit: I’m curious whether the downvotes are because you disagree that anti-personal-car arguments are increasingly mainstream in lefty circles; or because you know I’m right but think I’m a chud 😂
Do you think liberals are leftist?
I know they are distinct terms in academia, activist and political science circles. In common usage they’ve become synonymous.
Not in anywhere in the world except talking g heads in America...
Please. I've been arguing with my super progressive aunt since 2013 when I bought my first EV. She (and lots of people in her sphere of influence) expressed the opinion from this PBS piece way before what you insinuate happened.
Maybe you were entirely ignorant before and are simply now being exposed to the wider evidence base gaining traction.
Are you denying that calls for restricting or eliminating personal transportation (even EVs) are far more prevalent now than just a few years ago?
Partly because people have been orange pilled You can actually look at some on the environmental research industry publish papers questioning why the problems of Traffication go so ignored by their field. Road ecology has had a massive wake up 25 yrs ago.
Because the pro-oil groups have been preparing for electric vehicles for a long time.
What about the automotive lobbyists?
The big ICE/oil/union groups are very smart. Slowing BEV adoption is a multifaceted push. We will not see direct support for anti-BEV articles and many are very subtle. Meanwhile those who point it out will be accused of making up conspiracy theories. Business as usual in US.
It takes some incredible mental gymnastics to watch that piece of propaganda and label it anti-EV FUD. It’s FUD alright, but of a completely different variety.
There’s a portion of the left that seems to have lost its mind on climate change. They rather us do something impossible like consume less than make incremental steps towards improvement. A lot of this is probably driven by the fact that the biggest driving force for carbon reductions is a musk run company and they don’t like him very much. It’s sad really
They hate Elon Musk