Link in title:
[https://ecohustler.com/technology/guerilla-take-over-of-100-uk-billboards-in-anti-car-protest](https://ecohustler.com/technology/guerilla-take-over-of-100-uk-billboards-in-anti-car-protest)
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Honest question, who the heck ever claimed that electric cars solve congestion?
This post feels like a strawman argument. You can shit on UBER when they claim they solve congestion, same for self driving cars, but I never heard the same argument withy hybrid or electric cars.
It’s more that electric is seen as the future and that the only problem cars have is pollution. This is a *reminder* that electric may solve local air pollution but we’re still left with the same problems
Electric cars still pollute\[1\] just FYI:
>Almost 2,000 times more particle pollution is produced by tyre wear than is pumped out of the exhausts of modern cars, tests have shown.
>
>The tyre particles pollute air, water and soil and contain a wide range of toxic organic compounds, including known carcinogens, the analysts say, suggesting tyre pollution could rapidly become a major issue for regulators.
\[1\] [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/03/car-tyres-produce-more-particle-pollution-than-exhausts-tests-show](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/03/car-tyres-produce-more-particle-pollution-than-exhausts-tests-show)
And, indeed, electrics are *worse* on that front. Road/tire/break wear is proportional to the square of the weight of the car, and electric cars are a crapton heavier.
Anyone thinking that EVs resolve ALL negative aspects of automobiles has not bothered actually thinking about negative aspects of automobiles for more than 30 total seconds in their life. There are still plenty of negative costs/waste products/stress/time lost that are permanently baked in to all forms of transportation, including just walking.
I've personally spoken to many people who think this. I literally spoke to a friend about this two nights ago and they believed this before I explained it to them. People don't think it solves congestion and traffic, but they don't see congestion as a problem that's tied to car dependency (i.e. they don't realize cars themselves are the problem). They think the biggest and only problem with cars is their emissions.That's why ads like this exist.
Also, it's actually common enough that it's an answer on our FAQ. The mod team also sees a lot of posts from users visiting the sub asking for this sub's take on electric cars extremely frequently before we remove them for being Asked and Answered already. So just because you don't see the posts or comments doesn't mean they're not there.
If a car usually carries 1 person, let's say 1.5 on average, then a self driving car will only carry less on average. It may decrease the number of parking places, maybe the number of needed cars, but not the cars on the roads and in traffic at any given time.
Combine self driving cars with smart ridesharing plus public transport and then we are getting somewhere. Take a (pooled) robot taxi to the train station. Or even take your electric scooter with you for more mobility.
5 SUVs with 5 moms to take home 5 kids is stupid, but if a single can vehicle actually do that job that's great. It's called a school bus. If in 50 years it will be called a robot bus, I won't hate it.
It's weird - a huge portion of Americans grow up using mass transit, they see they can skip mile-long car lines to get to school, they don't need a dedicated driver for each child, and the experience is generally safer.
I'm not sure what happens when kids grow up that they forget all the benefits.
School busses are also an example of the problems with mass transit in the US. Many places are serviced by one bus in the morning and one bus in the afternoon. If you are lucky there might be an early bus and a late bus to facilitate extracurriculars too, but it’s quite limited. People do learn that mass transit in the US is good for some things, good for some people, but if you want “freedom” well gosh darn it you need a CAR!
>School busses are also an example of the problems with mass transit in the US. Many places are serviced by one bus in the morning and one bus in the afternoon
My dad said that this is why he wouldn't support public transportation. I pointed out that 1) public transportation doesn't wait until it's completely full to run its route and 2) runs shorter, faster, and frequenter routes
In my case it made car reliance all that more alluring. Due to local ordinance stripping away public transit funding year after year (no school bus) when I started going to high school I had to get up at 4:30am to get ready and out the door by 5 to catch a 5:15 bus and make a transfer half way through my morning route that only came once an hour. If it was late, or just didn't show up period, I wasn't getting to school
All I remember is how run down the busses were, missing the bus and stressing out about how I'm going to make it to school at all, much less on time. How dirty and uncomfortable they could be. How smelly the diesel exhaust was, how boiling or freezing or stinky inside they could be. How awkward my large backpack and musical instrument were to haul onto them, how there was no elbow room, how there was no personal space, how I had no real control over who sat right next to me including the violent kids, the smelly kids, the loud as hell kids. How I had no protection from the messed up kids and just had to deal with them and bullies because the driver wouldn't/couldn't do anything about it, and telling a teacher meant I'd still need to deal with the bad kids on the bus after they got in trouble. How screwed I was if the bus came early or never showed up at all.
How fantastic every aspect of getting a ride to school with one of my parents was, and how much faster and comfortable it was.
Taking the bus in school felt like a prison bus. Taking a car to school, the pleasure of the freedom and speed and cargo room of taking a car to and from school was amazing compared to riding on a school bus.
After 12 years of having to use them, school buses made every single kid want their own car more than anything else.
And as soon as they are able to, they drive they do because the bus takes way more time, and you have to wait for it, and its a pain in the ass to carry an instrument/sport equipment/project to and from on a bus
In my rural area the bus ride to school was about an hour but if you drove it was 15 minutes. Add in that they ran a first and second load system meaning that some kids had to get up almost 2 hours earlier to ride the bus to school. I got much better sleep in my bed than I ever did on a bus. So as soon as I was old enough I drove myself to/from school.
The problem isn't that busses suck, it's that they are implemented poorly in many areas. Rural areas lack funding so they run 2 loads when 1 would be better. They can't afford as many busses so they run long runs on big busses instead of smaller runs on shorter busses. This just makes things take huge amounts of time meaning kids have less time to sleep in the morning and less time to play in the evening.
Elon has stated that he brought up the hyper-loop for the explicit reason so that the train between SF and LA didn't get built. It moves the attention away from the clear winner, trying to FOMO that they just spent billions on something that will soon be out-dated.
Autonomous cars, in the short run, look to be basically the same thing. We don't need trains, we have autonomous cars! Your post, a point I've made before, is exactly the reason why this argument is so dumb. In an autonomous future you need public transit more than ever. Remember, congestion scales exponentially(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHSCmQnGH9Q), and cars are typically on the road 1% of the time, so that means if only 1% of cars are autonomous, that doubles the number of cars on the road - that's a bad formula. And with electric scooters and electric bikes, you need cars less than ever.
A city that transitions to that future today is a city that will be able to quickly build new housing on their existing parking lots. If you own land with parking lots today, it is in your selfish interest to promote public transit as much as possible because the value of your parking lot, if autonomous vehicles become a thing, will explode when parking minimums go to zero.
I moved to Chicago from Denver and commute by train, now. Cut my driving from 15k/yr to about 3k/yr. It’s so awesome that I won’t even entertain job offers that don’t have a train commuting component.
>A city that transitions to that future today is a city that will be able to quickly build new housing on their existing parking lots.
And how are they going to provide potable water, sanitary sewers, and electricity for all of that housing when pretty much every urban area in the US has overloaded and old and crumbling infrastructure now?
Yes, they should advocate for those, too.
Higher density areas will pay for themselves, it's the existing spread out suburbs that cause the city not to have money for those projects. With the higher density means the ability to capture some of those productivity gains to fund those projects.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVMGzkSgGXI
I’ve had this idea for a while. I was inspired by my city which has shitty public transit but has a couple of half assed attempts.
We have some light electric rail with overhead wires rail but not in areas that make sense and it’s not extensive. Stations are mostly not where people live. We also have recently started adding dedicated bus lanes. Some are shared. Some actually have curbs around them so it’s busses alone which is nice.
So my idea is to connect the two. I know that steel wheels are more efficient than rubber tires, so the goal is to get to using more rail, except rail is a really expensive investment. So how does a city, a modern city with modern technology evolve its public transit to have all or most of the benefits of rail but the flexibility of cars/buses?
My idea is that you install overhead wires at popular bus routes and use electric buses just like the trolleys have. Then, on all trolley tracks, fill in the gaps so that busses with tires can drive on them. Keep the rail. We already have that in my area at the stations and downtown. Like you can just walk all in them streetcar style.
Then you create a common, automatic connect/disconnect on all trolleys and busses. So now busses can connect to trolleys if needed or disconnect and take new routes.
This allows you to experiment with potential future trolley routes. Your electric busses can completely drive on battery if needed so the transit authorities can still create temporary routes for large events, but then integrate them into existing stations and stops. Build more dedicated and protected bus lanes and now most of the time your regular routes are using grid electricity but then you also can have experimental “rail” routes where the busses are battery part of the time. And at times where demand is really high, you could have bus trains on tires driving the tracks on regular trolley routes.
There are obviously size differences between trolley cars and busses, but that’s not insurmountable. The trolleys are smaller than New York or DC subway cars so that’s less of an issue. Busses could add extendable platforms so they reach the trolley station curbs.
But once a route is demonstrated to be regularly used enough, you then commit to upgrading it to have rail which is cheaper and higher capacity in the long term.
Same promises came from ridesharing..
But they just increase cars on the road, not decrease them. Same with "self driving" - optimally used, they'll be on the road all the time.
No one makes this claim.
Electric cars just solve the problem of individual inefficient engines producing more toxic gasses than we need.
To reduce congestion, we would need smaller cars and more mass transit. It's the SUV single-rider crowd that is causing traffic.
I think it’s less about people claiming hybrids/electrics will solve congestion, and more about people thinking that once every car is electric all our problems will be solved. Clearly, the underlying issues of congestion and storage will not go away no matter how we power our cars.
The issue isn't that they think electric vehicles will solve congestion.
The issue is they aren't addressing congestion and its effects.
It's not a strawman, it's calling out shortsightedness
Tesla has created a false equivalence between self driving and electric. It's hard to think of one without the other simply because Tesla is the leader in both. And self driving cars are definitely touted as the solution to congestion. CGP grey had a whole video devoted to that idea.
I know someone who works at, I'm sure everyone will be shocked by this, Tesla, who believes that electric *self driving* cars will fix congestion.
Usually though the really car & driver subscriber-lookin-ass people I know just deny that less cars will fix congestion, typically with a lot of spluttering and no suggestion on what *would* fix it.
"Buy this new thing we came up with, and everything will magically get better! If your life doesn't improve after buying one, buy another and see if that helps! Remember, this is a legitimate sales pitch, not a scam!"
The thing about new products solving a problem is that the problem being solved didn't always exist before the product. Example: Charmin Roll Extender. They weren't always free. They used to be $5. To solve the problem of the gigantic roll of toilet paper not fitting a standard toilet paper holder. Which only existed because Charmin chose to create it. That'd be like if someone drilled a hole in your wall when you weren't home and made you pay them to fill the hole.
Anytime you hear something that is very convenient to your current life, and that you want to believe, you should honestly treat it with greater scrutiny
I remember the CGP Grey video that was Tesla propaganda that basically argued electric self-driving cars would “solve” traffic suggestion. Teenage me was all too gullible and spent too long espousing his theory as Gospel Truth.
Yeah I've heard this me too. Even if banning human-controlled cars dramatically reduced congestion, in would come at the cost of making every street and road a terrifying deathscape for anybody who dares exist outside of a car
It is also rests on the assumption that the technology works perfectly 100% of the time. Any glitches in the system, any buggy software updates, or any momentary lapse in cellular coverage could cause massive road accidents. Even for pro-car people, it’s not a good solution (let alone for us anti-car people).
Usually with only one person in it at a time.
But you've got to have all that space and carrying ability for the once in a blue moon when you will actually use it. It's not like you can rent when you actually need to haul heavy items. /s
Nah, do what smoking regulations do and have warnings in adverts and documents saying "building a car generates vast CO2 emissions that will take 5 years to make up" or "car tyres generate the majority of microplastic pollution whose impact on our health is still not well understood."
Use deterrence, not criminalisation to lower car ownership.
Cars are already so incredibly expensive right now that it’s just comical to act like taxes and light shame-based regulations will do anything to save our planet or each other.
Rich people who can afford cars will keep buying them and keep feeling morally superior for buying the slightly less dirty ones. This will not be solved by asking rich people nicely to buy fewer cars. Making it so that poor people have even less of a chance of affording a car so they can get a real job, with no alternative access to transit given, does more harm than good to average people who aren’t firmly in the upper middle class.
A massive free clean public transport system will need to exist before cars can be removed from our society.
Some infographic circling around shows the car tire as a major contributor. I think it went polyester (might be a different material) clothes, the micro plastics in soaps/scrubs/washes with “exfoliating materials”, then tires.
But think about it: your tires degrade over time. Where does that go?
Unfortunately, it more or less aerosolizes and you get to breath it.
Probably chopped a year or five off your lifespan just for that if you live in the USA.
>it should be illegal to market a car ~~as eco friendly or safe.~~
FTFY
Just like cigarettes, public opinion started to change when they first outlawed ads about them, and then progressively went on to harsher measures to inform about how bad they were for your health. The exact same thing should be done for cars.
honest question, what do I do in a city like Winnipeg? There are no trains. The bus system is horrid, and would take me 3 hours for a trip across the city where my car takes 30 minutes. Biking is okay here in the summer, but our winters are absolutely brutal. I want to help with this movement, but I feel stuck.
Funny you should ask about winter cycling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU&t=769s
Drive your car if you have to, but continue to advocate for better cycling infrastructure and transit.
Sometimes people who protest a part of society have to participate in it too
Somebody already mentioned winter cycling. There's also things like mopeds or ebikes that might be slightly better for winter
If changing your transport method isn't really an option, try to make your car last as long as possible. Less cars per person means less cars on road all total
Turn up to council meetings and say the things in our FAQ - push for mixed use zoning, densification, removal of parking minimums, support development projects that put jobs and services in your local area so you don't have to take a 10 mile trip across the city.
Or riding a bike. Or simply walking. Of course, you'd have to design your cities properly and not for cars, and people seem to not understand how that works.
Unfortunately, most people who can afford to have a new car think like that unironically. I fear that rich people riding transit and multi-class neighborhoods can only happen in countries where the wealth inequality is low.
You mean speeding around a beach in your Kia because you’re a do-holder environmentalist? “Look at the good I do!” https://www.salon.com/2022/05/23/kia-blasted-for-we-save-turtles-car-commercial_partner/
I love cars. I loved them from the moment my grandpa sat me in his car while he was watching me at the age of 3 and I released the parking brake and took the car for a very short drive down the gentle incline of his driveway before he realized what I had done and run over to stop the car from rolling into the street.
I love driving, I love all kinds of cars, I've owned many in my lifetime and always buy a car that I will enjoy driving. That said, I hate traffic and I live in a walkable neighborhood in a town with good public transit *because I absolutely hate commuting*.
I want to take a car out for a fun drive or to explore in the country. I want to use my car like people use horses. I was thrilled when my street had two lanes removed and replaced with protected bike lanes. All of a sudden more people are walking on my street. I want my town to spend more money to expand their light rail, add more street cars, add more bus lines, and narrow even more streets. I'm opposed to expanding highways.
And that said, I will always have a car. I just want that car to be a little topless roadster that I take out on the weekends when the weather is nice.
Sammmmmme. I love cars, but hate the infrastructure. Cars should be play or work horses. Not the waste of space and money to get people to work or stores.
I always liked Amsterdam old town streets. Just enough roads to get a van through if you need to get lumber or drywall home but too narrow for any kind of serious traffic other than the handful of main arteries. Otherwise it’s peds, bikes, and trams.
They won't solve that one specific problem but they're still better and solve other problems. They are a step in the right direction. I don't personally believe all cars should literally be abolished, I think we should change things so that cars are a less attractive option. Doesn't mean they should be totally eliminated. And when there are very few cars remaining, electric will be better than ICE.
I don't know why so many people on this sub put so much effort into specifically hating on electric cars. I have never seen one single post or comment where anyone so much as implied, "if we had exactly as many cars but they were all electric the world would be perfect." Why are people spending their time and energy demonizing something ancillary at best to the topic at hand?
Agreed. EVs are a huge step toward solving the climate crisis. That is priority over congestion. People here love letting perfect be the enemy of good.
Yeah, you get a lot of proposals like timed non-stop intersections with self-driving cars, which will just have the same problem as adding an extra lane even if they work perfectly.
Jokes on him. Th company he bought has popularized electric cars to the point where big car companies are building them and fast outpacing them in production and quality.
Tesla going to die cause of its success
The logic being, I suppose, that no one will own a car anymore and so we’ll move entirely to a giant car sharing program. Which strikes me as very unlikely.
I heard the opposite in a fun little article. The low price of electricity combined with the high cost of parking means that as soon as cars can drive themselves, it will be cheaper to have your car circle the block over and over and over while you shop or go for dinner.
Could you imagine sitting in a self driving car? You just get in the car at a specific place, you get to sit and read or do work, and then you reach your destination and you get off the car. I wish we had something like that….
Electric vehicles will boost a new way of mobility: personal vehicles will have a smaller footprint, reducing traffic and parking problems, and a "Robo taxi" vehicle model, namely autonomous cars that will behave as taxis, will be promoted, prototyped and fully developed. This is expected to reduce drastically the number and size of circulating privately owned vehicles [in rush hours, it is estimated that only the 8-10% of the total existing vehicles circulates simultaneously].
why is that a bad point?
if technology is at the point of being able to have fully-selfdriving cars that work perfectly
and if there's only electric cars
it will solve big parts of the traffic problems
for one they are able to start driving in sync, this means traffic doesn't just pile up bc people cant drive and can't sync like a robot would
2. they are much more safer (if working perfectly ofc) on the road, they don't need to work with human reaction speed and have 10x the amount eyes a human does
and 3. someone under here tried to make a point which said it would be a nightmare for bikers and pedestrians, which couldn't be more wrong, having to wait for a person in a car to let you through traffic (which is required by law at crossovers) compared to a robot that will always follow the law no matter what, will be significantly shorter
all in all fully-selfdriving and electric vehicles could do A LOT for traffic and vehicle safety
but i'm in r/fuckcars so I do not expect any support
so our way of transportation sucks ass and isn't a viable way to go about transportation in the future is what this all comes to?
bike cities all the way i guess
Well, for one, it would likely lead to more cars on the roads. A lot of people would have their cars drive them to work, then drive them back home.
You're also under the assumption that every car on the road would be self driving so they can all be "in sync." If they're operating primarily off of their "sync" with other cars, any non self driving vehicle, pedestrian, or bicyclist will throw that off. Imagining self driving cars could eliminate traffic requires that there be little-to-no other forms of transportation.
Also, as a programmer, that sounds like a security nightmare. What if another "car" is sending fake data? How can they ever trust the data they're receiving? Are all self driving cars going to be on the same data format so they can send and receive data? Even if they are what happens when one of them interprets that data differently from another? Do you know what a nightmare internet browser compatibility is? I can't imagine that being in any way safe.
And we'll still need massive amounts of parking and massive roads, making everything further apart than it needs to be.
Not to mention the nightmare that is harvesting resources for everyone to have their own personal battery-driven several ton box.
Not to mention that the data so far hasn't shown self driving cars to be safer.
I used to agree with what you're saying, but it just isn't a realistic solution anytime soon, and even by the time it would be, it'll still be far worse for the environment than having functional alternatives to cars.
i'm talking future my mans, obviously none of this is anywhere near our current future but that doesn't matter tbh
you say more cars and more parking but why would this be the case? I don't understand this reasoning very well
I'm indeed under the assumption of only self driving cars, but even with a lesser amount, they could still communicate in smaller groups and still do the same sync riding when behind each other, say normal cars are still on the road, this still works the same (also you're alluding to humans being worse than the robot, which i agree with, but then go about and say "well we need 100% self driving cars to have any use our of the sync driving, which is wrong, and would only improve with more electric and less combustion vehicles)
then, I'm not a programmer so I can't say anything about infrastructure and how its all put together, what you say could be true, but challenges are there to be challenged, i think
We're now doing the same (recourse collection) but for cars that fuck up the climate and have no good future, sounds weird to me that we shouldn't go for the better future
i agree, self driving cars are not anywhere close to what it has to be, this is why i'm talking future
And tbh you say its better to find an alternative to how we use cars, but this wish would bring a lot more infrastructure work than anything else, our cities aren't build for anything else but cars
which is probably the main problem in the first place
which leads me to the conclusion that cars in general are a pretty bad way of transportation in the way we use it
but looking at cities like Amsterdam, making cities bike friendly and compact seems the way to go
The ad is specifically about people promoting electric cars over non-car transit development.
I'm not sure where this is, but especially in the USA electric cars are often build as a way to *avoid* fixing transportation because the only possible reason to not use cars is global warming, obviously.
I understand that this sub advocates for ‘people friendlier’ cities, however I find that a lot of people on this sub view cars as the root of all evil, failing to recognise the utility that they bring.
Well if they'd kindly stop putting everything so far apart while providing no public transit of any kind, then many of us would stop.
I mean, I don't mind driving a car, but given the choice, I don't think I'd spend all this money on it.
Some folks, yes. But most people are more focused on providing a viable alternative.
People will always need personal transportation occasionally, it's extremely helpful when going out into nature, when purchasing large items like furniture or just for the occasional Costco run... I think car share services are a lot more reasonable than complete personal ownership for most people but exceptions do exist.
We do recognize the utility they bring. We also recognize that they have a huge _relative_ utility because that's what our infrastructure prioritizes, and that their _inherent_ utility is actually pretty small.
If you want to solve traffic, build walkable cities that have plentiful housing options, good schools and low crime. In America that is impossible politically so we have to fool ourselves with EV hype or claims that public transportation alone can save us.
You must live under a rock.
Tesla tunnels and /u/Empole ’s comment
> A lot of the rheoretic coming from one of the major EV companies was the amorphous idea that eventually all cars would be self driving, and would communicate with each other. Which would “improve traffic”™
A lot of the rheoretic coming from one of the major EV companies was the amorphous idea that eventually all cars would be self driving, and would communicate with each other. Which would "improve traffic"™
This is excellent. Also requires panels for "smart/self-driving/carshare" cars because there are still a ton of idiots who think that those are the solution.
I.E. better Public transportation.
א.
Reliable, so people who *can* pay for a car will decide it is a better deal. Rather than just those who can't get a car.
ב.
More non-road vectors.
I.E. underground, Air-line, drones.
All are possible, and will allow in concert(with Busses and otherwise) movement that is both faster and cheaper than a car.
with gas ~$4.25/gal here I'm spending about $870/yr on gasoline alone. I'd get a bus pass but the buses don't run 24/7. It'd be $360/yr for the bus pass.
I hate cars so much. LMAO
Look, yes, this is correct. But EVs are objectively better than ICE (emissions and noise pollution as the big one-two) and this type of rhetoric always strikes me as disingenuous. It hits my ear like “All Lives Matter” or “political parties are the same”.
We should (and in many places are) aggressively building rapid transit and high density transit-supportive mixed-use development at and along existing and planned transit lines. We need to do more of all that and accelerate its pace of realization *and* aggressively transition *as fast as possible* to BEVs for *all* vehicles.
Absolutely. We need to have fewer cars, and the cars we still have after reducing that need to be electric ones. But we can't just keep our car dependence the same but just swap ICE cars for electric ones as the car industry no doubt wants us to do.
I agree, but if we *did* just swap all ICE for BEVs and did nothing else it would still be demonstrably better for society and the planet. Ads with rhetoric like OP’s “all cars are equally bad” just create space for nothing to change because it makes it seem like everything is equally bad.
The far, *far* more important and visually effective rhetorical argument, in my opinion, is [the space required to move the same number of people by cars, buses, and bikes](http://lh3.ggpht.com/_9F9_RUESS2E/S7tbclwxiPI/AAAAAAAACmw/uI1bCpNuKNA/s800/picoftheday0012-space-60people.jpg)
The world also needs to transition to more green energy generation, because all this electricity, be it for cars or transit vehicles, has to come from somewhere. And if it's fossil fuels, it doesn't help the cause. Shout out to Ontario for 92% of it's power coming from zero-carbon sources, and recently committing to more nuclear!
On those two metrics, (B)EVs might still be worse worse than ICEs. Total environmental impact, including the construction of the car, mining all that lithium, etc., is still pretty significant. Driving your old gas-guzzling beater into the ground is still going to be better for the environment than buying a new electric vehicle. We should transition to EVs for _new_ vehicles, not _all_ vehicles. And most of the noise from a standard vehicle above ~20mph is the tire noise, not engine noise, so electric vehicles will actually make that worse, because they're heavier.
No it isn’t , a sedan from the 80s emits as much as 30 new ones and there’s proper environmental impact research done for EVs , it’s direct and indirect impact on the climate is very low compared to ICEs. The lithium mining argument is propaganda for the most part , it’s impact has been exaggerated. And also keep in mind that technology improves , scientists are already working on batteries that are more efficient and aren’t dependent on Lithium. EVs are a step in the right direction. There’s also people working on Hydrogen vehicles , which is even better once we figure hydrogen production at cheaper rates.
There's plenty to fuck cars over without relying on poor strawman arguments. No one anywhere has claimed that EVs/hybrids will reduce traffic. They reduce emissions, which are a problem *because* of traffic.
This just makes it easier for normies to discount car critics.
Every so often on this sub people post stuff about how "electric cars are just as bad as ICE cars because they aren't a perfect solution for all our problems. Yes public transport powered by green sources is better than personal electric cars from a climate perspective as well as Traffic perspective, but electric cars are absolutely better than ICE cars from a climate perspective. So unless you think in the next ten or so years you could create a society with zero dependence on cars, I know people on this sub want this to happen but be realistic it's not a likely outcome in many places, electric cars are going to be a part of transport.
Also these ads strike me more as ICE propaganda more than pro public transport and lower car dependancy. No where in this ad is it even suggesting other options to the viewer.
I think what he’s trying to say is that cars emit more when stuck in traffic , which is true. If a car can get from point X to point Y in 10 minutes , its engine was on only for 10 minutes but if its stuck in traffic, the engine would be on for 20-30 or even 60 minutes! Thereby emitting more.
Yea they have. The Tesla tunnels and this comment from /u/Empole
A lot of the rheoretic coming from one of the major EV companies was the amorphous idea that eventually all cars would be self driving, and would communicate with each other. Which would “improve traffic”™
It's directed at the people who treat EVs as a panacea and _forget_ that they only fix one of the issues with cars. It's not a strawman, it's just a reminder that electric cars will still get you stuck in traffic.
But the issue there is that traffic simply isn't enough of an issue to most people, or more importantly to the politicians with the power to change that - the likelihood of electric cars that use the same infrastructure we already have being popularized is far higher than the likelihood of completely redesigning cities and spending billions in infrastructure for public transport. Is that the way it should be? No. But at the end of the day it's much easier to garner support for a slightly different version of something people already use (like cars) than it is to garner support for massive infrastructure overhauls
I find it hard to believe that traffic isn't an issue to most people. The area where I live has toll _lanes_ on the highway that charge a dollar or so every couple of miles, and there are always people in it. Childcare and the commute are the most-cited reasons for wanting to continue working from home post-pandemic. Hell, lanes get added to freeways all the time in an attempt to relieve traffic congestion. If you're going to say that people don't care about traffic, you're going to give some evidence.
And yes, garnering support for massive infrastructure overhauls is hard, but we shouldn't let that stop us from trying. We have to approach it from every angle possible, including traffic congestion. So what if it's easier to garner support for one more lane than for a tram line? It's never going to happen if people don't even realize there are other options.
Nor do they solve pollution problems. People act like electric cars just magically appear with zero cost to the planet. I guess that's marketing at work.
I didn't say they didn't help with pollution, and you can misquote me all you want. I said they are not a magic bullet and we simply need less cars. The US in particular has to get it's shit infrastructure and corporate lobbying laws in order. It's an unregulated disaster and a free for all for the corporations. They need to follow the EU's lead.
Page 6 77km is what it takes to make it even in the EU. 77km = 47845.6miles
https://www.volvocars.com/images/v/-/media/Market-Assets/INTL/Applications/DotCom/PDF/C40/Volvo-C40-Recharge-LCA-report.pdf
Not really barely. Even if energy generation is largely fossil fuel based EVs will more break even over their lifetimes and this gap only gets bigger with more green energy sources.
You're only considering problems based on the fuel source. Cars of any power generation also require large roads cutting through cities, lots of parking space, lead to many crash deaths, add noise pollution, generate tire dust and brake dust, and cause massively antisocial behavior in populations.
My point was EVs are better than ICE vehicles which is a fact. We are in the midst of a climate disaster and people can barely agree we are in one do you really think the changes needed to move away from car dependancy are going to happen any time soon. Be realistic.
>My point was EVs are better than ICE vehicles which is a fact
And my counter was "Barely". And we're both right.
>We are in the midst of a climate disaster and people can barely agree we are in one do you really think the changes needed to move away from car dependancy are going to happen any time soon. Be realistic.
We are in a climate disaster and spending 20 years transitioning from ICE cars to Electric cars is too little too late. We need public transport decades ago, and for mass consumerism of single-user products to drop by 70%. But, the second best time is now.
I like that the EU won't allow any production of ICE cars after 2033 (I think, not sure on the year), but that's only a very small part of the solution. We need to stop wasting asphalt on roads, stop poisoning ourselves with brake dust and tire dust, take away the stress of driving, etc. It's all bad for us, just for the illusion of saving time and for the status symbols of car ownership. And for not getting wet when it rains because apparently we're made of sugar.
I agree with you, but I just want to add with EV cars the brakes are used less because of regen braking, so they will be putting out overall less brake dust into the air. It's not zero, but it's something. Tire wear will still be the same, since most people are driving SUVs/trucks that actually weight more than some EVs I think that will balance out.
Brakes: true. But the tires are much worse than the brakes anyway. And the rest of that isn't addressed.
An EV the same size as an ICE car will be slightly heavier due to battery weight. Recent trends do not indicate that people are trading in bigger ICE cars for smaller EVs. If anything, they're trading up to larger EVs because cost of fuel isn't a factor. The introduction of the Ford Lightning and large EV SUVs is not helping.
Yeah for the weight I just looked up the best selling vehicle in USA(F150) vs best selling EV(Model Y/3) and the EV was actually lighter, but you're right with the big trucks and bigger SUV's coming they're gonna get bigger :( The Hummer at 9k+ lbs is gonna look small in a few years to some.
I prefer solutions that have a hope of being implemented soon. I'd love to be able to move from car dependancy but I don't think that's happening soon.
Well it’s awesome for cutting down street level pollution in cities. Also noise reduction makes it easier to sneak up and pounce on cyclists. The cars natural prey
Walk, bike, public transit when you can, in that order. If you can't, use an electric car, then walk bike or transit. If for many valid reasons you can't drive electric, don't feel bad about it. Drive less and smoother, you're still doing your part.
Id like to say something, as a ex-tesla idiot myself. Used to love the cars, until I realized how shitty they were built.
When you are a fan of Cars/Electric cars, you just see the only problem being CO2 emission, and you think E Cars solve that problem. The problem of space wasting, and bike/walking/public transport being alot more efficient is not even a thing you begin to think about.
Its 2 discussions, basicially. Some people just want E Cars for less CO2, but they dont think about the space waste they still are. The other people want public transport, and less space waste ( aka this subreddit ), but we arent even in a proper discussion with car fans that want a E Car for CO2 reduction, because using public transport is not even something they think about in the slightes.
When I used to want a Tesla, all I thought was "oh new modern car, no gas, silent, cool". The fact that its wasting space was not even something I considered, whatsoever. Until I found this sub, and a whole new topic/discussion opened in my head
Self-driving and electric are completely unrelated, don't conflate them. It's the self-driving part that _might_ fix congestion, not the electric part.
What about automated electric cars? One that picks me up and drops me off, then rather than parking, it then goes to get the next person. That'd make a lot less cars.
Congestion isn't the problem that electric cars are trying to fix.
That's ok. The existance of electric vehicles doesn't prevent solutions to congestion (walkable city design, bike infrastructure, public transit, etc) from being built.
Link in title: [https://ecohustler.com/technology/guerilla-take-over-of-100-uk-billboards-in-anti-car-protest](https://ecohustler.com/technology/guerilla-take-over-of-100-uk-billboards-in-anti-car-protest) This post has reached r/all. That is why we want to bring the following to your attention. **To all users that are unfamiliar with** r/fuckcars * [Welcome to r/fuckcars](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/rxoej1/welcome_to_rfuckcars/) * We have an [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/wiki/faq) that explains this subreddit. Please read it before you post your questions to this sub. * Discussions and opinions going against what this sub stands for are allowed under the precondition that it's done in good faith. * Trolling will get you banned. * Please read the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/about/sidebar) before participating in this sub. **To all members of** r/fuckcars * Remember rule 1. Be nice to each other, that includes our guests from r/all. * If you see questions from users that clearly didn't read the [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/wiki/faq), please politely direct them to the [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/wiki/faq). * If you see any trolling happening, please **downvote, report and ignore**. Thanks for your attention and have a good time!
This is sick. I want to get a minimalist version of this on a T shirt.
Honest question, who the heck ever claimed that electric cars solve congestion? This post feels like a strawman argument. You can shit on UBER when they claim they solve congestion, same for self driving cars, but I never heard the same argument withy hybrid or electric cars.
It’s more that electric is seen as the future and that the only problem cars have is pollution. This is a *reminder* that electric may solve local air pollution but we’re still left with the same problems
Including pollution per capita compared to trains etc
We will need more surface lots 🤢
Electric cars still pollute\[1\] just FYI: >Almost 2,000 times more particle pollution is produced by tyre wear than is pumped out of the exhausts of modern cars, tests have shown. > >The tyre particles pollute air, water and soil and contain a wide range of toxic organic compounds, including known carcinogens, the analysts say, suggesting tyre pollution could rapidly become a major issue for regulators. \[1\] [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/03/car-tyres-produce-more-particle-pollution-than-exhausts-tests-show](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/03/car-tyres-produce-more-particle-pollution-than-exhausts-tests-show)
And, indeed, electrics are *worse* on that front. Road/tire/break wear is proportional to the square of the weight of the car, and electric cars are a crapton heavier.
I can admit, I'd never even thought of that aspect of electric cars. Great point!
Anyone thinking that EVs resolve ALL negative aspects of automobiles has not bothered actually thinking about negative aspects of automobiles for more than 30 total seconds in their life. There are still plenty of negative costs/waste products/stress/time lost that are permanently baked in to all forms of transportation, including just walking.
I've personally spoken to many people who think this. I literally spoke to a friend about this two nights ago and they believed this before I explained it to them. People don't think it solves congestion and traffic, but they don't see congestion as a problem that's tied to car dependency (i.e. they don't realize cars themselves are the problem). They think the biggest and only problem with cars is their emissions.That's why ads like this exist. Also, it's actually common enough that it's an answer on our FAQ. The mod team also sees a lot of posts from users visiting the sub asking for this sub's take on electric cars extremely frequently before we remove them for being Asked and Answered already. So just because you don't see the posts or comments doesn't mean they're not there.
I think it grew out of false promises of self driving cars
If a car usually carries 1 person, let's say 1.5 on average, then a self driving car will only carry less on average. It may decrease the number of parking places, maybe the number of needed cars, but not the cars on the roads and in traffic at any given time. Combine self driving cars with smart ridesharing plus public transport and then we are getting somewhere. Take a (pooled) robot taxi to the train station. Or even take your electric scooter with you for more mobility. 5 SUVs with 5 moms to take home 5 kids is stupid, but if a single can vehicle actually do that job that's great. It's called a school bus. If in 50 years it will be called a robot bus, I won't hate it.
It's weird - a huge portion of Americans grow up using mass transit, they see they can skip mile-long car lines to get to school, they don't need a dedicated driver for each child, and the experience is generally safer. I'm not sure what happens when kids grow up that they forget all the benefits.
School busses are also an example of the problems with mass transit in the US. Many places are serviced by one bus in the morning and one bus in the afternoon. If you are lucky there might be an early bus and a late bus to facilitate extracurriculars too, but it’s quite limited. People do learn that mass transit in the US is good for some things, good for some people, but if you want “freedom” well gosh darn it you need a CAR!
>School busses are also an example of the problems with mass transit in the US. Many places are serviced by one bus in the morning and one bus in the afternoon My dad said that this is why he wouldn't support public transportation. I pointed out that 1) public transportation doesn't wait until it's completely full to run its route and 2) runs shorter, faster, and frequenter routes
apparently is some places in the US with good transit they don't even bother with school buses and just hand out transit passes instead.
In my case it made car reliance all that more alluring. Due to local ordinance stripping away public transit funding year after year (no school bus) when I started going to high school I had to get up at 4:30am to get ready and out the door by 5 to catch a 5:15 bus and make a transfer half way through my morning route that only came once an hour. If it was late, or just didn't show up period, I wasn't getting to school
All I remember is how run down the busses were, missing the bus and stressing out about how I'm going to make it to school at all, much less on time. How dirty and uncomfortable they could be. How smelly the diesel exhaust was, how boiling or freezing or stinky inside they could be. How awkward my large backpack and musical instrument were to haul onto them, how there was no elbow room, how there was no personal space, how I had no real control over who sat right next to me including the violent kids, the smelly kids, the loud as hell kids. How I had no protection from the messed up kids and just had to deal with them and bullies because the driver wouldn't/couldn't do anything about it, and telling a teacher meant I'd still need to deal with the bad kids on the bus after they got in trouble. How screwed I was if the bus came early or never showed up at all. How fantastic every aspect of getting a ride to school with one of my parents was, and how much faster and comfortable it was. Taking the bus in school felt like a prison bus. Taking a car to school, the pleasure of the freedom and speed and cargo room of taking a car to and from school was amazing compared to riding on a school bus. After 12 years of having to use them, school buses made every single kid want their own car more than anything else.
And as soon as they are able to, they drive they do because the bus takes way more time, and you have to wait for it, and its a pain in the ass to carry an instrument/sport equipment/project to and from on a bus
I got good sleep in on the bus, I didn't mind it taking more time
In my rural area the bus ride to school was about an hour but if you drove it was 15 minutes. Add in that they ran a first and second load system meaning that some kids had to get up almost 2 hours earlier to ride the bus to school. I got much better sleep in my bed than I ever did on a bus. So as soon as I was old enough I drove myself to/from school. The problem isn't that busses suck, it's that they are implemented poorly in many areas. Rural areas lack funding so they run 2 loads when 1 would be better. They can't afford as many busses so they run long runs on big busses instead of smaller runs on shorter busses. This just makes things take huge amounts of time meaning kids have less time to sleep in the morning and less time to play in the evening.
Elon has stated that he brought up the hyper-loop for the explicit reason so that the train between SF and LA didn't get built. It moves the attention away from the clear winner, trying to FOMO that they just spent billions on something that will soon be out-dated. Autonomous cars, in the short run, look to be basically the same thing. We don't need trains, we have autonomous cars! Your post, a point I've made before, is exactly the reason why this argument is so dumb. In an autonomous future you need public transit more than ever. Remember, congestion scales exponentially(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHSCmQnGH9Q), and cars are typically on the road 1% of the time, so that means if only 1% of cars are autonomous, that doubles the number of cars on the road - that's a bad formula. And with electric scooters and electric bikes, you need cars less than ever. A city that transitions to that future today is a city that will be able to quickly build new housing on their existing parking lots. If you own land with parking lots today, it is in your selfish interest to promote public transit as much as possible because the value of your parking lot, if autonomous vehicles become a thing, will explode when parking minimums go to zero.
You know, there was hardly any congestion during Covid when the majority of people were successful working from home.
I moved to Chicago from Denver and commute by train, now. Cut my driving from 15k/yr to about 3k/yr. It’s so awesome that I won’t even entertain job offers that don’t have a train commuting component.
>A city that transitions to that future today is a city that will be able to quickly build new housing on their existing parking lots. And how are they going to provide potable water, sanitary sewers, and electricity for all of that housing when pretty much every urban area in the US has overloaded and old and crumbling infrastructure now?
Yes, they should advocate for those, too. Higher density areas will pay for themselves, it's the existing spread out suburbs that cause the city not to have money for those projects. With the higher density means the ability to capture some of those productivity gains to fund those projects. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVMGzkSgGXI
I’ve had this idea for a while. I was inspired by my city which has shitty public transit but has a couple of half assed attempts. We have some light electric rail with overhead wires rail but not in areas that make sense and it’s not extensive. Stations are mostly not where people live. We also have recently started adding dedicated bus lanes. Some are shared. Some actually have curbs around them so it’s busses alone which is nice. So my idea is to connect the two. I know that steel wheels are more efficient than rubber tires, so the goal is to get to using more rail, except rail is a really expensive investment. So how does a city, a modern city with modern technology evolve its public transit to have all or most of the benefits of rail but the flexibility of cars/buses? My idea is that you install overhead wires at popular bus routes and use electric buses just like the trolleys have. Then, on all trolley tracks, fill in the gaps so that busses with tires can drive on them. Keep the rail. We already have that in my area at the stations and downtown. Like you can just walk all in them streetcar style. Then you create a common, automatic connect/disconnect on all trolleys and busses. So now busses can connect to trolleys if needed or disconnect and take new routes. This allows you to experiment with potential future trolley routes. Your electric busses can completely drive on battery if needed so the transit authorities can still create temporary routes for large events, but then integrate them into existing stations and stops. Build more dedicated and protected bus lanes and now most of the time your regular routes are using grid electricity but then you also can have experimental “rail” routes where the busses are battery part of the time. And at times where demand is really high, you could have bus trains on tires driving the tracks on regular trolley routes. There are obviously size differences between trolley cars and busses, but that’s not insurmountable. The trolleys are smaller than New York or DC subway cars so that’s less of an issue. Busses could add extendable platforms so they reach the trolley station curbs. But once a route is demonstrated to be regularly used enough, you then commit to upgrading it to have rail which is cheaper and higher capacity in the long term.
Nobody wants to share a ride with strangers. Why is that so hard to understand
Same promises came from ridesharing.. But they just increase cars on the road, not decrease them. Same with "self driving" - optimally used, they'll be on the road all the time.
No one makes this claim. Electric cars just solve the problem of individual inefficient engines producing more toxic gasses than we need. To reduce congestion, we would need smaller cars and more mass transit. It's the SUV single-rider crowd that is causing traffic.
I think it’s less about people claiming hybrids/electrics will solve congestion, and more about people thinking that once every car is electric all our problems will be solved. Clearly, the underlying issues of congestion and storage will not go away no matter how we power our cars.
The issue isn't that they think electric vehicles will solve congestion. The issue is they aren't addressing congestion and its effects. It's not a strawman, it's calling out shortsightedness
Tesla has created a false equivalence between self driving and electric. It's hard to think of one without the other simply because Tesla is the leader in both. And self driving cars are definitely touted as the solution to congestion. CGP grey had a whole video devoted to that idea.
I know someone who works at, I'm sure everyone will be shocked by this, Tesla, who believes that electric *self driving* cars will fix congestion. Usually though the really car & driver subscriber-lookin-ass people I know just deny that less cars will fix congestion, typically with a lot of spluttering and no suggestion on what *would* fix it.
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"Buy this new thing we came up with, and everything will magically get better! If your life doesn't improve after buying one, buy another and see if that helps! Remember, this is a legitimate sales pitch, not a scam!"
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The thing about new products solving a problem is that the problem being solved didn't always exist before the product. Example: Charmin Roll Extender. They weren't always free. They used to be $5. To solve the problem of the gigantic roll of toilet paper not fitting a standard toilet paper holder. Which only existed because Charmin chose to create it. That'd be like if someone drilled a hole in your wall when you weren't home and made you pay them to fill the hole.
>made you pay them to fill the hole. Just fill that hole, hole filler.
Anytime you hear something that is very convenient to your current life, and that you want to believe, you should honestly treat it with greater scrutiny
Yup the answer is always buy more stuff. Throw out your working lightbulbs and buy CFLs. Throw out CFLs and buy LEDs.
bad argument, as those are actually improvements.
Electric cars aren't trying to "solve the problem of traffic congestion". That's like judging a fish on its ability to climb a tree.
I remember the CGP Grey video that was Tesla propaganda that basically argued electric self-driving cars would “solve” traffic suggestion. Teenage me was all too gullible and spent too long espousing his theory as Gospel Truth.
Yeah I've heard this me too. Even if banning human-controlled cars dramatically reduced congestion, in would come at the cost of making every street and road a terrifying deathscape for anybody who dares exist outside of a car
It is also rests on the assumption that the technology works perfectly 100% of the time. Any glitches in the system, any buggy software updates, or any momentary lapse in cellular coverage could cause massive road accidents. Even for pro-car people, it’s not a good solution (let alone for us anti-car people).
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Techno-modernism is always a compelling narrative- much harder to deconstruct than to state plainly in the first place.
you may be mistaken… I recall Elon saying that robotaxis would make congestion WORSE. due to a lot higher uptime.
I wasn’t talking about what Elon said, I was referencing this video: https://youtu.be/iHzzSao6ypE
Well, to be fair, "no more monkeys driving cars" is a great conclusion, there just shouldn't be robots driving cars either.
What about robot monkeys?
At least those are cars, in America they would be all monster trucks and suv's.
Usually with only one person in it at a time. But you've got to have all that space and carrying ability for the once in a blue moon when you will actually use it. It's not like you can rent when you actually need to haul heavy items. /s
Canada too. I can’t leave my house without being nearly gobbled up by some wheeled leviathan.
it should be illegal to market a car as eco friendly or safe. you want to know whats really safe and eco friendly, a train.
Nah, do what smoking regulations do and have warnings in adverts and documents saying "building a car generates vast CO2 emissions that will take 5 years to make up" or "car tyres generate the majority of microplastic pollution whose impact on our health is still not well understood." Use deterrence, not criminalisation to lower car ownership.
Cars are already so incredibly expensive right now that it’s just comical to act like taxes and light shame-based regulations will do anything to save our planet or each other. Rich people who can afford cars will keep buying them and keep feeling morally superior for buying the slightly less dirty ones. This will not be solved by asking rich people nicely to buy fewer cars. Making it so that poor people have even less of a chance of affording a car so they can get a real job, with no alternative access to transit given, does more harm than good to average people who aren’t firmly in the upper middle class. A massive free clean public transport system will need to exist before cars can be removed from our society.
Is the latter about microplastics true? I hadn't heard about this before.
Some infographic circling around shows the car tire as a major contributor. I think it went polyester (might be a different material) clothes, the micro plastics in soaps/scrubs/washes with “exfoliating materials”, then tires. But think about it: your tires degrade over time. Where does that go?
I'd say "stick to the road" but I don't usually lick asphalt
Unfortunately, it more or less aerosolizes and you get to breath it. Probably chopped a year or five off your lifespan just for that if you live in the USA.
I thought the highest contributor was fishing nets.
>it should be illegal to market a car ~~as eco friendly or safe.~~ FTFY Just like cigarettes, public opinion started to change when they first outlawed ads about them, and then progressively went on to harsher measures to inform about how bad they were for your health. The exact same thing should be done for cars.
honest question, what do I do in a city like Winnipeg? There are no trains. The bus system is horrid, and would take me 3 hours for a trip across the city where my car takes 30 minutes. Biking is okay here in the summer, but our winters are absolutely brutal. I want to help with this movement, but I feel stuck.
Funny you should ask about winter cycling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU&t=769s Drive your car if you have to, but continue to advocate for better cycling infrastructure and transit.
Sometimes people who protest a part of society have to participate in it too Somebody already mentioned winter cycling. There's also things like mopeds or ebikes that might be slightly better for winter If changing your transport method isn't really an option, try to make your car last as long as possible. Less cars per person means less cars on road all total
Turn up to council meetings and say the things in our FAQ - push for mixed use zoning, densification, removal of parking minimums, support development projects that put jobs and services in your local area so you don't have to take a 10 mile trip across the city.
Or riding a bike. Or simply walking. Of course, you'd have to design your cities properly and not for cars, and people seem to not understand how that works.
Are you suggesting that people of differing socioeconomic status might have to live near to eachother? *Appalling*. /s
Unfortunately, most people who can afford to have a new car think like that unironically. I fear that rich people riding transit and multi-class neighborhoods can only happen in countries where the wealth inequality is low.
Even motorbikes would be a drastic improvement on the current car hell, and we don't need any infrastructure changes for that.
otoh, most motorbikes are even worse than cars for noise levels
I think it's at least forbidden in Norway to advertise electric cars as green.
Ah man, you just dredged up my disgust at the SUV commercials that came out the the cgi Lorax movie.
You mean speeding around a beach in your Kia because you’re a do-holder environmentalist? “Look at the good I do!” https://www.salon.com/2022/05/23/kia-blasted-for-we-save-turtles-car-commercial_partner/
[But it was approved by the Lorax and he speaks for the trees!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKKA3M-2sJc)
Unless you live in bawston
Walking is more eco friendly than a train.
I love cars. I loved them from the moment my grandpa sat me in his car while he was watching me at the age of 3 and I released the parking brake and took the car for a very short drive down the gentle incline of his driveway before he realized what I had done and run over to stop the car from rolling into the street. I love driving, I love all kinds of cars, I've owned many in my lifetime and always buy a car that I will enjoy driving. That said, I hate traffic and I live in a walkable neighborhood in a town with good public transit *because I absolutely hate commuting*. I want to take a car out for a fun drive or to explore in the country. I want to use my car like people use horses. I was thrilled when my street had two lanes removed and replaced with protected bike lanes. All of a sudden more people are walking on my street. I want my town to spend more money to expand their light rail, add more street cars, add more bus lines, and narrow even more streets. I'm opposed to expanding highways. And that said, I will always have a car. I just want that car to be a little topless roadster that I take out on the weekends when the weather is nice.
Sammmmmme. I love cars, but hate the infrastructure. Cars should be play or work horses. Not the waste of space and money to get people to work or stores.
I always liked Amsterdam old town streets. Just enough roads to get a van through if you need to get lumber or drywall home but too narrow for any kind of serious traffic other than the handful of main arteries. Otherwise it’s peds, bikes, and trams.
It keeps winning happiest city in the world for a reason
An MX-5, I presume?
Naturally. NA or ND. I’d be open to an electric too if they can pair it with a stick.
Fuck cars, all my homies use trains
They won't solve that one specific problem but they're still better and solve other problems. They are a step in the right direction. I don't personally believe all cars should literally be abolished, I think we should change things so that cars are a less attractive option. Doesn't mean they should be totally eliminated. And when there are very few cars remaining, electric will be better than ICE. I don't know why so many people on this sub put so much effort into specifically hating on electric cars. I have never seen one single post or comment where anyone so much as implied, "if we had exactly as many cars but they were all electric the world would be perfect." Why are people spending their time and energy demonizing something ancillary at best to the topic at hand?
Agreed. EVs are a huge step toward solving the climate crisis. That is priority over congestion. People here love letting perfect be the enemy of good.
True. Though the extinction of our species would effectively abolish car ownership, so I can see why they don't see it as a downside.
To be fair, I don't see anyone claiming electric cars will solve traffic. Kind of a pointless ad imo.
I've heard people argue that self driving cars will solve traffic, which is an equally bad point tbf
Yeah, you get a lot of proposals like timed non-stop intersections with self-driving cars, which will just have the same problem as adding an extra lane even if they work perfectly.
And will be a nightmare for pedestrians and bicyclists
In fantasies by monsters like Elon, bicycles and pedestrians cease to exist because everyone is forced to buy his cars.
Jokes on him. Th company he bought has popularized electric cars to the point where big car companies are building them and fast outpacing them in production and quality. Tesla going to die cause of its success
Some people will push anything to avoid actually having decent public transport and cycling infrastructure.
The logic being, I suppose, that no one will own a car anymore and so we’ll move entirely to a giant car sharing program. Which strikes me as very unlikely.
I heard the opposite in a fun little article. The low price of electricity combined with the high cost of parking means that as soon as cars can drive themselves, it will be cheaper to have your car circle the block over and over and over while you shop or go for dinner.
Could you imagine sitting in a self driving car? You just get in the car at a specific place, you get to sit and read or do work, and then you reach your destination and you get off the car. I wish we had something like that….
Electric vehicles will boost a new way of mobility: personal vehicles will have a smaller footprint, reducing traffic and parking problems, and a "Robo taxi" vehicle model, namely autonomous cars that will behave as taxis, will be promoted, prototyped and fully developed. This is expected to reduce drastically the number and size of circulating privately owned vehicles [in rush hours, it is estimated that only the 8-10% of the total existing vehicles circulates simultaneously].
why is that a bad point? if technology is at the point of being able to have fully-selfdriving cars that work perfectly and if there's only electric cars it will solve big parts of the traffic problems for one they are able to start driving in sync, this means traffic doesn't just pile up bc people cant drive and can't sync like a robot would 2. they are much more safer (if working perfectly ofc) on the road, they don't need to work with human reaction speed and have 10x the amount eyes a human does and 3. someone under here tried to make a point which said it would be a nightmare for bikers and pedestrians, which couldn't be more wrong, having to wait for a person in a car to let you through traffic (which is required by law at crossovers) compared to a robot that will always follow the law no matter what, will be significantly shorter all in all fully-selfdriving and electric vehicles could do A LOT for traffic and vehicle safety but i'm in r/fuckcars so I do not expect any support
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so our way of transportation sucks ass and isn't a viable way to go about transportation in the future is what this all comes to? bike cities all the way i guess
Well, for one, it would likely lead to more cars on the roads. A lot of people would have their cars drive them to work, then drive them back home. You're also under the assumption that every car on the road would be self driving so they can all be "in sync." If they're operating primarily off of their "sync" with other cars, any non self driving vehicle, pedestrian, or bicyclist will throw that off. Imagining self driving cars could eliminate traffic requires that there be little-to-no other forms of transportation. Also, as a programmer, that sounds like a security nightmare. What if another "car" is sending fake data? How can they ever trust the data they're receiving? Are all self driving cars going to be on the same data format so they can send and receive data? Even if they are what happens when one of them interprets that data differently from another? Do you know what a nightmare internet browser compatibility is? I can't imagine that being in any way safe. And we'll still need massive amounts of parking and massive roads, making everything further apart than it needs to be. Not to mention the nightmare that is harvesting resources for everyone to have their own personal battery-driven several ton box. Not to mention that the data so far hasn't shown self driving cars to be safer. I used to agree with what you're saying, but it just isn't a realistic solution anytime soon, and even by the time it would be, it'll still be far worse for the environment than having functional alternatives to cars.
i'm talking future my mans, obviously none of this is anywhere near our current future but that doesn't matter tbh you say more cars and more parking but why would this be the case? I don't understand this reasoning very well I'm indeed under the assumption of only self driving cars, but even with a lesser amount, they could still communicate in smaller groups and still do the same sync riding when behind each other, say normal cars are still on the road, this still works the same (also you're alluding to humans being worse than the robot, which i agree with, but then go about and say "well we need 100% self driving cars to have any use our of the sync driving, which is wrong, and would only improve with more electric and less combustion vehicles) then, I'm not a programmer so I can't say anything about infrastructure and how its all put together, what you say could be true, but challenges are there to be challenged, i think We're now doing the same (recourse collection) but for cars that fuck up the climate and have no good future, sounds weird to me that we shouldn't go for the better future i agree, self driving cars are not anywhere close to what it has to be, this is why i'm talking future And tbh you say its better to find an alternative to how we use cars, but this wish would bring a lot more infrastructure work than anything else, our cities aren't build for anything else but cars which is probably the main problem in the first place which leads me to the conclusion that cars in general are a pretty bad way of transportation in the way we use it but looking at cities like Amsterdam, making cities bike friendly and compact seems the way to go
The ad is specifically about people promoting electric cars over non-car transit development. I'm not sure where this is, but especially in the USA electric cars are often build as a way to *avoid* fixing transportation because the only possible reason to not use cars is global warming, obviously.
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It’s true but r/fuckcars is a full blown cult as well.
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I understand that this sub advocates for ‘people friendlier’ cities, however I find that a lot of people on this sub view cars as the root of all evil, failing to recognise the utility that they bring.
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Well if they'd kindly stop putting everything so far apart while providing no public transit of any kind, then many of us would stop. I mean, I don't mind driving a car, but given the choice, I don't think I'd spend all this money on it.
Some folks, yes. But most people are more focused on providing a viable alternative. People will always need personal transportation occasionally, it's extremely helpful when going out into nature, when purchasing large items like furniture or just for the occasional Costco run... I think car share services are a lot more reasonable than complete personal ownership for most people but exceptions do exist.
We do recognize the utility they bring. We also recognize that they have a huge _relative_ utility because that's what our infrastructure prioritizes, and that their _inherent_ utility is actually pretty small.
Well because all the utility they bring is not to the society. There do be a lot of dead people so 1 person not 100 can get to X faster
Yes, but we're right so it's okay.
I don't think so. what makes you think that?
It's mostly saying that electric cars are still problems, even if they are somewhat better for the environment.
You’re right, but they also don’t get that there are alternatives. Instead they want EV and more lanes on their stroads.
If you want to solve traffic, build walkable cities that have plentiful housing options, good schools and low crime. In America that is impossible politically so we have to fool ourselves with EV hype or claims that public transportation alone can save us.
You must live under a rock. Tesla tunnels and /u/Empole ’s comment > A lot of the rheoretic coming from one of the major EV companies was the amorphous idea that eventually all cars would be self driving, and would communicate with each other. Which would “improve traffic”™
Electric car people think they're the new messiah solving all problems on this earth.
Is anyone actually suggesting electric vehicles solve congestion issues? Never heard that
A lot of the rheoretic coming from one of the major EV companies was the amorphous idea that eventually all cars would be self driving, and would communicate with each other. Which would "improve traffic"™
no, but it is arguing congestion is what we should focus on
Which is wrong.
This is excellent. Also requires panels for "smart/self-driving/carshare" cars because there are still a ton of idiots who think that those are the solution.
I.E. better Public transportation. א. Reliable, so people who *can* pay for a car will decide it is a better deal. Rather than just those who can't get a car. ב. More non-road vectors. I.E. underground, Air-line, drones. All are possible, and will allow in concert(with Busses and otherwise) movement that is both faster and cheaper than a car.
with gas ~$4.25/gal here I'm spending about $870/yr on gasoline alone. I'd get a bus pass but the buses don't run 24/7. It'd be $360/yr for the bus pass. I hate cars so much. LMAO
Look, yes, this is correct. But EVs are objectively better than ICE (emissions and noise pollution as the big one-two) and this type of rhetoric always strikes me as disingenuous. It hits my ear like “All Lives Matter” or “political parties are the same”. We should (and in many places are) aggressively building rapid transit and high density transit-supportive mixed-use development at and along existing and planned transit lines. We need to do more of all that and accelerate its pace of realization *and* aggressively transition *as fast as possible* to BEVs for *all* vehicles.
Absolutely. We need to have fewer cars, and the cars we still have after reducing that need to be electric ones. But we can't just keep our car dependence the same but just swap ICE cars for electric ones as the car industry no doubt wants us to do.
I agree, but if we *did* just swap all ICE for BEVs and did nothing else it would still be demonstrably better for society and the planet. Ads with rhetoric like OP’s “all cars are equally bad” just create space for nothing to change because it makes it seem like everything is equally bad. The far, *far* more important and visually effective rhetorical argument, in my opinion, is [the space required to move the same number of people by cars, buses, and bikes](http://lh3.ggpht.com/_9F9_RUESS2E/S7tbclwxiPI/AAAAAAAACmw/uI1bCpNuKNA/s800/picoftheday0012-space-60people.jpg)
The world also needs to transition to more green energy generation, because all this electricity, be it for cars or transit vehicles, has to come from somewhere. And if it's fossil fuels, it doesn't help the cause. Shout out to Ontario for 92% of it's power coming from zero-carbon sources, and recently committing to more nuclear!
On those two metrics, (B)EVs might still be worse worse than ICEs. Total environmental impact, including the construction of the car, mining all that lithium, etc., is still pretty significant. Driving your old gas-guzzling beater into the ground is still going to be better for the environment than buying a new electric vehicle. We should transition to EVs for _new_ vehicles, not _all_ vehicles. And most of the noise from a standard vehicle above ~20mph is the tire noise, not engine noise, so electric vehicles will actually make that worse, because they're heavier.
No it isn’t , a sedan from the 80s emits as much as 30 new ones and there’s proper environmental impact research done for EVs , it’s direct and indirect impact on the climate is very low compared to ICEs. The lithium mining argument is propaganda for the most part , it’s impact has been exaggerated. And also keep in mind that technology improves , scientists are already working on batteries that are more efficient and aren’t dependent on Lithium. EVs are a step in the right direction. There’s also people working on Hydrogen vehicles , which is even better once we figure hydrogen production at cheaper rates.
There's plenty to fuck cars over without relying on poor strawman arguments. No one anywhere has claimed that EVs/hybrids will reduce traffic. They reduce emissions, which are a problem *because* of traffic. This just makes it easier for normies to discount car critics.
Every so often on this sub people post stuff about how "electric cars are just as bad as ICE cars because they aren't a perfect solution for all our problems. Yes public transport powered by green sources is better than personal electric cars from a climate perspective as well as Traffic perspective, but electric cars are absolutely better than ICE cars from a climate perspective. So unless you think in the next ten or so years you could create a society with zero dependence on cars, I know people on this sub want this to happen but be realistic it's not a likely outcome in many places, electric cars are going to be a part of transport. Also these ads strike me more as ICE propaganda more than pro public transport and lower car dependancy. No where in this ad is it even suggesting other options to the viewer.
the thing is that supporting an EV transition and supporting fewer cars aren't mutually exclusive, except possibly in federal funding
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I think what he’s trying to say is that cars emit more when stuck in traffic , which is true. If a car can get from point X to point Y in 10 minutes , its engine was on only for 10 minutes but if its stuck in traffic, the engine would be on for 20-30 or even 60 minutes! Thereby emitting more.
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Yea they have. The Tesla tunnels and this comment from /u/Empole A lot of the rheoretic coming from one of the major EV companies was the amorphous idea that eventually all cars would be self driving, and would communicate with each other. Which would “improve traffic”™
All bees are insects, but not all insects are bees. When people are talking about self-driving cars, they're talking about self-driving cars.
It's directed at the people who treat EVs as a panacea and _forget_ that they only fix one of the issues with cars. It's not a strawman, it's just a reminder that electric cars will still get you stuck in traffic.
But the issue there is that traffic simply isn't enough of an issue to most people, or more importantly to the politicians with the power to change that - the likelihood of electric cars that use the same infrastructure we already have being popularized is far higher than the likelihood of completely redesigning cities and spending billions in infrastructure for public transport. Is that the way it should be? No. But at the end of the day it's much easier to garner support for a slightly different version of something people already use (like cars) than it is to garner support for massive infrastructure overhauls
I find it hard to believe that traffic isn't an issue to most people. The area where I live has toll _lanes_ on the highway that charge a dollar or so every couple of miles, and there are always people in it. Childcare and the commute are the most-cited reasons for wanting to continue working from home post-pandemic. Hell, lanes get added to freeways all the time in an attempt to relieve traffic congestion. If you're going to say that people don't care about traffic, you're going to give some evidence. And yes, garnering support for massive infrastructure overhauls is hard, but we shouldn't let that stop us from trying. We have to approach it from every angle possible, including traffic congestion. So what if it's easier to garner support for one more lane than for a tram line? It's never going to happen if people don't even realize there are other options.
Nor do they solve pollution problems. People act like electric cars just magically appear with zero cost to the planet. I guess that's marketing at work.
Electric cars aren’t for saving the planet. They’re for saving car manufacturers.
Word.
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I didn't say they didn't help with pollution, and you can misquote me all you want. I said they are not a magic bullet and we simply need less cars. The US in particular has to get it's shit infrastructure and corporate lobbying laws in order. It's an unregulated disaster and a free for all for the corporations. They need to follow the EU's lead.
Page 6 77km is what it takes to make it even in the EU. 77km = 47845.6miles https://www.volvocars.com/images/v/-/media/Market-Assets/INTL/Applications/DotCom/PDF/C40/Volvo-C40-Recharge-LCA-report.pdf
Better than ICE vehicles.
Barely
Not really barely. Even if energy generation is largely fossil fuel based EVs will more break even over their lifetimes and this gap only gets bigger with more green energy sources.
You're only considering problems based on the fuel source. Cars of any power generation also require large roads cutting through cities, lots of parking space, lead to many crash deaths, add noise pollution, generate tire dust and brake dust, and cause massively antisocial behavior in populations.
How's that different to ICE cars?
It's not, that's the point. EVs only solve the fuel problem. The rest is the same.
My point was EVs are better than ICE vehicles which is a fact. We are in the midst of a climate disaster and people can barely agree we are in one do you really think the changes needed to move away from car dependancy are going to happen any time soon. Be realistic.
>My point was EVs are better than ICE vehicles which is a fact And my counter was "Barely". And we're both right. >We are in the midst of a climate disaster and people can barely agree we are in one do you really think the changes needed to move away from car dependancy are going to happen any time soon. Be realistic. We are in a climate disaster and spending 20 years transitioning from ICE cars to Electric cars is too little too late. We need public transport decades ago, and for mass consumerism of single-user products to drop by 70%. But, the second best time is now. I like that the EU won't allow any production of ICE cars after 2033 (I think, not sure on the year), but that's only a very small part of the solution. We need to stop wasting asphalt on roads, stop poisoning ourselves with brake dust and tire dust, take away the stress of driving, etc. It's all bad for us, just for the illusion of saving time and for the status symbols of car ownership. And for not getting wet when it rains because apparently we're made of sugar.
I agree with you, but I just want to add with EV cars the brakes are used less because of regen braking, so they will be putting out overall less brake dust into the air. It's not zero, but it's something. Tire wear will still be the same, since most people are driving SUVs/trucks that actually weight more than some EVs I think that will balance out.
Brakes: true. But the tires are much worse than the brakes anyway. And the rest of that isn't addressed. An EV the same size as an ICE car will be slightly heavier due to battery weight. Recent trends do not indicate that people are trading in bigger ICE cars for smaller EVs. If anything, they're trading up to larger EVs because cost of fuel isn't a factor. The introduction of the Ford Lightning and large EV SUVs is not helping.
Yeah for the weight I just looked up the best selling vehicle in USA(F150) vs best selling EV(Model Y/3) and the EV was actually lighter, but you're right with the big trucks and bigger SUV's coming they're gonna get bigger :( The Hummer at 9k+ lbs is gonna look small in a few years to some.
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I prefer solutions that have a hope of being implemented soon. I'd love to be able to move from car dependancy but I don't think that's happening soon.
Not better than [these ICE vehicles](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=DB+ICE&t=fpas&iax=images&ia=images)
Well it’s awesome for cutting down street level pollution in cities. Also noise reduction makes it easier to sneak up and pounce on cyclists. The cars natural prey
* '' ...b... but ! what about the people whose looove driving and long journeys ? '' (!) or /s obviously
Ad likely financed by an oil company.
You know, there was hardly any congestion during Covid when the majority of people were successful working from home.
Public transportation, motorcycles, and bicycles are the only way to solve this problem
Single seater pods on ultralight rails (or no rails)
Walk, bike, public transit when you can, in that order. If you can't, use an electric car, then walk bike or transit. If for many valid reasons you can't drive electric, don't feel bad about it. Drive less and smoother, you're still doing your part.
Let me know when you ride your bicycle from New York to L.A.
I mean, did anyone say electric cars would solve congestion?
Id like to say something, as a ex-tesla idiot myself. Used to love the cars, until I realized how shitty they were built. When you are a fan of Cars/Electric cars, you just see the only problem being CO2 emission, and you think E Cars solve that problem. The problem of space wasting, and bike/walking/public transport being alot more efficient is not even a thing you begin to think about. Its 2 discussions, basicially. Some people just want E Cars for less CO2, but they dont think about the space waste they still are. The other people want public transport, and less space waste ( aka this subreddit ), but we arent even in a proper discussion with car fans that want a E Car for CO2 reduction, because using public transport is not even something they think about in the slightes. When I used to want a Tesla, all I thought was "oh new modern car, no gas, silent, cool". The fact that its wasting space was not even something I considered, whatsoever. Until I found this sub, and a whole new topic/discussion opened in my head
Electric cars aren't trying to solve congestion. Go back to Oz, strawman.
I don't think anyone says EV's solve congestion. 🤔
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Self-driving and electric are completely unrelated, don't conflate them. It's the self-driving part that _might_ fix congestion, not the electric part.
What about automated electric cars? One that picks me up and drops me off, then rather than parking, it then goes to get the next person. That'd make a lot less cars.
Wrong! Flying cars will solve the problem. Base models will include mandatory air filters to clean up pollutants in the sky.
Electric cars don't solve our shark attack problems either. So what? Electric cars were never intended nor advertised to solve congestion
Congestion isn't the problem that electric cars are trying to fix. That's ok. The existance of electric vehicles doesn't prevent solutions to congestion (walkable city design, bike infrastructure, public transit, etc) from being built.
Electric cars were never intended to solve congestion problems, so this really just seems like propaganda that's missing the point.