I think it’s just reminding people that EVs aren’t a panacea to all our issues with transportation, and they actually exacerbates at least one of those issues. This is while we know there are better solutions for >90% of our personal transportation with public transportation, bicycling, walking, micro-mobility, etc. Moving one or two people around with a multi-tonne machine is insanely inefficient!
Comment on How to make an EV tire that won’t pollute the environment
pr06lefs@lemmy.ml 1 week ago
Hot take: tire particulates are a conservative anti-EV talking point. “My V8 mustang weighs less than an EV, therefore its better on pollution than a EV because tire particulates”. Totally disregarding the impact of tailpipe emissions.
n2burns@lemmy.ca 1 week ago
Scolding7300@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Exacerbate = the rare minerals issue?
Thetimefarm@lemm.ee 1 week ago
No it’s not, because conservatives don’t think micro plastics are a problem. Pretty soon there will be truck bros making tiktoks competing to see how quickly they can destroy a set of tires just to “trigger the libs”.
Scolding7300@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Anecdotally, so far I’ve noticed cars getting louder
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I saw a thing on some US people welding fucking whistles in their car’s exhausts so that they could annoy as many people as possible. Apparently it’s legal in some places there.
AltheaHunter@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 week ago
The whistles go woooooo!
Grippler@feddit.dk 1 week ago
They’re loud because of safety reasons!! /s
Usernameblankface@lemmy.world 1 week ago
One person I know claimed to have run calculations, and found that the tire dust alone was putting out more pollution than the tires and tailpipe of the average gas car. Idk where they got their numbers or how that could work out, since the average gas car in America is a large truck.
frezik@midwest.social 1 week ago
It could be true. Catalytic converters do a pretty good job of filtering out most pollutants. They also increase CO2 emissions in a variety of direct and indirect ways. Everything else is lower, though.
The way to make EV tires pollute less is to not chase 600+ mile range. Keep them around 300-400 miles, and use further battery improvements to reduce weight. There’s no reason EVs have to be heavier forever. With better charging infrastructure, 400 miles is more than enough.
The way to fix everything else wrong with them is to not make cars the default mode of transportation.
grue@lemmy.world 1 week ago
The way to fix everything else wrong with them is to not make cars the default mode of transportation.
Say it again louder for the folks in the back!
Delta_V@lemmy.world 1 week ago
There’s no reason EVs have to be heavier forever
That’s a bit of a stretch, unfortunately. The energy density of batteries is nowhere close to that of gasoline - joule for joule, gasoline weighs about 100 times less than batteries. Also, a fuel tank big enough to give its vehicle a 400 mile range will get lighter over the course of the trip, as the liquid fuel gets converted into polluting gas and exhausted into the atmosphere - batteries don’t get appreciably lighter as you discharge them.
Agree that 400 miles range with charging stations as ubiquitous as today’s gas stations would help EV adoption. I do worry about the rollout of charging stations being slowed down by competition with expensive and fragile hydrogen tech (keep the hydrogen on boats and trains pls).
frezik@midwest.social 1 week ago
Hardly a stretch. The comparison isn’t to the power density of gas, but overall curb weight. EVs are roughly 10% heavier than an ICE equivalent. Batteries are the main reason for that (electric motors and the electronics to support them aren’t that much). Batteries have also been improving Wh/kg by 5-8% per year. It only takes a few years of improvements to get there.
In fact, since the 10% number has been the case since around 2020 or so, the battery tech might already be there and we just need to get them into new models.
grue@lemmy.world 1 week ago
expensive and fragile hydrogen tech (keep the hydrogen on boats and trains pls).
Frankly, I’m skeptical that hydrogen belongs anywhere.
Also, trains have no excuse to be anything other than electric! If you’re spending the money building the track in the first place, it’s really not that much extra cost to put up overheard wires too.
AceBonobo@lemmy.world 1 week ago
It seems pretty obvious, but also, it would be nice to see improvements in this area.
praise_idleness@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
It is also a vaild anti-car talking point.
uis@lemm.ee 1 week ago
!fuckcars@lemmy.world