Most of the criticisms that come from the right are solvable problems, such as lack of chargers, electricity coming from dirty sources, or lithium mining. We pretty much know how to solve all those at this point. Just a matter of doing it.
Criticisms that come from the left tend to be more fundamental. Things like car-based cities being too spread out, infrastructure costs spiraling out of control, or having the average person operate a 2 ton vehicle at speeds over 60mph and expecting this to be safe. None of those are specific to EVs, and are only solvable by looking at different transportation options.
How is lithium mining a solvable problem? Genuinely asking
Oceanic sources. The projects getting underway are focusing on brine pools like California’s Salton Sea, but sea water sources of lithium in general are basically indefinite, and can work anywhere with a coastline. Other harvested salts may also produce useful byproducts, and you may even be able to run it as part of a general desalination plant for freshwater.
Not to mention there are advances with lithium recycling, both in facilities and new processes to make it more efficient.
Also, wouldn’t it be an option at some point to switch to other resources? There is so much money being thrown at alternative battery technology
The problems you’re describing from vthe right and the left are really the same problems. They’re just expressing their perception of them differently. Infrastructure solutions and spiraling costs are more challenging in less dense areas where the right tends to hold more sway. It isn’t a simple, cost effective answer. Yet.
I tell people yes do get an EV for your next car. But also use this chance to really think about if you need the car at all. Or does every adult in the household need a car each. Our city is trash for everyone having to own a car.
Best is to run your car to the ground. Then get an EV if you must own a car.
If I could guarantee that my job is remote forever, or have it written in my contract, I would sell my car.
I live a short bike ride away from the shops. I have some side bags for the ebike I built so lugging groceries isn’t too much of an issue.
The biggest shift is learning you wouldn’t shop the same way you do with a car. With a car you go to a big supermarket and load up a trolley. Spend over a hundred for a week’s worth and drive home. With a bike you kinda just buy as needed for the next couple days. You do more trips throughout the week which is kinda nice too. Forces you to get out of the house more. Benefit I realised when doing this was vegetables were less likely to just die out in the fridge since I bought as needed. Which meant I spent a little less overall.
Do you have access to food, stores, etc using public transport? How do you go about buying stuff and bringing it back home?
Your car will be worth less the longer you hang on to it. You can sell it and hang on to the money until your company tries to get everyone back in the office.
This is likely not going to be the case for the classics (old->modern-day). A Honda Jazz will lose it’s value, a classic Aston? Less likely - even static some of them are works of art.
Ok but what if the Aston isn’t cared for properly and left out to rust? Then the price will go down!
Is my bringing-up-a-small-edge-case helpful? Does pointing to 1% of situations refute the general case or further the discussion in any meaningful way?
Simply pointing out that not all cars will depreciate in value. Well maintained ones should continue to hold their value until oil prices and taxes make them out-of-reach for the average citizen. Let us not forget that 80 percent of vehicles are bought in the second-hand market… Nobody has raised the prospect of killing that market off yet in a policy sense (of which I am aware).
Live in a not so small town in Germany. I haven’t had the need to have a car after I have been living for 9 years.
I commute with bike to work, take public transport when it’s a farther journey.
Until I have a daughter a couple of months ago. I realize that I really need a car. :(
It’s hard to have a baby without a car. It’s for sleep, for nappy changing, your closet and your pantry. Those first few years especially. If you need one even for a few years it’s totally understandable.
Yeah. It’s very difficult. Going to pediatrician for example. Or if it’s raining. It’s so troublesome to bring a baby with a bike in that situation.
The cargo bike boom has brought us some really decent ways to transport small children and stuff by bike, I actually think it’s quite possible to use is you live in a not so small town. There are accessories to weather proof the cargo area, there are Iso-fix mounts for child seats and once the child can sit by itself it’s usually quite a joy for them as well. These bikes are also protecting the child in case of a fall much better than you would think.
However I really do understand that a car is significantly more convenient. I live in rural Germany and there distances can easily amount to 10-15km one way to run errands such as going to the pediatrician. It’s just a bit much, particularly with a toddler. And the car really does become storage for clothes and all that, you can just park it and everything in there is dry and safe, all that makes the car very attractive. Also a decent cargo bike with kids-friendly accessories will run you as much as a cheap small used car, although only the initial cost of course.
The key to bad weather is decent clothes, and children can easily be weather proofed for the most part. My kid is three now and I’ve seriously considered switching over to a bike, but only to replace the second car that I frequently use because my partner will need one to go to work anyways. But running the car cost me around 250€ every month (I keep track of every expense except cleaning) and that is only as long as nothing major breaks. Upkeep of even a large cargo bike is a fraction of that.
Sounds great! I still don’t think that a cargo bike is very safe. Especially for a baby. :(
It definitely crosses my mind, that I’d do that if the kid is getting older. But definitely not before 2-3 years old.
I haven’t bought a car yet. I’m still in paternal leave so I can manage to do everything. Once I start working, let’s see how well we are doing without a car. :)
Even in America, I have seen a fair few parents carrying their kids around by bike. It seems it’s not totally impossible, though you may need to put your bike through some upgrades.
I don’t dare to bring my now 3 months old baby with bike. The weather is still "summer"y now. In winter I wouldn’t do it. I myself have fallen down from bikes at least 4 times in the last couple of years. I can’t imagine if that happens while I’m taking my baby with bike.
It’s possible, but it’s really obnoxious and shitty. Especially if the weather is too cold for a new born to be outside.
New born parents is one of the few true excuses to use a car over a bike, imo.
But that’s okay, we’ll still need roads for emergency services anyway so it’s okay if some people use them.
I bet those people are doing it for economic reasons, not environmental ones. A bicycle is probably the most dangerous form of transportation for you to have your kid on.
It wouldn’t be any dangerous if car and bike infrastructure was structurally separated (and if there were far fewer cars).
But they aren’t.
That should be changed, shouldn’t it?
Of course, but if my vehicle was the only vehicle in the world, I’d still feel like a 2 year old kid on the back of my bike going 7 miles is more dangerous than on a bus, train, or even a car over the same distance.
I have two kids and use a bike (for ecological reasons). I realize I’m incredibly lucky my area has very good and safe biking infrastructure. Had to upgrade to a electric cargo bike when the second one came about, but I don’t regret at all, it’s more’confortable and safer for the kids. I do own an old ICE car, which I considered replacing with a new EV, but since I drive maybe a few hundreds of kilometers per year, I figured it’d make more sense to keep the old diesel than to replace it.
Best is to run your car to the ground.
Absolutely not if you have an older ICE car with bad gas mileage and/or a diesel. Even getting a NEW EV would be better for global warming and the health of your fellow humans than continuing THAT shit show.
Of course, as per the OP, bicycle and mass transit is still much better than any EV, but the really bad emissions cars should NOT stay on the road until their “natural” death unless absolutely necessary.
I don’t understand. I thought there’s more emissions being made from the creation of the EV and its lithium battery than using the remaining life of a gas beater.
They offset the Co2 used in production at around 40k miles, but the batteries are extremely recycleable as battery banks for solar systems, or as raw material for new batteries since it is already out of the ground and they have processes to recycle it now. The gas burned by a car can never be recycled or reused and is extremely inefficient in moving a vehicle. Not to mention the toll extracting fossil fuels is having on this planet. EVs get almost 200 mpg equivalent because of their efficiencies of motors and aerodynamics.
The idea is the concentration of lithium production can be more controlled (and recycled?) as opposed to leaving gas guzzlers out on the road. Plus the distribution of gas to gas stations and such.
As much as I want an EV. My country is just not set up for a smooth transition to EV yet. Until then it’s best to just not give the auto industry more sales and run what you have until you’re realistically ready.
That’s a commonly believed myth. In reality that’s only true for the most efficient ICEs, not the ones I mentioned.
Source?
People don’t want to change the status quo or inconvenience themselves slightly in any way for the greater good. People want a magic drop in replacement that magically “fixes/solves” the environmental crisis and allows life to continue on as is. (So they don’t have to take “yucky” public transit)
What really needs to be known though is life has to somewhat drastically change so we can make the world a healthier place for generations to come in the future.
What’s kinda funny is we already have a mode of public transit almost everybody, even those who drive everywhere, use: elevators. Buses, trains, etc. are only seen as “yucky” because most people (at least in America) don’t use them and refuse to spend their tax dollars on them, leaving them to be used primarily by the poor and desperate. But when you have public transit that is used by everybody, like elevators, you find they’re well-funded and well-kept, and absolutely no one will bat an eye about having to use it.
Try arguing that people should bring their own bags to the grocery store. Responses get hilarious quickly.
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In some cities, e.g. Vienna, public transport already beats cars. For playing your own music I have some mid/low-range noise cancelling and can watch movies
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I’m entertained by the fact that everyone gets hung up on how EVs are still not totally green because the electricity comes from coal fired plants or that there’s still manufacturing emissions and stuff…
It’s like, yeah, but compared to an ICE car, which has all the same problems (environmental cost of manufacturing the vehicle, mining and refining the fuel, transporting it, etc) but EVs don’t actively pollute nearly as much during use, and they speak as if these are of equal environmental cost, and they’re not. Additionally, ICE vehicles need a lot more oil to operate that needs to be changed and disposed of every few thousand miles.
It’s like doing less harm isn’t valuable to the people arguing against it, but then again, those are probably the same people who drive their V8 truck to get groceries.
Plus there are plenty of people, like myself, who live in areas where the electricity comes from mostly renewable sources.
Me too. I’m pretty well surrounded by nuclear and hydro-electric here in southern Ontario.
A yes, renewable nuclear energy.
Somewhat renewable through breeder reactors.
Still, nuclear energy has a very good carbon footprint (unlike coal plants) and the public image of them being polluters was a joint disinformation project by Greenpeace and the oil companies in the early 2000s. Greenpeace backpedaled hard on their stance in the recent years.
It’s like, yeah, but compared to an ICE car, which has all the same problems (environmental cost of manufacturing the vehicle, mining and refining the fuel, transporting it, etc) but EVs don’t actively pollute nearly as much during use, and they speak as if these are of equal environmental cost, and they’re not. Additionally, ICE vehicles need a lot more oil to operate that needs to be changed and disposed of every few thousand miles.
None of that is the real problem with electric cars.
The real problem with electric cars is that they’re still cars, which means they embody the same arrogance of space as regular cars. In other words, they take up too much space – both while driving and while parked – physically forcing trip origins and destinations further apart and ruining the city not only for pedestrians, cyclists and transit riders, but even also for the drivers themselves.
(That last link is from the perspective of a car enthusiast, by the way.)
I’m not going to argue with you on that point, I think cars are too big in the first place. With electric vehicles they can be reconfigured to ebikes or something much, much smaller. but I’m only mentioning the ICE vs EVs cost of manufacturing and how “green” they are. It’s a step in the right direction; it’s not the whole journey. Walkable cities and more compact designs of metro areas is still something that needs to be done, but it’s an entirely separate argument to the one I was making.
As someone who primarily drives because I live in a small suburb in the middle of a farm region, I’d be happy to park at the edge of a larger city and walk/bike/e-scooter/transit my way into the city. I think transit costs and the costs associated with most of the bike/e-bike/scooter services to be a bit high, given that I just drove to the city in the first place, but that’s a minor gripe among the plethora of other issues it could and would likely solve to have the city more pedestrian friendly.
Personally, given where I live, I’m more or less obligated to have a car, and if that car is a PHEV or full EV, would benefit the world overall; maybe not by a lot, but certainly more than using ICE vehicles to get around.
I just visited the US and I was dumbfounded how insane your city planning is. Like you literally can’t just make a short shopping trip on foot. You’d have to walk half an hour to even reach basic stores because the sprawl is so bad (City in CA with about 100k inhabitants) and then there are parking spaces everywhere. Like atleast half to 2/3 of the land space is used for parking. And ofc most parking is planned so they can accomodate everyone which means they’re always atleast half empty.
I live in Canada, we’re not any better. And for someone who lives here, it doesn’t make sense to me either.
Also, charging from the electrical grid means EV’s immediately get future improvements in CO2 usage when the grid improves its mix of power sources.
Larger engines (such as those in power plants) are also generally more efficient. And RVs don’t use oil to drive the oil to where the car can get oil - we have the grid (a modern wonder of the world) to do that for us.
The magical Nirvana solution that will turn our society into Star Trek still isn’t here, so we need to obstruct less harmful solutions while failing to offer anything usable.
If I could hop on a train from the country side or ride my bike 20m on a dirt road or ice and winter to get to a store I’d be happy but that’s not happening
Could happen soon, has happened before in most places.
If you live in a city or its suburbs maybe, I live a 20 minute drive away from civilization. Not going to get public transit out there any time soon unfortunately.
I’m the same, the typical answer I get told is to move lol
They act like I don’t want to live in the woods
But I can’t put a 75” TV and a 48 pack of Pepsi on the back of a bike duh.
This is my usual trip to the store so I feel your pain!
Why the hell do you keep buying TV and 48 pack of Pepsi every other day? Do you get anger issue or something ?
I can. The Pepsi can be strapped to my rear seat, and the TV can go in my surfboard rack. My surfboard is 81 inches, so the TV should fit. For more cargo room those kiddie carriers that tow behind, carry more than just kids.
And then it rains, hard
No worries, I have a few ponchos and heavy duty “umbrellas.”
Tarps, how do they work???
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Meanwhile, basically every Dutch students “dates” by bike, and most of London dates via the Underground.
This just sounds soooo stupid 😂😂😂😂
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I remember saying it about 10 years ago:
You can see the culture shock in how progress works across different countries:
Japan, let’s build a shockingly fast and quiet train! USA, here’s an electric car that drives itself.
Would have been great if stanley Meyer was still alive.
It would be great if our public transit system in the US was funded enough to actually be useful for more than just occasional, highly specific trips.
Not possible where I live, not enough public transport, not enough bike lanes and too far to travel Daily
Yeah I have zero public transit, no bike lanes, no sidewalks, no shoulders on the road - just two fast curvy lanes and a ditch. The last time I walked to the corner store I had three people stop and offer me a ride because it is too dangerous to even walk. Forget biking, no one is that stupid here. Well maybe a couple, I’ve seen bikes painted in memory of dead riders on the side of the road.
Sounds like you live in a garbage area
Yeah, never begrudge people for driving since they often do because there is no reasonable alternatives. Begrudge people for not voting for more public transport, better (denser) zoning, and removal of mandatory ridiculous parking requirements.
That’s what they all say. I usually assume people are just to lazy to ride their bike or feel like public transport is too much of an inconvenience. Nobody ever wants to “downgrade” and thus this planet is utterly fucked.
Pro tip don’t assume
I bus nearly everywhere but I’m lucky I’m in a city and have access to transit. Build more transit!
This reminds me, I need to work on getting a bike.
If you use it every day and can afford it, maybe look at brand electric bikes! They’re a bit like bikes, but sturdier and on bad/rainy days and whatnot it really motivates to have the motors help. They’re almost like motor scooters, if you ever had one.
Is ebike theft an issue? I’m paranoid about my push bike that I have no idea how I’d leave an ebike out.
Yes it is but you can get cheap insurance, just like you would get for a motor scooter or a car.
They’re definitely something I’m looking at. 🙂
I’ve gotten to use a class 3 direct drive before, and it was nice. Ideally, a gravel e-bike is what I’d target.
I’d kind of like to get something I can use all around since I would only have one, and my area has some nice bike trails.
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I don’t understand how hydrogen didn’t win the race. Transports and explodes just like gasoline. Make car go fast. Doesn’t degrade like lithium. Can be “mined” by throwing electricity at water during times of excess generation by renewables. When you burn it, it turns into water. Has none of the national security concerns of distribution of lithium mining and production in other countries.
You can use liquified hydrogen which need to be chilled and insulated, and will evaporate away in a short time if not properly sealed
Or you use compressed hydrogen which means you are basically carrying an IED that weighs several hundred kilograms with the amount of pressure inside the gas tank
And hydrogen combustion is as others have said, inefficient.
Another issue is that you also need to use basically pure oxygen if you want to use a hydrogen fuel cell, otherwise the catalyst inside the cell would get poisoned
And well, there is a car that did all that, the Toyota Mirai, but that also pretty much ended in commercial failure, due to lack of hydrogen filling infrastructure and a whole load of other reasons.
Everybody keeps talking about all the problems storing hydrogen, but that’s just quitter talk. You know how you solve 'em quick and easy? You simply combine the hydrogen with some carbon to make a convenient liquid fuel! As a bonus, you don’t even need to develop fancy new fuel cell tech: you can burn it in the same engines we already have.
(Half of me is serious, and the other half is making a Key & Peele style “motherfucker that’s called gasoline” joke.)
You need green energy to produce climate friendly hydrogen. This is a LOT more inefficient than to just use that green energy directly in EVs. Thus green hydrogen is also expensive and most importantly it is needed in the industry. It’s the same with e-fuels.
I don’t think any average person would know of these advantages. So theres a general lack of education about the topic.
There is also a hydrogen refueling network problem to overcome. Before public electric charging stations existed, electric people could charge at home and install their own chargers where required so the electric industry has been able to partially side step that issue at the beginning.
Finally I think it just doesn’t seem sexy. To a casual bystander it’s like gas in, pay, then drive as usual.
Because right now we don’t have that much excess energy… Therefore it’s just a waste of energy to use it, because it is way less efficient. AND on top of it an hydrogen car also needs a battery just a smaller one. So it has all the downsides without any upsides. The only upside is that you can recharge your car faster and it has some more range. But both those things don’t matter for the average consumer
Production is wildly inefficient and the storage and transfer of the stuff is quite tricky.
Hydrogen might get more prominent in the heavy vehicles, with few more innovation.
It makes sense for long haul trucking and aviation vs batteries, at least for now, but it doesn’t scale well for most common consumer vehicles. Any hydrogen vehicle needs to be a hybrid because there isn’t the fine tune fuel ratio control you get on traditional gasoline.
probably because of infrastructure. electric charging stations were one of the first around and if you ask a new car buyer to choose between two renewable fuel sources, they’ll chose the one with the most stations. In the US at lease, hydrogen stations have always been few and far between, and often quite pricey.
How bout electric bikes? 😊
They’re the best!
I’m biased towards e-bikes, at least the batteries are much smaller.
They work well with trams and trains
Good for commutes under 30kms IME.
Bikes sound like a great idea until you decide to live in the hills/mountains, or a place where it rains/snows often, or you need to buy more than 4 bags of groceries, or you live in a desert, or you are moving furniture.
eBikes really take the sting out of hills.
I live where it snows a lot, winter tires are a must, but so long as bike lanes are properly cleared it’s not really a problem (big IF I know), until it gets to -25C or colder the cold isn’t really a problem (you warm up fast peddling, I normally find myself unzipping my jacket).
My cargo bike is enough for me to take 2 weeks of groceries for 4 people. The largest thing I have transported has been a fridge (which funnily enough couldn’t fit in my EV). the bike is rated for 200Kg, but I would bet it can take more if you don’t mind going a little slower. I have also transported lawn mowers, bar stools and a rocking chair. For anything bigger than that 30bucks on a uhaul is more than worthwhile, although I look forward to electric uhauls.
Yeah, I live in Montreal which gets like 90 inches of snow annually and can get down to the -20s Celsius regularly in the winter. And yet I (and many others) still bike throughout the winter. Turns out having good protected bike infrastructure and plowing it regularly in the winter makes biking perfectly practical even in the middle of a cold, snowy winter.
In fact, two of the best cities for biking in North America are Montreal and Minneapolis, both very cold and snowy in the winter.
You will be surprised how much grandmas with grandma trolley can carry.
E-bikes still have a massive carbon footprint compared to regular bicycles, and the battery efficiency is very adversely effected by high heat (deserts) and low heat (snow) .
Either way, a car, even if its an EV, will be the better pick for every situation I stated above.
E-bikes still have a massive carbon footprint compared to regular bicycles,
The comparison is not between regular bikes and e bikes but between e bikes and cars. E bikes win this.
Either way, a car, even if its an EV, will be the better pick for every situation I stated above.
A 3000€ gaming machine will be better in any task than a 500€ office pc. But as long as the office pc is sufficient, why spend the extra money?
E-bikes still have a massive carbon footprint compared to regular bicycles
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. If you’d prefer to use a purely pedel bike go right ahead, but I find having a boost for heavy loads and hills makes biking preferable in situations it otherwise wouldn’t be. My battery is a 0.8kwh battery, which is more or less 15 iPhone batteries strapped together. My car is a 65kwh battery, literally 100x bigger for only 10x the range. While hard to find info, my understanding is my car is one of the more efficient ones out there too.
battery efficiency
Never comes into play, my bike has a 40km range with no load and no pedaling so typically even in winter the battery is far bigger than most trips I would take. There is also a longer range option (I think 100km) and you can quick swap the batteries if you really wanted to marathon. I do take the battery inside in winter as starting it warm does help it alot. I probably would be more hesitant to take heavy things in particular if I didn’t have the battery.
Either way, a car, even if its an EV, will be the better pick for every situation I stated above.
Well no, if you look at my comment I do own a car (bolt euv). I literally couldnt take the fridge in the car, i had to go home and grab my bike which could carry it. I use my bike because my city has good infrastructure that makes it quicker than driving. No need to hunt for parking, and the exercise is nice. Being able to use it while lightly intoxicated is also a plus.
Lifecycle emissions of ebiking can be a couple times lower unless you eat very green. Its been regularly over 100F here and I wish it was a desert so I didn’t have to also deal with humidity: I’ve ridden in thunderstorms and think its nicer than riding the middle of the sunny summer days. Either way, still better than driving in traffic. For moving large things, a car is not any better. And driving around a moving van every day would be a huge waste when you can just use them when you need them and drive a much better vehicle (a bike) when you don’t.
Ebikes actually have a lower carbon footprint compared to regular bikes, because they go more kilometers in their lifespan.
You can make more than 100 ebike batteries with the same amount of lithium as one electric car battery.
Keep coping loser. Many of us will be trying to actually fix the mess.
Twice of something that isn’t very big in the first place.
Please tell me more about how easy it is to move furniture with a VW Polo!
Right lol, you either use a truck or rent a uhaul for that kind of business.
Exactly. And in a hilly/mountainous area, you get a bike with multiple gears (21 gear bikes are not a rarity even in the north german plains where I live) or with electric motor support. If you need to get a lot of groceries you either do groceries more often or get a cargo bike. For bad weather there’s clothing.
Nobody says a bike is perfect for everyone. But the vast majority of people live in urban environments and don’t need to haul tons of cargo daily. Bikes are a piece of the puzzle and if only those people had a car who actually need one often it could be a huge piece.
21 gear bikes are not a rarity even in the north german plains where I live
It is not amount of gears that matter, it is range of transmission that does.
For bad weather there’s clothing.
Yeah, it seems a lot of people just don’t know or don’t want to know what proper clothing is. Maybe they don’t even know it exists.
Nobody says a bike is perfect for everyone.
Well, anyone who can’t use bike will use powered wheelchair.
It is not amount of gears that matter, it is range of transmission that does.
You are completely right. I just don’t want to get too nerdy here.
Yeah, it seems a lot of people just don’t know or don’t want to know what proper clothing is. Maybe they don’t even know it exists.
Which is surprising given how many people I see wearing super expensive outdoor/hiking jackets to go from the parking lot to the supermarket every time a drop of rain falls.
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You picked a subcompact car, rather than a vehicle that any person with more than one braincell would pick for moving furniture, such as a truck.
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You 100% will have a better time doing everything else I said in even a subcompact like the Polo than a bicycle.
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But I don’t need a bigger car 99.999 percent of the time. Why should I buy a bigger one and pay it while not needing it instead of take a rental when I need to?
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Please read my other comment.
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One thing that would go a long way in helping with that would be if we improved the quality of urban schools / parks to the point where fewer people felt like they had to move to the suburbs to start families.
Yes, that would help, but that would require major reworking of large areas. Additionally, having a large density of population all living on top of each other presents its own unique problems.
Really, its a situation where different people and places need different solutions. Some can use public transport and bicycles, and some cannot. And unless the Earths population becomes so large that every square inch of the planet is as dense as a place like Kowloon, cars will continue to fill a use that bicycles and public transport can never fill.
And unless the Earths population becomes so large that every square inch of the planet is as dense as a place like Kowloon, cars will continue to fill a use that bicycles and public transport can never fill.
Cars didn’t exist until 200 years ago and didn’t gain the depandance they have now until 60ish year ago. Cars will cease to exist sometime in the future.
We’re living in a small bubble in history where cars exist, the question is if we want to gradually reduce dependancy on cars now, or wait for the forceful bandage removal.
but that would require major reworking of large areas.
Yes, that’s precisely what will be required. There’s no getting through this without implementing massive changes to our way of life. Everyone wants there to be some kind of easy get-out-of-jail-free card, but that’s not how it’s going to be.
How often are you going to move furniture?
I lived on top of a steep hill where it gets icy and we still rode bikes. You learn pretty quickly. You should watch mountain biker down mountain races on YouTube. People are more like mountain goats than you know!
Finland would like to talk with you. At the end of talk your world will be shattered. Your ribs will be shattered as well.
Most of the people spouting the “everyone should ride a bike” stuff don’t have to feed a family of 4+ people.
I keep getting really confused reading comments like this, then remembering “Ah, yeah, probably an American who doesn’t have a small supermarket with all the everyday stuff literally next door”
Sorry that I live in a state with a size as big as your county, and a city with a population as large as a lot of countries.
In order to get everything that close you’d have to stack people on top of each other in slums like the kowloon.
I would much rather drive a mile to the store than to live in a little box stacked on top of other people.
But I guess we should just tear down hundreds of cities like mine and start all over to make them bike friendly. 🤣
Weird take.
No, you don’t have to stack people at all. A small store with 2-3 employees servicing a neighbourhood would very easily be profitable and convenient. You’d need to walk 10 minutes instead of 30 seconds if people were more spread out, but much better than the US big box store surrounded by the parking moat.
Assuming you’re talking about US suburbs, the only change would be some franchise buying a single house in a neighbourhood, bulldozing that and building a small store. That is, if it wasn’t illegal to do that due to zoning laws.
I live in a neighbourhood with a mixture of apartment blocks, parks and stores. When I step outside my apartment block, I can either walk 30 seconds to the store, the park, the vet, etc. People who live down the road from me might need 5 minutes to get to those places as they’re a bit farther away from our local store hub.
Of course big stores with much more variety and less commonly bought things exist, for that you do need some form of transport, even here. It’s just not necessary to go there to buy pasta and sauce to cook for dinner, for example.
How many people live in a desert? How many people live in the hills/mountains? Most people don’t.
“Most people”, where? Because most people in, let’s say, Norway, live in areas with hills and mountains. The US isn’t the whole world you know.
You have no idea how people in Europe live. I live in Germany. Norway has 5 urban people for every rural living person: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/NOR/norway/urban-population
And still, the urban areas in Norway ain’t actually flat. I know, I live here.
Nearly every person in South California, which is an incredibly high density of population? The entire bottom half of California is practically a desert, literally home to one of the hottest deserts in the entire planet the Mojave which contains the appropriately named Death Valley.
How about the people that live in parts of Arizona, Nevada, Utah, much of southern Texas, and New Mexico? And thats just in the United States. What about people in other continents like Africa and Asia? Large areas of those continents contain entire countries whose borders never leave desert or hills and mountains. Nearly the entire Middle East and top half of Africa is desert. A large part of Australia is desert, its like more than 50% of the continent. 1/5 of the entire land area of Earth is a desert.
Yeah fuck them. If they dont do what I do then then can go to hell am i right. Pls like and subscribe, 5 likes and ill turn into the hulk and rip my weiner off
“Bikes don’t work for some people, therefore why bother? Let’s all just drive.”
Good strawman 😍 How do i send a super like?
Why aren’t EVs that green?
Manufacturing, generation of electricity with heavy use of fossil fuels (could be changed and is changing in many places, luckily) and particulate matter (for example through tire wear) mainly.
Still better than ICEs though.
Then too, the current EVs are going to evolve. We are just at an awkward stage of development.
Then they should get much smaller and lighter. If they have to get their tires and brake pad replaced for wear every so often, where are those particles going? Unless they evolve tires and breaks that don’t shed particles in the water and the air, or get very very light batteries.
Yeah. Surely buying more tech stuff will save us. We just need to sell even more cars, but “ecological”, and the car pollution problem will be solved in time, with even more cars, but less polluting this time! Truly a marvel of engineering.
They’re pretty green if they’re not huge SUVs
Or huge sedans. If they’re bikes, they’re possibly more green than most non-electric bikes (depending on diet).
There’s plenty of issues with making a fully enclosed vehicle sustainable regardless of drive train. Just the amount of metal needed of any kind.
They will probably always be needed for last mile deliveries or people with certain disabilities. That said, if we could get most North American cities to just 20% bike usage for people’s major commuting choice, that’d be transformative.
