Everyone knows that electric vehicles are supposed to be better for the planet than gas cars. That’s the driving reason behind a global effort to transition toward batteries.
But what about the harms caused by mining for battery minerals? And coal-fired power plants for the electricity to charge the cars? And battery waste? Is it really true that EVs are better?
The answer is yes. But Americans are growing less convinced.
The net benefits of EVs have been frequently fact-checked, including by NPR. "No technology is perfect, but the electric vehicles are going to offer a significant benefit as compared to the internal combustion engine vehicles," Jessika Trancik, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told NPR this spring.
It’s important to ask these questions about EVs’ hidden costs, Trancik says. But they have been answered “exhaustively” — her word — and a widerange of organizations have confirmed that EVs still beat gas.
Public transportation is even better yet
And when we actually get that going I’ll stop making sure I always have a car available.
yay for privilege I guess but we can’t all do that
For inner city folk yes.
The US used to have an incredibly comprehensive rail network, combined with street cars in every town. This “public transit is only for cities” nonsense is pro car propaganda.
I used to live outside a town of 3,000 people. Prior to the 1950s it had a trolley that would take you to the 15 miles to the nearest city, and from there you could catch a train to go pretty much anywhere.
Saw a rural bus system working perfectly fine in South America. If they can figure it out, so can we.
In Japan, taxes collected on the Tokyo metro (which is privately owned but heavily regulated) help subsidize a thousand little suburban and rural bus and rail lines. It’s not rocket science, even in the US a similar scheme is employed by the Post Office to ensure everyone’s mail costs the same to the consumer.
You can still have public transit/trains on suburban areas. See Germany or the Netherlands.
Its not a “you can” problem. Its a “we don’t” problem. I cannot get to work on time (7am) using the only public transport we have (bus) in a county with a million people. Also would take about 1.5hrs longer than by car. to be 15m late (assuming the bus is on time) every day. puts it around 4 hours travel to/from work, so work takes up ~12 hours of your day.
It sucks that this is so commonly the case. I’ve had times when I’ve been able to commute by bus to work and it genuinely makes the trip so much more pleasant - even if it takes thirty minutes longer (as it did in my last job where I did it) the ability to be on my phone for the whole trip was so nice I’d go back in an instant if I could.
Or Japan, or China, or South Korea, or Italy, or Argentina, or Lancaster PA, or parts of New Jersey even. Fuck man so many places have public transit.
How I’m imagining public transportation in Lancaster, PA:
I mean close but instead think a fleet of like 20 bus routes that spread out in every direction for miles and miles into suburbs and farmland. And the buses have real time GPS tracking.
But otherwise very similar.
Japan beats everyone.