Do EV's actually do anything beneficial for the planet?
I've seen a lot of posts here on Lemmy, specifically in the "fuck cars" communities as to how Electric Vehicles do pretty much nothing for the Climate, but I continue to see Climate activists everywhere try pushing so, so hard for Electric Vehicles.
Are they actually beneficial to the planet other than limiting exhaust, or is that it? or maybe exhaust is a way bigger problem?
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First priority is to get rid of cars in general. Try to use bicycles and public transportation. If you don't need a car to get to work, consider a car share service to replace your private car/private parking space.
EVs probably have around 1/10th the lifetime emissions of a gas car, which is still really significant.
Easier said than done in a lot of American cities and burbs. I’ve tried to go without a car, and it just hasn’t been practical.
I’m on the edge of a denser American metro that actually has a subway, and when I ditched the car for some of my jobs, I added several hours of commute to my day, and it honestly started to wear on me physically.
When I have the money I’ll probably jump over to an EV. It seems like the most reasonable solution for where I live and work.
Yeah, unfortunately transit options depends a ton on where you live. not just which city, but also individual neighborhoods in that city and where your workplace is. Even when you live near rail-based transit, often cities might not bother running proper routes and schedules to make it viable. But we should support public transportation and bike infrastructure efforts when we can.
Do you have a source for that because that's radically better than any number I've heard. Most analyses I've seen have been more like 40-60%.
Doesn't this hugely depend on the power generation in your area?
No source, but I remember hearing that EVs earn back the cost of their manufacturing through their zero emissions within about a year. I extrapolated based on that with the assumption that a car will last about 10 years. I live in Sweden where our electricity is carbon free/ carbon neutral.
What you heard was probably about tail-pipe emissions which are very low compared to ICEs indeed but they only represent a small part of an EV's lifetime emissions.
In the EU, EVs reduce lifetime emissions by about 30%. Certainly not nothing but not anywhere close to solving our transport emissions problem.
It's basically "refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle" except for cars it's "refuse, cycle, public transport,, car pool"