[ajross]

That seems 100% backwards to me. The industry required for electric VEHICLES is largely independent of their implementation as passenger cars. The battery industry right now is, indeed, being driven by FAANG employees' insatiable demand for Teslas. But it's going to be available for buses and freight and everything else too. But getting investment in infrastructure only works well if there are high margins, which means that you have to sell the Teslas first.

But pretending that somehow we don't need a giant lithium battery industry because we'll just eliminate vehicles of all kinds seems horrifyingly wrong.

[socialismisok]

Moving freight by truck the way we do is wildly inefficient. We should be slamming our hands on the table for electrified freight rail, with trucks being a last mile (or in some cases, using rail spurs to warehouses like we used to).

[Ekaros]

Actually trucks are quite balanced solution. We could for example have them use many times more smaller cars... With increased costs and worse fuel efficiency.

[dmitriid]

And then you have the problem of freight trains competing with passenger trains for the same track.

[socialismisok]

In some corridors, that's true. But we currently have rail companies that fight tooth and nail to prevent passenger rail from existing.

Personally, I'd love to see the post office running freight rail for the country, investing in electrification of rail, and focusing on moving as much freight as possible by train.

[dmitriid]

It's the opposite problem in Sweden. Priority is given to passenger trains and freigh suffers. They are locked in to decisions made decades ago (for example, single not double tracks in most places) and expanding the tracks is extremely costly and extremely slow (the bane of any modern development).

[aeharding]

We already have electric powered busses, and they don’t have dirty and heavy batteries. It’s called a trolley bus.

[quickthrower2]

Streetcars are not as versatile. They are mainly for inner city. And changing routes will be expensive.