[seanp2k2]

Don’t forget increases in microplastics from heavier EVs (usually they’re about 1500-2000# heavier than ICE equivalents) ending up in the ocean https://www.plasticstoday.com/medical/tire-wear-major-source...

Also, with heavier vehicles, you aren’t going to magically be able to use less overall power to drive them. ICEs aren’t as efficient as larger power factories, but they also don’t have dozens or hundreds of miles of transmission losses and transformers to run through. All renewables combined just surpassed coal in the US (report date Feb 2023) but that’s still only about half as much as comes from natural gas: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

You can use this tool to look up the numbers for your state for total cradle-to-grave emissions for EVs vs hybrids vs ICE https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.html

Public transit would still be an order of magnitude or two better. Bikeable / walkable cities would be better still.

I’m not saying EVs bad, but I am saying that EVs won’t solve climate change. We need to do a whole lot more, and I have zero confidence that we will. It’s just a matter of how bad and how soon. As someone in my 30s, I very much doubt that we’ll get to enjoy retirement with the same standards of living as the previous couple of generations, and as for our children and their children…I don’t think a Mad Max scenario is more than a hundred years away.

[ip26]

1) EV’s are more efficient. It’s already more efficient to burn the gasoline in a power plant to power your EV. Yes, transmission has losses, but gas cars are an atrocious 15-20% efficient. (Not that we should do this)

2) even if EVs don’t cut the transportation energy as much as we wish, they allow the entire fleet to smoothly transition to climate-friendly energy.

I love bikes. I have an e-bike that is 10x as efficient as an EV. But the public simply isn’t willing to switch to public transit and bikes. Even if they were, a fleet of gas-powered busses will probably be worse for the climate than wind-powered EVs.

P.S. microplastics are a real problem, but if you believe climate change is an existential threat, microplastics are not a very good reason to argue against EVs.

[crazygringo]

> Yes, transmission has losses, but gas cars are an atrocious 15-20% efficient

I thought you had to be exaggerating, but I just looked it up and you're right.

Holy moly. I'm genuinely surprised this isn't more widespread knowledge. I never hear it come up in most conversations around the pros and cons of EV's.

[pests]

You are talking about now. In ten, twenty, thirty years from now these will be solved problems.