this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
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Electric cars are indeed much worse for the climate at production time than combustion cars likely will be throughout their entire lifetime.
But this matters little, as the electric car is not made to be the perfect alternative, it is instead made to be the "weird in between solution" that we need to bring as many devices as possible to use a common power source and get people acquainted with the concept, before moving to the actual solution.
The next steps will be better battery technology because, let's face it, lithium gel batteries suck, and proper power sources.
In the end, I guess it's kind of a "chicken and egg" situation.
Break even point is currently around 13k miles though it depends on where you live.
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/when-do-electric-vehicles-become-cleaner-than-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/
And that's not even counting the growing market of battery recyclers.
and what kind of vehicle you're replacing. Replacing a small compact ICE with an EV? Probably a longer amount of miles.
Replacing a Ford/GM Mega superduty emotional support truck with an EV? probably much lower.
In much of Southern US, they've got three kinds of vehicles. Massive new shiny trucks, really old gas guzzling reality size trucks, and speed bumps for the first. You can't see out of a compact car as you are always in a valley of truck.
What are they supposed to do? Not drive a truck? They have an office they have to commute to! Think of all the people who would totally make fun of them (read: not care at all).
accurate representation of Southern mentality. The Women want a Truck because they feel unsafe in a little car with massive monsters blasting past at 80MPH and Men want them because they've got very small peepee.
I found this analysis quite interesting:
https://www.carboncounter.com/#!/explore
I listened podcast/interview (one of the latest Making Sense podcasts by Sam Harris) with a person who studies climate change and the ways to address it. And she disagrees with your statement. She said that just couple of years of typical electric car use is required to offset the production, and the rest is all green.
I often wonder how much better battery technology would be today if batteries had become a more popular solution than gasoline back in the day.
It’s weird to think that electric vehicles (albeit primitive ones) existed over a hundred years ago.
Imagine if instead of rewarding Reagan for having the Iranians keep the hostages so he could rip the solar cells off the White House, we;d rewarded Carter for recognizing the trap oil was.