this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2024
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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.

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[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 125 points 1 month ago (4 children)

We're going to run the country into the ground because we have such a large group of people being totally fine with (or even encouraging) their lack of education and the ability to reason properly. They're just proud to be "against" something together, they don't even care what it is they're against.

There are already EV battery recycling plants springing up now that there are enough used EVs to warrant them, there wasn't much point building them when there weren't any battery packs to process.

The renewable energy switch is already happening, because even without subsidies they're still cheaper.

But no... gotta get out there and roll coal.

[–] Hobbes_Dent@lemmy.world 29 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

North American auto has lost its mind and handed over any chance at being top-tier in the future. Seems game over to me. Canada is joining in on the 100% tariff game and I'm furious that my government will, this late in the game, try and protect an industry that gambled with the oil and gas industry and lost (not to mention their compete fall into profiteering in five to six digit major life purchases) by passing costs of avoiding Elon and subpar selection onto consumers.

I hope the industry wakes up and goes hard for competitiveness in EVs and stops waiting for elections to decide if climate change is real or if the economy will be affected by their decisions. To stop waiting for elections to decide if people want EVs. To allow manufacturing to flourish regardless of who's fighting for the rights to our money while we briefly have it.

And to your point yeah - just like Asimov said:

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.

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[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 28 points 1 month ago (4 children)

I live in Virginia and the other day I saw a Tesla with a custom license plate for friends of coal. like I don't even...

[–] cygnus@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I must admit this is a big-brain move — being for electric cars in order to have more coal-fired plants rather than burning gasoline.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Even a coal burning EV emits less carbon than a gasoline car. The payback threshold may increase uncomfortably though. A while back I read something doing that analysis per US state. I believe the threshold ranges from 2 year in states with cleaner energy, up to 14 in coal burning West Virginia and Wyoming

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[–] AtomicHotSauce@lemmy.world 19 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

This is the bottom line. We all know who these morons are and they’re never going to care what actual repercussions are for their actions. They think it is funny to “own the libs” no matter what the issue may be. If a left-leaning person advocates for one thing, their automatic reaction is to oppose it without question.

It’s truly scary to look around (especially in red states) and to know a good percentage of those around you are that dumb.

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[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago (13 children)

The end of life battery recycling has been the #1 thing I've been looking at. Glad to see they aren't going to landfill.

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Battery upcycling is also becoming a thing. If an old battery is not fit for a car anymore it can still be useful in other contexts; like you could convert it into a battery for home or grid storage with minimal processing.

edit: rephrased to remove double negative

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[–] AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee 36 points 1 month ago (15 children)

Public transportation is even better yet

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago (4 children)

And when we actually get that going I'll stop making sure I always have a car available.

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[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 30 points 1 month ago (4 children)

can you really blame us?

let me run through the last 8 years of American history with four words, "we were lied to". doesn't matter from whom, doesn't matter what. we're constantly being lied to. truth is, it's been true for longer than 8 years, but the last 8 have been especially transparent.

we're learning that the upper echelon only trusts the American public to do three things; consume, produce, and die. if you can't even do that for them, you're removed as an undesirable.

so yeah, trust in the system is broken. it's going to take at least a generation or two just to repair it ** if they work on it**.

I can't fault anyone who's untrusting of a system that continuously covers lie after lie with more lies.

[–] JackFrostNCola@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

8 Years?

How long did fossil fuel companies know about climate change?
How long did the fuel industry know about the effects of leaded petrol?
How long did cigarette companies know about links to cancer?
How long did pharma companies know about opioid addiction risk?
How long did social networking companies know about psychological manipulation?
How long did the sugar lobby know about their links to diabetes and obesity?
How long did the manufacturing companies know about PFAS and microplastics?

I would say you have always been lied to.

[–] hedgehogging_the_bed@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

Your forgot that plastic manufacturing knew it wasn't recycled or recyclable.

[–] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I can't fault anyone who's untrusting of a system that continuously covers lie after lie with more lies

I can and will. Learn some basic critical thinking skills and apply them. Throwing your hands up and ranting about how "the system is broken" is mopey teenager shit.

Things are far more complicated than your whiny rant. They world is shades of gray rather than the simplistic "bad guy in black / good guy in white" situation that you characterize it as.

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[–] ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago (9 children)

The only valid criticisms of EV's are:

  1. They're harder to extinguish than a gas car if they end up catching on fire.

  2. They don't really solve any of the major issues with car based infrastructure.

  3. Tesla is a shit show because of that damn muskrat which pushes a lot of people away from EV's in general.

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[–] NineMileTower@lemmy.world 19 points 1 month ago (2 children)

An even larger portion of America can't afford them, so it doesn't even matter.

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[–] TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee 18 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (16 children)

Over the longterm, and they also require a lot less maintenance because they don't have to deal with mini-explosions from combustion generating excess heat and stress. The problem is in the battery, and the industry hasn't even scratched the surface for solutions.

I see trucks carrying butane tanks all the time, where are the trucks carrying EV battery replacements? There aren't because the industry wants to charge extra for fixed installation ones depending on capacity and charging capacity and there is absolutely no profit incentive that offsets other losses to standardize battery systems in a way they can be easily extensible or replaceable.

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[–] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago (10 children)

Put them in a sealed room with a gas engine running and you'll see how fast they realize that they're cleaner

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[–] dutchkimble@lemy.lol 14 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Genuine question - are EVs better for the environment if the main source of electricity of my country is coal based? Most of the coal plants are pretty old too…

[–] LordKitsuna@lemmy.world 36 points 1 month ago (14 children)

Yes, whether your electric plant is coal, natural gas, or honestly even if it was diesel. Larger engines are more efficient than smaller ones. It's been a long time since I broke down the math over 10 years so my information is probably wildly out of date but even 10 years ago when you broke down the math charging an EV from a fossil fuel plant of any kind was still ultimately more efficient than a gas car in the long term.

Couple that with the ability of many EV now to also act as a battery for your house and that just goes wildly into the EVs favor if you utilize that for peak demand offset. Which many people could do easily even if it meant not having their battery fully charged in the morning when they go to leave for work because let's face it very few people drive more than 60 miles full round trip in a day so even with their battery at say half they would have more than enough for their whole day plus extra.

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[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 22 points 1 month ago

Yes. That's the entire point here. The answer is yes.

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 12 points 1 month ago (6 children)

EVs have a lot of advantages over ICEs. It's good that things are evolving finally to make EVs more than a niche. It however doesn't remove the problem that they are still a car with all of those negatives, even if they pollute much less. In some ways providing an individual solution could harm efforts to reduce the number of cars on the road. It's not a final solution, only a step to fix a few of the most obvious problems while retaining others.

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[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Because the conservative machine, despite the love of Elon's right-wing antics, never stop talking about how bad EVs are. Funny, the only time they act like they care about the environment is when they talk about how bad the EV batteries are to manufacture. While they roll coal and drive gas-guzzling mall cruiser bro-dozers all over the place.

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[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

Its about 40% more power efficient per mile but theres a couple of other trade-offs, still better yeah.

[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

Cleaner than gas cars =/= Clean.

This is the lowest possible bar to pass. The point isn't that EVs are worse than gas. The point is that both are terrible for people, health, safety, climate, transit, sustainability, equity, freedom, etc.

[–] ClassifiedPancake@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 1 month ago (3 children)

So what’s your plan? Ban cars? Good luck.

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[–] Eximius@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

Wut. Cars have legitimate uses.

EVs dont only not pollute wherever they drive, but overall are probably around 70% efficient if including the power generation, while gas is 40% or less.

The others, I think you are projecting US problems to the whole self-owned transportation sector.

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[–] ninekeysdown@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

Because we Americans are easily swayed by propaganda, unfortunately.

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

zombie engineer voice "traiiiiiins"

[–] SeaJ@lemm.ee 8 points 1 month ago

Not surprising. There has been a pretty successful campaign by the right to paint EVs as worse for the environment because we get our electricity from coal (we barely get anything from coal) and mining; more expensive to fuel up (using the highest priced fast charging vs lowest price of gas); and worse from a humanitarian perspective (cobalt mining).

Things to refute this: EVs, even with coal power as their energy source, emit less CO2 over the lifespan of the vehicle compared with gas vehicles. Mining sucks and is indeed environmentally damaging but oil is also fucking terrible. The benefit of EVs is that the vast majority of a battery can be recycled whereas oil is single use. So to meet a consistent demand, we do have to ramp up mining but once the demands is met, mining can be scaled back dramatically.

For fuel costs, it's easy to do the basic math but many don't. I've seen people complain that their electricity bill will just skyrocket. When I suggested my parents get a battery powered riding mower, my mom thought they would be more expensive and that the electricity bill would be just as much as the gas bill. The price of the mower is the same and the electricity cost was about 1/15th of what has is and you don't have to be riding around in gas fumes.

As for the humanitarian angle, the right obviously does not really give a shit. You could easily point out the atrocities that oil companies have done over the years. You could also point out that cobalt is being phased out. We could also do the mining here instead of having our done abroad. And there is the previous point that most of this just had to be done once then mining can be scaled back.

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