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Comment by jeromegv | Hacker News Reader

What catastrophe? Did you miss the California fires 2 weeks ago? Improvement in farming also clearly came from improvement in agriculture, you seem to imply that the rise in climate temperature is the only explanation.

And no, there is no evidence that temperature has ever increased that fast.

And even if you keep denying the impact of climate change, think alone of the change in AIR QUALITY in a place with so many cars like Los Angeles. The increase in air quality alone in big urban centers is worth it on its own. It's already been improved quite a bit in recent years (at least in the west) and this can only get better. I live next to a big road here in my city and I just can't wait to have less emission vehicles on the road.

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This.

Also, people should buy electric cars. FACT: a bad electric car is outright better than almost any ICE car.

Source: I own a Nissan Leaf. And it’s no Tesla. Still leaps and bounds above any gas car I’ve ever driven.

All EVs are good EVs. As long as you're displacing combustion, you're doing your part.

Tell that to the people facing 5-digit battery replacement bills at mileages that are far short of what a good ICE car or truck can deliver. (I know several people here in Texas with old pickups that have 300-400K miles on them. One has only changed the oil and replaced accessories like alternators and pumps.)

400k miles is nothing to batteries (with good BMS and temp control like Tesla) and electric motors.

Compilation of 300-450k mile Teslas. https://www.tesloop.com/blog/2019/2/6/tesloops-high-mileage-...

900,000 km (559,350 miles) https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-record-mileage-900000-ki...

1 million km (621,000 miles) https://electrek.co/2019/11/30/tesla-model-s-1-million-km/

Maybe in Texas.

They salt the roads where I am and the winters tend to bounce between frigid and just cold - so there's often consistent freeze/thaw cycles from December to March. The amount of wear that puts on exhausts and piston rings would blow your mind.

It's also conducive to EVs - my Leaf is pushing 70k and hasn't lost more than 2% of battery capacity (and possibly less - it's capacity loss is a rounding error) in the time that I've had it. It's active cooling is just how blooming cold it is here for a lot of the year.

The other issue is that here diesels are much more popular than petrol/gasoline. And diesels are just an unreliable nightmare of sunk costs. The amount that can and does fail on a modern diesel and costs four figures to get fixed is scandalous (and that's not even counting DPFs and flywheels).

The most that's ever gone wrong with this car is a bulb going out. I fully expect to get 100k out of the car while I have it, and I'd be astonished if it doesn't do 200k or more in it's lifespan.

> a bad electric car is outright better than almost any ICE car.

You are right, and I want to add more perspective that in your proposal there are now 2 cars on the road. Your electric and your used ICE car. The better situation is to drive your ICE car to its end, and only then replace it.

Our over consumption is a part of the problem as well.

This doesn't really make sense... the person who bought the used car wasn't just going to not drive if it weren't for sale, they'd just buy a different one. Now, there is one ICE car and one electric car on the road instead of two ICE cars.

If half of the world immediately upgraded to electric cars, sure there would be a temporary surplus of vehicles, but it would only last until the old ones broke down.

> If half of the world immediately upgraded to electric cars, sure there would be a temporary surplus of vehicles, but it would only last until the old ones broke down.

Exactly. There'd be a temporary surplus of (newer, better-condition) ICE vehicles. And people who are otherwise faced with a $1500 bill to repair their old one "kinda needs repairs, burns some oil but a quart a week isnt too bad", will instead buy a more efficient ICE. Most new BEV will get an old shitty ICE off the road.

It takes someone young to be this ignorant. The emissions of modern car engines are truly negligible. And air quality used to be really horrible.

Modern electronic engine controls have slashed emissions so effectively that the exhaust of a modern car running there is actually be cleaner than the ambient air of that time - Yes, a modern car running in LA in that era would actually be cleaning the air!

If you want to clean up the air, go after all those Chinese container ships burning bunker oil that is literally one step up from tar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_fuel_oil

Fixing these filthy ships would make orders of magnitude more difference than eliminating all fossil-fueled cars from the road.

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