Of course there’s still some fossil fuel use (tires, some mining, etc) but overall, is there anything inherent to cars that we would continue to suggest that people just try to not use cars and use public transportation instead?
But are you confirming my guess, that we would no longer be able to say cars are bad on environmental grounds?
All EVs do is mitigate the tailpipe CO2 issue.
Take for example the phrase “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
Cars definitely are ideal for certain things, but designing society and the built environment with car transport at the primary concern is highly misguided and bad for the environment even if tailpipe emissions are no longer a thing.
But in what way do they make for less pleasant cities? Wouldn't moving to electric vehicles all but get rid of noise pollution from cars?
Running next to >30mph street is a mentally taxing experience. Running on a road or trail without traffic is amazing and one realizes a mental burden is removed by eliminating the noise and extra attention required for safety.
1. The quiet—you can call to somebody on the other side of the street and they will hear you!
2. Visibility—walking down a street with no street parking is a completely different experience, you can see all of the storefronts, all of the pedestrians, etc.
3. Mobility—you feel total freedom as a pedestrian; cross the street wherever you want, no need to worry that you'll get plowed over by a car.
I actually like the idea of superblocks like they have in Barcelona. They were wonderful.
They seem like a highly pragmatic solution where you can have a mix of pedestrian friendly zones and still allow for vehicles (and in some cities, in the pedestrian friendly zones, only EV delivery vehicles are allowed).
This kind of stuff to me seems more pragmatic than the general sentiment that cars are bad.
A common approach, for example, is to allow deliveries up to a certain time, e.g. 11AM.
Leaving the car plugged in overnight, while you sleep, leaves it with full range in the morning.
I think this is one of the biggest advantages of EVs, that is least touted: you never have to go to a gas station ever again.
Also a rural location offers the easiest installation of solar/batteries, which means that not only do you never go to the gas station again, but your transportation fuel is now provided onsite. Providing a huge increase in independence/autonomy.
And if you plugged in your car while you ran whatever errands you needed to (or could get 100 miles of range at a L3 charger in < 10 mins, which is even possible today), what exactly is a use case where this wouldn't suffice?
For the record, I'm actually in favor of keeping cars and I consider proposals about people ditching their cars to be absolutely impractical, and will land on deaf ears.
That said, like any other normal human being, I would like to reduce pollution _everywhere_.
So I'd like to understand if people will still make those arguments once the "cars are bad for the environment" impact is greatly lessened from EVs.
Not if they are accellerating faster, because 'whee! high torque, let's burn some rubber' -> even more abrasion.
Also all that shit IS NOT growing on trees, and I havn't seen even one sankey-diagram accounting for all the externalities, be they ecological or economical.
It's just one big money grab.
Churn, Churn, Churn! The wheels must turn, ever faster and hotter, until they burn. Then comes another plotter along, and tells how our ways were wrong. Here is the next solution, everything else has been a delusion!