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Comment by mint5 | Hacker News Reader

>“ Electric vehicles have a dubious environmental impact, require special and costly new infrastructure, are inferior economically and do not align with US policy goals around energy.”

Citations needed.

Oil extraction is massively damaging, co2 is causing global weather turmoil, exhaust while better than the 70’s for passenger cars/trucks is still an air quality issue, noise pollution is worse for ice.

And electric cars are objectively more pleasant and nicer to ride unless one likes loud, slow to accelerate vehicles over smooth and quiet. I guess there will be some who prefer noise and lag for nostalgia.

ICE ludism doesn’t matter though, we’re at a tipping point, especially in the rest of the world. Ice cars are become horses and no amount of complaining will stop that.

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> And electric cars are objectively more pleasant and nicer to ride unless one likes loud, slow to accelerate vehicles over smooth and quiet. I guess there will be some who prefer noise and lag for nostalgia.

"Objective" is reaching a bit. Loud? My last two ICE vehicles have sufficient cabin noise-dampening to the point that one of the manufacturers can actually pump engine noise into the cabin. Tire noise from EVs is more, typically as a factor of increased gross vehicle weight. Lag? Unless you are driving an ICE with a large turbo, what lag? And as the owner of an ICE that can accelerate 0-60 faster than consumer EVs with the exception of Tesla's Performance models (which it keeps pace with) and the Plaid, and who likes having a performant vehicle, I could count on one hand the number of times I've needed that level of acceleration. Regular Tesla Model 3 0-60 times of 5.6s is absolutely in the world of Audi (with multiple entry level models in the 5s range) and even Camry only half a second behind.

I like EVs, I've spent plenty of time in them and enjoy driving them.

But I think there's a certain irony that often those who squeal "ICE Luddite" seem to also hold views about ICE modernization that are more akin to a time capsule of "the last time I cared about ICE vehicles was 15 years ago, and I'm certain they haven't advanced an inch since then".

> Loud? My last two ICE vehicles have sufficient cabin noise-dampening to the point that one of the manufacturers can actually pump engine noise into the cabin.

Most cars are not like this, because they don't spend as much money on sound dampening materials. The baseline 'good' for an EV is just much higher. Also, at idle, ICE cars are louder.

> Lag? Unless you are driving an ICE with a large turbo, what lag?

Pretty much every ICE car that is commanded to rapidly accelerate must drop down a gear (or 2). The mechanical time to shift gears and then also rev match just physically takes time. More expensive ICE cars are faster, sure, but compared to even the most anemic EV, the EV will win in response time. As soon as you hit the accelerator, you get torque. It's just not even close. Likewise with deceleration. You have a very non-linear deceleration curve with an ICE vehicle that is neither smooth nor even.

Okay so to recap your rebuttal is coming from the context of “my last two cars were high end luxury vehicles with plentiful sound dampening” and “one of my cars is an extremely fast sports car”. Okay… yes from the standpoint of the 1% in their audi R8’s, I suppose ICE and EVs are equally quiet and lagless. I personally can’t speak to that so I’ll take your word.

But Comparing more normal people cars though like various mid range post 2020 Subarus, fords, rav4s, and 2010s Volvos, among others, those compared to EVs and plug in hybrids in EV mode including lower end ones like the crosstrek plug in hybrid - the latter were all quieter and had immediate acceleration w less lag compared those ice.

(And I’m excluding the 2025 stop start Subaru forester from that assessment because it’s lag is a whole other level from stopped. Not sure if that’s normal for all stop start cars, but perhaps this is the type of modern ICE innovation from the past 15years that the ev people are unaware of?)

Equally, airplane travel is a totally different experience when one is on a private jet or in first class versus taking southwest.

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