ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Richard230 on June 14, 2021, 07:37:29 PM
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According to the attached article, which was published in my newspaper yesterday, the U.S. EPA prefers ICE-powered vehicles and doesn't pay much attention to electric vehicles. Likely because ICE keeps them busy testing emissions and dreaming up new pollution rules, whereas EVs don't give them much to do. Not good for their employment futures. ;)
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Not to mention how much money the fossil fuel industry pours into political donations...
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Not to mention how much money the fossil fuel industry pours into political donations...
Well, there is that. ;)
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Job security!
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Job security!
And the contributions to the economy. The naiveté of people is astounding if not surprising. Swaths of America are drowning in the opioid crisis due in no small part of outsourced jobs and no reasonable hope for a better life. So, lets just eliminate hundreds of thousands of other jobs with the stroke of a pen because there certainly won't be any negative downstream societal consequences and 2016 is an aberration rather than portending the obvious future where people who have no hope but a brick will make themselves heard.
The EV world is majority elite buyers and this is certainly the case compared with the rest of the world. We need to continue to transition to electric and nuclear but this takes time if you want to avoid chaos and social disruption. I'll get flak for pointing out the obvious, but people would rather virtue signal online than actually read a history book and take the effort to recognize patterns.
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We don't have time to transition.
It needs to be done yesterday.
-Crissa
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I agree - the time for a painless transition is passed - we squandered it arguing the economics & the science ... and protecting our consumerist lifestyle
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Job security!
The EV world is majority elite buyers ... We need to continue to transition to electric and nuclear but this takes time if you want to avoid chaos and social disruption. ... read a history book and take the effort to recognize patterns.
RE:
Elite buyers — because the government hasn't backed & subsidized the EV industry enough to help Economies of Scale kick in, in that industry, as it has for the oil industry for many decades — with cost of production reduced & POINT-OF-PURCHASE rebate incentives, like Biden is considering, then all car buyers can take advantage of a government incentive to help them afford buying an EV & not just car buyers that can take advantage of a tax deduction.
Transition takes time — it really doesn't have to take this long (especially considering there is a climate crisis) — consider historic patterns like when the government led the country in the right direction, in directing manufacturers to contribute to winning WWII, RETOOLING their factories IN MONTHS, to produce very different products (going from manufacturing cars to planes/ships/tanks/etc.) — retooling from ICE to Electric vehicles is MUCH, MUCH LESS RETOOLING.
Chaos and social disruption — like with the retooling to win WWII or the transition from horse and carriage to autos, there was no chaos (that's absurd) — disruptions are necessary sometimes, to keep humanity advancing (otherwise we'd still be living like cavemen), there've been disruptions throughout history and are necessary when the current situation is effing things up.
We don't have time to waste on thinking about excuses — our time needs to be spent on thinking of solutions like business models, creative financing, inventions, etc..
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I also agree that the world is running out of time because of excess pollution. EV or hydrogen power will help a lot, but that by itself is not enough. Our new world order of using disposable products rather than fixing and reusing carries a lot of the blame, has also contributed to the loss of high skilled jobs. Really, who fixes there old TV, dishwasher, etc.
If you want to have nightmares think about all of the plastic bags, cups, lids, etc floating around the world and slowly working into our food chain.
One thing to consider is that when we buy an EV, what do we do with our old vehicle. We sell it for someone else to use. So although we feel good about how we are saving the environment we are actually just kicking the can down the road!
We need some kind of scrapping program where old vehicles are recycled or maybe even converted into EV for this to be truly helpful.
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Even then, you'd be scrapping a perfectly-serviceable vehicle for a brand new one with all of its up-front environmental costs to build and ship. A typical electric car takes 3 years to break even with a gas car in terms of carbon emissions because of the higher manufacturing footprint. When replacing an already-built gas car, the break-even is even longer unless the old one is a true gas guzzler. If everyone rode e-motos for transportation instead of cars, it might be different, but electric cars are not a solution to the crisis of carbon emissions.
The only real way to reduce the transportation footprint is simply for people to drive less. If someone can cut down their driving to a few thousand miles per year and find a way to take transit or active modes for most of their daily trips, that is way more sustainable than buying an EV. It goes back to your first point about maintaining and reusing instead of disposing. The auto manufacturers would love for us to scrap all of our gas cars so they can sell us a billion+ shiny electric ones, but there's nothing sustainable about that.
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EVs only get a better footprint, over their lifetime, while ICE gets worse. More renewables on the grid means lower impact over time.
The average car is held 10 years, so a three-year break-even is pretty good.
-Crissa
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Sure, but that's like declaring something health food because it's slightly better for you than a Big Mac. If everyone living a car-dependent lifestyle switched to an EV tomorrow and continued driving just as many miles, we'd still have a major emissions crisis on our hands. Switching to an EV is better than nothing, of course, but it's a band-aid on a gunshot wound. Compared to carpooling, transit, active modes, or even car sharing services like Zipcar, EV's represent a huge amount of investment for a comparatively tiny reduction in environmental footprint.
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If everyone living a car-dependent lifestyle switched to an EV tomorrow and continued driving just as many miles, we'd still have a major emissions crisis on our hands.
Not exactly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlskX2gtHt8
-Crissa
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Not exactly.
I think what flynnstig82r is saying is that even if all transportation vehicles in the world became effectively zero emission we'd still be in a bad situation since that would only eliminate emissions 14% of all greenhouse gases. Other sectors have to follow suite as well if we hope to get things under control.
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data
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Not exactly.
I think what flynnstig82r is saying is that even if all transportation vehicles in the world became effectively zero emission we'd still be in a bad situation since that would only eliminate emissions 14% of all greenhouse gases. Other sectors have to follow suite as well if we hope to get things under control.
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data
That too, but what I was getting at is that sources like the excellent summary video that Crissa linked make a definitive case that EVs are better than ICE cars for personal mobility. However, that compares them with literally the worst possible thing you can do for the environment in terms of personal transportation. It doesn't compare them with genuinely sustainable transportation options like bicycles and public transit (see attached image). Crucially, it also doesn't compare them with the amount of Co2 that each of the Earth's 8 billion inhabitants can emit if we are to stay below 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius rise in temperatures. Buying a new car blows your Co2 budget on the manufacturing emissions alone even if the per-mile emissions are extremely low.
In addition, to be sustainable requires not just low environmental footprint, but also financial stability and equity. For cars of any powertrain to be the dominant mode of transportation requires massive infrastructure subsidies that create large distances between people and activities and make sustainable transportation options like walking, cycling, or transit artificially expensive in time, risk, and/or operating costs. This is in addition to other externalities from driving like crashes and additional health care expenses of a sedentary mode of transportation. EV's may be more sustainable than ICE cars, but solo driving trips using EV's are still not sustainable by a long shot.
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Saying something doesn't solve it all is giving ammo to those who say we can't do enough at all.
We have to do many things.
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Of course. I'm not anti-EV, I'm just pushing back on the idea that replacing gas cars with EV's should be the primary focus of advocates or represents the best use of government funds. If someone can carpool or take transit or active transportation options for most of their miles, it might be better for sustainability for them to hang onto the old gas car for incidental trips than to buy a brand new vehicle that had a huge manufacturing footprint to be produced and shipped.
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I've found it surprising how many people do not accept the idea that more modes of transportation means fewer cars on the road.
-Crissa
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It is amazing how many of my fellow Americans think they need a multi-ton vehicle to transport just themselves every day...
My car only gets used in really bad weather, or when I have to carry too much to fit on my motorcycles. Otherwise I'm nearly always on two wheels.
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It is amazing how many of my fellow Americans think they need a multi-ton vehicle to transport just themselves every day...
My car only gets used in really bad weather, or when I have to carry too much to fit on my motorcycles. Otherwise I'm nearly always on two wheels.
It is the same with me. I only drive my car about 500 miles a year. Most of the chores and family visits that I used to use my car for has been replaced by my Zero. :) To carry stuff and for shopping I have an expandable tank bag, an expandable seat bag, a set of soft saddlebags and a Givi top box in two different sizes. My Zero is a beast of burden. ;)
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Same here! After I get my Zero I sold my Jeep and we now get by with one small car and my Zero. So far after 2 months it is working out great.
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I love doing errands on the Zero ^-^ About as much energy to go to the store as light a 100W lightbulb for any hour. It's great.
-Crissa
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I love doing errands on the Zero ^-^ About as much energy to go to the store as light a 100W lightbulb for any hour. It's great.
-Crissa
Let's see. A 100 watt light for an hour is 0.1KWH. Your Zero has around a ten KWH battery, I assume (nominal). Perhaps gets 6 miles per KWH at the most in the city. So 0.1 KWH would be 0.6 miles round trip at best. So your store must be 0.3 miles away. I think I would just walk and leave the bike at home.
-Don- Reno, NV
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My bike has an 8.5kWh battery, which would have less available, but completely unrelated to how much it takes to move it.
The store is .9 miles away and several hundred feet down in elevation. Coming back with the groceries on foot (or even my bicycle) is a feat.
-Crissa
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We don't have time to waste on thinking about excuses — our time needs to be spent on thinking of solutions like business models, creative financing, inventions, etc..
I'm not talking excuses. I'm talking people who can afford $30,000 on an EV toy while they dream of peeing on the little people in fly over country as they sit in business class to realize that there is a great pissed off wave of populism rising against your righteousness. You think Joe Manchin is worried about losing his seat in West Virginia or that Trump is the worst that we can get.
People who stand in line to buy the latest SUPREME drop while virtue tweeting on their slave made iPhone need to chill on the righteousness. Saying wee nee to go electric tomorrow? OK, put down the latte and get your ass hundreds of feet in the air running electric lines or else all you have is self-righteousness and no plan.
Where are you people pushing for Thorium reactors? Yeah...all talk from people online when they have the money and expect the little peons to do the sweat work. The masses will own nothing and be happy.
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Sure, but that's like declaring something health food because it's slightly better for you than a Big Mac. If everyone living a car-dependent lifestyle switched to an EV tomorrow and continued driving just as many miles, we'd still have a major emissions crisis on our hands. Switching to an EV is better than nothing, of course, but it's a band-aid on a gunshot wound. Compared to carpooling, transit, active modes, or even car sharing services like Zipcar, EV's represent a huge amount of investment for a comparatively tiny reduction in environmental footprint.
Thumbs up and this is my point. Lets all feel better about ourselves by forcing all EV cars and motorcycles on people (who can't afford them) and putting a lot of people out of work all the while achieving minimal results. Consumerism and building pollution never get a mention. It's always cars/motorcycles while ignoring all else. Change is needed, but results over feelings will work.
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This thread appears to be taking a spin on the dark side. :(
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This thread appears to be taking a spin on the dark side. :(
(https://massagefitnessmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Tone-Police.jpg)
So long as real-life Titania McGrath's refuse to consider the unintended downstream consequences of their self-righteousness, what we all here want (more EV options and energy/supply chain freedom and independence for the US) gets subsumed to feelings.
Even if every ICE car/motorcycle got crushed this morning, there is not enough material to build enough EVs for everyone and the impact is still going to be minimal compared with planes, mining, manufacturing, energy production and building energy waste. This is a multifacted problem and comfortable white collar people continuing to tell blue collar people dismissively how to live (or just die) is not a winning strategy.
There has to be a transition not a revolution. Not my thinking....reality.
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A fifth of US emissions is from automobiles.
So no, it wouldn't be minimal. Airplanes are less than a sixth of what cars put out.
I do not understand this argument or its timing. What does this have to do with promoting alternate means of transportation?
-Crissa
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A fifth of US emissions is from automobiles.
So no, it wouldn't be minimal. Airplanes are less than a sixth of what cars put out.
I do not understand this argument or its timing. What does this have to do with promoting alternate means of transportation?
-Crissa
Right now I am starting to worry that smoke from wildfires in the West are going to overtake vehicle emissions. :(
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The transportation sector isn't the only one going green. Right now, there's a major shift from natural gas heating towards air conditioning units with heat pumps.
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We don't have time to waste on thinking about excuses — our time needs to be spent on thinking of solutions like business models, creative financing, inventions, etc..
I'm not talking excuses. I'm talking people who can afford $30,000 on an EV toy while they dream of peeing on the little people in fly over country as they sit in business class to realize that there is a great pissed off wave of populism rising against your righteousness. You think Joe Manchin is worried about losing his seat in West Virginia or that Trump is the worst that we can get.
People who stand in line to buy the latest SUPREME drop while virtue tweeting on their slave made iPhone need to chill on the righteousness. Saying wee nee to go electric tomorrow? OK, put down the latte and get your ass hundreds of feet in the air running electric lines or else all you have is self-righteousness and no plan.
Where are you people pushing for Thorium reactors? Yeah...all talk from people online when they have the money and expect the little peons to do the sweat work. The masses will own nothing and be happy.
When people assume & generalize, it makes them look bad — you're assuming & applying what some people do, to other people that actually don't do those things, and you're implying that I can afford a $30,000 EV & that I'm righteous (or anyone that can afford one) — you don't know me, I can't afford one, I'm not rich or well-off, or righteous.
Ask, don't assume & consider that everyone does the same bad things that you don't like. If you're pissed off then do something constructive that'll improve the situation.
For your information:
- I don't drink any kind of coffee & I never follow the masses. I only drink natural spring water all day.
- To spend time, money, & resources on installing high voltage aerial lines, hundreds of feet in the air, would be stupid for various reasons — microgrids & nanogrids have begun to replace these high voltage lines. Why would anyone want those dangerous electrical lines ??
- I have plans — you generalized & assumed again — I'm working on a business model & innovative solar PV project to eliminate some burning of fossil fuels.
I'd love for you to come up with SOME SOLUTIONS to improve some of these things that you're complaining about — that would be an outstanding use of your time. Buckminster Fuller said: "You never change things by fighting existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." I'd like to see you transform that pissed off energy into positive action. Come on dude, I'm rooting for you! We'd all benefit from it.
Peace bro.
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When people assume & generalize, it makes them look bad — you're assuming & applying what some people do, to other people that actually don't do those things, and you're implying that I can afford a $30,000 EV & that I'm righteous (or anyone that can afford one) — you don't know me, I can't afford one, I'm not rich or well-off, or righteous.
Ask, don't assume & consider that everyone does the same bad things that you don't like. If you're pissed off then do something constructive that'll improve the situation.
No. No, you are not in a higher moral position no matter how you try to weasel out of getting called out for your righteousness. Don't talk smack and then act like the poor little victim. True, I don't know you and have no desire to. I judged you on how you chose to present yourself. Too many soft privileged Americans want to say whatever and never get called out on being wrong.
For your information:
- I don't drink any kind of coffee & I never follow the masses. I only drink natural spring water all day.
Thank you for proving my point. With such violence and death in the world, you think that you are better than other people because you have the CHOICE to not consume a particular liquid. Dying infants in Yemen would be happy with toilet water to keep from dying.
- To spend time, money, & resources on installing high voltage aerial lines, hundreds of feet in the air, would be stupid for various reasons — microgrids & nanogrids have begun to replace these high voltage lines. Why would anyone want those dangerous electrical lines ??
It is called engineering a power grid for those who don't live in their gated communities. People who exist that you clearly have no idea about.
- I have plans — you generalized & assumed again — I'm working on a business model & innovative solar PV project to eliminate some burning of fossil fuels.
Plans? How precious. Elon has vehicles on the street and so do companies in countries like India and Vietnam.
I'd love for you to come up with SOME SOLUTIONS to improve some of these things that you're complaining about — that would be an outstanding use of your time.
Thorium reactors and nuclear batteries. There. I fulfilled your challenge.
Buckminster Fuller said: "You never change things by fighting existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." I'd like to see you transform that pissed off energy into positive action. Come on dude, I'm rooting for you! We'd all benefit from it.
I'd like to see those on my side who want to transition away from fossil fuels to stop being as hubristic as you have been in your reply. That you seem to not understand that you are coming across as condescending is astounding....or you trolling. No one in West Virginia who is facing their livelihood decimated being told to do better as a human by someone claiming to be moral by having the economic choice to choose what safe to drink and readily available fluid to imbibe is going to see or care. We see this already about masks and vaccines despite the statistics, so you think people are open to power sources when there is a war over staying alive?!?!?!?
“I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” - James Baldwin.