Globally, only one in 50 new cars were fully electric in 2020, and one in 14 in the UK. Sounds impressive, but even if all new cars were electric now, it would still take 15-20 years to replace the world’s fossil fuel car fleet.
The emission savings from replacing all those internal combustion engines with zero-carbon alternatives will not feed in fast enough to make the necessary difference in the time we can spare: the next five years. Tackling the climate and air pollution crises requires curbing all motorised transport, particularly private cars, as quickly as possible. Focusing solely on electric vehicles is slowing down the race to zero emissions.
I’m going to call bullshit, the biggest sources of emissions for logistics and transport aren’t consumers. It’s industry use, including airlines and sea freight.
Even if you don’t include sea freight, then passenger cars are still only 45% of total transport emissions.
The title is even very clearly worded as an opinion, with it being “important” being intentionally subjective language. Get some bicycles and shit, support cyclist infrastructure, but also definitely support electric rail, planes, and freight.
I don’t think electric planes are practical without some serious battery tech to get the weight down. I’m more interested in just reducing use of planes generally. So get high speed rail on land and slow down shipping a little and harness wind power where possible. Most things can take an extra week or so to arrive, and local logistics can use either hydrogen (collected using solar/wind power) or batteries.
Bro that was news like a year ago
https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a41453056/eviation-electric-aircraft/
Not to mention there are also Hybrid planes since like 2011 with Boeing’s Diamond EA36 E Star or more recently the EAG’s 70+ seat hybrid plane announced in 2020.
The readily available technology aside, I agree the world could be run a lot more ethically and efficiently.
can carry nine passengers up to 250 miles…It’s not clear yet that this transition will be possible for much larger passenger jetliners, but short- and medium-range planes could make the switch with much less pain.
It’s an interesting proof of concept, but like EVs, it’s not going to scale well to larger vehicles. We need significantly better battery tech (e.g. maybe the solid state lithium batteries Toyota and others are working on) to make that a reality.
Hybrid aircraft are certainly interesting though, and I think hybrid in general is the way to go. Electricity is generally better at acceleration (i.e. takeoffs), and fossil fuels have lower weight per unit of energy so they’re better for sustained power (e.g. cruising altitude). I’m a huge fan of hybrid cars, and think they’re way better than EVs for transitioning. You don’t need to give up range, yet you get better fuel economy. However, my understanding is that we’re talking like 5% better fuel economy, not 30-50% as in cars, so it’s going to be a marginal improvement.
Lifting a bunch of heavy stuff into the air is always going to be more costly energy-wise than moving it along land. So we should be focusing on fast ground transportation instead of more efficient air transportation because we already have good solutions for ground transportation (high speed rail, bullet trains, etc) and just need to pay the upfront cost to get it off the ground (ha!). Aviation imo should be limited to things that need to be fast, and rail should be out main form of long distance transportation.
I think the only reason it isn’t being used at a larger scale is because airlines are finite and the big names on the industry would rather rely on time-proven machines built 30 years ago. Even if they only converted half their domestic fleets now: imagine the cost savings on decreased fuel costs associated with lower demand? Problem is, the cost of new planes doesn’t justify the savings over time, yet.
Maybe? I’m not an aerospace engineer, but everything I’ve read indicates that the weight of the batteries would prevent airplanes from transitioning because it would be too much of a trade-off. Hybrid airplanes seem promising, but I’ve seen numbers from 5% reduced fuel (not meaningful) to 40% or more (seems a bit too optimistic).
Better battery tech is coming (Toyota claims as early as 2027), so maybe that will improve the outlook for electric airplanes.
Even if we had better battery tech today, it would still take years for airplanes to incorporate it properly. So I think we should be building out better rail systems. We have that tech now, and we’ll want it even if we have electric planes.
Cycling is not the solution. It’s infrastructure.
I would love a walkable city. But I can’t afford housing close to the city. The bus or train system isn’t strong enough or convenient enough. Our country are set up for cars. Housing prices are set up for people to drive further to live.
Have affordable housing near the places I work and I won’t need to drive. Stop blaming people for living their lives around a broken infrastructure. Stop cramming bicycles down our throats. We are not the problem.
Yeah cars aren’t part of the solution at all
Cars are just the “effect” of the “cause”. Vote in your local elections for better zoning laws and stop upvoting these shit articles that blame the people.
We won’t fix the problem until they are gone
I mean, with that logic, if 1/2 of the world population didn’t eat and just died, that would also fix the problem too. But that isn’t going to happen so your statement is as dumb as mine.
Put a ban in place for 2030 or 2035 and it will be fixed
If you don’t do that then everything will be designed with the existence of cars in mind
Even today they are building new roads, you go to a sub division and there are roads in front of every house
So people like me who can’t afford a job near my work have to ride a bicycle for 40 miles one-way for my work because someone in the past made home zoning impossible to scale the population growth.
Please tell me why I have to suffer and those fuckers who is camping in those expensive unattainable homes get to enjoy their home values?
Why do you want people like me to suffer more than I already do by having to drive 80 miles a day?
The point is you won’t fix that if there are cars
Why would you suffer from an issue that only exists because of cars if there weren’t cars?
We are not the problem.
Then what is the problem?
The infrastructure
And who built the infrastructure?
We did.
👉
“we” is used very liberally here. I had no say in the planning, implementation, or even the allocation of funds for the current infrastructure. In fact, most of it has existed since before I was born.
You’ve also been able to vote in a few local elections along the way, yeah? Where I’m at there are often candidates who champion bicycle infrastructure, and it’s not a new phenomenon. More often than not they’re mocked and not elected. I imagine my city isn’t unique in that.
So yea, WE are to blame.
Sure, I’m to blame for being outvoted. Thanks. Fuck you too.
It’s not a personal attack on your character. It’s fact. Grow the fuck up.
most of it has existed since before I was born.
I’m sure a lot of things existed before you were born.
There were also a lot of things that didn’t exist before you were born.
Change da world, my final message. Good bye.
I’m sick of people blaming the people. I’m sick of people trying to shove bicycles down our throats like THAT will fix the issue.
My comment was in response to the blaming of the people and pushing cycling as the solution. This article should be, how do we influence better zoming laws. How we do improve the city infrastructure.
We do vote. Every election cycle. We do what we can with our few voices.
The sooner we stop upvoting these shit articles the sooner we can fix the actual issue.
… even if you swap the car for a bike for just one trip a day.
That’s the real takeaway that I hope everyone can acknowledge.
Outside of long distance (50km+ each way) commuting, the majority of single-occupancy car trips tends to be super short distances (something like <5km).
Replacing those short trips can be fun, easy, quick, and could have a massive positive impact on society. We just need more people doing it. 👍
For context: The environmental impact of PRIVATE JET travel can be over 1000 times more than other travel modes. Aviation produces just under one billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually, accounting for 2.5% of global CO2 pollution.
I don’t doubt this at all.
But it’s going to be 10 degreees Fahrenheit on my way to work tomorrow.
Public transit that doesn’t double my commute time is what’s going to get me to stop driving. Not a bike.
Why Canadians Can’t Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)
Tens of thousands of people cycle year round in Montreal.
Tampere has improved a lot in the last few years in terms of cycling infrastructure, I now commute by bike all year round, even when it was under -23°C for two weeks at the beginning of this year.
There could definitely be more improvements as segregated bike lane coverage can sometimes be a bit patchy still.
Cool, what about those who don’t live within biking distance?
My work is 37 km of rural highway from my house. I biked it once years ago, took me 1h45m one way. Not a reasonable option.
Cool. What about all those people who live within 5km of where they need to go, and are generally alone in the car.
Just because it doesn’t apply to you in particular doesn’t mean you can’t support and champion a cause that would help in the grand scheme of things.
The comment I replied to implied that if people in Montreal can do it, why can’t I? I was merely addressing the implied accusation.
Besides, if you want a champion the guy making $40k/year isn’t it.
The billionaires got a lot of money to spend on transit and infrastructure and densification, but everytime this shit comes up somehow the guy who barely clears the fuckin poverty line is the one who has be a champion.
This is a very simplistic solution to a really complicated question. I say this as a cyclist myself.
Cycling is great for short commuter trips. But it doesn’t replace long trips at all, not practically anyway.
Cycling, while great for your health, consumes extra calories that you wouldn’t otherwise have to expend. That extra food has its own carbon footprint. Depending on your diet and where it comes from, that extra carbon footprint can actually be quite significant.
Cycling reduces congestion. No argument there.
Even if you cycle, you are probably cycling to local stores that have their merchandise driven in on big trucks. It’s still probably more efficient this way, but far from net zero. Remember that the environment you live in is still mostly powered by gas guzzling equipment. That equipment will need to be electrified.
And that’s my point. Cycling is not a one size fits all solution. It is one piece of a much bigger puzzle.
Cycling is great for short commuter trips. But it doesn’t replace long trips at all, not practically anyway.
Depends on what “long trip” means. 20km? 50km? 500km?
Sure, a bike isn’t ideal for “long trips”, but it’s easily integrated into other forms of public transportation, which is also better for society than having more EVs.
Trains cycling and walking can do by far a huge amount of transport needs. Just look at Japan.
No one is saying it will fix 100% of all issues, they are just saying its such a huge part of it even if you took half the funding of cars and put it to bikes it would solve so so much.
Exactly. And if people cycle more regularly, cities will adjust infrastructure to accommodate them. And that includes more than just cycling infrastructure, but trains, buses, etc.
Ideally, we push to get that infrastructure done now to help build that positive feedback loop.
Honestly this, 100%.
My bike can easily get me to & around the nearby city, no problem at all. Bulky shopping? Not an issue, I have pannier bags.
Long distance trips though? Absolutely no chance. They require some planning and pre booking bike spaces on the long distance train, mainly because our public transport has been turning into a mess. It’s been on a steady decline with prices on the increase, and its not really an attractive option anymore.
I won’t be giving up my bicycle, but I have eaten the forbidden fruit and started learning how to drive, since it’s the only alternative to bridge the ~200mi journey between here and the people I care about. I dislike it a lot, and it’s actually quite stressful being behind the wheel, compared to just relaxing on a bus or train. Even riding on my bicycle is much less stressful.
We observed around 4,000 people living in London, Antwerp, Barcelona, Vienna, Orebro, Rome and Zurich.
There’s the problem. These articles always come off sounding tone deaf to me, because they refuse to acknowledge the existence of people that don’t live in big cities. There are a fuck load of people that don’t live within a 15 minute drive of a grocery store. People that have multiple kids that go to school and have after school activities 10+ miles from their house. People that live more than 25 miles away from where they work.
I realize the authors might have good intentions, but when I hear articles that basically say “your EV isn’t good enough, you need to ride a bike” I can’t help but think “oooooh fuck off.” Not everyone lives in a city. Not everyone wants to live in a city. An EV is the best option I have, so quit giving me shit for it.
people live in cities though, here in sweden 82% of the population lives in an urban area, and HALF our population lives in the 3 major cities. Complaining about ignoring rural people is absolutely pointless as it’s hugely more likely that anyone reading the articles is living within moped distance of their job.
Sure, but EVs are solving the wrong problem.
I live in a similar situation as you, about 25 miles from work, 3-4 miles to my kids school along busy roads, and about a mile to the nearest grocery store (not bad). For me, cycling makes little sense (I do it though from time to time) because there are no cycle paths where I need to go, they only go to recreational places.
People driving EVs doesn’t solve the actual problem, which is cities designed around cars instead of pedestrians. What we need isn’t more efficient cars, but more efficient ways to get around.
Think about where you live. Imagine a train connecting your city center to downtown, and cycle paths feeding into the train network. Replace some of the through roads with bus and pedestrian/cyclist-only traffic, and force cars to go around your city (i.e. no through roads). That way, you’d have two options to get to work/school/etc, on a bike/bus/train, or going the long way in your car. If the direct route (train) is competitive with the car, you’d probably take that option instead.
Getting people to ride bikes more isn’t the end goal here, the goal is to show cities, counties, and states that there is demand for better transit, and that a shift away from cars is possible and even wanted. That’s the goal here, not to use bicycles as the solution by itself and vilify cars. Cars will have their place, but that place should be at the outside of cities on longer trips (e.g. that 25+ mile commute, road trips, etc), not on grocery runs or whatever. If we remove a lot of the roads, we’ll have space for stores closer to where people live. That’s the goal.
As an avid bicyclist who tried their best to live car-free: it’s easier said than done for anyone living in the US. I used to make 7 mile commutes to work, even in winters that could go below zero some days. It’s doable, but it wasn’t easy either. I completely sympathize with anyone who wouldn’t want to bike in those conditions, even if a whole bunch of people do so in places like Finland.
But the worst part is the infrastructure. Motor vehicles dominate everywhere. Motorists are routinely hostile to bicyclists. Despite my best efforts to be safe, I’ve had multiple close calls and was once nearly rear-ended by someone who was going about 50 mph. Technically I did get hit - I had veered to the right just in time to feel the side of their car brush on the side of me. Miraculously suffered no injury, and only one of the support bars on the rear rack had been dented in.
Point is, unless the infrastructure changes, I would never expect others to switch to biking. It is dangerous.
Cycling, outside of the few separated bike trails, is a death wish in TX.
That’s because Texas was built wrong. The solution is to fix it, not push cars instead of bikes.
No one pushed cars. Kindly do not assume things no one stated.
they literally ripped out the streetcars in a conspiracy and got a slap on the wrist fine. cars were absolutely pushed down out throats., why do you think it’s so hard to choose not to use one even if you want to?
Current time response to claim of pushing cars in this thread is in no way countered by discussing things that happened somewhere else a hundred Years ago.
Yeah, I’ll just haul my kids around on an electric bike when it’s 20 degrees F (-7 C) with a windchill around 0 (-18 C), which also coincides with EVs getting absolute shit range because current batteries hate holding charges at that temperature. Also, I drive a 20 year old vehicle with 190,000 miles that I paid $3000 for 6 years ago or so. EVs and even E-bikes cost a whole lot more than that without the utility.
On top of that, calling vehicles that contain lithium batteries “zero-carbon” is laughable. The mining, refining, and manufacturing process in itself is an environmental disaster. I agree we need to find new modes of transportation powered by methods other than burning coal, natural gas, and dinosaur juice, but we don’t currently have the solution to this problem.
Manufacturing electric cars generates a bit more emissions than internal combustion cars, at least now while the technology is relatively young. Last time I read about it, an internal combustion car would catch up and pass the electric equivalent in emissions in a couple of years of normal use.
I’m not against electric cars. One just doesn’t exist that meets my needs currently.
EVs getting absolute shit range because current batteries hate holding charges at that temperature
That’s blatantly false and shows just how little you know. The reduced range is due to the heating (both cabin and battery) performed. You don’t even need to heat the battery, but it will perform better when warmer.
There is no significant waste heat on EVs like the ~70% there is on ICEs, so the energy for heating cannot be passively recovered but has to be actively spent. If you disabled all heating (which is obviously not feasible), the reduction in range would be significantly less.
