Maelochs

A passionate post by someone who entirely missed the point.

jon c. 

Now that's ironic.

KraneXL

All good and valid points, but keep in mind that its not just the disposal of batteries that damage the environment, but their creation as well.

You also mentioned that creating the electricity still requires the use of fossil fuels where power plants impact the air quality at a much greater rate than cars. So the total environmental impact of electric cars may be of some benefit, but not nearly as great as most people believe. We still have a long way to go.

SHBR

This is a no-brainer. (seriously someone actually wasted time and $ on this?)

Perhaps in some cities, there isn't much motor vehicle traffic to contend with, or there are express lanes etc.

Its easy enough to test for yourself.

Here in Shanghai I often can beat/match the subway for short to medium distances, (3 - 15km) especially considering the time it takes to walk/ride to the station, and any transfers between lines.

Typical cruise speeds here are around 20kph or less.

KraneXL

Yep, I loved to race the transit home from the beaches. On some days rush hours it so congested I could literally stop and take a break. Only when I reached near the end of the 5 mile stretch (where the hills begin) does the bus finally catch up and sometimes pass me. Thing is, I'm on a hybrid so imagine what could be done with a road bike.

wphamilton

Because emissions from mining isn't the issue (and that's why mining isn't mentioned in the calculations, that I know of).

Emissions from manufacture of batteries is the real problem, and that hinges mostly on the means of producing electric power for the manufacturing. Yet even in coal-dominated areas, the cradle to grave emissions (including manufacture) are estimated to be 25% less than for internal combustion engines. That's where the lower number that I referenced earlier comes from. Manufacturers like Tesla, using solar energy for production, are a different story. This really is a much broader argument, that is incidental to the effectiveness of electric vehicle technology. Advocating electric vehicles is NOT the same as advocating coal-fueled power plants!

My OWN issue regarding batteries, the reasons I'm not in a hurry to buy an EV, is that they're still too heavy and power density is too low, which reduces the efficiency of the vehicle. And also the dependence on rare earth minerals which has its own constellation of problems, and finally the life cycle seems too short. But my objections do NOT eliminate the fact that EV's reduce carbon emissions, which is the only thing that I was pointing out.

Leisesturm

It's hard to argue with a graphic as stark as the one above but I am going to do it anyway. Ignoring the less obvious fact that a 500 megawatt coal-fired powerplant does a whole lot more than just push billions of tons of machinery around town (single driver mostly). I don't know (but would love to) what my next door neighbor does with their car but on days when I am home they make up to 3 trips an hour with it! In and out, in and out, in and out, all hours of the day and night. In an SUV! In one of the more built up urban areas with one of the top 5 mass transit systems in the country, and also the premier urban cycling culture. A powerplant keeps hospitals open, and yes it keeps servers that are hosting terrabytes of hardcore pornography online but I think it can fairly be said that powerplants are necessary. Ambulances are also necessary but do they HAVE to run on diesel? Does your daily driver? For that matter, powerplants do not HAVE to be coal fired. That is another thread. But my main argument is that global warming is NOT OUR MAIN PROBLEM. Even if we have reached the tipping point over into catastrophic thermal runaway, the bigger problem humanity faces is the negative health outcomes from air pollution! You cannot tell me that there would not be a net improvement in AIR QUALITY regardless of its carbon content, and thus, overall better life expectancy outcomes. Dead people cannot solve thorny technical issues like climate change. Sick people cannot respond quickly in the face of environmental challenges like climate change. If we can get the worst of cancer and other illness causing air and water pollutants out of the environment by migrating the entire transportation fleet of the First World Countries (chiefly the US) to plug in electric we could buy humanity a lot of time. Also for another thread is the FAIL of insisting that plug in electric vehicles need to be based on automotive platforms! An electric car should weigh 500lbs. NOT 5,000lbs.

reburns

KraneXL

I assume you got rebates and discounts? Otherwise these American electric cars are way too expensive to be practical.

Maelochs

I started back a few dozen posts ago saying it depended on the rider, the route, and the time of day .... and no subsequent poster seems to have figured that out.

Maelochs

My contention is that I am nto sure (and apparently no one else is) how Much better electric cars might be. As I pointed out, if people who "know" cite figures ranign from 20-50 percent, none of them are believable.


Also ... batteries, if disposed of properly ... if people send them to be recycled and if the recyclers find it profitable ... I had heard that a lot of U.S. trash was (for a while) being shipped overseas so U.S. companies could claim the tax breaks for recycling, while the companies in India or Bangladesh were just landfilling 90 percent of it because even with starving children picking through the trash for literally starvation wages, there was no profit--nobody wanted the old plastic.

I know where I live, the county has cut back sharply on what it accepts as "recyclable" and the list is very short---because a lot of the "recyclable" material cannot be recycled profitably, so it gets landfilled.

From what i read, LiIon batteries have less heavy metals but how are they recycled? Are they? How many people here have actually taken their used bike batteries to recycling centers? If a Volt or a Bolt of a Leaf is wrecked and totaled, how many junkyard operators are going to bother fishing out the batteries? is it profitable for them to send the batteries to recyclers?

And the cost of mining/refining Is an issue, even if no one cares. And while Tesla might be all solar (and the production of solar panels, and the mining and refining of the chemicals therefore is a pretty toxic and water-intensive business too, i hear) well, great ... that is One factory. So as I said at the start, i doubt those figures about how much cleaner electric cars are. if the people who "know" can't agree on a figure within fifty percent of the other people who 'know" ... no one knows.

wphamilton

Am I in your ignore list or something?

reburns

SHBR

tldr,

Maelochs

Sorry, i was so busy trying to get you tr realize that i didn't say internal combustion engines were cleaner than electric cars, just that i didn't trust the radical range of supposed benefits, that I missed you post which was relevant to the main thread.

It happens.

Sorry if I offended, sincerely---you are one of the few here who puts up with my nonsense and actually discusses things. I like that---I can always stand you learn new things.

Daniel4

It's not necessarily the time of day or the length of the trip that determines which is faster. It's the number of cars on the road along the way.

Trips on Monday mornings at 8am or Friday afternoons at 5:30pm are quite different on long weekends when either the Monday or the Friday is a holiday.

Eventhough the number of cars on the road slows down the car traffic, they would have minimal effect on bicycle riders.

So on an empty road or when traffic is flowing as the city planners want, cars would be faster than bicycles. But I've been stuck in traffic that closed roads due to collisions that turned a 1/2 hr trip into 3 hours. It wouldn't have made any difference on a bicycle plus that fact that growing congestion means that most traffic on popular roads will less often flow as traffic planners had planned.

You'd think that data logging 30,000 delivery trips would be able to explain that.

I-Like-To-Bike

Maybe you should read other peoples' posts before you try and figure out what has or has not been posted on this or any other thread and pat yourself on the back for your unique powers of observation. See https://www.bikeforums.net/20665845-post65.html

jjankie

I don't agree with most of this so I just gotta agree though that THINNING THE HERD is such a great idea!
"Dead people cannot solve thorny technical issues like climate change." & "Sick people cannot respond quickly in the face of environmental challenges like climate change." are such great lines!!! LOL

wphamilton

Although I argued with him previously on something else, @Leisesturm was pretty much dead on here IMO.

While his two "great lines" are true, they are also in an unacceptable way incorrect. Dead people do solve climate change, if there are enough of them. Since live people cause climate change. And sick people respond even more quickly to environmental challenges - by getting sicker more quickly. All in the unacceptable spirit of "thinning the herd is such a great idea".

Daniel4

In Hans Rosling's lectures "Don't Panic" he illustrates why the world population will reach and stabilize at 11 billion. And along with it, extreme poverty will be reduced as more and more people of poor countries are choosing to raise two children instead of the traditional four or more.

Rollfast

Not if you have an interstate through the middle of town.

SHBR

Highways that go through the middle of town, can have epic traffic jams, far worse than anything you'd ever encounter on city streets.

I spent 8 hours stuck on a highway years ago in Shanghai, after the bridge was closed because of ice buildup.

Cars ran out of fuel, passengers abandoned their cars, it was quite surreal.

The whole time, I kept thinking to myself, I wish I had rode my bike instead.

KraneXL

I love those instance. I just ride by smile, and wave.

manapua_man

I had zero problems beating the train or car in Tokyo unless I was taking an express train from a more suburban area or it was a particularly long run and that was still with following the law.

wphamilton

Naw, I can't really agree with all that. I'm not a "believer" - I can look at the facts, evaluate the relevant science, reach some probable conclusions, but that's not belief. Belief is when I think something is true or likely true, but cannot express the reason in terms of observable facts and reasoning from them.

As far as solutions to climate change, there are a lot of distinct things going on and potential solutions to each of them, which may or may not be related to population levels. If there are no or few people, there would be little or no anthropomorphic climate change. Maybe - it depends on what those few people were doing. But regardless, if moving things around is causing too many emissions, one potential solution is more distributed production, and lowered consumption. Moving less stuff around, and moving it shorter distances in other words. That may seem drastic, but it's an example of potential solutions without equally drastic population controls.

Cycling to places faster than cars than get there plays into that. Aside from just the extra tonnage of the vehicles, you're also necessarily moving less stuff, and in all likelihood for shorter distances. One person's effort makes no difference in climate change, but if it's helping to normalize those particular habits, that does potentially help to evolve potential solutions that could make a difference.