Be Honest: What's "Stopping" You from Buying an EV

So much back and forth in this thread about how EVs are or aren’t really better for the environment but nobody has mentioned the following:

- Weight. EVs are considerably heavier than equivalent ICE vehicles of the same dimensions. This results in more shedding of toxic tire particles into the air than with ICE vehicles.

- As above, the added weight means that crashes resulting in serious injury or death, all things being equal, are likely to increase by a non-trivial amount including from crashes with other vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians. There are over 40,000 automobile-related deaths in the US every year which is approximately the same number of deaths caused by guns. The move to EVs, coupled with the fact that it seems almost EVERYONE drives something akin to a German war tank these days to commute to their office jobs, will almost certainly cause that number to go up even further in the coming years.

- The only sustainable solution for people who are actually concerned about climate change and protecting the planet is not to REPLACE gas powered vehicles with electric ones, but rather to REMOVE cars from the road by building cities and places in ways that make car ownership and car usage less of a necessity. More rapid transit, more high speed rail, more density, less sprawl, local zoning reform, etc. This is the only sustainable future no matter what the EV zealots will have you believe.

What an a hole...your first reason is that I am paying for your car. A hole.

All true but removing cars is not the "only sustainable solution"

We can improve road safety; we can improve tire materials.

We can just make smaller cars.

I f**king hate arguments that insist that because an intermediate step isn't perfect or has other issues (that are not as bad as the primary problem), it shouldnt be done.

EV is dumb. Can you imagine no V8's, V10's or V12 engines? Car companies are just going woke. Who would bother buying a Ferrari or Lamborghini if there cars are all electric in the future. You want to hear the roar when you are racing along scenic routes. A cute girl is going to take you more seriously if you can rev a big engine near her, and you won't be able to do that in an EV. Also I don't like the way almost all cars are automatic now. I want a gated manual transmission. We need Trump back, and other countries also need similar leaders to reverse all of the changes that are been forced upon us.

The problem is monoculture. With so many things in our society, it isn't the thing itself that is the problem but the demand and scale. Like meat for example. It's not a few people eating some meat sometimes that is the problem, it's everybody eating meat for almost every meal. Just because doing something is good doesn't mean that every single person on earth doing it is going to be a good thing. Having billions of people demanding one thing is never good, for anything. On the contrary, we want as much diversification as is feasible in the use of every kind of product.

In reading this thread it is clear that whether to buy an EV or not is not the concern.

The concern is all the people that have made high impact lifestyle choices that are environmentally unsustainable.

Buying an EV will only partially offset choosing to have six kids, drive a monster SUV, put mega miles on your vehicle each week/year, etc

Choices like those are why the climate and planet are **cked,

Before you downvote, please just think about it more first.

You may ask, will I buy an EV?

No, because the only electric vehicle I considered buying was an electric bicycle. Did not buy an EV because my traditional bicycle, legs and feet, and public transportation get me anywhere and everywhere.

It’s not just emissions, it’s lithium and cobalt mining and transport to the distributor, then to the manufacturer. Then the fossil fuel from charging and the waste of the eventual end of the battery life.

I still think EVs are probably more environmentally friendly in the long run, but it’s not going to solve the bigger problems.

Also, at least in the US, people don’t want small cars. I pass more SUVs than cars on my daily commute.

All the above in combo with 139 IQ and and strong analytical background. BTW I fully support anyone that gets one. More petrol for me.

Electric vehicles are a half measure. Patchwork environmentalism.

You sound like the communists that are insist everything is patchwork measure except mass revolution of the proletariat, so no improvements that do not directly lead to mass revolution should be pursued.

Being an anti-progress cynic is a easy way to feel smart, but rarely do anti-progress cynics actually have any impact on the world.

i have family that lives 5 - 6 hours away.. not making that 7+ hour trips because the car can't make it

i will consider a hybrid, but full EV, no how, no way

All those things added up are still much better than the enormous amount of energy we spend extract oil and the enormous amount of GHGs and pollution we dump into the atmosphere by burning it.

Just because something doesnt solve some ultimate problem (limitless energy) doesnt mean it shouldnt be done.

I swear you losers would find a way complain about cheap, easy, fusion power

the argument that it's charged with dirty power isn't quite accurate and is cynical. first, you could generate your own power off your roof. second, in our state 25% of power is solar and wind. so that 25% you're wrong. and that 25-75% is an allocation where our state is deliberately trying to shove the generation back to gas and coal. to then moan "but the generation is gas" is basically echoing your bosses' own gamesmanship. it's highly cynical.

it's like you play along with a slow match-race style heat pace then whine you didn't make it in on time as a small q. you didn't go 100% on purpose.

there are hurdles to the 75%, to be fair, but dragging feet doesn't move along that science and innovation any faster.

1) how often do you make that drive?

2) If the EV had a 600 mile range, would you buy one. Or if it could charge in < 10 min.

3) What if the operating costs saved you say $3000 a year, would you just rent a gas car for the occasional long trips?

None of your complaints are intrinsic issues with EVs, it's just the current stage of the tech.

range is a fake argument. most cars with a 10 gal tank x 30-40 mi per gal have a 300-400 mi effective range without going to one of those gas dispensaries we have abundantly placed. you're really beefing about charge times or station availability.

Your argument is based on a premise that electric vehicles represent progress, even if marginal. I’m just not sure that’s true for the reasons stated. There are ways in which they are an improvement over ICE vehicles, but there are ways in which they are not. Hard to say if, on balance, it’s really an improvement from an environmental and societal perspective.

We can simplify it for you.

From an air pollution standpoint alone it's a massive upgrade, especially in mega-cities in Asia.

I find it incredibly hard to believe that the microplastic and mining side effects of EVs are sufficient to offset even the air pollution benefits alone.

i generally agree with you. we now have highly skilled PR who give people excuses for everything. if we keep doing gas cars the planet will burn. relative to that bird strikes on a wind turbine or EV issues are small fry. people can no longer compare competing concerns to assess which is more serious. you just give silo-ed folks their excuse and they drop political anchor where they sit. it's then 100F+ for 2 months here and various things are breaking around town that we minimize and externalize. roads falling apart at the seams. water mains break. water drought. people die. etc.

for that matter, whole chunks of the world are going EV by rapidly approaching deadlines. you either want to sell them cars or not. we in the 2000s instead reinforced selling massive SUVs who don't have a big market. i am sure the idea is we can do the cynical political thing and then at least some of the automakers will survive if they have to quickly shift to electric.

yeah i don't think people here have any idea how bad air is in asia. like take whatever reagan era smog your city had x 10. it's like a huge layer a significant way up from the horizon. to the point you don't even realize it's like sunny out, just only a few hundred feet up. like near permanent fog.