This is a very interesting (and highly-interactive!) piece about #ElectricVehicles... and, yet, if we are going to discuss "underbellies" of #EVs then I think the following are almost always neglected:
How heavier vehicles negatively impact roadway safety and increase non-exhaust emissions (dust and PM 2.5); and
How heavier vehicles (and the proliferation of cars, in general) will drive a growth in negative concrete externalities - which are significant.
General Motors announced it also made a deal with Tesla to use its Supercharging network and the North American Charging Standard (NACS). Ford did that a...
Last week I posted Rowan Atkinson's piece in which he cast doubt on the current viability fo #electriccars & some of you replied with opposing analyses suggesting EVs can & should be more widely used & are already helping battle the #clinatecrisis
Now the Guardian itself has put up an extensive debunking of Atkinson's anti- #electricvehicles arguments, which I am also happy to post - not least as much will be familiar to you from last weeks' comments in the timeline
@jbenjamint@ottocrat The biggest issue, in my mind, especially in the US, is that #ElectricVehicles are sucking pretty much all of the resources (monetary or otherwise) away from rail and regional/local #transit projects.
And once the powertrain transition is largely completed, it is not like said projects will fare any better.
This article hand-waves that and I am sure that I am not saying anything new here, but any environment argument is wholly incomplete without it.
“Registering an electric vehicle in Texas will cost $400 initially and $200 each renewal year. Ostensibly, this fee would offset the portion of the gas tax allocated to infrastructure and road maintenance.
In reality, the bill implements a tax that does nothing more than protect the oil industry and score a culture war win for Abbott. It’s replete with logical inconsistencies and obvious half-thoughts.”
"The bill implicitly excludes hybrid vehicles, defining an EV as “a motor vehicle that has a gross weight of 10,000 pounds or less and uses electricity as its only source of motor power.
...
However, if Abbott’s tax targets EVs to offset wear and tear on roads and bridges that can be apportioned to them, then hybrid vehicles—which get substantially more miles per gallon than gasoline-powered cars—would reasonably need such an offset tax as well.”
“A tax on the amount of kWh used at a public charger would be much closer to a functional vehicle-miles traveled tax than the gas tax ever was. It wouldn’t come with the big brother connotations of tracking vehicles directly and could be used to finance public charging infrastructure at the same time."
Just seen a clip of Jim Farley talking on the Fully Charged show (would not normally watch it) and he explains how OEMs have no clue about software and built a business on no having a clue, which has made things "tricky" for them. Also, that they STILL have no clue about software. Quite enlightening.
@CrackedWindscreen The problem is... and I am not at all convinced Farley recognizes it (or wishes to admit it based on, potentially, feedback from its internal teams)... that today's consumer software demands cannot have a safety foundation under it.
That is the "tricky" part.
That is the part that many automakers likely cannot square internally.
I would have to toss all of my #SystemsSafety experience in the garbage to satisfy today's auto consumer.
hmmm ... Rowan Atkinson makes several valid points here, but others that make no sense to me, such as "the environmental problem with a petrol engine is the petrol, not the engine ..." What?! (fyi, "Mr Bean" Atkinson holds bachelors and masters degrees in Electrical Engineering).
"I love electric vehicles – and was an early adopter. But increasingly I feel duped - Rowan Atkinson (Guardian)
Here's an interesting piece by Rowan Atkinson on the Q. of whether you should buy a new #electriccar or continue to use your old petrol car a while longer:
its clear that an old car's #environmental costs are largely already accounted for so its only the marginal environmental costs of usage that we should factor into our considerations;
so rather than buy #electricvehicles, we might be better refusing the three year cycle of replacement, & then trying to drive less
The transition to electric vehicles will take longer & be more difficult & inequitable than most people want to admit: Mass Pike EV chargers took the holiday weekend off. Transport Decarbonization must begin with mode shift to more transit & rail.
@jaloisi And now even more difficult since the US, unlike the EU and China, failed to mandate an open, standardized #EV charging standard - jeopardizing charger utilization health across networks and ultimately harming consumers.
I like Governor #Whitmer’s leadership in #Michigan in general and I completely understand where this is coming from… but we need to get super aggressive in significantly reducing our dependency on #automotive#manufacturing.
Like, right now.
It is not coming back anywhere close to where it was at its peak.
Experience at Tesla Superchargers Depends on Much More than Access and NACS (www.autoevolution.com)
General Motors announced it also made a deal with Tesla to use its Supercharging network and the North American Charging Standard (NACS). Ford did that a...