While a Trump presidency couldn’t slam the brakes on the E.V. transition, it could throw enough sand in the gears to slow it down. And that might have significant consequences for the fight to stop global warming.
I own a Volt. But let’s stop saying that EVs are going to stop global warming. Do they help after years of being on the road? Sure a little. But until China stops burning coal, Saudi Arabia quits drilling for oil, factory dairy farms shut down.
People over paying for a car isn’t doing a damn thing.
Are they fun to drive? Yes. Can you save a few bucks on gas? Yep sort of. (Thanks new registration taxes) But other than that EVs are not saving the world. That’s not even thinking about the mining required to make batteries, or the copper needed for the motors.
We need to hold these super polluters accountable, and stop expecting the little guy to bail us out of the problems they created.
And you don’t see any link between ditching your ICE car and “Saudi Arabia quits drilling for oil”? Better to ditch your ICE car for no car, of course, but if you HAVE to have one, the smallest EV you can get away with is a step towards stopping that oil drilling. If everyone did it, that drilling would change dramatically
Do you think it will work that way?
The more people switch to EVs the cheaper fuel will be, which incentivised people to drive ICE vehicles.
More people driving EVs won’t make (oil-based) fuel cheaper. Every person getting off oil makes producing oil-based fuels more expensive, as the economies of scale are reduced.
Go to extremes if that helps picture it: imagine you’re suddenly the only person on Earth driving an ICE car. How much would you be paying for a fill-up, which now involves finding, extracting, shipping and refining fuel just for you: more than today or less than today?
That’s not even thinking about the mining required to make batteries, or the copper needed for the motors.
Yeah, but… that stuff isn’t going away. In a couple decades when an EV’s worn out, all the materials will still be there ready for recycling. It’s not like coal and oil where we dig them up and then set them on fire and they’re gone.