[meme] Trains are 100000x easier to electrify and automate than cars, so why does everyone keep talking about electric and driverless cars?
[meme] Trains are 100000x easier to electrify and automate than cars, so why does everyone keep talking about electric and driverless cars?
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Well that's a topic that intrigued me recently.
Here in France there was already some debates about how worth it was, mostly because it takes a few years to compensate the cost of production of the battery. But in France we think of the electricity as basically carbon-free (our energetic mix is something like 70% nuclear, 7% gas+coal, then "clean" energy)
However, in the world I think something like 70% of electricity production is fossil (with ~40% of coal), I don't get how electric cars are even a thing, say in the US?
Economies of scale. Generating power - whether it's fossil fuels, wind turbines, hydro, whatever - is more efficient at scale. To put it another way, a single 1MW generator will use far less diesel than a thousand 1KW generators. Also, electric cars are insanely efficient compared to combustion engine cars, so even if all your electricity is generated in diesel power stations it's more efficient than burning it inside the car. Additionally, large centralised power stations are better maintained, not constrained by weight and can have offsetting/capture systems attached that are impossible in a car that must, above all else, be small and light enough to move.
Renewables and nuclear are still the way and a carbon-heavy grid makes it take longer for EVs to break even but even then EVs are a no-brainer.
One power station is easier to replace than 1 million cars but takes a fair bit longer. So you swap the cars over right now. You also immediately stop local production of co2 as well as other noxious gases, stop the transportation of fuel and the fuel that THAT burns and you make people more energy conscious not just about the vehicle but their total usage.
Fossil Fuels in a power station are more efficient than a car ever will be. In addition Petrol and diesel vehicles are dirty from day one until they are scrapped. EVs pay off their debt ( in the EU I believe it's less than 20k miles and falling) and then are as close as you can make to neutral but not ride a bike everywhere. As the grid gets cleaner you immediately benefit also.
Many people hate cars and in America you lot have been very lazy about public transport so you lot are way, way behind on a lot of the mass transit stuff sadly. This means EVs are the future. Are they the end point? Probably not. But they're the best we can do right now and this infighting over them is stupid.
We all should be behind anything that moves us to being fully electric as quick as possible, making the transition to public transport if we can but EVs if not. Fire your ire at the coal rollers and V8 5.0 wastes of energy, not the EVs.