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[–] 70 points 1 year ago* (12 children)

It's because on the modern internet, everyone is all-or-nothing when it comes to their chosen issue. Nuance has become unacceptable.

This community in particular can get a little out of touch at times. In North America in particular, even if every level of government agreed to begin working towards a car free society immediately, we'd still be facing a decades long construction campaign as entire towns and cities would have to be restructured. In the meantime, a shift to electric vehicles is something that can drastically help the global warming issue, and can be implemented in less than a decade.

In reality, we should be shifting to electric cars in the sort term, while we work towards eliminating the need for them in the long term.

Also, I'm convinced that the brake dust/tire wear particulates talking point is the result of oil industry astroturfing. The brake dust thing especially is actually better on electric cars, since regenerative braking reduces the amount of brake wear.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago* (8 children)

    Higher weight and higher torque means tires wear faster on EVs. That’s physics, and the theory is backed up by real world evidence.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Things can be both true and irrelevant. Astroturfing highlights irrelevant things to the point of relevance so they get in the way.

    Like Trump's"feud" with Rosie O'Donnell. It exists, but means literally nothing and is just there to distract from actual conversation.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    The average difference between EV and a gas car is around 300 to 400 kg. With an average weight of a small car being around 1500-1700 kg, and an electric variant of the same car being 1800-2000 kg, the difference is basically nothing. It's, like, two large dudes. And that's smaller car, the difference in big SUVs becomes almost negligible. It's so nothing, especially compared to all the particles EVs don't emit, the only reason we keep talking about is astroturfed bullshit from the conservative car manufacturers. It's from the same playbook as wanting to get rid of wind turbines because sometimes they kill birds.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    400kg makes a huge difference. Road damage increases proportional to the fourth power of axle load, which is like 2x in your example.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago

    huge

    For the smallest car on the market it's around 20%. It rapidly gets smaller the bigger the vehicle is. Exchanging lack of tailpipe emissions for less than 20% increase in road damage is nobrainer.

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  • Uno reverse : I really dont think these are all or nothing criticisms. If anything, you're engaging in that. Just because we criticize the proposed progress doesn't mean we oppose it. You have no room for nuance in your criticism of our criticism!

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