this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
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[–] [email protected] 44 points 9 months ago (91 children)

I would like to buy an electric car but I will not because;

  1. I don't have a garage.
  2. I live in a very wintery climate and don't trust the battery to take it/don't want to heat a battery
  3. The closest chargers are at least 50 km away in other towns
  4. My house has 60 amp service (upgrading that is on the todo list, but it's a long list)
  5. I don't trust the battery to last longer than the life of the lease
[–] [email protected] 31 points 9 months ago (53 children)

Most of those fears aren't completely valid anymore.

  1. You can park it outside.
  2. winter gets you less mileage but not the end of the world, some of the fastest growing EV markets are cold countries.
  3. You might be surprised, a lot of grocery stores and even workplaces have some basic charging capabilities. Plus you can charge at home.
  4. If you have an electric dryer you can charge your car overnight, just don't do both together.
  5. Batteries will outlast any lease, if you're looking to get 10-15 years out of a car that would be understandable, but if you're leasing it won't be a problem.
[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (36 children)

Why is everybody so erect for EVs? They save you gas and some maintenance, but that's about it. They increase tire wear for sure, and weigh a heck of a lot more which wears the roads down quicker (roads wear with the cube of weight). They use less gasoline at the expanse of the poor third-world countries which front the environmental cost of mining and battery production, not to mention their archaic worker's rights.

In 20 years, we'll realize that EVs were probably about as bad as gasoline vehicles--what we should be focusing on is public transportation and updated city design to reduce our need to travel in the first place.

Sure, a split of electric and gasoline vehicles is beneficial, but they're not the environmental panacea they're being pushed as. So please keep the whole picture in mind when you're telling people to suffer and sacrifice to give up a cheap, convenient gasoline vehicle.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Building a carless society will take time but we need to get rid of gas right now. The difference of emission for the use and manufacturing of an EV is absolutely not close to the cost of use and manufacturing of an ice vehicle PLUS literally burning gallons just to move it.

Oil companies, their assets and the assets of the barons who own them should be violently seized and used to offset the cost of what they created. Until that happens, we will have to suffer a bit or we will be stuck suffering so much more probably sooner than we think.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

People already have ICE vehicles, and they're going to last for decades to come. I have a diesel Mercedes from 1980 that still runs and works just fine. No battery is going to last 40+ years, and the move to battery powered vehicles is unwittingly entering us all into a "subscription" based transportation society, much like literally every other device in the world that takes a battery. Oil and gas emissions aren't ideal, but neither are the environmental issues that originate from mining. Mining causes massive amounts of environmental damage to wildlife and the surrounding natural ecosystem, watersheds, and has its own brand of air pollution. Read up on the Questa moly mine is Northern New Mexico if you wish. We're talking rivers that turn blue, depleted salmon populations, -permanent- groundwater contamination, acid ponds, and heavy metal dusts blowing into nearby towns and exposing people to lead, uranium, and cadmium, among whatever else. Why are people so eager to attack oil "barons" nowadays when the health, tech, and banking industries are bleeding us dry at every corner? At least we've got remote work options nowadays--can you say the same for your home loan?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Disposability and lack of proven reliability are massive factors in my late adoptor attitude. When a 10 year old EV sells for $10k, I'm in. I'm not going to pay a $20k premium for a car that needs a $??k battery replacement (or it's scrap) every 10 years.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

How much money do you spend in gas every ten year? Do you really think it's less then a new battery? Not to mention the price of batteries are dropping like a stone.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I can budget for gas because that's a known. I have no fucking clue what a battery costs, do you? I'm not interested in paying a premium for an unknown. I'm in the wait and see camp. Some internet strangers throwing comments at me will not make me change my mind. I've listed my reasons many fucking times in this thread.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

The cheapest Tesla battery is 5k. The average American spends 2k a year on gas. You have to budget for gas for 3 years to have the price of your battery. Gas will keep costing you forever. The batts are rated for 200 000 km, and there are warranties if they start losing their charge too early so it's very hard to have to pay for a replacement before you come into your money.

Its impossible to not come out on top if you factor in the gas, it just seems like a no brainer to me. I haven't seen your other comments, I just now the reasons you listed under mine simply aren't valid.

If you can't afford or need a new vehicle, that's completely fine. The used market for EVs is just not good and keeping your old car is always better than getting a new car, regardless of how it runs.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Ice vehicles still need mining to produce. The one time cost is practically the same and quickly becomes unimportant when you compare the cost of running them. It's fine if you want to keep using your old vehicle or if the only vehicle you can afford is the cheapest ICE, but buying an ICE vehicle when there are evs at the same price literally means you are part of the problem. Whatever extra cost there is after that in terms of battery replacement pales in comparison to the constant cost of gas so it isn't a valid reason.

Do not minimize the effects of constantly burning gas. It is more than not ideal, it is leading to a complete collapse of our ecosystem.

Do you close your eyes every year whenever a new spill happens, or another thousand acres get burned? Call me when the tech industry is causing shit like that. Not that they aren't doing bad things, but saying "what about them" when the crimes of the oil barons is soo much greater is farcical.

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