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Do EV's actually do anything beneficial for the planet?
(lemmy.today)
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this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2024
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EVs are good for the environment overall but you are not going to fix climate changing by buying more things.
Most of the criticism towards EVs comes from the idea that buying the shiny new thing is a net positive when it's actually less harmful than buying a traditional car.
Tldr: if you are going to buy a car, buy an EV, but don't just buy a new car just to switch to EV if you don't need it.
The criticisms are also that companies use slavery to acquire the materials to make EVs. And they don't work well in the cold (see current cold snap in Canada), the lifetime of the batteries aren't great, and we still need to destroy huge swaths of land to create cars, park/store cars, and drive cars.
EVs are only going to save the car industry. To fix it requires a redesign of cities (see Strongtowns, not justbikes, city beautiful, etc.).
Wasn't there just recently a study that found that contrary to what was predicted, the lifetime of the batteries is actually exceeding even manufacturer expectations? As in, they're losing capacity less than estimated?
Maybe, it sounds familiar. But if past trends are any indication, once enough of the market is dominated by EVs, there will be a lot more money to be made by lowering quality to a bare minimum.
And the infrastructure argument still stands in that case.