[HN Gopher] Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics
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Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics
Author : geox
Score : 480 points
Date : 2023-10-01 15:01 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thedrive.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thedrive.com)
| [deleted]
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Also
|
| - 90% of emissions come from off road vehicles (agriculture,
| mining, etc), not in road vehicles.
|
| - Most of the electricity for EV charging stations is not green.
|
| EVs are a way to shift blame for pollution to the public so that
| corporations can continue doing business as usual. Want to fix
| pollution? blame yourself while I continue to make money.
| richjdsmith wrote:
| With the continued shift to EVs, petrol taxes just don't make
| sense as a form of taxation to pay for roads. I think we should
| be shifting entirely to a gross curb weight tax for all vehicles.
| The fourth power law states that the greater the axle load of a
| vehicle, the stress on the road caused by the motor vehicle
| increases in proportion to the fourth power of the axle load.
| Meaning heavier EVs _cough hummer_ , are doing x^4 damage over my
| already heavy car.
|
| Capturing vehicle taxes by weight should incentivize lighter
| vehicles, and therefore, less tire wear.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
| j-bos wrote:
| Why not just tax tires?
| eep_social wrote:
| Just let's please not require a government-approved mileage
| tracking device to make sure that each vehicle is charged it's
| fair share. That's one really nice property of gas taxes they
| will be hard to replace without going full dystopia, and there
| is a significant contingent that doesn't give a shit about the
| privacy and security implications.
| nhumrich wrote:
| Every car already has a way to track its own mileage without
| requiring GPS
| cheschire wrote:
| I remember replacing the worm gear on my odometer and
| wondering how many miles were "lost" from it while it
| wasn't turning during those 6 months or so that I was
| getting around to the project.
|
| Not that I'm advocating a Orwellian tracking system be
| installed. Just saying I can see how existing systems could
| be argued against.
| eep_social wrote:
| Not all states require periodic inspections. Who will be
| checking those odometers? Is it the honor system or are we
| requiring a third party inspection?
| tadfisher wrote:
| They should require periodic inspections. Too many
| vehicles here are too dangerous for public roads, and
| having bald tires, no brakes, and rusted out suspension
| just makes them worse.
| jdeibele wrote:
| In Oregon, there are two metro areas (Portland and
| Medford) where vehicles must be tested because of air
| pollution concerns. If you have a pre-2005 vehicle, I'm
| pretty sure they still use a measuring device to see how
| many pollutants your car generates. For model year 2005
| and later, they hook their computer to your car's OBDII
| port and ask the car's computer how it's feeling. If the
| computer says "fine", they pass you and you can renew
| your registration.
|
| Comparatively recently, they let mechanics and quick
| change oil places do the test for 2005 and later cars,
| giving them the option of charging a fee for it.
|
| Oregon doesn't have vehicle safety inspections but it
| doesn't seem unreasonable that I could go to the official
| DEQ or DMV locations if I wanted to have my mileage
| inspected or maybe pay Jiffy Lube a bit extra because
| they're closer and their hours are more convenient.
|
| The issue with that is that, though, is the same problem
| with taxes: many (most?) people aren't going to want to
| come up with the money to pay their mileage bill on the
| spot. There don't seem to be great answers for that.
|
| Oregon has a pilot program where they put a device in
| your car and charge your credit card 1.9 cents per mile.
| https://www.myorego.org I'm sure that's what they'd like
| to have people do but I don't know how many people want
| to do that.
| nerdponx wrote:
| All 50 states will adopt them if federal highway funding
| becomes contingent on having them.
| yellow_postit wrote:
| Not every state has inspections. So the infrastructure to
| check/validate odometer readings is lacking.
|
| Maybe some yearly assertion of mileage and random selection
| rate yearly would suffice.
| avalys wrote:
| All you need to do is require people to report their
| odometer reading when they renew their vehicle
| registration, and have huge penalties for willful mis-
| reporting. Traffic stops and service records at tire
| shops, oil change places, etc. provide plenty of evidence
| to prosecute someone, and if the penalties are severe
| enough, the threat of enforcement will be enough to keep
| most people honest.
| wnoise wrote:
| A tire tax would also work, except for the unfortunate safety
| implications.
| eep_social wrote:
| Yup. The second order effects are tricky. Gas tax was an
| elegant solution that will not be easy to replace.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| It would most likely hurt the working class more than
| anyone else.
| morelisp wrote:
| Yeah, my car should be tracked by its manufacturer, my cell
| carrier, my phone, the mapping software in my GPS, the four
| random apps I gave location permission to and forgot about,
| the traffic cameras, my neighbor's door cameras, but god
| forbid the government actually trying to reduce pollution by
| getting a raw distance number once a year.
| notatoad wrote:
| > as a form of taxation to pay for roads
|
| at least in the US, and i believe most countries, gas taxes
| haven't really paid for roads for a long time. Gas taxes go
| into the general fund, and road maintenance and construction
| comes out of the general fund, but gas taxes cover less than
| half the cost of roads.
| artisanspam wrote:
| The Ford F150 is the best selling car in the US by a long-shot
| and it's a gas guzzler. Given that, I don't think consumers
| care a lot about how much they pay in taxes when deciding on a
| vehicle to purchase.
|
| I don't think this'd have the incentive that you're suggesting
| it would unless something else is done, such as increasing the
| tax overall.
| wcunning wrote:
| The most popular F150s are significantly less gas guzzling
| than my 2005 sedan that I replaced with an F150. Not to
| mention that my F150 is more capable in winter conditions
| (major importance in Michigan) and more capable for the DIY
| stuff I do (I actually do regularly get lumber, plywood,
| drywall and other things that only fit in the 8ft bed that I
| actually bought). All while using less gas... Efficiency has
| gone up markedly in the 13 years between that 2005 and the
| 2018 F150 I bought. The weird thing is that you can get an
| F150 with significantly better real world mileage than an
| Escape, which is massively smaller, lighter, more
| aerodynamic, etc. Consumers are smarter than you're giving
| them credit for here.
| OxO4 wrote:
| How so? The 2023 models of the F150 seem to get about 17.19
| MPG [0] which is significantly worse than the 32.34 MPG [1]
| of the 2023 Escape.
|
| [0] https://www.fuelly.com/car/ford/f-150/2023
|
| [1] https://www.fuelly.com/car/ford/escape/2023
| reducesuffering wrote:
| A new F150 is getting 19 city / 24 highway, while ten year
| old Prius are getting more than double that at 45mpg. Every
| single trip you make in an F150 without lumber is more than
| double the gas guzzling than current state of the art. New
| Prius are 57mpg and AWD. And I've fit tons of plywood,
| furniture, and even a 50 gal. water heater in my Prius.
| fooblaster wrote:
| Not to mention how dangerous these large trucks like the
| F150 are to pedestrians. It's a real shame vehicles like
| this have been normalized.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| > With the continued shift to EVs, petrol taxes just don't make
| sense as a form of taxation to pay for roads.
|
| In New Zealand soon EVs will face Road User Charges, which mean
| they pay a per km tax as all diesel vehicles do today. The tax
| is based on the class of vehicle and so EVs won't be charged
| more than a diesel cars.
| rodgerd wrote:
| Unfortunately the RUC in New Zealand is strongly regressive,
| with massive subsidies for heavy vehicles.
| mnahkies wrote:
| New Zealand plans to charge road user charges for EVs next year
| AFAIK. This is a per km tax, though don't believe it has a
| weight consideration
| wldlyinaccurate wrote:
| All vehicles in NZ pay road user charges; EVs have just been
| exempt to encourage uptake. There are RUC weight classes but
| they only exist to separate light (<3500kg) and heavy
| (>=3500kg) vehicles rather than distinguish between a Nissan
| Leaf (1600kg) and a Ford Ranger (2100kg).
| verve_rat wrote:
| Uh, no. All non-petrol powered vehicles pay road user
| charges.
|
| For petrol vehicles we tax the petrol instead. This is
| because the cost of compliance is much cheaper (for the
| government and the car owner) if we tax the petrol. We
| don't do that for desil vehicles because a large about of
| desil is used by farm equipment and other off road
| vehicles. It's easier to do road user charges than to have
| a refund scheme for desil taxes.
| bdcravens wrote:
| Texas is applying an annual surcharge on EV registrations of
| $200/year (as a dual EV family in Texas, I can't disagree with
| the logic)
| epivosism wrote:
| Isn't the proper tax on tires? The more you shed, the faster
| they need replacement. So cars which shed a lot of
| microplastics would both use up more tires, AND would pay more
| tax. So as the tax increases we correctly linearly decrease
| tire use.
|
| It would be a mistake to over-punish EV users compared to ICE
| just because the _average_ weight of an EV is heavier. (We know
| the weights, we don 't need to average by class)
|
| This would reward companies for inventing tech which would wear
| our fewer tires, leading to less pollution.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| This is two different things though.
|
| Road use tax is intended to be used to pay for road
| maintenance and infrastructure. It's why if you live on a
| farm you can get tax-free diesel that is dyed red. You aren't
| using the road/infrastructure, so you shouldn't need to pay
| the tax.
|
| If the goal is to reduce tire microplastics, the tax should
| be specifically based on tire lifespan, which is already well
| known. It's called UTQG.
|
| Today we tend to conflate tax on pollution and tax on
| infrastructure though, since gas guzzler cars use much more
| gas (and cause more pollution, theoritically, all else equal)
| than the wear on the roads themselves. If this was truly
| about taxing externalities, it would be 3 taxes. Tax based on
| weight, tax based on efficiency, and tax based on tire tread
| life.
| owlstuffing wrote:
| >Today we tend to conflate tax...
|
| Today we conflate supplying more of our earnings to the
| government and solutions to problems.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| The alternative being government restrictions or bans on
| 'high particulate' tires or something of that nature, if
| the aim is to fix tire dust.
|
| Which of the two seems more feasible? An outright ban, or
| an economic incentive that encourages consumers to choose
| lower particulate tires which thereby applies economic
| pressure to tire companies?
| dunnelbloom wrote:
| [dead]
| xyst wrote:
| I'm not surprised. Americans alone traveled a staggering 3.26T
| (yes, TRILLION) miles (5.24T km) in 2022. [1] That's a metric
| shit ton of tire wear particles leaking into the environment.
|
| This is a direct result of how shitty our cities are designed.
| Single zoned swaths of land. High dependency on car centric
| transportation. None to minimal alternatives for anything else.
| Massive subsidies for various road infrastructure across all
| levels of government. Billions of dollars of handouts (sorry,
| "subsidies") for O&G industry which generates trillions of
| profits collectively...
|
| There's only so much a single person can do. We need regulation
| at all levels of government. O&G and auto industries need to
| start paying reparations. Producers of plastics need to be taxed,
| regulated, monitored. Cities need to be redesigned/rebuilt.
|
| [1] https://afdc.energy.gov/data/mobile/10315
| hbarka wrote:
| Curious which is worse for our health and environment, tire dust
| or brake dust?
| nologic01 wrote:
| This is a strong a warning as any for people not to get too hang
| up on greenhouse gas emissions as the holy grail of
| sustainability. It creates the wrong mindset.
|
| What we have drifted into is a tech supported civilization that
| is covering the planet from corner to corner with myriad of
| footprints (emissions, particulate and chemical pollution of all
| types, habitat alteration or destruction etc).
|
| The story of ozon layer depletion was an early warning.
| Greenhouses another dimension. Microplastics and nitrates another
| etc etc, with no end in sight.
|
| Imagine homo sapiens communities spread around in the billions
| and a steady stream of polluting stuff emanating from them, not
| temporarily but continuously and _forever_.
|
| This is the challenge we are facing and its monumental. How to
| take that out-of-control, scant regard for externalities tech
| enabled economic "growth" mindset and turn it around.
|
| Bold ideas are welcome. Burrying heads in the sand not an option.
| trgn wrote:
| > Bold ideas are welcome. Burrying heads in the sand not an
| option.
|
| It's simple. It's more mobility options, especially safe active
| transportation. EVs are still cars. It's a change in the
| margin. What is really needed is people biking, walking for
| their daily errands instead of using a car.
|
| As for the safe part, it does not require anything special. The
| aspirational world of the future will be made real with
| bollards and trees. The american brain today cannot comprehend
| this. Yet it is a certainty.
| avalys wrote:
| You're basically saying that you want to force everyone to
| live in a city - a super dense developed area where all your
| daily needs are within walking distance. Not everyone wants
| to live in a city!
| kylebenzle wrote:
| I worked on a phd for 4 years looking into this problem
| indirectly and for a decade at Ohio State they have had working
| solutions to the tire dust issue but it is IMPOSSIBLE to get
| funding.
|
| A Billion dollar industry and NO ONE cares about cleaning it up
| if it means increasing costs by 5% or more.
|
| It has been WELL KNOWN for 50 years! We are basically
| aerosolizing carbon in MASSIVE amounts right where we live and
| work. Almost like we are purposefully manufacturing microplastics
| and dumping them in the air as fast as we can. Imagine taking
| every new tire and just grinding it down into a fine dust then
| blowing in into the air and dumping it into the rivers. That is
| what we are doing, AS FAST AS WE CAN.
|
| (For anyone that cares, the solution is natural rubber, which
| costs slight more than synthetic rubber but lasts longer. So its
| better for consumers, cheaper all around, and 1,000x better for
| the environment but Goodyear, Firestone and Michelin flat out
| refuse to fund research or even block innovation in natural
| rubber.
|
| [1] https://hcs.osu.edu/our-people/dr-katrina-cornish
| XorNot wrote:
| Why would natural rubber be better then synthetic rubber for
| this problem? Asbestos is natural and toxic as hell.
|
| Natural rubber currently has the property of being mostly
| inside trees not being ground up into a fine powder - but
| there's no obvious reason at scale it would be any better
| except in terms of "slightly less wear over time".
|
| Is it's chemistry fundamentally different?
| sesuximo wrote:
| If I want to buy a good-for-the environment tire, what should I
| buy? I don't care about the price unless it's insane
| WalterBright wrote:
| Steel wheels.
| whaleofatw2022 wrote:
| Something with a low durometer that rides harsh. Ironically
| may be worse gas mileage than other tires.
| xnx wrote:
| Keep your tires properly inflated. Go easy on the accelerator
| and brake pedal. You'll be doing much more than the average
| person.
| paddy_m wrote:
| Can natural rubber be made as soft as synthetic rubber? What
| kind of rubber is used on race cars (and dirt bikes)? Cost is
| much less of an issue for those markets.
| bri3d wrote:
| Natural rubber is used extensively in higher-end applications
| (race cars, trucks, aircraft). However, almost all tires are
| some hybrid of the two. Generally, natural rubber is used in
| the construction of the tire "carcass" and sidewalls while
| synthetic rubber (compounded with a gazillion and one other
| things) is used to construct the tread.
|
| The basic issues are pretty intuitive:
|
| * The supply of natural rubber is constrained by the ability
| to grow the plants which produce it.
|
| * It's hard to make synthetic rubber with polymer chains as
| long as those in natural rubber (isoprene), so natural rubber
| tends to be more pliable and stronger, while synthetic rubber
| (styrene) tends to sheer off into microparticles.
|
| * However, natural rubber degrades more rapidly when heated
| and cooled, and is more difficult to control in order to
| achieve a desired level of stickiness at a given temperature
| (which is basically what tires are aiming for).
|
| I think that OP's research would be quite interesting to
| learn about more, as my understanding is that tire
| manufacturers employ hundreds of chemists who are dedicated
| full-time to attempting to replicate natural rubber
| synthetically in an efficient way.
| nerdponx wrote:
| > Goodyear, Firestone and Michelin flat out refuse to fund
| research or even block innovation
|
| What's in it for them? Keeping bad press about tires out of the
| public view? Fear of lower profit margins?
| chmod600 wrote:
| Chemically speaking, how is natural rubber different from
| plastic while still having such similar properties?
| kylebenzle wrote:
| Great question! Its super simple, it is ONLY the length of
| the hydrocarbon chain, a better quality natural rubber has
| really long chains (10,000+ atoms long) that last a LONG time
| and are VERY stretchy. Synthetic rubber (or plastic) is
| shorter (1,000 atoms long) and doesn't last as long.
|
| Thats it, it is the exact same "product" just a chain that
| gets longer and longer and changes its physical properties as
| it grows.
| traveler01 wrote:
| Noob here, but aren't the best tires made from natural
| rubber? Or am I mistaken?
| alt227 wrote:
| Genuinely interested here. If natural rubber and plastic
| are exactly the same thing, then why is natural rubber
| being advocated as a much more environmentally sound
| alternative? Would'nt the dust from natural rubber tyres be
| just as problematic as the plastic is now?
| crazygringo wrote:
| Yes this is exactly my question as well.
|
| Is the dust just as bad for the environment, but natural
| rubber wears more slowly due to the longer chains?
|
| Or is the dust somehow a less harmful kind of dust?
| spqr0a1 wrote:
| It's more than just the chain length. The most common
| synthetic rubbers are styrene-butadiene copolymers. Natural
| rubber is polyisoprene. While it is true that shorter chain
| synthetic polyisoprene is available, it is a much smaller
| part of the market than styrene-butadiene.
| dpeckett wrote:
| Does look like both natural and synthetic polyisoprene is
| at-least somewhat biodegradeable:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC92035/
| clnq wrote:
| I'm curious to hear some thoughts of an expert - how much does
| natural rubber reduce the pollution for 100 miles driven by a
| tyre? Can you think of any alternative technical solutions? Can
| you think of any political solutions?
| blackoil wrote:
| Would it be still cheaper if all tires are made from natural
| rubber. We shouldn't have old forests destroyed for rubber
| plantations.
| kylebenzle wrote:
| There are two main working solutions that have ALREADY been
| used and proven to work since WWII.
|
| First: a fungal disease has wiped out ALL the rubber trees in
| south america, thats why we cant grow in it the Western
| hemisphere, a fungus. If we could grow it here we would and
| it would drop the price by A LOT. But, we already have a
| solution, a transgenic species that is resistant, nonsense
| Government regulation and moronic "public opinion" is the
| only thing stopping this from fixing the rubber problem
| overnight.
|
| Second: sounds funny, but ever break a dandelion stem in half
| and see the white stuff come out? That latex, PURE high
| quality latex. Let that latex air dry and you rubber! No
| refinement necessary. During WWII they supplied most of the
| war effort with rubber from dandelions! Yes, it works, its
| not efficient but progress has been made and with ANY funding
| at all it could easily produce enough higher quality natural
| rubber for ALL our need and enough to export.
|
| The ONLY problem is that companies make too much money
| producing low quality "disposable" tires that they will NEVER
| switch.
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6073688/ [2]
| https://hcs.osu.edu/our-people/dr-katrina-cornish
| westurner wrote:
| "Rubber Made From Dandelions is Making Tires More
| Sustainable - Truly a Wondrous Plant" (2021)
| https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/dandelions-produce-more-
| sust... :
|
| [I'll leave in the hashtags from when I wrote this up to
| remind myself at the time:]
|
| #DandelionRubber Tires; #Taraxagum
|
| > Aiding the bees and our environment
|
| > _Now, Continental Tires is producing #dandelion rubber
| tires called #Taraxagum (which is the genus name of the
| species). The bicycle version of their tires even won the
| German #Sustainability Award 2021 for sustainable design.,_
|
| > _"The fact that we came out on top among 54 finalists
| shows that our Urban Taraxagum bicycle tire is a unique
| product that contributes to the development of a new,
| alternative and sustainable supply of raw materials,"
| stated Dr. Carla Recker, head of development for the
| Taraxagum project._
|
| > _The report from DW added that the performance of
| dandelion tires was better in some cases than natural
| rubber--which is typically blended with synthetic rubber._
|
| > _Capable of growing, as we all know, practically
| anywhere, dandelion needs very little accommodation in a
| country or business's agriculture profile. The #Taraxagum
| research team at Continental hypothesizes they could even
| be grown in the polluted land on or around old industrial
| parks._
|
| > Furthermore, the only additive needed during the rubber
| extraction process is hot #water, _unlike Hevea which
| requires the use of organic solvents that pose a pollution
| risk if they're not disposed of properly._
|
| > _Representing a critical early-season food supply for
| dwindling #bees and a valuable source of super-nutritious
| food for humans, dandelions can also be turned into coffee,
| give any child a good time blowing apart their seeds--and,
| now, as a new source for rubber in the world; truly a
| wondrous plant._
|
| Taraxacum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taraxacum
| Logans_Run wrote:
| A less hashtag version: https://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/Crop
| Op/en/indus_misc/chemical/r...
|
| _Other Common Names Include: Dandelion, Kazak dandelion,
| TKS, rubber root. Latin Name: Taraxacum kok-saghyz
|
| Dandelion roots also contain substantial amounts of the
| starch inulin, which can be fermented to produce fuel
| ethanol._
|
| USDA Report from 1947 entitled "Russian Dandelion, an
| Emergency Source of Natural Rubber" https://archive.org/d
| etails/russiandandelion618whal/page/n1/...
| Hel5inki wrote:
| There are many people who would be willing to buy these
| tires if your claims of being more cost-effective and
| better for the environment are actually true. You have a
| PhD in this, so why aren't you doing it?
| dpeckett wrote:
| Interestingly my great grandfather headed up research
| efforts on breeding fungal resistant rubber trees at a
| national research institute in now Sri Lanka. Man he'd be
| rolling in his grave at the thought of public opinion and
| cheap (and non-biodegradable) synthetics holding back
| natural rubber production.
|
| Synthetic rubber being the largest microplastic source in
| the world is an incredibly stroke of irony. Reminds me of
| us discovering that adding tetra ethyl lead to fuel might
| not be a wonderful idea.
| pstuart wrote:
| Fascinating fact about dandelions! A nice Fraunhofer video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvVJL2GYRHY
| pierat wrote:
| Well you can't make things TOO good! How else would you
| sell more shit to the proles?
|
| We were (or at least I was) told in school that capitalism
| allowed our civilization to make and sell things we used to
| only dream about. And when I learned the truth, it was that
| capitalism was only concerned with how much to sell. If
| that meant making your products cheaper/worse/less durable
| on a creeping basis, then that's what the company did.
|
| Capitalism itself is subject to enshittification that
| affects all products and services.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _the solution is natural rubber, which costs slight more than
| synthetic rubber but lasts longer. So its better for consumers,
| cheaper all around, and 1,000x better for the environment_
|
| Is it? I'm Googling but can't find any evidence for that.
|
| Natural rubber tires still produce tons of dust, I can't find
| any reference to it being less harmful in our lungs, and even
| natural tire rubber seems to biodegrade on the order of
| _thousands_ of years.
|
| Natural tire rubber is still extremely processed. It's nothing
| like the raw latex that comes out of the plant.
|
| So how is it 1000x better for the environment? Or even 2x
| better, honestly?
|
| I'd love to believe it, but I'm surprised I can't find any
| references easily. Everything I can find refers to it being
| more sustainable to manufacture. Nothing about its effects on
| pollution.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| We already use a lot of natural rubber in tyres. At least in
| the winter here in Norway. And those tyres are made by Nokian,
| Michelin et al.
| standardUser wrote:
| Can someone explain why rubber - not a plastic - makes up the
| majority of plastic in the ocean? They do say "synthetic rubber",
| but from what I am reading those are also not considered a type
| of plastic. Not that the definition matters too much, but I think
| it's important not to use language that could be construed as
| being purposefully disingenuous to make an argument seem more
| dramatic, since doing so undermines the argument.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Most writing uses "plastic" to mean any synthetic polymer, even
| non-organic ones like silicone. I don't think this is
| deliberately disingenuous or even ignorant; it would simply be
| awkward and mostly irrelevant to use precise technical terms
| every time.
|
| Technically rubber is elastic, not plastic. But even
| "thermosetting plastics" aren't physically plastic _anymore_.
| Silicone is synthetic but not organic, while lots of organic
| polymers aren 't synthetic. All the public really cares about
| is "shit that doesn't belong in the ocean".
| c54 wrote:
| Synthetic rubber is a type of plastic
| standardUser wrote:
| Citation please.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| A dictionary would suffice.
|
| "Plastic" is a general term that covers any polymer-based
| material. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic
|
| Tires are made of synthetic elastomers which are all
| polymers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_rubber
|
| Elasticity has no bearing on whether something is a plastic
| or not, and any attempt to use it as a distinction would be
| pointlessly arbitrary. Silicone is certainly a polymer...
| usrusr wrote:
| Any elasticity threshold you might come up with to separate
| one from the other would be completely arbitrary
| choeger wrote:
| > Indeed, the scale of these emissions is significant.
| Particulate emissions from tires and brakes, particularly in the
| PM2.5 and PM10 size ranges, are believed to exceed the mass of
| tailpipe emissions from modern vehicle fleets, as per a study
| published in Science of the Total Environment this year.
|
| This simply cannot be true. Tailpipe emissions have more mass
| than the gasoline that gets burned. A car uses several liters od
| gasoline per 100km. I am pretty sure no car loses several
| kilograms of tire or brake matter over 100km.
| Cort3z wrote:
| Exactly. Not saying this is good news either way, but I can go
| multiple years on a set of tires, and majority of the mass is
| still there when I go to charge tires.
|
| Perhaps they mean just the mass in the pm2.5-pm10 size
| spectrum?
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Indeed, the sentence says "particulate emissions" not gaseous
| emissions.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| They are talking about particles in the PM2.5 and PM10 size
| range, not the mass of all emissions...
| comradesmith wrote:
| Aren't a lot of the tailpipe emissions gaseous? Like carbon
| dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and water?
| bilsbie wrote:
| I wonder if we could switch to a biodegradable plastic.
| blueflow wrote:
| biodegradable vs durable, pick one.
| RetroTechie wrote:
| The article mentions that tire dust largely consists of
| "ultrafine" particles (<100nm).
|
| Perhaps it's possible to use compounds for which precisely
| those fine particles bio-degrade quicker than for currently
| used compounds?
|
| Big-object & fine particle properties are different enough to
| look into this, no?
| caymanjim wrote:
| I would really prefer that my tires not biodegrade.
| clnq wrote:
| What if they're biodegradable far outside their useful
| lifespan, or only when a chemical is applied to them in a
| controlled way?
| mlsu wrote:
| Has anyone here ever lived near a freeway or even moderately busy
| road?
|
| I made the mistake of renting next to the freeway. Noise was
| perfectly tolerable, but I could not use my back porch, because
| after just a few weeks, everything had a fine coating of black
| dust. I could not keep my windows open in the summer. I was
| certainly breathing this vile shit the entire time I lived there.
|
| This doesn't surprise me in the least. Every time it rained you
| could see streaks of black sediment trails where rivulets would
| collect and concentrate it. It flowed completely unfiltered
| straight into the ocean. Poison.
|
| The negative externalities around cars are incomprehensibly huge.
| And yet, we have more of them than ever, they are getting bigger
| and bigger, and they laugh in our face with "green leaf" or
| "PZEV" decals. It's demonic.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| The positive externalities are even more enormous, which is a
| problem for environmentalists.
| robocat wrote:
| > positive externalities
|
| I really don't think you meant to use the word externality
| here. And the other replies so far are not about positive
| externalities.
|
| Perhaps roads are an indirect positive externality - roads
| are useful for bikes and buses, also useful for demarcation
| between properties or areas and addressing!!!
|
| https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/externality.asp
| whoknowsidont wrote:
| >The positive externalities are even more enormous
|
| What do cars specifically positively provide? NOT including
| the positives that exists due to constructing infrastructure
| around that mode of transportation (artificial issues).
| high_priest wrote:
| I am a person that has actively chosen to live without a
| car, despite work in automotive industry. Recently I wanted
| to take my vintage computer in a large crate, to a LAN
| meeting, but I would not be able to transport it without a
| car. Which forced me to order a taxi, which is a car for
| hire... I maybe could have been fine with a cargo bike, but
| it would not be satisyingly safe for me or the cargo. I
| have also heard the perspective of children safety. When
| they need to be transported to a communal education center,
| it is said to be much safer and convenient to put them in a
| large, crashproof car, than stuffing them in a bicycle
| trolley while it is raining.
| WalterBright wrote:
| [flagged]
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| Mobility; unfortunately, the public transit infrastructure
| in the US isn't that great and the sprawl means that cars
| have become a necessity.
|
| Many areas simply can't be served efficiently by transit.
| burkaman wrote:
| That isn't an externality, that's just the direct
| function of a car.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| But this is not an inherent property of cars. It is only
| true because we invested all our transit dollars in
| highways. Cars are not inherently better and roads are
| not free. If we invest more in public transit we can
| reduce our need for cars.
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| Agree, but there's no political will and even if there
| was, it would take decades.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| I'd like to know why you think cars are not inherently
| better as it seems very obvious that they are. That is
| why people overwhelmingly prefer to use them.
| naavis wrote:
| In places with decent public transportation people do not
| overwhelmingly prefer cars.
| tmnvix wrote:
| For a start, you have to store them at either end of your
| journey.
| derkades wrote:
| Only when infrastructure is built in a way that makes
| cars the most convenient option.
| Mawr wrote:
| No mode of transportation is truly inherently better
| since they all have unique strong and weak points, but...
|
| Cars as the main method of transportation are obviously
| _not_ good. They 're too inefficient, no matter how you
| look at them. Manufacturing, infrastructure requirements,
| footprint per person, energy use, impact on human health
| and the environment. Cars suck.
|
| People use whatever's most convenient and that's
| realistically going to be whatever the government has
| invested in the most.
|
| The more car dependent a society, the more degenerate it
| is. This is hard to understand due to how car-infested
| most of the world is. Watch some videos by the Not Just
| Bikes channel on youtube [1] to see what the world
| _could_ look like instead. Here 's some poignant examples
| (direct links): [2][3][4][5].
|
| And here's an obscure video that exemplifies what's wrong
| with car culture:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWi4gHm6pjQ. This is what
| a brainwashed society thinks like.
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustBikes
|
| [2]: https://youtu.be/muPcHs-E4qc?t=464
|
| [3]: https://youtu.be/AOc8ASeHYNw?t=204
|
| [4]: https://youtu.be/oHlpmxLTxpw?t=361
|
| [5]: https://youtu.be/c1l75QqRR48?t=290
| V__ wrote:
| People prefer a lot of things, it's almost never an
| indicator for what is better or worse. By most metrics,
| cars are a worse alternative. However, if the
| infrastructure has already been built around cars, it's
| hard to change that.
| whoknowsidont wrote:
| >NOT including the positives that exists due to
| constructing infrastructure around that mode of
| transportation
|
| This is what this statement was trying to address. If we
| built everything around using ziplines we couldn't go "OF
| COURSE ziplines provide a net positive." That'd be an
| incredibly silly statement.
| suprfnk wrote:
| Being by far the most convenient way to travel from home to
| pretty much any random location.
|
| Speaking from the Netherlands with a relatively good public
| transit system.
| hgomersall wrote:
| That's not an externality. That's what you pay for.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| A huge boost to economic productivity and growth by
| increasing the flexibility of land usage, for example.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Positive externalities? How does someone else driving a car
| possibly have a positive external effect?
|
| Perhaps you don't know what an externality is. Congrats, you
| are one of today's lucky 10000.
| mlsu wrote:
| That must be why walkable areas like Manhattan or London are
| so inexpensive, right?
| jdblair wrote:
| I lived in West Oakland for 10 years. Not immediately adjacent
| to a freeway, but surrounded on 4 sides by a freeway within a
| half mile. All flat surfaces are eventually are covered in
| black grit unless it rains. I assume it was not just tire dust
| but also diesel soot.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| also brake dust, which until fairly recently used to be
| asbestos
| dilyevsky wrote:
| It's probably mostly soot from the exhaust. I'm few blocks away
| to railroad (caltrain) and the windows facing the tracks have
| same black residue
| goalieca wrote:
| Cars have fairly clean tailpipes these days. Older Diesel
| train engines still in service are disgusting. Construction
| vehicles are also pretty bad. The worst are large ocean going
| vessels burning bunker fuel in port which is illegal but very
| cheap.
| infecto wrote:
| I always assumed it was mostly from the soot of diesel
| rigs. I know they have gotten cleaner in recent years but
| diesel is still pretty dirty. I remember an apartment I had
| in SF near some of the muni lines that still ran diesel and
| it was absolutely disgusting outside the window.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| Caltrain is diesel yes. They are replacing most with
| electric locomotives any year now
| Symbiote wrote:
| I lived for a year in a building between a busy railway (with
| some diesel trains) and a busy road.
|
| The windows on the railway side gained a gritty, black dust.
| On the road side it was an oily black film.
| downrightmike wrote:
| The only real solution is mandating light and heavy rail.
| California was hit hard by the car companies that bought out
| the rail and got replaced it with roads. And now we have even
| more reason to use rail everywhere we can. Maybe after the
| nimby boomers die off, we can actually made things make sense.
| mushbino wrote:
| I lived near 880 in Oakland and always had massive amounts of
| this super fine sticky dust. They call that 880 corridor cancer
| corridor. My friends who lived next door who I was renting
| from, their son got leukemia and they think that had something
| to do with it.
| beowulfey wrote:
| Same experience. I probably took a few years off my life with
| my year by a freeway in LA. So much black crap on everything.
| userbinator wrote:
| That's more likely to be brake dust.
| nerdponx wrote:
| Do tires shed more dust at higher speeds? I wonder if this has
| always been a known but unstated problem, or if increasing
| highway speeds are causing it to get worse.
| Forbo wrote:
| Great question, I have no idea. I wish the nationwide 55mph
| speed limit were reinstated, if only to reduce oil
| consumption. Added bonus that it might actually encourage
| more public transit and walkable cities. Nobody will take
| this idea seriously, the US is far too addicted to cars and
| lacks the density.
| whaleofatw2022 wrote:
| We don't even enforce truck speed limit. On top of being
| more inefficient/dangerous due to weight, it tears roads up
| faster.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| > I wish the nationwide 55mph speed limit were reinstated
|
| In places like SF and LA, even existing traffic laws are
| not enforced due to "equity".
|
| https://www.ghsa.org/resources/Equity-in-Highway-Safety-
| Enfo...
| verve_rat wrote:
| That link you posted says nothing of the sort.
| burkaman wrote:
| Seems like it from a couple studies, for example: https://www
| .sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896972....
|
| Vehicle weight is also a significant factor, so EVs will make
| this particular problem worse. Still worth the tradeoff, but
| obviously not using a car at all is the best option.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Are you sure about the tradeoff bit? If my memory doesn't
| fail me, there was an article on HN recently that covered
| how EVs are environmentally more friendly, but health wise
| worse exactly because they generate more tire particles.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| I'd like to see if that included brake particulates. My
| understanding is brake particulates is a large
| contributor to the mix of 'unhealthy ultra-fine dust'
| from cars. Most EVs should bring down the brake dust to
| almost zero, since the vast majority of braking is done
| via regenerative braking.
| burkaman wrote:
| I'd be interested to see it, that's not an obvious
| conclusion to me. The health difference of an EV is a
| percentage increase in tire particles but a complete
| absence of tailpipe emissions. I would not expect tire
| particles to be the more significant factor, especially
| when the impacts of microplastics are so unknown.
|
| Tailpipe emissions are a significant problem (https://iop
| science.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab35fc), and I
| know this is an extreme example but you can literally
| kill yourself by just leaving a car running in an
| enclosed space. EV tailpipe emissions are not fully
| replaced by electricity generation emissions, even if you
| get your power from 100% coal (and you don't). Power
| plants are much more efficient than internal combustion
| engines.
| Etheryte wrote:
| I believe this [0] is the article (with discussion at
| [1]). To cherry-pick two quotes to contextualize what I
| recalled:
|
| > "Tires release 100 times the amount of volatile organic
| compounds as a modern tailpipe, says an analyst."
|
| > "Moreover, tire emissions from electric vehicles are 20
| percent higher than those from fossil-fuel vehicles. EVs
| weigh more and have greater torque, which wears out tires
| faster."
|
| I'm not sure how all of this works out in the grand
| scheme of things, or how accurate those claims are, but I
| think those are issues that surely deserve more looking
| into.
|
| [0] https://e360.yale.edu/features/tire-pollution-toxic-
| chemical...
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37569137
| dietr1ch wrote:
| They should as cornering and braking exerts a higher force on
| them, so they should wear faster.
| badtension wrote:
| That's why so many people are cautious about "EVs to save us
| all", to put it mildly.
|
| We are so focused on climate change and greenhouse gases that
| we do not see a lot of other issues and may exacerbate some of
| them in the process of decarbonisation.
| jayd16 wrote:
| This sentiment is just contrarianism, I think. I've lived in
| Los Angeles my whole life and the difference that clean air
| standards make is obvious. The black dust isn't just tire and
| brake dust. It's also soot and it used to be much much worse.
|
| Nothing is a silver bullet but I'll be much happier when
| we're done with ICE noise and exhaust.
| oatmeal1 wrote:
| Generally agreed, but the noise from cars is mostly
| friction and turbulence (and honking/sirens). Switching to
| electric won't solve that.
| wizofaus wrote:
| I would think having a vehicle be entirely electric must
| allow more options in terms of car body shape and even
| tyre shape/material that could possible reduce noise (and
| particulate) pollution even further. And certainly if we
| could reduce the vehicle weight (I gather the current
| generation of EVs typically weigh 25%+ more than their
| ICE equivalents - and cars have generally been getting
| heavier over the last couple of decades anyway, which is
| a trend that we desperately need to reverse, and won't
| happen without legislation). Having said that, as a
| cyclist the idea of not being able to hear cars around me
| is somewhat disconcerting.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| The car noise problem is partially solved (or improved)
| by EVs, actually. The tires used on EVs tend to be
| efficient (low rolling resistance), which translates to
| less noisy tires. Additionally, their body shape tends to
| aim towards very aerodynamic so they have less turbulence
| noise. If they didn't do this, their efficiency would be
| much worse so it essentially becomes a necessity.
|
| It's pretty evident when you drive next to a large
| vehicle with knobby tires meant for off-roading (Jeeps
| seem to commonly have these). The tire noise is easily
| MUCH louder, even ignoring any engine noise.
|
| The other thing, broadly, is road construction can lead
| to a huge difference in noise from highways. I'm sure
| you've experienced huge differences depending on the road
| surface.
| bmitc wrote:
| > the noise from cars is mostly friction and turbulence
|
| Agreed. I can't even hear the engine in my car on the
| highway over tire and wind noise.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| People on the outside can hear it though.
| bmitc wrote:
| I don't think they can unless the car is not moving. The
| point is: the dominating sound pollution from a car is
| from sources that are not removed in EVs.
| bmitc wrote:
| > This sentiment is just contrarianism, I think.
|
| I really don't think it is. We're thrusting ourselves into
| just new problems. Yes, we move away from old problems that
| gas-powered cars have, but we move into new problems. For
| one, EVs perpetuate the _idea_ of the car, which is perhaps
| the most dangerous part. Then, there 's all sorts of new
| things like building out the infrastructure required for
| EVs and mining the new materials. For example, have you
| looked into the areas where lithium mining occurs? It is
| not a clean process and brings its own new problems,
| especially for the local people. You have foreign owned and
| operated companies move in and suck out manufactured value
| from the land, all the while polluting the local ecosystem.
| It's oil all over again.
|
| It isn't contrarianism to point out that a solution is not
| the solution everyone thinks it is. Yes, we should probably
| switch to EVs, but we should be switching away from cars as
| a whole. But we're not. Cars are selling more than ever.
| It's not contrarianism to simply look at facts rather than
| hype.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Cars are selling, despite their high economic price,
| because they're _incredibly useful_.
|
| Make competing modes of transit at least one of _more
| useful at no more cost_ or _no less utility but at a
| lower cost_ and people will switch incredibly quickly.
| That 's a tall order, because the modern automobile is a
| wonder of transport speed, comfort, and convenience.
| wizofaus wrote:
| I'd only add "...because they're incredibly useful, AND
| government policy has consistently favoured such a mode
| of transport over all other alternatives". The amount
| spent by governments on maintaining road infrastructure
| dwarfs all other transport spending, the amount of land
| dedicated to parking and driving space is mindboggling,
| and of course the amount spent on ensuring the global oil
| industry has been able to reliably and safely deliver
| fuel to vehicles is beyond comprehension* (and almost
| certainly one of the reasons the transition to EVs will
| be slower than technology might otherwise allow - vested
| interests with billions to lose will do anything to keep
| their share of the spoils). Not to mention the fact that
| we've yet to actually start truly paying for the long
| term environmental and health costs of allowing our
| cities to be so dominated by a single mode of transport.
|
| *) it's estimated up to 20% of the US's defence budget is
| spent protecting oil supplies for a start, which
| effectively acts as a subsidy of around 70c a gallon.
| midasuni wrote:
| Cars have such a low price because the cost of them is
| not born by the person purchasing them.
| jh00ker wrote:
| One application of (EV) cars is the robotaxi. Once this
| solution reaches critical mass, car ownership as we see
| it today will drop off.
|
| If I can send my car out to be a robotaxi while I'm at
| work and/or :^) asleep, then how much do I care that MY
| specific vehicle return to bring ME home, when I could
| just use any other robotaxi available? So then I don't
| own a car at all and ownership elsewhere falls and the
| number of total cars drops to the number needed to handle
| only the maximum number of simultaneous rides.
| bmitc wrote:
| Robotaxis don't have anything to do with and certainly
| aren't dependent upon EVs. I highly doubt robotaxis ever
| make it. And at that point, why not invest in other
| infrastructure. It's pointless to have big vehicles
| carrying one or two people.
| ltbarcly3 wrote:
| > It isn't contrarianism to point out that a solution is
| not the solution everyone thinks it is.
|
| Literally nobody thinks that EV's will reduce
| microplastics. What are you even talking about?
|
| EV's have the potential to dramatically reduce our
| reliance on gasoline. Current EV technology is far from
| perfect, but do you think people will just stop having
| personal transportation? Do you think it's better to keep
| using gasoline cars forever? So you agree that some kind
| of non-gasoline personal vehicle is likely to be dominant
| for some time as a method of personal transportation,
| unless you are just ignoring reality completely or think
| that people will magically change how they live in even
| more fundamental ways without incentives to do so, which
| is magical thinking. So EVs are inevitable, since there
| is no other credible alternative to gasoline personal
| vehicles that is even proposed, and EVs are starting to
| displace gas vehicles in significant numbers.
|
| So keep shouting as much as you like about how we need to
| 'stop normalizing the idea of a car' but just realize
| that less than a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of
| 1% of the world will even bother to listen to it, and in
| the meantime we are likely to end up building several
| billion electric cars before another alternative comes
| around. If you want to change the world, develop the
| technology that makes it make sense to act the way you
| want people to act, because nothing else will persuade
| anybody.
| bmitc wrote:
| > Literally nobody thinks that EV's will reduce
| microplastics. What are you even talking about?
|
| Not that, for starters.
|
| Is there data that proves inconclusively that electric
| vehicles _AND_ the new infrastructure and mining and
| every other systematic thing that comes along with them
| and doesn 't currently exist is _actually_ (not just
| hopes and dreams) less impactful on the environment?
| Because as far as I can tell, your comment relies on
| that, and I haven 't seen that data. I could care less
| about holding on to gas-guzzling cars. I would just like
| to understand things better before jumping headlong into
| a "solution" that may or may not be any better. And there
| are massive incentives for companies to jump into EVs, so
| there is a lot of conflict of interest with EVs. Can
| corporations and investors be trusted when they stand to
| make a fortune?
|
| Again, my point is to reach an understanding. I do not
| currently understand why EVs are some bastion of hope
| when it comes to cars. The best data that I have seen
| does not account for disposal of batteries nor the
| mining, long term maintenance and upkeep and continual
| use of EVs, infrastructure, etc. when it comes to EVs.
| And if they are better, then where is the crossover point
| when all this is considered? Is it 10 years? 50 years?
|
| And yes, I do think re-enforcing the car is not a good
| idea. You can think it's unrealistic, and sure, in the
| short term it probably is. But we shouldn't just throw
| our hands up and reach for a new "solution" that just
| brings new problems.
| arghwhat wrote:
| EV's will not save us all, but every combustion engine still
| running is actively killing us.
|
| Would be better to walk, bike, take public transport or
| similar or course. And if your area makes that not viable,
| consider fixing that.
|
| (All the famed bicycle paths in Copenhagen are relatively new
| - they can be added anywhere.)
| dlahoda wrote:
| EV bikes sure. price and weight of good EV bike dropped for
| last 5 years.
| valianteffort wrote:
| I don't know where you live but everything is too far apart
| in American suburbs. How you would fix that without tearing
| it all down? And it's totally impractical for transporting
| a family around.
|
| Road tripping. Visiting far away family. Day at the lake or
| beach. Going camping. How do you convince people to give
| all of that up and just be content with whatever is 15min
| away.
| estebank wrote:
| It is already a huge change if people who drive to thir
| offices didn't. People going camping or driving across
| the country aren't the problem. The Dutch do that as
| well, what they don't need to do is _having_ to drive to
| go fetch milk or get to work. I have my dentist, grocery
| shop, restaurants, coffee shops, gym, bike shop, bank,
| park, hardware storeband bus stops within 15 minutes from
| my home, and all of those are in a residential
| neighborhood of an American city that to my Latin
| American sensibilities is _too_ residential and spread
| around. The level of density needed to support "15
| minute cities" is much lower than people think, but it
| means allowing there to be a bakery in the corner of your
| block within a residential neighborhood, and wrestling
| some space in the commons from inefficient forms of
| transportation in favour of more efficient ones.
| InSteady wrote:
| >wrestling some space in the commons from inefficient
| forms of transportation in favour of more efficient ones.
|
| And underused parking lots. Dear god the huge, empty
| parking lots.
| InSteady wrote:
| Many e-bikes have 100+ mile range. In theory you could
| have a few backup batteries for longer trips.
|
| You could also rent a car for the 5 or so days a year the
| average person is doing anything other than commuting,
| shopping, and other local activities.
| jacobolus wrote:
| Residents of American suburbs should have to pay for
| their full costs (infrastructure and maintenance,
| environmental, healthcare, services, ...), and if many
| people can't afford it, we should do a universal cash
| subsidy to every resident at the federal level to make up
| the difference so the transition is not so damaging, then
| let people decide if they really want to spend that whole
| amount on paying the actual costs of their lifestyle or
| if they would prefer to move to a more efficient living
| arrangement and keep the cash to do something more
| productive with it.
|
| The USA subsidizes the suburbs to an absurd degree,
| pushing most of the costs into the future and making city
| dwellers pay more than their share for the rest.
|
| Living in a relatively large house in the suburbs should
| in principle cost several times more than living in a
| flat in the city, because it requires vastly more
| infrastructure and the amortized cost of services is much
| higher. But our broken economic system has flipped this
| around and made suburbs extremely artificially cheap,
| while making most of the building practices that make
| denser walkable neighborhoods possible illegal under
| building codes and local ordinances.
| avalys wrote:
| This is an interesting theory, but I'm not sure you can
| prove it. What's a way in which the USA "subsidizes"
| suburbs?
| wyre wrote:
| Roads, utilities, emergency services...
| matthewfcarlson wrote:
| Per mile, small urban roads were millions of usd a mile
| (see department of transports annual report and it varies
| by region). Maintenance is even worse. It's the 5th
| highest expense for most cities (US census survey of
| local and state governments 2020).
|
| Of course the suburbs don't make sense, you have a half
| mile of road out to a neighborhood and another half mile
| of street in the neighborhood itself. The percentage of
| property taxes going to the road is probably just a few
| percent points. With only a few hundred houses, it would
| take decades to raise the 1-3 million to replace the
| road.
| macinjosh wrote:
| That we pay for with our taxes? How much property tax
| does one in a high rise apartment pay?
|
| My suburban neighborhood also has a metro tax district
| that funds the roads sewers etc.
| jacobolus wrote:
| Initial infrastructure is often paid for with up-front
| cash transfers from the federal/state government and
| long-term loans, then the long-term maintenance is
| supposed to be funded by local taxes but in many cases is
| set up to be more expensive than the long-term available
| tax base, so infrastructure just starts falling apart and
| then either taxes go up or maintenance is put off and
| people left holding the bag are screwed, or external cash
| bailouts make up the difference.
|
| In either case, the suburbanites (especially near the
| beginning of the construction cycle) and initial
| construction companies are getting a huge subsidy from
| everyone else (and from future generations) to promote an
| inherently unsustainable and destructive living
| arrangement.
|
| It's a kind of Ponzi scheme, and like any other Ponzi
| scheme, at some point the music stops and then the whole
| system is in an extremely precarious place.
| yowlingcat wrote:
| I don't think it's broken. I think it's working as
| intended, but what it's optimizing for (people raising
| families) is perhaps not what you'd like for it to
| optimize for. Whether it's the right or wrong thing to
| optimize for is another conversation, but you may be
| surprised about what the collective political will of the
| US expresses. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a
| voting majority support for the idea that "American
| suburbs should have to pay for themselves."
| Retric wrote:
| American style suburbs are worse for raising a family
| than living in a city. Long commutes practically remove
| one or more parents from the equation 5 days a week. Long
| bus rides compromise sleep and exercise etc.
|
| All for a back yard that's rarely used and worse in just
| about every way than a nice park.
|
| What they are is a cheap imitation of the wealthy
| enclaves near cities that only work because so few people
| can afford to live in them. You can imitate such
| buildings cheaply, what you can't do is build or maintain
| the support structures which made such places so
| appealing.
| macinjosh wrote:
| My superior air quality, lower crime rate, and better
| schools disagree with your assessment.
| Retric wrote:
| Don't confuse socioeconomics for inherent advantages.
| Adjusted for income people live longer in cities, they
| are thus objectively safer.
|
| Wealthy parts of cities have vastly better schools and
| less crime than the average suburbs, but the American
| middle class abandoned cities. Air pollution again can go
| either way, suburbs often have surprisingly terrible air
| quality made worse by long commutes.
| jacobolus wrote:
| "Better schools" (by which most people mean higher test
| scores) is largely a proxy for parental wealth - which is
| correlated to better food, housing security, more quiet
| time, less family stress, less external responsibilities
| for students, less toxins in the home, more academic and
| extracurricular support, etc. - and has a relatively
| limited impact per se on individual student outcomes.
| That is, if you took all of the wealthiest families' kids
| and transplanted them to the "worse schools" they'd still
| statistically do just fine, because they would still have
| all of the other advantages that make most of the
| difference.
|
| Much of this kind of neighborhood sorting for "school
| quality" in my experience comes down to wealthy white
| parents not wanting their kids mixing with poorer people
| or racial minorities based on prejudice (i.e. assumptions
| generated from ignorance and psychological "disgust"
| responses gone haywire).
| mmatants wrote:
| Suburbs are not the only place to raise kids though.
| Probably not the best place for it either.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Cars are great for all that, and an electric cargo bike
| like an urban arrow is great for all the things nearby,
| IF you have safe infrastructure. Plenty of people have
| cars in my Dutch city but it's still safe to do local
| things by biking and walking
| kmeisthax wrote:
| You start by not making the problem worse. Stop building
| stroads[0]. Liberalize the zoning code and allow mixed-
| use development. Get rid of parking minimums.
|
| The upside of how sparse American suburbs are is that we
| can repurpose all the junk/wasted land with normal market
| incentives. Roads can be thinned and the land handed back
| to the owners of that land, along with the setbacks that
| are used to force people to maintain water-intensive
| lawns[1]. Upzoned buildings can be redeveloped to higher
| density or turned into small commercial stores as market
| forces dictate. Anyone who wants to hold out can still do
| so.
|
| None of this requires absolutely banning cars[2]. People
| will stop driving as cars become less necessary for daily
| suburban life. Road trips can still happen. So instead of
| families with three or four cars, maybe they only have
| one or two. As car infrastructure is used less, it can be
| repurposed for transit networks that _don 't suck_ - i.e.
| BRT, light rail, or tram systems with dedicated rights of
| way.
|
| "15 minute city" doesn't mean "you should only ever
| travel 15 minutes on foot and anything further will be
| stopped by the pollution police". It means "building a
| city so that everything you need is closer and more
| convenient".
|
| [0] Surface street / highway combos, i.e. roads with 3
| lanes on each side, highway speed traffic, no pedestrian
| infrastructure, and business access. They try to do
| everything and fail at everything.
|
| [1] Incidentally this was sold as a way to stop
| communism, somehow
|
| [2] OK, but can we still at least ban the giant Escalade
| mega-SUVs that let you run down like ten kids without
| even seeing them
| meesles wrote:
| Agreed. Even solar + wind - when the buzz started it was all
| rainbows and butterflies because we found a silver bullet to
| energy!
|
| There is no such thing as free lunch. If you start absorbing
| massive amounts of solar, you will have some effect on the
| environment that we have absolutely no clue about. Same with
| interfering with wind patterns and ocean currents, which
| would happen with energy generation at true humanity-scale.
|
| Critical thinking left the room a long time ago.
| gmadsen wrote:
| with global warming, shouldn't absorbing massive amounts of
| solar be a good thing?
| luis8 wrote:
| Looks like nuclear with proper waste disposal is they way
| to go
| seb1204 wrote:
| It is not. Proper waste disposal is an unsolved issue
| that extends beyond so many human generations. Also I
| suspect that social licence and NIMBYism will make it
| impossible to build them in time to save us from global
| warming.
| seb1204 wrote:
| Not sure what to make of your comment. Are you suggesting
| we don't use any technology? All our actions have
| consequences on the planet. However your comment seems to
| suggest that by adopting wind and solar we are buying into
| an issue we would not have otherwise.
| XorNot wrote:
| What do you think happens to solar energy which doesn't
| land on a solar panel currently? Say it lands on a dark
| coloured roof?
| DarmokJalad1701 wrote:
| > What do you think happens to solar energy which doesn't
| land on a solar panel currently
|
| It magically disappears from this universe of course. The
| photons know if it is actually being of use to sentient
| humans and decides to wreak havoc (in some as yet unknown
| fashion) only in that instance.
| aperson_hello wrote:
| Decarbonization will have negative externalities. Yes, even
| environmental ones. I'd argue that those externalities are
| necessary and delay to mitigate them is going to be worse
| than fixing them later.
| bluedino wrote:
| If you live next to a farm field, you get the same thing.
|
| And at certain times of the year, the "dust" smells like
| manure.
| FrontierProject wrote:
| That can't be from tires tho, a farm field won't have tires
| in it more than 3 or 4 times a year. And it probably smells
| like manure because pumping manure onto fields is one of the
| most common methods of fertilizing.
| spandextwins wrote:
| Years of creating artificial reefs from old tires are catching
| up. I wonder how sharp those people are? Next we should find
| about how those giant ships that blow their exhaust under water
| and kill all life.
| westurner wrote:
| > _Years of creating artificial reefs from old tires are
| catching up._
|
| People probably don't even realize that most tires are
| synthetic rubber and thus are also bad for the ocean.
|
| Is there a program to map the locations of old synthetic tire
| reefs, and what is a suitable replacement for reef
| reconstruction and regrowth?
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Perhaps you misread. The microplastics in the ocean are from
| airborne tire particles, as in from cars' tires rubbing on
| roads, that get washed away into the ocean.
|
| You could build cities of tires in the ocean and they would
| probably not be significant compared with normal tire friction
| in normal vehicle use.
|
| Also most of those reefs will be covered by debris and ocean
| flora, synthetic rubber is mostly decomposed by friction or UV
| radiation if it's left alone and covered in ocean stuff it will
| arguably be insignificant compared to your personal
| contribution of eroding tires on your way to work.
| usrusr wrote:
| In other words: sooner or later every bit of synthetic rubber
| that is part of the tire when it leaves the factory and that
| isn't part of the tire when it goes to wherever those things
| go at EOL will eventually be washed away by rain. And then it
| either becomes inland sediment or make its way into the
| oceans.
| markx2 wrote:
| I remember watching Formula 1 in the 80's. The amount of
| 'marbles' from tyre degradation was amazingly high. If you have
| seen a race with a dry line after rain it was that striking.
|
| And yet now, very few marbles, it would seem though that they are
| a lot smaller.
| gcanyon wrote:
| The obvious solution is to switch from plastic back to paper
| tires. /s
|
| But seriously, I think EVs help with lower brake emissions, since
| regeneration is a different process. The issue with tires is at
| least partially a choice: drive like a normal person and you
| don't have to emit (much -- there's still the extra weight) more
| tire bits.
|
| I wonder if it's possible to design tires from materials that
| will biodegrade in the ocean/environment, or at least sink?
| infecto wrote:
| So many comments here about American spread which I agree on but
| how to fix it? Even in the Bay Area where cars are hated it's
| pretty much a requirement at some point. I always had a dream
| that some commercial developers built tried building some
| communities where green space and commercial store front was
| baked in. Essentially building some tasteful strip malls in the
| center of the community and making sure a grocery store leased
| part of it.
|
| Then I always realize that it's actually probably pretty hard to
| manufacture this. Which grocery store do you get to move in? Do
| you allow liquor stores or do you just let the market decide what
| moves in? You have to have some influence by building it and
| planning it though.
|
| That always leaves me down the road that I think it's partially a
| failure at the local government level and how we do zoning. At
| the same time though I dont think Americans want to live Asian
| style in massive apartment skyscrapers or in close quarter
| multistory buildings with store fronts on the first level. It's
| as much of a cultural problem as it is zoning.
| sparker72678 wrote:
| TIL that "microplastics" sources include tires. Had no idea.
| modeless wrote:
| I'm glad people are looking at how to reduce the impact of tire
| dust. I expect we can make big improvements because it's not
| something we've optimized for yet.
|
| Not mentioned in the article is that EVs also dramatically reduce
| brake dust because the brakes are hardly used compared to an ICE
| car.
| lb1lf wrote:
| Surely brake dust must be negligible compared to tire and
| asphalt dust?
|
| I recently replaced the brake pads on my Land Cruiser; 70,000km
| (45,000 miles) since they were last replaced. This is a large,
| heavy 4x4, yet the amount of brake liner worn from the pads
| must have been on the order of a pound, if not less.
| ilyt wrote:
| > Surely brake dust must be negligible compared to tire and
| asphalt dust?
|
| Brake dust is kinda different problem. Yeah it puts particles
| in the air, but most of it is pretty biodegradable (carbon
| and iron), and rest of it could _probably_ be made that -
| technically loss of efficiency here could be compensated for,
| which is far harder for tyres.
| kylebenzle wrote:
| I worked on this indirectly for 4 as as part of a pdh at Ohio
| State. We have had the solution to this problem since then but
| because natural rubber is slightly less profitable for the
| companies (it lasts too long and it too high quality) they use
| synthetic rubber.
|
| Tire dust is a problem becuase we WANT it to be a problem the
| solution is available but it is impossible to get funding
| because the tire companies don't want to use it.
|
| Thats it, that is how capitalism works. Make millions upon
| millions of people sick so that 3 companies can make slightly
| higher profits.
|
| [1] https://hcs.osu.edu/our-people/dr-katrina-cornish
| christkv wrote:
| I was going to say natural rubber seems like the logical
| solution for this.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| > Thats it, that is how capitalism works
|
| But we don't live in a pure capitalistic society.
|
| Where is the govt's role in this? We pay 30-40% of our
| earnings for govt to do nothing while politicians become rich
| enabling this?
| geysersam wrote:
| Seems the issue is that we don't vote on the right
| politicians. I refuse to believe there are no politicians
| who could get behind regulating businesses that refuse to
| adapt superior technology for the wrong reasons.
| _dark_matter_ wrote:
| Can you link to this research? Is there any tire company
| using this technology? If the people cared we could either
| pay a premium for them, or regulate
| kylebenzle wrote:
| Yes! All the big tire companies, Goodyear, Michelin and
| Firestone have a "natural rubber" development department
| and every couple years they come out with a "green tire"
| which they quickly drop and forget about.
|
| As for the "technology" of natural rubber, yes again, ALL
| military aircraft tires are only natural rubber, people
| know, when it matters use ONLY natural rubber.
|
| Again, we use choose to use and pollute with synthetic
| rubber because it is more profitable for the companies to
| sell us more tires that ware out more quickly. They know
| this and its on purpose.
|
| [1] https://hcs.osu.edu/our-people/dr-katrina-cornish
| olalonde wrote:
| This is a naive and incorrect view of economics. Tire
| manufacturers employ synthetic rubber because that's what
| consumers want (probably because it's cheaper even when
| accounting for the lower longevity?). They do not just
| get to dictate which products enter the market.
|
| Which makes me highly doubt your claim that natural
| rubber tires are both superior AND cheaper. If you are
| right about that, I'm sure there are VCs who would be
| more than happy to fund you...
| shepardrtc wrote:
| That's the point, natural rubber tires are slightly more
| expensive. I think the parent said it was like 5% more
| somewhere above? Tire companies will go the cheapest
| route every time, so it's up to the government to make it
| more expensive to create synthetic rubber tires. Maybe
| start charging them for ocean cleanup.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Also EVs have no tail pipe emissions. At all. An ICE vehicle
| converts 100% of it's fuel into toxic tail pipe emissions. The
| tire dust is marginally the same for the same weight. We are
| not talking a new set of tires every other month for EVs. And
| there is very little brake dust indeed. So, what are we really
| talking about here exactly?
|
| Well that's more complicated. Articles like this don't come out
| of the blue. There's an extremely well funded effort by fossil
| fuel and ICE car manufacturing companies to spread FUD about
| EVs. They are looking at double digit percentage drops in
| demand for their product in the decade ahead. That's going to
| impact them financially in a big way and they have a huge
| financial interest in slowing that down. And their tool of
| choice is misinformation. Little white lies, lots of half
| truths, twisted facts, lies by omission, etc.
|
| That's not to say tire particles in ocean water aren't an
| issue. But the reality is that most of those particles come
| from ICE vehicles right now.
| stavros wrote:
| Do they? How does that work? Why does it matter in what way the
| friction on the axle is generated? Whether I am grinding two
| metal on metal to generate friction or I'm charging a coil
| shouldn't matter to how much dust the tire generates, for the
| same amount of deceleration, should it?
|
| Unless people are just slamming on their brakes and leaving
| tire marks when they have the option of coming to a gentle
| stop, which I don't think anyone would do?
|
| EDIT: Apparently I misread "brake dust" for "tire dust", sorry!
| [deleted]
| ninkendo wrote:
| We can assume that modeless was referring to the dust
| generated by the brake pads themselves, I should think...
| neallindsay wrote:
| I think you missed that they are talking about brake dust.
| jstanley wrote:
| They said EVs reduce _brake dust_ , not tyre dust. It's true
| that tyre dust would be created just the same.
| adrianN wrote:
| More actually since EVs are heavy. They also tend to
| accelerate faster than combustion cars.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Parent post brought up brake dust, which is not what this
| article is about. EVs definitely put less wear on brakes but
| that has nothing to do with microplastics.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| That said brake dust _is_ an environmental problem.
| ilyt wrote:
| But most of it does biodegrade so it is short time
| problem vs very long time problem.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| Copper, which was (is?) the most problematic part
| doesn't.
| stavros wrote:
| I think it got edited, it said "tire dust" when I made my
| comment (unless I'm mistaken, but I did check twice to make
| sure).
|
| EDIT: Looks like I just misread the "tire dust" on the
| first sentence and filled it in the second sentence as
| well, huh.
| bitdivision wrote:
| I think GP is referring to the dust generated by brake pads.
| Since EVs can use regenerative braking, there should be less
| use of the brake pads, and therefore less brake dust.
|
| I would assume that the tyre dust will remain the same
| [deleted]
| _3u10 wrote:
| Im glad we banned straws
| cgb223 wrote:
| What tools/technology exist today to remove microplastics from
| water?
|
| This theme comes up time and time again on HN, has anyone
| attempted to solve this?
| Tarsul wrote:
| look no further than this guardian article from this week about
| bacteria that eat microplastics:
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/28/plastic-...
| undersuit wrote:
| It's not that we don't have filters. You can filter your tap
| water right now of microplastics with standard filters. We
| don't have the capacity to filter the world's oceans before the
| microplastics enter the ecosystem.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Mass production of cars was a mistake. We don't need so many
| cars. I wish people realized this. It's one of the worst things
| about our era.
|
| And I'm not a hypocrite. I don't own a car nor do I drive one. I
| walk and bike and take the bus.
| bedobi wrote:
| Typical hackernews to have threads full of well meaning but
| ultimately misguided people saying ah we have some technological
| solution for this.
|
| The solution to this problem and _every other problem caused by
| driving_ is _not driving_. Period.
|
| Not driving doesn't require any new technology, it just requires
| getting serious about alternatives to driving. (safe, separated
| bike ways, ebike and micromobility subsidies, rail, public
| transit, better urban design, less subsidies to cars and trucks
| of any kind etc etc - all of these have a self-reinforcing
| positive feedback loop that lead to even less driving)
| beedeebeedee wrote:
| And changing to mixed-use zoning- that is the number one issue
| in fixing our transport system
| savanaly wrote:
| No, the typical hackernews comment is yours. Take a very
| complicated issue, present your favored simple solution without
| evidence, then say "period" as if that somehow settles the
| issue.
| noobermin wrote:
| This is backwards, social solutions are actually harder than
| a tech fix, because any tech fix won't be an actual fix. It
| will just be a band-aid that won't solve the underlying
| social issue.
|
| Imagine, for example, thinking the solution to male
| loneliness or alternative patriarchy is just a better
| bumble/tinder. Social problems cannot be solved by better
| technology simply, the problem is much more complicated than
| that.
| paddy_m wrote:
| Not driving requires even less. It requires the local and state
| governments to stop making it illegal to build the type of
| dense walkable neighborhoods that we built until the 1930s.
|
| Let landowners build what they deem fit on their own land.
| That's it (or a large part of it)
| rough-sea wrote:
| Yet another misguided comment.
|
| We cannot simply stop driving anymore than we can stop using an
| increasing amount energy. There are huge portions of humanity
| that live in places that depend on cars. It's a non-solution to
| say people should just stop driving - billions cannot.
| nicoburns wrote:
| It's unreasonable to expect individuals to unilaterally stop
| driving. But on a societal scale, it's entirely reasonable to
| expect our governments to build infrastructure that allows
| (many of) us to stop driving. That isn't simple, but neither
| is it an intractable problem.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| In other words: you're proposing to replace a set of possible,
| if difficult, technological solutions, with an near-impossible
| social solution. I'd call _that_ misguided.
|
| Technological solutions tend to be discussed because they can
| be implemented. Social solutions may work better, but only in
| imaginary la-la land where they can actually be put into
| practice. In the real world, you can't " _just_ " get people to
| not drive.
| Uehreka wrote:
| The "social solutions" are just policy solutions, and people
| on HN don't like the idea of regulation, so they act like
| "social solutions are impossible", when the truth is just
| that "social solutions are impossible without policies I find
| distasteful".
| libraryatnight wrote:
| Sure you can. Teach your kids cars are stupid and bad and
| stop driving so much yourself. Trickle-down culture is real,
| economics not so much. Also your lauded tech solutions rarely
| do shit but create more problems and the businesses we hire
| to implement them lie about the problems until we've all got
| cancer, no air, and no water.
|
| Minimizing driving and making it a cultural value that it's a
| tool to be used sparingly seems reasonable and about the only
| solution I can actually trust when you have a culture of
| selfish assholes and a society with nothing underneath it but
| a pit of spikes.
| xyst wrote:
| The 1950s suburban experiment through cheap money (new
| suburbs brought in short term influx of cash for
| cities/counties), massive subsidies of highway
| infrastructure, subsidies for automobile industries,
| redlining housing policies, and "white flight" pushed people
| towards driving.
|
| It can be reversed. Believe it out not, prior to the
| Industrial Revolution people got around just fine. Somehow
| the auto industry convinced people their dangerous machines
| in the hands of commoners was a good idea.
| danny_codes wrote:
| Of course we can. This is just a function of public policy.
|
| Once our cities are re-built around walk/bike/transit, nobody
| is going to drive because it will be slower and less
| convenient. Just like it is in many cities around the world.
| anlsh wrote:
| Hah! Cars have been around for just a hundred years or so,
| and yet serious efforts to reduce our dependency on them are
| "near impossible." Talk about recency bias.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| Would you say something similar about computers?
| anlsh wrote:
| No. But we're talking about cars, not computers, and
| their novelty is just one among many strong pieces of
| evidence that a much less car-dependent society is
| possible, even desirable. Perhaps you can refute the
| existence billions of people on the planet who live
| without commuting via car, or the dense networks of
| public transit which they often rely on?
| H12 wrote:
| Writing off a shift towards walkability as a "near-impossible
| social solution" I think is misrepresenting the nature of the
| problem.
|
| Shifting car-centric suburbs and exurbs to a walking-friendly
| lifestyle is a massive challenge, but that only covers 20% of
| the population.
|
| The remaining 80% of the population already live in urban
| areas that, in many cases, are already very livable car-free,
| and are a few small policy changes away from taking a massive
| step forward.
|
| Even a couple large municipalities legalizing accessory
| dwellings, abolishing parking minimums, and rezoning to allow
| business conversations of existing residential properties
| could have a sizable impact.
|
| Additionally, many of the most expensive areas in the country
| are ones that are designed specifically to support
| walkability, which is a strong indicator of unmet demand for
| such areas.
| bedobi wrote:
| > only in imaginary la-la land
|
| sorry but this is laughable, you don't need to imagine lala-
| land or some alternate reality, large parts of the world do
| not have anywhere near the car dependency that north america
| does and they're fine. (in fact, they're more than fine,
| they're great, they're better off)
|
| visit tokyo and see for yourself - a huge, sprawling city of
| 40 million, including many single family home areas, where
| much, much fewer people drive
| hyperhopper wrote:
| It's not impossible, much of the world operates without 99.9%
| car usage like the USA.
|
| Every major European city metro area can be traversed without
| a car. Hell I went through 18 countries and 35+ cities in
| Europe without renting a car and only using a bus or plane
| maybe 4-5 times.
|
| This is an entirely self-made problem. A world not reliant on
| cars is not la-la land. It's a land where a car isn't treated
| as more important than a human, which should be the norm and
| is known to work in many other first world countries.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| The USA is a lot more spread out than Europe. In places
| where it isn't (NYC, Chicago) you can get around without a
| car pretty well.
|
| Guess what, in small towns in Europe and in rural areas,
| most people have cars too, and they drive to get their
| groceries.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| The northeast corridor is practically as dense as western
| Europe and we have a number of car-dependent cities
| denser than major transit-rich European cities.
|
| > Guess what, in small towns in Europe and in rural
| areas, most people have cars too, and they drive to get
| their groceries.
|
| That's fine! lets get our intra and intercity transit
| solved and small town people can keep doing what they've
| been doing.
| mplewis wrote:
| Trains aren't difficult technical solutions.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| With trains, the hardware isn't the problem. The property
| rights are - specifically those of people owning land and
| real estate on, or near, the planned tracks. But it's still
| a possible (if uber expensive) problem - the government
| could eminent domain its way through. But expecting people
| to spontaneously abandon cars and demand trains? That is
| impossible in practice.
| mminer237 wrote:
| Trains aren't a solution at all in most areas. My
| subdivision isn't going to build a rail line to the city 15
| miles away. That would require a total abandonment of
| single-family housing at the least.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Automobile dependency is not a technological problem, it is a
| social problem. Enormous sums of money were spent on
| lobbying, laws, and infrastructure, all just to make driving
| _tolerable_. The cost of this social experiment was that
| walking was made miserable and dangerous.
|
| A century ago people were saying, "in the real world, you
| can't _just_ get people to not walk ". But they did. We
| coined the term "jaywalking" to refer to _walking down a
| street like a normal person_ , manufactured consensus against
| it, and criminalized anything other than crossing streets at
| 90 degree angles to get from sidewalk to sidewalk. All so
| that people in cars could drive faster, which prior to this
| would have been considered, rightfully, reckless.
|
| All the technological problems caused by cars are downstream
| of the social engineering done to force people into buying
| them. If people did not have to drive everywhere, then we
| wouldn't need to worry about tire dust, fuel efficiency,
| emissions, and all the other things downstream of forcing
| people to drive heavy metal boxes everywhere.
|
| If we decided to end this social experiment, we could.
| Slowly, and in degrees, of course. But generally speaking
| there's a lot of people who would _like_ to not drive, but
| have to, and would be willing to deal with the infrastructure
| changes necessary to make that happen.
| bequanna wrote:
| I think your comment shows a very strong inner city, urban
| bias.
|
| The vast majority of Americans both need and love their
| cars. Very few people would support some movement that aims
| to restrict automobiles in any way.
| bedobi wrote:
| literally every human being on the planet both need and
| love their planet, including the air they breathe and the
| oceans they fish in and which regulate the climate
|
| maybe that's more important
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| "We" is not nearly as many as you may believe. I would say
| most people don't want to give up their car. That's why
| people spend so much time maintaining their cars, polishing
| them, buying nicer ones, etc. Some people want to give up
| their cars, but you need everyone to want this, and they
| don't. A technical solution is more likely to work than a
| mass social upheaval.
| bedobi wrote:
| yeah wow when the only option people have for getting
| around is to drive, most people will not want to give up
| their car
|
| our argument isn't that everyone should just stop
| driving, leaving everything else as is. that would, as
| you point out, obviously not work
|
| our argument is that there needs to be feasible
| alternatives to driving, which in many parts of the world
| is already the case and it works great (in fact, it works
| better than north american car dependency)
|
| i do want to call out one more thing though
|
| even if it was true that most people like their cars and
| driving (which isn't true at all)
|
| given that the degree to which people drive is literally
| becoming an existential threat not only to future
| generations but already to us now
|
| should the rest of us really just go ah we'll just let it
| slide then? like yes they're destroying our planet but,
| they _really like their cars and driving_
|
| i don't share that logic
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| The debate is whether we wait for society to change or we
| change the technology. If cars didn't pollute the
| existential threat from cars is removed. That problem is
| pure engineering and tractable, while social change is
| unsure and difficult thing to accomplish.
|
| This isn't the end of car related issues. But we can and
| should address the engineering and technology addressable
| things, and concurrently with the social change. As you
| say it's existential. There are a lot of other issues
| about car culture - the extensive use of land for car
| infrastructure for instance, that are important, but not
| existential. I even think making biking safer is
| important, but it's absolutely not existential. A less
| car dependent culture is neither necessary nor sufficient
| to address the issues of tire microplastic, co2 release,
| etc, as we still have the use of cars as they exist
| pervasively for other reasons than going to the store.
|
| My point though is that people like driving so they will
| drive even if it kills everyone. That's abundantly clear.
| People move out of urban cores into suburbs partly
| because of the car culture is more to their preference.
| That's not a new phenomenon and it's not restricted to
| the US. Many friends in UK, Holland, Germany, etc, moved
| out of the cities for a more suburban car centric life.
| So, if you can't easily change the behavior or preference
| (which I never see happening in a democracy), then why
| not address the ways in which cars destroy the earth? The
| logic doesn't make sense to you because you posed a false
| dichotomy. The options aren't "destroy the earth with
| cars or save the earth without cars," because cars don't
| necessarily have to destroy the earth.
|
| As an exercise of the imagination, imagine hydroelectric
| charged hovering quadracopter electric vehicles. They no
| longer produce microplastics or co2. Their batteries are
| 100% recyclable. What specifically would the issue be
| then? Is it absurd to imagine such a thing? Given current
| technology, it's absolutely NOT absurd. Given future
| technology it's fully achievable. Instead of flying
| vehicles, maybe just not touching the ground is enough?
| Etc. This may not be how we solve the issues, but it's a
| lot more plausible in my mind than convincing everyone to
| pack into an urban core and stop driving to Costco.
| seadan83 wrote:
| The "we" clearly refers to society at large. (I suspect
| you read what you wanted to read)
|
| > Some people want to give up their cars, but you need
| everyone to want this, and they don't
|
| This is moving the goal posts, nobody said everyone would
| want to make s transition and a requirement for this is a
| novel requirement only now introduced by your response.
|
| The example is akin to: 30 people are currently driving
| to s grocery store 0.5 miles away. If the sidewalk to
| that store didn't end after 250 feet but actually went
| all the way, then 5 people would walk. If there were a
| bike lane, then 3 people would bike, if there were a
| decent bus, mird would ride, and finally if it were
| closer..
|
| The line of logic given is basically, "because 100% of
| trips are done by car, nobody wants any alternative
| infrastructure, and suggesting that some people would use
| any alternative infrastructure is a war on cars."
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| If we means society at large that requires a large
| portion of society if not more than a simple majority.
| That doesn't exist for ending the use of automobiles. If
| the goal is the reduce the impact of automobiles, assumed
| from the thread being discussed, it's not sufficient to
| help those who want to walk to walk to the grocery store.
| That's a wonderful thing to do. But to reduce the impact
| of tire microplastics, the most likely route to actually
| achieve a reduction isn't to get people to walk to the
| store. It's to address the microplastic debris of tires.
| Better formulations, better runoff management, mass
| reduction of cars.
|
| Maybe we can change society fundamentally. Maybe. I posit
| probably not. But we can _definitely_ mitigate the impact
| of our cars on the environment and must. The rest is
| "nice to have."
|
| I don't think I ever say anything about 100% of trips
| done by car implies a lack of desire to less car
| reliance. Truly, this is reading what you wanted to read,
| and a clear ascribing of a bone headed intention on my
| part. But reducing reliance isn't enough to change the
| problems meaningfully. As has been noted elsewhere the 5
| minute drive to the store doesn't compare to the 2 hour
| drive of the 18 wheeler trucks distributing and
| redistributing the products from farm to store. Nor does
| it compare to the work commute, nor does it compare to
| the weekend outing to the mountains, with four or five
| hours of driving total, 50x or more the trip to the
| store.
|
| I lived many years in NYC, and I walked to buy groceries.
| It was good (although as my family grew the logistics of
| carting that much food in a push cart got tedious to be
| frank). But even in nyc I found myself increasingly
| buying things via delivery, especially non perishable
| items. Public transit takes _so long_ to get from one
| part of the city to another, often two hours round trip,
| that I found myself buying anything I needed on Amazon.
| Which then brought delivery trucks into the picture. Uber
| and Lyft and taxis were a constant part of life, even
| with a pretty complete transit system, simply because to
| get to a specific place not on a major line you had to do
| multiple transfers and the total commute time ballooned.
| Then you have to add in how incredibly unpleasant public
| transit can be - hot trains, insane people attacking
| people randomly, being pressed back to back for an hour
| with a huge crowd of strangers, break downs of signaling.
|
| Now I have a car and I live in a place that is walkable,
| but is adapted to cars better than NYC. I enjoy walking
| and biking, but I will never live in a car hostile
| environment again.
| bedobi wrote:
| > car hostile environment
|
| wow, talk about orwellian language conditioning. other
| people take issue with me making needless trips in urban
| spaces with my multiton, polluting, dangerous,
| microplastics emitting private automobile... poor me i
| live in such a car-hostile environment... give me a break
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| I'm not sure where the condescension comes from, but I
| didn't ask for pity. I moved, as do many people in nyc
| for this very reason.
| seadan83 wrote:
| You make some interesting points. I'm just trying to say
| this conversation thread is starting to talk past one
| another.
|
| The 'we' was referring to the full population of people
| and basically stated a significant subset of that 'we'
| are willing to entertain (what are currently non-viable)
| solutions.
|
| In other words, a problem exists for 100 people, and
| about 15 of them are willing to change their behavior
| that would help resolve the problem confronting the whole
| population (of 100 people).
|
| Thus, the tit-for-tat, the OP is not suggesting a simple
| majority or any kind of majority is required to change
| their behavior, but is lamenting that a significant
| minority would change their behavior if they could, if
| they were enabled.
|
| It's another way of saying, "those of us who would bike,
| or walk, or would bus - would do so if there were the
| slightest investment in those modes of transport to make
| them more viable".
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Yeah and it's absurd we don't make things more
| accommodating. However case in point I live almost
| exactly 0.5 miles from a Safeway. There are bike lanes
| throughout my part of the city and nice sidewalks with
| accessible ramps. I've literally never seen anyone ride
| their bike to the store. Probably there are also hills
| and folks don't want to ride uphill with groceries but
| it's also just not registering as an option in most
| people's mind. Nothing stops them at all. It's just not
| their habit or preference. But I am glad the infra
| exists, just I see people use it more for pleasure than
| necessity.
| Capricorn2481 wrote:
| > Automobile dependency is not a technological problem, it
| is a social problem.
|
| This is what the commenter said.
| avalys wrote:
| Not driving is not a solution.
|
| The reason zoning in the US requires developments to take cars
| into account, is that people in the US want cars. And if
| someone builds a new residential or commercial development that
| doesn't recognize this reality, it creates problems for
| everyone as people have nowhere to put the cars that they
| definitely want to use.
|
| Yes, there are some people who live in cities and are happy to
| have the entirety of their life limited to the region they can
| walk to, or the places where government-organized mass
| transportation can deliver them like cattle. But those people
| are the vast minority. Everyone else wants a car.
| d0gbread wrote:
| Chicken and the egg. You can't really make people not want
| cars without better alternatives, which requires investments
| that aren't being made.
|
| I want a car, because I need a car. But put in a few bullet
| trains and offshoots, a business model for vehicles that
| enables access to a $100/month consumer fleet of shared
| vehicles so I can grab a truck, minivan, whatever as needed,
| and I will happily skip ownership.
| avalys wrote:
| This is a fantasy. In general, people don't want a shared
| vehicle. If they did, everyone would own a 5-year-old
| Toyota Camry, and not luxury pickup trucks, sports cars,
| Mercedes and BMWs, etc.
|
| The idea that these people are just sheep blinded by
| marketing is ludicrous. You might spend $5 on a beer
| instead of $4 because of marketing. You buy a $60,000 new
| vehicle over a $15,000 used one because it's a good product
| that you actually want.
| bedobi wrote:
| in places where people don't need to buy neither a $15 or
| $60k private automobile, they don't buy any of them, they
| just ride the train or a bike like normal people do
|
| visit tokyo, paris or any other transit oriented city and
| see for yourself
| ilyt wrote:
| And that still solves not all that much because you still have
| to feed the city by fleet of trucks, and still need to have a
| fleet of vans to deliver all of that to the stores you now walk
| or cycle to.
| hyperhopper wrote:
| Are you insinuating a single truck carrying supplies for
| _thousands_ to a store is even remotely comparable to
| _thousands_ of cars driving to the store?
|
| You're comment can be distilled to "well the solution is many
| orders of magnitude better than the status quo, but it's not
| perfect so it's equally bad"
| anlsh wrote:
| Not much? Do you drive? Do you see the number of consumer
| vehicles on the road versus the number of trucks/delivery
| vehicles? If we could work towards a huge reduction in
| consumer vehicles on the road, even if we just replaced them
| all with busses, that'd be a huge improvement in gas
| consumption, traffic, (sub)urban sprawl, and more.
| throwaway920102 wrote:
| Or you know we could just all kill ourselves and that would
| solve the problem too but people like realistic solutions.
| Natural rubber exists and we don't have to use synthetic
| compounds in tires, we can just have shittier tires.
|
| Why do you propose no driving rather than shittier, more
| expensive driving?
| mplewis wrote:
| No one suggested you kill yourself. Just that we build more
| trains you can take.
| noobermin wrote:
| I hate to minimod, but this comment absolutely does not deserve
| to be flagged. It's not flaming or baiting, it isn't violating
| guidelines or spam or anything. It's not trolling.
|
| The downvote is for disagreement. Do not flag to downvote,
| please. FFS let's keep up the standards here and not devolve
| into reddit.
| pornel wrote:
| It's weird they focus blame on passenger vehicles when trucks are
| so much heavier.
|
| Shift the freight to rail. No plastics to shed. Much more energy
| efficient. Can be fully electric.
| danny_codes wrote:
| Seriously. America has spent 80 years punting their
| infrastructure backwards. It's so embarrassing.
| [deleted]
| verve_rat wrote:
| Sweet! Can we unban plastic straws now? The vast majority of them
| end up in landfill, not the ocean.
| audunw wrote:
| It's great to bring this problem up. But the focus on EVs is a
| distraction.
|
| > EVs tend to shed around 20 percent more from their tires due to
| their higher weight and high torque compared to traditional
| internal combustion engine-powered vehicles.
|
| It's covered in this panel discussion on Fully Charged:
| https://youtu.be/LeHakmL6eEc?si=ebBAn8RSDhmmLfHI
|
| Fleet operators don't see any significant difference in tire
| wear. EVs have higher torque but that doesn't matter unless to
| drive like a mad-man. EVs also allow you to drive very smoothly
| with no sudden jerk in torque.
|
| Cars have been getting heavier long before EVs came around. One
| of the problems is that EVs are all new. Too many of them are
| bigger than they need to be. But that also goes for new ICE
| vehicle models.
|
| I'm not too worried about the weight of EVs long term. Batteries
| are expensive. Increases in energy density, increase in vehicle
| efficiency and decrease in weight tends to have very significant
| effect on the amount of batteries you need to cover a certain
| range, which has huge impact on the price.
|
| What we need to focus on is infrastructure for walking, biking
| and public transportation. An E-bike has made it just possible
| for me to bike to work in a reasonable time. So I drive our EV
| less and less to work.
| [deleted]
| demondemidi wrote:
| > What we need to focus on is infrastructure for walking,
| biking and public transportation
|
| And busses, light rail, intercity trains.
|
| But America associates one-car-per-person with all kinds of
| twisted politics and self-esteem anxiety.
|
| We need a psyops program to wean people off cars, and it will
| take a decade or more. Just look at the anger in any HN thread
| that is critical of cars, it runs deep.
| moffkalast wrote:
| > look at the anger in any HN thread that is critical of cars
|
| On the other hand: https://old.reddit.com/r/fuckcars
| xyzelement wrote:
| // But America associates one-car-per-person with all kinds
| of twisted politics and self-esteem anxiety.
|
| America offers various lifestyles, from big cities like NYC,
| Boston, etc where a car is a liability, to near suburbs that
| are well served by transit (eg, NYC tri-state area) where you
| probably need a car but your daily commute doesn't involve
| it, to more spread-out and rural living where car is
| absolutely necessary.
|
| This speaks to a trade-off between density and car-
| dependence. People across the globe face similar trade-offs
| (eg: 50% of Dutch persons own a car, 86% of French households
| do...)
| rafram wrote:
| But we can do better. 92% of Americans own a car, only
| slightly higher than the rate in France, but the average
| American drives twice as many miles in a year as the
| average French person does [1]. There are a lot of trips
| that will always need a car. Lots of people still want to
| own a car, even if they live somewhere with a good rail
| network. But they don't need to drive it as much. It's not
| that they're being forced not to drive, it's that rail is
| such a great option for getting around that there's simply
| no need to use a car for most trips. That should be our
| goal in the US.
|
| [1] https://frontiergroup.org/resources/fact-file-
| americans-driv...
| danny_codes wrote:
| > We need a psyops program to wean people off cars, and it
| will take a decade or more. Just look at the anger in any HN
| thread that is critical of cars, it runs deep.
|
| That 10 billion of car ad spend per year adds up.
| coryrc wrote:
| Be willing to enforce civility in public. In Japan 7-year-old
| kids can ride the subway; here we have junkies burning
| fentanyl, vagrants with pitbulls, and "showtime". Gee, why
| wouldn't I want public transit to be an inseparable part of
| my life?
| demondemidi wrote:
| You are conflating two vastly different issues as part of
| pro-car propaganda. There is a drug epidemic AND there is a
| homeless crisis.
|
| Those have nothing to do with investing in public
| transportation.
|
| Your agenda is showing, lay off the NewsMax, my friend.
| coryrc wrote:
| No, I lived this. I want to live where I can bicycle
| entirely (and mostly did, because transit is often
| dirty). I'm working toward spending a few years in Japan
| and later the Netherlands. But only because we can't have
| nice things in the USA. I'm not going to live where
| junkies own all public spaces and kids get stuck on
| needles and die.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| > What we need to focus on is infrastructure for walking,
| biking and public transportation.
|
| And better tires.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > EVs have higher torque but that doesn't matter unless to
| drive like a mad-man
|
| Its not torque that matters. Its simply friction and normal
| force. And that's directly caused by weight. Tire Wear is
| something like (weight^4), so small increases in weight will
| have huge increases to wear-and-tear.
|
| ---------
|
| I think the real issue is that 3000lbs to 4500lbs, while a
| significant increase in tire wear, is still small compared to
| the big 5000lb to 8000lb vehicles that people use in practice.
| I'm sure a 4500lb EV is bad, but I'd expect a 6000 lb SUV or
| Truck to be worse (and a 8000lb electric-SUV to be the absolute
| worst).
|
| But beyond just consumer cars are semi-trucks, which almost
| certainly are the top tire-wear vehicles on the roads. I'd
| expect almost all of the plastic from "tire wear" to come from
| a semi-truck (again, weight to the power of 4), given their
| grossly increased weight.
|
| > walking, biking and public transportation
|
| Semi-trucks are replaced by trains. Not by walking and biking.
| I mean, I want more walkable paths and all. But this
| _particular_ problem is solved with freight trains.
|
| Last-mile is difficult. Do we want 100-people in a neighborhood
| driving 100x cars to a store? Or would we rather have 1x large
| truck deliver a (heavier) package to 100x different people?
| We're screwed in both cases, and rail can't save us.
|
| But trains don't use rubber and trains wheels / rails are made
| from steel. I'm sure some particles fly off as iron (or iron-
| oxide/rust), but surely much less than rubber given how much
| stronger steel wheels / steel tracks are.
| highwaylights wrote:
| Or people just get their groceries delivered. Way more
| convenient, not expensive anymore (I get unlimited deliveries
| for a fairly paltry annual fee), and saves on journeys as the
| truck just loads up on lots of people's deliveries all at
| once.
|
| It also scales better - if more people are having groceries
| delivered then each trucks stops become more closely
| clustered (unless the computers involved are just doing a
| poor job).
| galangalalgol wrote:
| As the tire wear varies with the square of the weight we
| are comparing:
|
| 100x(car weight + grocery weight)^2 Vs (Truck weight + 100x
| grocery weight)^2
|
| I couldn't find an empty weight for a box truck that could
| carry that much but assuming 10klbs total, and that grocery
| weight is negligible to the car, it looks like thebtruck is
| slightly better. It doesn't seem like a clear win.
| ok_computer wrote:
| Honest question how does shear force proportional to torque
| not factor in? Coefficient of friction is shear over normal.
| Mechanical properties are a function of temperature and quick
| startups assuredly contribute to wear. An extreme example is
| drag racing. Cars are highway driving in steady state
| cruising for more miles and time but in the US around town
| driving has stop lights.
| djhedges wrote:
| Even at steady state cruising the the tires are flexing and
| stretching with each revolution. Tires are round but a
| driveway is flat. If you look at the contact patch of the
| tire it flattens a bit to confirm to the driveway's shape.
| Now visualize with each revolution that flatten part of the
| tire is cycling around the wheel.
|
| At a microscopic level there's a lot edges in the road
| surface that we don't fully appreciate which also
| contributes to tire wear.
| http://insideracingtechnology.com/tirebkexerpt1.htm
| undersuit wrote:
| >Do we want 100-people in a neighborhood driving 100x cars to
| a store? Or would we rather have 1x large truck deliver a
| (heavier) package to 100x different people?
|
| Why can't the majority of the people walk to a store and the
| rest can be serviced by a smaller truck?
| dragontamer wrote:
| My overall point is that the "last mile" we're just screwed
| unless we fundamentally redesign our neighborhoods and
| shape of our cities.
|
| Its pretty damn obvious that as the USA is laid out right
| now, we don't have any good last-mile solutions outside of
| 100x different people driving to the same store and picking
| up what they want. And its not like houses are going to
| pick themselves up and move to a store, and given zoning
| laws no one is going to move a store into a neighborhood
| either. (People won't like the crime that comes with it).
|
| So whatever, that's that. I don't see this issue changing.
| But I do think that the truck/rail situation can change.
| Fewer people are in the decision-making process for train
| vs truck, and factories can be designed (and/or redesigned)
| to fit trains.
|
| I'd assume that its easier to convince one or two factory
| owners to switch from truck-based to train-based
| logistics... rather than convincing 100x homehowners to
| vote at the next HOA meeting to start a city-campaign legal
| change to change the local zoning laws and possibly lower
| everyone's housing values by increasing crime in the
| neighborhood during this rise in shoplifting going on right
| now...
| bobthepanda wrote:
| IIRC there is a push in some areas to switch to e-bikes;
| while they carry less, you also don't need a CDL to ride
| a bicycle and there is a chronic shortage of CDL drivers.
| nerdponx wrote:
| There's no shortage of anything except training and
| wages/benefits. At some point, companies are going to
| have to bite the bullet and start training their own
| employees. The horror!
| bobthepanda wrote:
| There is a legitimate lack, partially because the federal
| guidelines for holding a CDL rule out anyone who uses
| marijuana.
| corethree wrote:
| infra is not going to change in the US. Too much
| individual ownership at stake.
|
| For example I care about the environment but not enough
| to throw away a one million dollar suburban house for it.
|
| Basically to fix this problem is essentially to cause
| current suburban housing to depreciate in value until the
| property has become essentially worthless which is
| against much of the populations self interest as many
| people own homes. Either way, this kind of thing has sort
| of already happened in Japan.
|
| That being said in CA there are measures to combat this
| problem. ADUs and SB-9 to increase density, but adoption
| has not yet been that wide spread.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| >>>Either way, this kind of thing has sort of already
| happened in Japan.
|
| Can you explain?
| corethree wrote:
| In japan most physical houses are worth more than the
| property they stand on. That's why real estate prices in
| japan constantly depreciate.
|
| The only place where this isn't true are big urban cities
| like tokyo near really good locations.
|
| See source: https://japanpropertycentral.com/real-estate-
| faq/popular-myt...
|
| Nobody really talks about why there's this dichotomy
| between Japan in and the US. The reasoning is
| multifaceted. One of these things is infrastructure.
| Japan cities have extremely good infrastructure and are
| super clean. Living in Tokyo is close to living in a
| futuristic utopian cyberpunk society. So people know that
| the urban way of life is 100x better.
|
| The Western US is centered around suburban life where
| everyone drives cars. Property is spread out and not much
| is invested in cities on the west coast. People don't see
| the value of city life as much. The east side of the US
| is more hybridized where rural and city properties are
| valued for different reasons.
|
| Much of this dichotomy between countries is driven by
| lack of land in Japan and a lowering population. However
| this just pushes japan ahead of the curve. As energy
| becomes more and more expensive all economies will
| inevitably shift to becoming more like japan where
| suburban properties become more and more worthless.
| wnoise wrote:
| > (People won't like the crime that comes with it).
|
| Does crime come with it? I certainly wouldn't expect
| that.
| dragontamer wrote:
| People don't shoplift at their neighbors homes. They
| shoplift at grocery stores and whatever.
|
| Crime happens at places of commerce. That's just... how
| it works. Places of commerce have both goods to steal
| (especially useful black-market goods, like Tide
| Detergent) and cash-registers to steal from. I'm not
| saying like "murders" or whatever, but when a
| neighborhood has +100 police reports in a month, the Real
| Estate agents notice that and home values drop.
|
| That's just... how it works. Its not necessarily about
| "which crimes are actually dangerous" or whatever, people
| just pay attention to crime heatmaps and don't really
| look into the details.
|
| You stick a store designed to sell to homes, that store
| _will_ have homegoods, including Tide Detergent, in
| stock. That Tide _will_ be stolen, its just so easy to
| steal, easy to sell in the black market. That stolen good
| will be reported on police reports (so that the store can
| get back its insurance, or write it off or whatever they
| plan to do accounting wise). That police report will drop
| nearby home values.
| wcarss wrote:
| If people think grocery stores existing within walking
| distance of their homes will lower their home values, due
| to some rise in shoplifting in the news implying crime in
| their area, then the war for any sensible policy
| decisions is lost.
|
| That's like ten carts before a horse or some brawndo has
| what plants crave shit. I can walk to the grocery store
| where I live -- my house is worth more _because_ it has
| decent access to amenities.
| uoaei wrote:
| Can you quote actual statistics, not merely
| sensationalizing articles, demonstrating an increase in
| shoplifting? As far as I've seen there is no evidence to
| back up this common assertion. The narrative that is
| floating around is doing a lot of work to convince people
| it's true but where are the facts?
| dragontamer wrote:
| No.
|
| Empirically, myself and my sister have witnessed
| shoplifters personally in recent months. I know this is
| anecdotal data, but anecdotes (especially personal ones)
| are enough for myself. At least in my area, it seems like
| shoplifters _are_ on the rise.
|
| I don't need to prove it to other people on the internet.
| My own eyes with my own life is enough proof for me. If
| that's not enough for you, whatever. Seeing news reports
| that others are seeing similar rises matches my "gut
| check".
|
| ------------
|
| Now people stealing food from grocery stores is... you
| know... the lowest level of shoplifting. These people
| aren't stealing like, luxury goods. They're clearly just
| trying to survive. Its not like a criminal gang or
| organized crime that'd be deeply rooted and/or difficult
| to deal with.
|
| IMO, its weird that people would rather shoplift than to
| apply and/or use a WIC card (food stamps). So its a
| conundrum for another day in any case, its a crime
| (albeit relatively victimless. Sure sucks for the staff
| and the grocery store but I've seen worse...). But its
| still speaks poorly for neighborhoods and makes people
| feel less safe. So yeah, it needs to stop. But I can 100%
| believe that shoplifting is on the rise today.
| Anecdotally at least.
|
| There's other low-level crimes, like obviously not-paying
| for the subway, that I think is on the rise by my eyes as
| well. These also make people feel unsafe and/or
| unappreciated (tax dollars wasted, etc. etc.) and is bad
| for our neighborhoods.
|
| I do know that statistically speaking, the personal
| savings rate of people has declined, wages haven't kept
| with inflation, etc. etc. So these actions make sense in
| the greater economic situation IMO.
|
| I don't necessarily want a police crackdown to throw all
| these people in jail. But we do need to do something,
| maybe make WIC cards easier to apply for (at every
| grocery store for example), or stuff like that. We
| literally have a food-stamps program, why aren't people
| using it? Why are they shoplifting instead?
|
| --------
|
| If I cared, I probably would start by interviewing /
| personally talking to cashiers at my local grocery store
| before I trusted online articles anyway. And I'd suggest
| you do the same if you cared about this issue. The
| internet is just not as good a source of information as
| the front-line workers here.
|
| Every grocery store clerk has a feel. Talk with them next
| time you visit the store, don't be a political asshat
| about it but it wouldn't take more than 1 or 2 minutes to
| ask them if they've noticed more shoplifters. Obviously
| don't eat up all their time either (they're on the job
| after all). With luck, you might see a manager watching
| all the clerks who'd have more freetime to talk about
| shoplifters too.
| CableNinja wrote:
| Housing density, and radius of "walkable" to the average
| human.
|
| I live in a neighborhood full of small apartments, single
| level duplexes, and single family homes. What stores are
| walkable? The liquor store, and gas station, and if i
| really feel like it, dominos and 7-11, both of which are at
| least 1/4 mile one way. Most others in this area, dont get
| those even. Past that its about a mile one way to the
| actual grocery store. And then after all the shopping, i
| have to walk back, now with 50+lbs of groceries.
|
| Honestly, all this we need more walkable cities stuff, i
| get it, yes, you should be able to get places by walking,
| but really, its just not even feasible most times if youre
| going to be buying something. Im not gonna walk home from
| best buy 4+ miles away heaving a huge TV on my back, no one
| will. We invented transportation that didnt involve humans
| using their legs because we are slow, and easily over
| encumbered when carrying things. Theres a reason we saw an
| explosion of carriages way back. Its easier to haul more,
| and much faster, than if a person, or even many people at
| once, were to do it.
|
| Housing density is a huge factor in a lot of this, but
| having swaths of tall purely apartment buildings is also
| not the answer. People want single family homes and other
| styles for many reasons. They wont be going away anytime
| soon. And even if they did, the only answer is _very_ mixed
| use zoning.
|
| One of my favorite examples, in downtown Denver, there is a
| tall apartment building, stacked on top of a large chain
| grocery store, it includes parking for the store, and spots
| for the building, under the building too. This is what i
| would consider peak use, and what people complain about
| walkable cities really need to focus on. Having a city you
| can walk anywhere is great, but you need to be able to get
| to the societal needs without having to walk far. Of course
| the grocery store also serves for a large part of that
| neighborhood, and distance to the store is a variable, but
| this mainly serves multiple buildings in a small area. The
| big problem is all the space we waste dedicating to
| parking. It might be more expensive, but you can gain a lot
| more use if you force parking lots to have shops
| above/below them, and that reclaimed flat land can then be
| used for the mixed use building. Parking is also not going
| away, like i said, we invented carriages for a reason.
| Howwwweeeeevvvveeerrr all of this comes with a number of
| caveats, like the ridiculous price to lease a storefront,
| build the building, etc, and of course its just a feedback
| loop that gets worse as we waste more space, space becomes
| premium.
|
| All of this is to sum up my point, walkability is variable
| by person, and changes greatly depending on if youre going
| to have to be carrying things, and theres never going to be
| good "walkable" cities, short of nuking a city and starting
| over, you wont make it vastly better, especially with the
| politicians and government we have now.
| swores wrote:
| So people in your type of neighbourhood maybe can't start
| walking everywhere right away, but you don't need to also
| think "walking is out forever" - you can start lobbying
| your local politicians, and voting for the ones who want
| to improve things rather than sit in their 4x4 enjoying
| the status quo.
|
| (And personally if I lived somewhere unwalkable I'd move
| home to address that, though I appreciate there can be
| reasons to either not want to move or to not be able to
| move.)
| lazide wrote:
| Though folks who prioritized that would probably not move
| to such a place in large numbers?
|
| Unless they changed their mind to that state due to some
| major economic shifts after the move anyway.
| badpun wrote:
| A mile to a store is a very comfortable distance. I've
| lived in such situation for a couple of years and just
| walked to the store a couple times a week, hauling back a
| couple of kilograms of groceries in my backpack every
| time. I needed the walk and the exercise anyway, and this
| way I was killing two birds with one stone.
| lazide wrote:
| So no kids?
| dataflow wrote:
| How far do you think people should be willing to walk to a
| store?
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| My data point when I lived in SF is I would walk a third
| of a mile with two bags of groceries. But didn't really
| want to walk half a mile.
|
| Back when I lived in San Jose I could also walk to the
| store because way back in the 1940's they put a
| pedestrian walkway between two streets which dropped the
| walking distance from my house to the shopping center
| from half a mile to again a third of a mile.
|
| Which brings up something I think is over looked. Which
| is the layout of streets in post war housing tracts makes
| the distances you need to walk twice are far as they
| could be. With zoning changes, money and some eminent
| domain we could make things better.
| undersuit wrote:
| People should walk as far as they are willing to walk.
| CableNinja wrote:
| As i mentioned in my other post. Thats not far for most
| people. More than 1/4 mile and people will not hesitate
| to get the car
| swores wrote:
| I'm sure there are many people for whom that is true, but
| there are also many people who would laugh at the idea of
| driving two miles instead of walking, or laugh at the
| idea of driving six miles instead of cycling (even with a
| bag or two of shopping).
|
| I think a lot of the difference between people comes down
| to their childhood - what they learned as default
| behaviour. Though obviously people can change as they
| grow up too, either personality wise or having
| health/physical reasons they either can't walk far or
| can't drive at all. But my point is that just because
| some people feel that 3 minutes is the maximum time for
| walking before a car should be used instead it doesn't
| mean that short distance is an immutable fact, and many
| people could get used to walking slightly further
| distances and discover that no only is it not the end of
| the world, but it's even a good way to stay or become a
| bit fitter and healthier!
| Animatronio wrote:
| I was just thinking - why don't they make electrified
| coin-operated shopping carts that you can take home and
| return when you're done with them? That would greatly
| extend the carrying capacity of a single person and maybe
| make car trips redundant.
| desas wrote:
| Because nearly no-one wants to walk to the store, walk
| home, walk back to the store to return the cart and then
| walk home again.
|
| I never drive to the store and I still wouldn't do that.
| Animatronio wrote:
| You'd keep the cart until next time you need it.
| CableNinja wrote:
| Thats just buying a shopping cart with extra steps
| Symbiote wrote:
| Are you serious? That's 400m. One lap of the athletics
| track. Should take about 4 minutes at walking speed.
|
| Aren't there shopping malls in the US longer/wider than
| this?
|
| I think I walk further than that between buildings to get
| to the canteen at lunch time. I tell people I live
| "really close" to a metro station and it's 380m away.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| I'd say most people in overly car-centric areas balk at
| walking from the far end of a Walmart parking lot.
| [deleted]
| jayd16 wrote:
| I wouldn't mind walking to the store now and then but
| usually I make fewer trips for more than I could carry.
| undersuit wrote:
| So you're going to drive a multi-ton vehicle instead of
| bringing a folding cart?
| avalys wrote:
| Yes, because we're a wealthy and productive society and
| the fruits of human progress in the past 300 years have
| allowed us to build a civilization where nearly everyone
| can afford to use a multi-ton machine of nearly
| incomprehensible complexity and sophistication to carry
| them around, instead of pushing a cart like a peasant
| 5,000 years ago did.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| Check out eg https://youtu.be/hmk5cxpAfcw where he's
| flying by all the cars stuck in traffic on his human-
| powered peasant wheels.
|
| Auto companies lobbied governments and put out propaganda
| to get cities to rip out street cars and rail in the
| early 1900s. They did this to sell more cars, so this is
| what we get.
| avalys wrote:
| If you want to ban cars from New York City, that's fine
| with me. Do you realize that NYC makes up 0.008% of the
| land area in the United States?
| avalys wrote:
| Your young and fit rollerblade dude doesn't seem to be
| carrying much in the way of groceries or supervising any
| young children.
|
| What about the single mother of three with a disability?
| Should she push a cart to the grocery store? Who is
| watching her kids while she does this?
| undersuit wrote:
| Why can't the majority of the people walk to a store and
| the rest can be serviced by a smaller truck?
| undersuit wrote:
| Yes we can afford this now. In the context of "Tire Dust
| Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics" how long
| can we afford this? Just like dumping Freon, and CO2 into
| the atmosphere have long term consequences that require
| our society to change, how long can we go aerosolizing
| rubber?
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| I wonder how hard it would be to capture this with some
| kind of aero device in the wheel wells of vehicles. Given
| what F1 teams can do with aero, it doesn't seem like a
| huge stretch to be able to suck up these particles at the
| source and pass them through a filter bag like a
| household vacuum or something.
| uoaei wrote:
| That's a fascinating idea. I hope someone (you?) pursues
| it.
| avalys wrote:
| Governments have paid very little attention to this
| problem to date. It seems like regulation on chemical
| composition of tires might be warranted. I don't have a
| problem with that.
|
| The fanatic anti-car people will actually reduce the
| chances of meaningful regulation being passed here - as
| they won't be able to resist trying to use this
| opportunity to actually make cars more expensive and less
| accessible to people, and reduce overall car use, etc.
|
| Thus, reasonable people who are not fanatically opposed
| to cars will be suspicious of whether the proposed
| regulation is really needed, or just an excuse to achieve
| socio-political goals that can't be achieved directly.
|
| This is exactly the same dynamic that affects other
| issues, e.g. gun control. The extremists will block
| reasonable progress.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Unfortunately we have been pushing the costs onto
| everybody else: as evidenced by climate change and micro
| plastics. And now the bill is starting to come due.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I have a wheeled shopping cart thing (not sure what to
| really call it, but it's the standard one). I can only
| fit some milk and a few things in there, it is no where
| near as capable as my car. I still use it, since I don't
| like driving to the store (we live near 3 big grocery
| stores, and a soon to be closed city target), and it's
| useful for getting snacks to school when it's my turn,
| but I don't see it as a car replacement.
| lazide wrote:
| When it's easier and (value of time) cheaper, why not?
| undersuit wrote:
| You seem to have different issues than the person I'm
| replying to. Maybe your situation is different. If you
| nearest grocery store is 45 minutes away by walking maybe
| your situation requires a different solution than someone
| who has expressed interest to walk but stated that they
| might buy too many groceries to walk that home.
| lazide wrote:
| Nope. A car is convenient (the comment I was replying
| too) in both situations!
|
| Weird, eh?
| beedeebeedee wrote:
| > Why can't the majority of the people walk to a store and
| the rest can be serviced by a smaller truck?
|
| Single-use zoning. Most people in the US live in areas
| where you can't walk to a store.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| For example, San Jose: https://youtu.be/SWtb3GsLrTI
| doubled112 wrote:
| The nearest store is a 45 minute walk (one way) from my
| townhouse. I'm not in the US, but Canada. Driving drops
| that to 8 minutes.
|
| The sprawl is real and I just don't always have 1.5 hours
| to dedicate to grabbing bread.
| mzmzmzm wrote:
| This kind of gets at the root of the problem. Take away
| cars, and the whole North American built environment is
| just not worth as much as the pyramid scheme of real
| estate we have in place of social safety nets.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| > The nearest store is a 45 minute walk (one way) from my
| townhouse. I'm not in the US, but Canada. Driving drops
| that to 8 minutes.
|
| Assuming an average adult walking speed of 3 mph, I'm
| guessing that's somewhere in the ballpark of 2.25 miles?
| So something like 11 minutes at an average cycling speed
| of 12 mph, yeah? The distances here don't feel
| insurmountable.
| doubled112 wrote:
| It isn't the distance that is insurmountable by bike, no.
|
| Alone it would be fine, I know what I'm doing. If I add
| my children to the mix, it is a little sketchy due to
| what I'd consider tricky spots.
|
| There are no sidewalks, no bike lanes, no curbs, a
| squeeze over a bridge where two cars won't fit around the
| corner simultaneously, and a couple of roundabouts that
| drivers just don't understand (one normal, one mini). I
| can't quite trust them to do the right things. The
| drivers or my children in this instance.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| Sure, I don't doubt that the infrastructure is terrible
| for cycling. It is where I live in the US too. But I
| think it's worth calling out that the distances involved
| often are well-suited for cycling, even if the streets
| today aren't.
|
| Where the distances are okay but the streets aren't,
| safer streets can make cycling feasible. Where the
| distances are too far for cycling, you need both safer
| streets _and_ a shift in land use to get people out of
| their cars. Both are doable in the long term, but the
| former is much more tractable in the short- and medium-
| term.
| undersuit wrote:
| Yes _now_ , but I have assume to were talking about
| improvements and the future of "walking, biking and
| public transportation" since adunw started this thread
| with that sentiment.
| slackwaredragon wrote:
| A lot of people can't look beyond their own generation
| and if it's something that takes 20-30 years to realize
| they just simply think it's too difficult. I see this
| with my generation (Gen-X), newer generations and even
| older generations.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The report they cite has a litte icon of a train in their
| solutions infographic section, page 89:
|
| https://www.systemiq.earth/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/07/Breaki...
| neon_electro wrote:
| My Bolt EV has a curb weight of 3624lbs; there are examples
| of vehicles that could have dramatically lower impact, but
| it's frustrating that GM doesn't seem inclined to keep cars
| like this in production. (Yes, they're hinting at producing
| the Bolt EV in the future, it's unfortunate that they can't
| just keep producing the current Bolt until then)
| Stinky_Lisa wrote:
| Last mile can be resolved with drones and bikes. I wouldnt
| even be opposed to consider going back to horses.
| swores wrote:
| Are horses actually environmentally friendly? I know that
| having a pet dog can be one of, if not the most, un-
| environmentally friendly things a person can do due to the
| amount they eat, so I could imagine horses having the same
| problem and not being as good as electric cars yet alone
| electric bikes, but I don't know anything about horses so
| maybe they're very efficient eaters?
|
| I do know that back before cars, places like NYC had many
| tens of thousands of horses working in the streets, leading
| to huge amounts of horse shit everywhere (so much so that
| even though it does have industrial uses, it's value was
| practically zero), plus something like half a dozen horses
| dying on the streets every day and being left to putrefy -
| so some logistical improvements compared to last time
| needed at the very least, though 120 years ago people
| weren't caring much about the fuel efficiency comparisons.
| aksss wrote:
| Yep, horses are massively expensive to own. Aside from
| required caloric intake, think living space, waste
| disposal, pests, specialized care (farrier), vet bills,
| tack, grooming. Ugh.
| [deleted]
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| I was in the market for a small electric city car and found
| out that we're not allowed to have small cars in the US.
| Europe and Asia have really nice small city cars under
| 2,000lbs but none of them are available here. I believe the
| smallest car sold in the US is the Mini Cooper around
| 3,000lbs. I actually ended up with a souped up street legal
| golf cart and it's worked out well for my purposes of picking
| up kids and groceries within a 5 mile radius, though I'm in
| the Bay Area where the weather is not too extreme most of the
| year. I'm not sure why this market is neglected.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Doesn't really matter in any case.
|
| The bulk of the problem is 5000lb+ vehicles. F150, SUVs
| like Suburbans, etc. etc. I'm not even sure if people are
| using these big vehicles to carry their families around,
| its probably just single-person drivers in most cases.
|
| I'm not even sure how to approach the weight problem. We
| have plenty of cars in the 3000lb or 4000lb range but more-
| and-more people are pushing 5000lb+.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| A tax during annual registration based on axle weight to
| the fourth power times the number of miles driven since
| the last odometer reading.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
|
| There are some horrible states without annual
| inspections, but they should be federally punished until
| they comply. If we could force every state to have a
| drinking age of 21, using access to highway funding, then
| there's no reason the same thing couldn't be done for
| vehicular taxation. It would increase state tax revenue
| anyway...
| enragedcacti wrote:
| The Mitsubishi Mirage is available in the US and comes in
| at just ~2100lbs, but it really ends up just serving the
| purpose of showing how huge of a gap there is in the
| American market. The fact that Mitsubishi can make a
| 4-door, 40mpg, 2100lbs car that passes US regs on a
| shoestring sale price shows that other mfgs could but just
| don't have the incentive to. You have the cancelled Chevy
| Spark at 2246lbs, the 2-seater Miata at 2,341lbs, and then
| the next lightest is a Versa with +500lbs on the Mirage.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| The Honda Fit, which is very popular, isn't even sold in
| the US anymore. Curb weight is low 3000s, all of the
| passenger seats fold down, it parallel parks trivially,
| and it's fun to drive. It's basically a 90s Civic.
|
| I'm angry about this often, as mine is over fifteen years
| old. If I had to replace it with a new car, I'd want
| another Fit. The closest thing on the market is probably
| a hatchback Civic...and the whole reason for the Fit
| existing is because international pressure made the Civic
| too large and heavy for the desirable tax bracket in the
| Japanese market.
|
| And it's not even small for the Japanese market, because
| they have the whole kei class, with strong incentives to
| drive smaller cars. Which is how it should work
| everywhere: severe tax penalties for larger cars, to
| promote public safety and fairly pay for the fourth-power
| law that affects road wear.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| The important point is there are far greener alternatives than
| EV's. EV's cost a lot of resources to build, which means a lot
| of environmental destruction and carbon output. Plus as we see
| they still contribute to this tyre dust problem. They are not
| the holy grail. Rail, public transport, e-bikes and better city
| design is.
| djaychela wrote:
| This argument about EV resource use for construction is
| fossil fuel industry FUD. The difference is outweighed within
| a year or two of driving versus an ICE vehicle.
| swores wrote:
| It can be simultaneously true that EVs are absolutely a big
| improvement over ICE vehicles, and that switching all
| vehicles to EVs doesn't solve 100% of the problems -
| therefore it's good to both continue pushing to move to
| EVs, and to push for alternatives as suggested by GP.
| goalieca wrote:
| > Fleet operators don't see any significant difference in tire
| wear.
|
| Larger vehicles have larger tires. The size of a tire on a
| Tesla is a lot bigger than on my small sedan. They may both go
| 150,000km but one surely pollutes more.
| djaychela wrote:
| True, but you should be comparing like with like here. A
| similar sized ICE vehicle will have similar sized tyres to
| the Tesla.
| goalieca wrote:
| A similar sized ICE vehicle by weight will be much larger
| in volume. I compare a Tesla sedan with an actual ICE sedan
| and not a 3 row minivan.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| Comparing a Tesla sedan to common ICE sedans...
|
| Tesla Model 3 uses 235/45R18 tires. The tires that come
| with the car have a treadwear of 500, so ~50k miles of
| use. Quite middle of the road in terms of treadwear, and
| you can get much stickier (and much lower life) tires
| such as the Pilot Sport 4S.
|
| 4 competitors for the sedan in the luxury class:
|
| BMW 330i uses 225/45R18
|
| Audi A3 uses 225/40R18
|
| Lexus ES250 uses 235/45R18
|
| Mercedes C300 uses 225/45R18
|
| Tire size seems all nearly identical to me. Some small
| variance, but broadly extremely close.
| oxfordmale wrote:
| For equivalent sized vehicles, EVs are heavier, simply because
| current generation batteries still do not match the energy
| density of fossil fuels.
|
| There is even discussions to start using concrete for roads to
| handle the increased weight of EVs.
| maxerickson wrote:
| FWIW, chemical batteries won't ever match the energy density
| of fossil fuels.
|
| Of course they don't need to, so it's not really an
| interesting comparison. The range/mass of the entire
| drivetrain is probably a reasonable comparison.
| djaychela wrote:
| A kia Nero EV is ~200kg heavier than the ice version. That's
| equivalent to two passengers. The weight delta of large
| vehicles is far more of an issue than drive train
| differences.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| > Cars have been getting heavier long before EVs came around.
| One of the problems is that EVs are all new. Too many of them
| are bigger than they need to be. But that also goes for new ICE
| vehicle models.
|
| I'm not too worried about the weight of EVs long term.
|
| Given the rate of climate change / ecological damage, what
| definition are we using for "long term"?
|
| That aside, you've might have buried the lede. The switch over
| to EVs should represent an opportunity to revisit and evolve
| what personal transportation could look like and should look
| like[1]. Instead we've taking the same *old* bigger, stronger,
| faster paradigm and replacing petrol with a plug. Humans' role
| in the bigger broader picture isn't changing. It's the starus
| quo with a solar panel.
|
| There's a better than fair chance we're going to regret
| squandering this opportunity.
|
| [1] Similar happened with the pandemic...an opportunity to
| revist and rethink was quickly swept aside for back to the
| status quo. ASAP please. That's great for the status quo but
| certain a concern for the long term.
| danny_codes wrote:
| Exactly. Designing transit systems around cars was a colossal
| mistake. Now that the data are clear, it's time to rebuild.
| Over the next few decades, we need to tear down existing car
| infrastructure and replace it with walking/biking/transit.
|
| A side benefit (aside from the particulate pollution, energy
| waste, noise pollution, high death toll, increased inter-
| destination distance, decreased QOL) is that it'll be like an
| order of magnitude cheaper. Cars are a rather expensive way to
| get around. The Netherlands actually considers biking to be
| +17cents per mile (as in, considered revenue), because of
| reduced healthcare costs.
| avalys wrote:
| Transit systems are designed around cars because people want
| to use cars. This idea that it was some kind of a massive
| conspiracy from the auto manufacturers is just bullshit.
|
| Yes, cars are expensive. We can afford cars today. No one
| wants to get poorer and go back to walking.
| qwerpy wrote:
| The car shaming mindset makes sense if you live somewhere
| like Japan where transit is clean and fast, and you don't
| have problematic people who assault other riders and do
| drugs. As a family man living in a large American west
| coast city, there is no way I would ever give up my car
| lifestyle.
| Fricken wrote:
| Cars are the leading killers of kids in America.
| avalys wrote:
| So? No matter what actions you take, _something_ is going
| to be the leading killer of kids. By itself that
| statement means nothing.
| ilyt wrote:
| > Fleet operators don't see any significant difference in tire
| wear. EVs have higher torque but that doesn't matter unless to
| drive like a mad-man. EVs also allow you to drive very smoothly
| with no sudden jerk in torque.
|
| Time-to-replace-tyre is insignicant. If tyre manufacturer is
| tasked with making EV tyre with same durability as normal tyre
| they will just make rubber and grooves thicker.
|
| Also technically heavier car on wider tyre might use them up at
| similar rate than lighter car on skinnier tyre (as load-per-cm2
| would be similar) but obviously produce more dust.
|
| > Cars have been getting heavier long before EVs came around.
| One of the problems is that EVs are all new. Too many of them
| are bigger than they need to be. But that also goes for new ICE
| vehicle models.
|
| It took ~20-30 years for average ICE car to get ~30% heavier.
| EVs add another ~30-50% on top of that increase.
|
| For any comparable ICE, EV will be heavier.
| notacoward wrote:
| > the focus on EVs is a distraction.
|
| Indeed.
|
| > EVs tend to shed around 20 percent more
|
| ... for the same capacity. Isn't it funny how people focus on
| per-vehicle numbers for one segment? There are more oversized
| gas-burning pickups and SUVs than electric _anything_ , plus
| millions of diesel-burning vehicles that are even heavier. But
| _somehow_ those all get left out of most stories on this topic.
| Truly a strange coincidence, everyone forgetting the same thing
| all at once.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Sounds like a lot of hand-waving to rationalize a downside of
| EVs: they are heavy and chew up tires.
| jungturk wrote:
| The downside applies to "heavy vehicles" more generally,
| which includes most battery-bearing EVs in addition to most
| pickup trucks and SUVs driven in the US.
| qwytw wrote:
| > Too many of them are bigger than they need to be. But that
| also goes for new ICE vehicle models.
|
| That's a very American centric claim. The gap between ICE and
| EV weight is relatively much higher in many other places where
| smaller cars are more popular.
| xbmcuser wrote:
| Yeah this is something that probably will start outside the
| western world. In poor countries as solar and batteries keep
| getting cheaper we will start seeing new shapes for vehicles
| which wont look the same as cars of today. Such vehicles will
| have a hard time getting cleared for the streets in the
| developed world because of decades of laws and red tape.
| mzmzmzm wrote:
| I think your final point is key. Apart from curb weight, the
| reason to emphasize EVs might be just to remind people that
| they're not a panacea for the environmental collapse we're
| speeding towards. Instead of inventivizing car-free and car-
| light living, policymakers would rather not distrupt anything,
| simply swapping EVs for ICE vehicles in the same miserable
| sprawl. Yale's findings underline that this can't happen.
| lb1lf wrote:
| Batteries are still heavy.
|
| For instance, the VW id.3 (small-ish EV) has a curb weight
| 250-450kg (550-1,000lbs) more than my wife's gasoline VW
| Passat, a quite spacious estate wagon.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I doubt an ID3 weighs only half a ton. Probably at least
| three times that?
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| >> more than
| lb1lf wrote:
| It is close to two tons, I was (clumsily, it appears, but
| English is my third language, so please bear with me)
| trying to state that an id.3 compact is 250-450kg
| (depending on configuration) heavier than a gasoline-
| powered estate.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Aaaah - gotcha.
| userbinator wrote:
| "Yes, and?"
|
| It's time we just stopped caring and propagating this doomer
| scaremongering. Researchers looking for things will certainly
| find them, not necessarily because they're true, but because the
| null hypothesis doesn't bring any fame or fortune.
| danny_codes wrote:
| > Researchers looking for things will certainly find them, not
| necessarily because they're true, but because the null
| hypothesis doesn't bring any fame or fortune.
|
| Are you saying that the researchers did faulty science? Or that
| you don't think microplastics are a problem?
| userbinator wrote:
| Both.
|
| Remember when microwave ovens were thought to cause cancer,
| and then cellphones a few decades later? You can find plenty
| of "research" to support those claims.
|
| Just like RF, humans have been exposed to microplastics for
| over a century now. The biggest difference is that
| sociopolitical ideology has become more pervasive and
| environmentalist virtue-signaling is now fashionable and
| brings in the fame and fortune.
| [deleted]
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