In April, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its intention to specify new emissions regulations for the auto industry in an effort to further decarbonize transportation. UN...
In April, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its intention to specify new emissions regulations for the auto industry in an effort to further decarbonize transportation. UN research suggests that carbon emissions must be reduced by about 2/3 by 2035 in order to alleviate worsening extreme weather events, like hurricanes and floods. In addition, pollution from automobiles is a known health risk.
In the United States, the transportation sector makes up 29% of greenhouse gas emissions, most of which is from individual passenger vehicles (58% of the sector's emissions). Tightening requirements here can contribute significantly toward the goal of reducing pollution and extreme weather. Experts believe that new auto sales must be 60–70% electric or plug-in hybrid by 2030 to fully meet the goals from the 2015 Paris agreement.
The council has calculated that carbon dioxide pollution from passenger vehicles would have to drop to 57 grams per mile by 2030 to reach the Paris goals. The EPA’s preferred regulation would cut those emissions to 102 grams per mile by 2030 and to 82 by 2032.
The EPA is giving automakers the choice of how to cut emissions. They can sell more electric vehicles and fewer gasoline-powered ones, they can increase the efficiency of gas-powered cars, or both.
The EPA contends its proposal will significantly reduce pollution. It estimates that passenger-vehicle carbon dioxide emissions would fall 47% by 2055, when the agency expects most gas-powered vehicles to be gone.
However, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation (representing General Motors, Ford, Toyota, and others) find the standards "neither reasonable nor achievable in the time frame covered." This is perhaps unexpected from a corporate entity. I don't think this comment is true — the US is behind other developed countries in EV sales, at 8% in 2023 compared to an anticipated 18% worldwide by the end of 2023. However, the charging network is rapidly expanding, and automakers have historically handled new regulations perfectly fine despite putting up a big fuss. But there are real implementation challenges with the proposed regulation, mostly related to the global supply chain. After considering public feedback, the EPA will produce a final regulation in March 2024.
This isn't enough. Actually, it's not even close. But there's only so much the EPA can reasonably do in seven years. What we really need is Congressional legislation de-incentivizing the use of heavy, gas-guzzling vehicles, including both diesel trucks and all kinds of gas-powered passenger vehicles. The gasoline tax should have been indexed to inflation for years, but it wasn't (and isn't), essentially giving people a financial incentive to drive gas-powered cars. Particularly heavy (and therefore fuel-inefficient) passenger vehicles need to be explicitly banned. Construction and operation of gas stations needs to be impeded, and EV infrastructure needs to be more heavily subsidized; that way, manufacturers and consumers will be compelled to choose more environmentally sustainable EVs while not spending more money on them. The EPA can do its best with a regulation here and a regulation there — and it'll help a lot — but we could use more attention toward transportation emissions in all sectors of government.
Why? E-Vehicles are not going to save the world from climate change. Drastically structural change is the only way this is going to change and be of a benefit to anyone who Is going to be around...
The EPA is giving automakers the choice of how to cut emissions.
Why? E-Vehicles are not going to save the world from climate change. Drastically structural change is the only way this is going to change and be of a benefit to anyone who Is going to be around in the next 200-300 years.
EV's are great for the automotive industry, they're still awful for the environment. But they give consumers that "Yay, I've done something!" whilst still buying absolute tat.
The real recommendation should come to start electrifying and developing new public transport infrastructure and encouraging other methods of getting around that aren't just gas guzzling gigantic vehicles.
Yes, electric vehicles are inherently environmentally unsustainable because they are cars. By virtue of their great size relative to their small capacity, no typical automobile will ever be as...
Yes, electric vehicles are inherently environmentally unsustainable because they are cars. By virtue of their great size relative to their small capacity, no typical automobile will ever be as efficient as public transportation. There is no way to get around this reality.
A 30–50% reduction in emissions vs. gas-powered cars is significant, though. It is not "absolute tat." It is unrealistic to eliminate automobiles from our society within the next 100 years. While we can and should reduce their dominance by not developing more car-centric infrastructure, they are still a part of the transportation system. Thus it's still valuable to aggressively push for emissions regulations pertaining to automobiles. These can be continually strengthened over time. In theory, they can be strengthened to a point where it becomes financially impractical for automakers to continue building large, heavy vehicles. The economical alternative is to build smaller, lighter, aerodynamic vehicles, which are much more environmentally sustainable and also tend to be better for urban planning in general.
This is presumably why the EPA is allowing automakers to choose how to reduce their emissions: they can improve engine efficiency, or they can sell more EVs, or they can make their cars smaller/lighter, or they can change the manufacturing process, etc. These are all legitimate ways to reduce emissions and it's valuable for us to conduct research into all of them.
But I agree with your remark that we ultimately need a major modal shift toward public transportation as well as cycling/walking where feasible. There are many reasons why this is difficult in the United States, mostly related to Americans' attitude toward efficient infrastructure and not because it's impossible. For instance, the US is famously terrible at building cost-effective infrastructure, both for bureaucratic and xenophobic reasons, which effectively reduces the scope of any transit project that does get built.
Then we need to drastically scale who gets access to them then. My in-laws are in rural Australia. Public transport makes no sense there, so a personal vehicle does. My wife and I in London...
A 30–50% reduction in emissions vs. gas-powered cars is significant, though. It is not "absolute tat." It is unrealistic to eliminate automobiles from our society within the next 100 years.
Then we need to drastically scale who gets access to them then. My in-laws are in rural Australia. Public transport makes no sense there, so a personal vehicle does. My wife and I in London however? We have no need (And yet we need one due to some wonky public transport), but I get around on two wheels a lot more than she does.
But also, I think that speaks to a mindset of "not ambitious enough". We either scale auto production back massively, or we continue to fuck up the Earth.
The EV matter is ridiculous and always smacks of "Oh but they're better!" sure... what's the power grid running again? What about the grid where the materials are mined? They're no better from top to bottom.
We're just not moving fast enough to stop the catastrophe that these bloody machines have caused.
Rural public transportation can exist and run effectively, but that is maybe outside the scope of this discussion. Regardless, rural populations comprise a relatively small percentage of the...
Rural public transportation can exist and run effectively, but that is maybe outside the scope of this discussion. Regardless, rural populations comprise a relatively small percentage of the population (in the US, about 17% and steadily dropping). I'm less concerned about that than I am about the other 83%.
I'm surprised you feel you need a car in London! Didn't they just open the Elizabeth line? I don't know where you have to go exactly, and I'm sure there are parts of the city that are relatively complicated to access with transit, but I can't imagine it's unrealistic.
[Electric vehicles are] no better from top to bottom.
This is untrue and a common misconception. Electric vehicles are better for the environment than gas-powered vehicles even when you consider manufacturing externalities. The US Enviromental Protection Agency has some approachable fact sheets about this, as does MIT and others. Use of electricity created by fossil fuels and battery manufacturing processes are negative externalities, but electric vehicles are fundamentally more sustainable even over their whole lifetimes.
But again, I agree with your sentiment that EVs are often falsely touted as climate-savers. In reality, our land use patterns have to change, and subsequently our choice of transportation does. Our public transit needs to be better supported and our cities need to be designed with walkability, cycling, and transit in mind, not personal automobiles. We also need to think about ways to reduce material use in construction and manufacturing.
I feel the same. It makes sense for a lot of them in the very rural areas to have transport. My in laws for example live 100km from the nearest town, I say town lightly... it's 2000ish people....
Rural public transportation can exist and run effectively, but that is maybe outside the scope of this discussion. Regardless, rural populations comprise a relatively small percentage of the population (in the US, about 17% and steadily dropping). I'm less concerned about that than I am about the other 83%.
I feel the same. It makes sense for a lot of them in the very rural areas to have transport. My in laws for example live 100km from the nearest town, I say town lightly... it's 2000ish people. It's rural as.
I'm surprised you feel you need a car in London! Didn't they just open the Elizabeth line? I don't know where you have to go exactly, and I'm sure there are parts of the city that are relatively complicated to access with transit, but I can't imagine it's unrealistic.
It gets controversial. But my wife works on the other side of London. Ironically to get to her workplace she'd need to travel all the way in, get a tube one stop and then train out. The south of London has a dire problem with public transport. It's got trams and trains that go good places. But often it's not designed to take you horizontally across the city.
She's warming up the idea of an e-bike mind. But given how bloody wet it can be here, it becomes a problem with amenities on the other side at work.
This is untrue and a common misconception. Electric vehicles are better for the environment than gas-powered vehicles even when you consider manufacturing externalities. The US Enviromental Protection Agency has some approachable fact sheets about this, as does MIT and others. Use of electricity created by fossil fuels and battery manufacturing processes are negative externalities, but electric vehicles are fundamentally more sustainable even over their whole lifetimes.
Let me give those links a read when I hit home mate. I'm always happy to be corrected and I guess I always come at the situation from a "My God, It's full of slaves" approach to these damn batteries.
But again, I agree with your sentiment that EVs are often falsely touted as climate-savers. In reality, our land use patterns have to change, and subsequently our choice of transportation does. Our public transit needs to be better supported and our cities need to be designed with walkability, cycling, and transit in mind, not personal automobiles. We also need to think about ways to reduce material use in construction and manufacturing.
Just less 'stuff' really.
Less individual stuff that we keep to look good. More shared resources that we can all get stuck into!
Mmm, I'd been vaguely aware of South London's relative lack of transit but looking more closely at the maps I see it's comparatively a bit of a desert. I see how that could be just annoying enough...
Mmm, I'd been vaguely aware of South London's relative lack of transit but looking more closely at the maps I see it's comparatively a bit of a desert. I see how that could be just annoying enough to present a challenge for a daily commute. Reminds me of the difficulty people in New York have getting from one outer borough to another (such as Queens to the Bronx) without going through Manhattan, likely with a transfer.
EV battery mining definitely has supply chain issues, especially lithium, and unfortunately human rights issues. It's unclear to me if those violations are more extreme than their equivalent in petroleum extraction. It's hard and a bit icky to compare these things. :/ I know there are ongoing research efforts to develop battery technology that relies less heavily on lithium, cobalt, and other rarer metals. I don't know what the timeline on these projects is though. There are plenty of channels like Undecided with Matt Ferrell who do high-level coverage of battery tech, I just haven't kept up with it in some time.
Spot on. It's a combo of crap soil and it traditionally being less 'well off' that the rest of London. Needs a Light Rail system a la the DLR, but that won't happen with huge restrictions on...
Spot on. It's a combo of crap soil and it traditionally being less 'well off' that the rest of London. Needs a Light Rail system a la the DLR, but that won't happen with huge restrictions on spending.
I think it's that part that I really struggle with. I'm a veggie and taking meat out of my diet felt right when I sat down and really considered the ethics. It feels the same with cars and such. I'm a motorbike rider (Avidly) and it sucks to know that much of my fuel and fluids is probably sourced awfully.
There are so many "easy" gains to be made in the world of emissions reductions, transportation emissions are a significant fraction, but still only a fraction. Convincing people to ditch their...
There are so many "easy" gains to be made in the world of emissions reductions, transportation emissions are a significant fraction, but still only a fraction. Convincing people to ditch their cars to reduce emissions in that field is going to be more difficult than reducing emissions in other fields like electricity generation, agriculture, and industry.
The "it's not a perfect solution so why bother" argument is so incredibly tiring and non-productive. Most people are going to need cars for the foreseeable future and that's not going to change. Even in Europe, 9/10 households own a car, and their public transportation is on average much better than in America.
My argument against this attitude is exactly the same as yours though. "Meh, people gotta car so why bother?"
The "it's not a perfect solution so why bother" argument is so incredibly tiring and non-productive. Most people are going to need cars for the foreseeable future and that's not going to change. Even in Europe, 9/10 households own a car, and their public transportation is on average much better than in America.
My argument against this attitude is exactly the same as yours though.
While you are correct, that is completely irrelevant, unless you think the EPA should force automakers to pay for our cities to be redeveloped to not require cars. You are asking why they gave the...
While you are correct, that is completely irrelevant, unless you think the EPA should force automakers to pay for our cities to be redeveloped to not require cars. You are asking why they gave the automakers a choice and then saying the needed change should be one that is out of the automakers' control. The US is going to be extremely car-centric for a long time. Even if the government announced trillions of dollars in spending on moving away from a car-centric society as quickly as possible, it would still likely take decades.
We can focus on more than one thing at a time. We can move to low-emission vehicles AND try to reduce our dependence on cars at the same time.
I 100% agree with you. The preferred mode of transportation needs to change in the US. Light-rail within metro areas and high-speed rail between metro areas should be more accessible and accepted...
I 100% agree with you. The preferred mode of transportation needs to change in the US. Light-rail within metro areas and high-speed rail between metro areas should be more accessible and accepted within our society.
Unfortunately, not only does that require heavy investment, but it also requires a wholesale change in culture and mindset. Both of these, of course, are outside the control of the EPA. The EPA is just trying to do the best they can, and I can't blame them because every little bit helps.
Perhaps then it is inspiring to hear about all of the excellent light and heavy rail projects happening in the US right now. RMTransit's recent "Why I Have Hope for American Transit" video touches...
Perhaps then it is inspiring to hear about all of the excellent light and heavy rail projects happening in the US right now. RMTransit's recent "Why I Have Hope for American Transit" video touches on a few of these. Austin, Honolulu, New York, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Seattle, LA, Amtrak, and more have all seen a great deal of long-term infrastructure investment in recent years. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is incredibly powerful, allocating $108 billion. More high-quality European rolling stock manufacturers have also set up shop in the US, making it more realistic and cost-effective to acquire top-notch machines for new and old lines alike. And I agree with Reece's comment in the video that people's perception of public transit and urbanism is slowly changing, probably in large part because of public-facing transportation advocates and better discussion about the real causes of municipal dysfunction. Like the author of the video, I have great hope for American transportation.
I would have been shocked if they didn't say this. Companies resist tightening regulations harder than an overtired 8 year old resists bedtime. Somewhat related: Most of the car companies listed...
However, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation (representing General Motors, Ford, Toyota, and others) find the standards "neither reasonable nor achievable in the time frame covered." This is perhaps unexpected from a corporate entity. I don't think this comment is true .
I would have been shocked if they didn't say this. Companies resist tightening regulations harder than an overtired 8 year old resists bedtime.
Somewhat related: Most of the car companies listed don't engineer for safety beyond passing the mandatory safety tests. This is a major problem that results in corner cutting that makes our cars less safe than they should be.
Larger and heavier vehicles are also a hazard to the public. We need to care less about crash tests targeting occupant safety and more about the safety of pedestrians, cyclists and occupants in...
Larger and heavier vehicles are also a hazard to the public. We need to care less about crash tests targeting occupant safety and more about the safety of pedestrians, cyclists and occupants in smaller vehicles.
We're fast approaching a future of tall pickups and SUVs that require front cameras to avoid striking pedestrians, and at torso-to-head level instead of leg-to-waist. This needs to be curbed aggressively with safety regulations limiting the size and weight of non commercial vehicles and tax incentives to drive smaller ones.
I've mentioned this before on Tildes: the US needs to implement something like Japan's Kei car program: it should be progressively more expensive to drive larger/heavier classes of vehicles, with aggressive incentives for a very lightweight subcompacts for the vast majority of vehicles, which average 1.5 occupants.
This tiered structure is actually what produced the Fit, a delightfully practical car (which is still in a higher bracket than kei cars). The ballooning size of the Civic made it undesirable for the Japanese market, so they made a new car more like the classic 90s Civic. (Much to my anger, it's no longer sold in the US.)
I'm also for a steep gas tax to further incentivize efficient or electric cars.
I don't know what lithium battery production capacity is like but I'm guessing that we just can't make that many full EV's especially when North Americans DEMAND excessive range. I would like to...
Experts believe that new auto sales must be 60–70% electric or plug-in hybrid by 2030 to fully meet the goals from the 2015 Paris agreement.
Electric vehicles aren't environmentally friendly.
I don't know what lithium battery production capacity is like but I'm guessing that we just can't make that many full EV's especially when North Americans DEMAND excessive range.
I would like to see a hard push towards the plug-in hybrid side with maybe 50 mile range max. Americans drive 32 miles a day on average. If half the drivers out there realize how short a distance they actually drive in a day then that opens the door to sell 100 mile range full EV's.
This is all ignoring the fact that we should be trying to reduce driving overall and try to get more people on transit or using park-n-rides + transit.
There is considerable reason to be optimistic about the passenger rail industry. You may be interested in reading some of the commentary I provided on the "New era of rail" thread last month,...
There is considerable reason to be optimistic about the passenger rail industry. You may be interested in reading some of the commentary I provided on the "New era of rail" thread last month, specifically some of the nested comments. In short, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law recently allocated ~$66 billion to railways, including a great deal to Amtrak. The amount allocated to Amtrak is more than all combined funding since the company's inception.
Brightline, the first private rail company in about a century, is also making tremendous progress with its new line in Florida, which is opening between Miami and Orlando this year. It seeks to open its "Brightline West" route between Los Angeles and Las Vegas by 2027.
The Texas Central Railway has had some rumblings about new high-speed rail projects between the major city pairs in the state, but they've been quiet for a couple years so I don't know what their prospects are.
Still, we can and should be doing more. We need to constantly and tirelessly advocate for rail infrastructure. It is not acceptable to call ourselves a "developed country" when we're literal decades behind our peers in transportation.
In April, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its intention to specify new emissions regulations for the auto industry in an effort to further decarbonize transportation. UN research suggests that carbon emissions must be reduced by about 2/3 by 2035 in order to alleviate worsening extreme weather events, like hurricanes and floods. In addition, pollution from automobiles is a known health risk.
In the United States, the transportation sector makes up 29% of greenhouse gas emissions, most of which is from individual passenger vehicles (58% of the sector's emissions). Tightening requirements here can contribute significantly toward the goal of reducing pollution and extreme weather. Experts believe that new auto sales must be 60–70% electric or plug-in hybrid by 2030 to fully meet the goals from the 2015 Paris agreement.
Electric vehicles aren't environmentally friendly. However, they produce 30–50% fewer emissions than gas-powered vehicles, and are also cleaner overall despite their manufacturing externalities.
The EPA is giving automakers the choice of how to cut emissions. They can sell more electric vehicles and fewer gasoline-powered ones, they can increase the efficiency of gas-powered cars, or both.
However, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation (representing General Motors, Ford, Toyota, and others) find the standards "neither reasonable nor achievable in the time frame covered." This is perhaps unexpected from a corporate entity. I don't think this comment is true — the US is behind other developed countries in EV sales, at 8% in 2023 compared to an anticipated 18% worldwide by the end of 2023. However, the charging network is rapidly expanding, and automakers have historically handled new regulations perfectly fine despite putting up a big fuss. But there are real implementation challenges with the proposed regulation, mostly related to the global supply chain. After considering public feedback, the EPA will produce a final regulation in March 2024.
This isn't enough. Actually, it's not even close. But there's only so much the EPA can reasonably do in seven years. What we really need is Congressional legislation de-incentivizing the use of heavy, gas-guzzling vehicles, including both diesel trucks and all kinds of gas-powered passenger vehicles. The gasoline tax should have been indexed to inflation for years, but it wasn't (and isn't), essentially giving people a financial incentive to drive gas-powered cars. Particularly heavy (and therefore fuel-inefficient) passenger vehicles need to be explicitly banned. Construction and operation of gas stations needs to be impeded, and EV infrastructure needs to be more heavily subsidized; that way, manufacturers and consumers will be compelled to choose more environmentally sustainable EVs while not spending more money on them. The EPA can do its best with a regulation here and a regulation there — and it'll help a lot — but we could use more attention toward transportation emissions in all sectors of government.
Why? E-Vehicles are not going to save the world from climate change. Drastically structural change is the only way this is going to change and be of a benefit to anyone who Is going to be around in the next 200-300 years.
EV's are great for the automotive industry, they're still awful for the environment. But they give consumers that "Yay, I've done something!" whilst still buying absolute tat.
The real recommendation should come to start electrifying and developing new public transport infrastructure and encouraging other methods of getting around that aren't just gas guzzling gigantic vehicles.
Yes, electric vehicles are inherently environmentally unsustainable because they are cars. By virtue of their great size relative to their small capacity, no typical automobile will ever be as efficient as public transportation. There is no way to get around this reality.
A 30–50% reduction in emissions vs. gas-powered cars is significant, though. It is not "absolute tat." It is unrealistic to eliminate automobiles from our society within the next 100 years. While we can and should reduce their dominance by not developing more car-centric infrastructure, they are still a part of the transportation system. Thus it's still valuable to aggressively push for emissions regulations pertaining to automobiles. These can be continually strengthened over time. In theory, they can be strengthened to a point where it becomes financially impractical for automakers to continue building large, heavy vehicles. The economical alternative is to build smaller, lighter, aerodynamic vehicles, which are much more environmentally sustainable and also tend to be better for urban planning in general.
This is presumably why the EPA is allowing automakers to choose how to reduce their emissions: they can improve engine efficiency, or they can sell more EVs, or they can make their cars smaller/lighter, or they can change the manufacturing process, etc. These are all legitimate ways to reduce emissions and it's valuable for us to conduct research into all of them.
But I agree with your remark that we ultimately need a major modal shift toward public transportation as well as cycling/walking where feasible. There are many reasons why this is difficult in the United States, mostly related to Americans' attitude toward efficient infrastructure and not because it's impossible. For instance, the US is famously terrible at building cost-effective infrastructure, both for bureaucratic and xenophobic reasons, which effectively reduces the scope of any transit project that does get built.
Then we need to drastically scale who gets access to them then. My in-laws are in rural Australia. Public transport makes no sense there, so a personal vehicle does. My wife and I in London however? We have no need (And yet we need one due to some wonky public transport), but I get around on two wheels a lot more than she does.
But also, I think that speaks to a mindset of "not ambitious enough". We either scale auto production back massively, or we continue to fuck up the Earth.
The EV matter is ridiculous and always smacks of "Oh but they're better!" sure... what's the power grid running again? What about the grid where the materials are mined? They're no better from top to bottom.
We're just not moving fast enough to stop the catastrophe that these bloody machines have caused.
Rural public transportation can exist and run effectively, but that is maybe outside the scope of this discussion. Regardless, rural populations comprise a relatively small percentage of the population (in the US, about 17% and steadily dropping). I'm less concerned about that than I am about the other 83%.
I'm surprised you feel you need a car in London! Didn't they just open the Elizabeth line? I don't know where you have to go exactly, and I'm sure there are parts of the city that are relatively complicated to access with transit, but I can't imagine it's unrealistic.
This is untrue and a common misconception. Electric vehicles are better for the environment than gas-powered vehicles even when you consider manufacturing externalities. The US Enviromental Protection Agency has some approachable fact sheets about this, as does MIT and others. Use of electricity created by fossil fuels and battery manufacturing processes are negative externalities, but electric vehicles are fundamentally more sustainable even over their whole lifetimes.
But again, I agree with your sentiment that EVs are often falsely touted as climate-savers. In reality, our land use patterns have to change, and subsequently our choice of transportation does. Our public transit needs to be better supported and our cities need to be designed with walkability, cycling, and transit in mind, not personal automobiles. We also need to think about ways to reduce material use in construction and manufacturing.
I feel the same. It makes sense for a lot of them in the very rural areas to have transport. My in laws for example live 100km from the nearest town, I say town lightly... it's 2000ish people. It's rural as.
It gets controversial. But my wife works on the other side of London. Ironically to get to her workplace she'd need to travel all the way in, get a tube one stop and then train out. The south of London has a dire problem with public transport. It's got trams and trains that go good places. But often it's not designed to take you horizontally across the city.
She's warming up the idea of an e-bike mind. But given how bloody wet it can be here, it becomes a problem with amenities on the other side at work.
Let me give those links a read when I hit home mate. I'm always happy to be corrected and I guess I always come at the situation from a "My God, It's full of slaves" approach to these damn batteries.
Just less 'stuff' really.
Less individual stuff that we keep to look good. More shared resources that we can all get stuck into!
Mmm, I'd been vaguely aware of South London's relative lack of transit but looking more closely at the maps I see it's comparatively a bit of a desert. I see how that could be just annoying enough to present a challenge for a daily commute. Reminds me of the difficulty people in New York have getting from one outer borough to another (such as Queens to the Bronx) without going through Manhattan, likely with a transfer.
EV battery mining definitely has supply chain issues, especially lithium, and unfortunately human rights issues. It's unclear to me if those violations are more extreme than their equivalent in petroleum extraction. It's hard and a bit icky to compare these things. :/ I know there are ongoing research efforts to develop battery technology that relies less heavily on lithium, cobalt, and other rarer metals. I don't know what the timeline on these projects is though. There are plenty of channels like Undecided with Matt Ferrell who do high-level coverage of battery tech, I just haven't kept up with it in some time.
Spot on. It's a combo of crap soil and it traditionally being less 'well off' that the rest of London. Needs a Light Rail system a la the DLR, but that won't happen with huge restrictions on spending.
I think it's that part that I really struggle with. I'm a veggie and taking meat out of my diet felt right when I sat down and really considered the ethics. It feels the same with cars and such. I'm a motorbike rider (Avidly) and it sucks to know that much of my fuel and fluids is probably sourced awfully.
There are so many "easy" gains to be made in the world of emissions reductions, transportation emissions are a significant fraction, but still only a fraction. Convincing people to ditch their cars to reduce emissions in that field is going to be more difficult than reducing emissions in other fields like electricity generation, agriculture, and industry.
The "it's not a perfect solution so why bother" argument is so incredibly tiring and non-productive. Most people are going to need cars for the foreseeable future and that's not going to change. Even in Europe, 9/10 households own a car, and their public transportation is on average much better than in America.
My argument against this attitude is exactly the same as yours though.
"Meh, people gotta car so why bother?"
While you are correct, that is completely irrelevant, unless you think the EPA should force automakers to pay for our cities to be redeveloped to not require cars. You are asking why they gave the automakers a choice and then saying the needed change should be one that is out of the automakers' control. The US is going to be extremely car-centric for a long time. Even if the government announced trillions of dollars in spending on moving away from a car-centric society as quickly as possible, it would still likely take decades.
We can focus on more than one thing at a time. We can move to low-emission vehicles AND try to reduce our dependence on cars at the same time.
I 100% agree with you. The preferred mode of transportation needs to change in the US. Light-rail within metro areas and high-speed rail between metro areas should be more accessible and accepted within our society.
Unfortunately, not only does that require heavy investment, but it also requires a wholesale change in culture and mindset. Both of these, of course, are outside the control of the EPA. The EPA is just trying to do the best they can, and I can't blame them because every little bit helps.
Perhaps then it is inspiring to hear about all of the excellent light and heavy rail projects happening in the US right now. RMTransit's recent "Why I Have Hope for American Transit" video touches on a few of these. Austin, Honolulu, New York, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Seattle, LA, Amtrak, and more have all seen a great deal of long-term infrastructure investment in recent years. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is incredibly powerful, allocating $108 billion. More high-quality European rolling stock manufacturers have also set up shop in the US, making it more realistic and cost-effective to acquire top-notch machines for new and old lines alike. And I agree with Reece's comment in the video that people's perception of public transit and urbanism is slowly changing, probably in large part because of public-facing transportation advocates and better discussion about the real causes of municipal dysfunction. Like the author of the video, I have great hope for American transportation.
The EPA knows it's always in the crosshairs of Republicans. If they did all of what is actually necessary, they'd be completely dissolved.
Yeah. I do always forget how mad the US government gets on these things. Granted DEFRA and the such over here in the UK get the same kicking.
I would have been shocked if they didn't say this. Companies resist tightening regulations harder than an overtired 8 year old resists bedtime.
Somewhat related: Most of the car companies listed don't engineer for safety beyond passing the mandatory safety tests. This is a major problem that results in corner cutting that makes our cars less safe than they should be.
Larger and heavier vehicles are also a hazard to the public. We need to care less about crash tests targeting occupant safety and more about the safety of pedestrians, cyclists and occupants in smaller vehicles.
We're fast approaching a future of tall pickups and SUVs that require front cameras to avoid striking pedestrians, and at torso-to-head level instead of leg-to-waist. This needs to be curbed aggressively with safety regulations limiting the size and weight of non commercial vehicles and tax incentives to drive smaller ones.
I've mentioned this before on Tildes: the US needs to implement something like Japan's Kei car program: it should be progressively more expensive to drive larger/heavier classes of vehicles, with aggressive incentives for a very lightweight subcompacts for the vast majority of vehicles, which average 1.5 occupants.
This tiered structure is actually what produced the Fit, a delightfully practical car (which is still in a higher bracket than kei cars). The ballooning size of the Civic made it undesirable for the Japanese market, so they made a new car more like the classic 90s Civic. (Much to my anger, it's no longer sold in the US.)
I'm also for a steep gas tax to further incentivize efficient or electric cars.
I don't know what lithium battery production capacity is like but I'm guessing that we just can't make that many full EV's especially when North Americans DEMAND excessive range.
I would like to see a hard push towards the plug-in hybrid side with maybe 50 mile range max. Americans drive 32 miles a day on average. If half the drivers out there realize how short a distance they actually drive in a day then that opens the door to sell 100 mile range full EV's.
This is all ignoring the fact that we should be trying to reduce driving overall and try to get more people on transit or using park-n-rides + transit.
There is considerable reason to be optimistic about the passenger rail industry. You may be interested in reading some of the commentary I provided on the "New era of rail" thread last month, specifically some of the nested comments. In short, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law recently allocated ~$66 billion to railways, including a great deal to Amtrak. The amount allocated to Amtrak is more than all combined funding since the company's inception.
Brightline, the first private rail company in about a century, is also making tremendous progress with its new line in Florida, which is opening between Miami and Orlando this year. It seeks to open its "Brightline West" route between Los Angeles and Las Vegas by 2027.
The Texas Central Railway has had some rumblings about new high-speed rail projects between the major city pairs in the state, but they've been quiet for a couple years so I don't know what their prospects are.
Still, we can and should be doing more. We need to constantly and tirelessly advocate for rail infrastructure. It is not acceptable to call ourselves a "developed country" when we're literal decades behind our peers in transportation.