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Do EV's actually do anything beneficial for the planet? (lemmy.today)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've seen a lot of posts here on Lemmy, specifically in the "fuck cars" communities as to how Electric Vehicles do pretty much nothing for the Climate, but I continue to see Climate activists everywhere try pushing so, so hard for Electric Vehicles.

Are they actually beneficial to the planet other than limiting exhaust, or is that it? or maybe exhaust is a way bigger problem?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Meanwhile, let's also face that EV's have to carry around large batteries. One advantage that ICE cars do have is the power density [J/kg] of petroleum fuel is leaps and bounds better than that if a lithium battery. This means that EV's are likely to produce more road noise from rolling, the dominant source of noise above 50 km/h, as well as more wear to the roads, since wear is a function of vehicle mass to some pretty high power. (I thought it was m^(4), but I'm not sure)

On top of that, while EV's don't have any tailpipe emissions, the power that they need still needs to come from somewhere. Thus the carbon emissions for use are a function of the national power grid of the place where you're charging your car.

Thus, A) if cars are already a fairly small part of the transportation mix, B) steps are taken to further improve the quality and availability of alternatives to cars, and C) the power grid is dominated by nuclear power and/or renewables, then EV's could be better for the environment.