this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not as much as they hope it will.

Electric or not, we need less cars in cities, not more. Rather than making the next generation of mildly more sustainable but just as dangerous and space inefficient road congestants, we should be thinking harder about how best to meet people’s mobility needs in more safe, sustainable, and effective ways.

People need options not more car dependency.

Those resources are better used to build up public transportation, (e-)bike shares, sidewalks, and the accompanying infrastructure to go with it all, with seamless handoffs between modes.

Electric cars are here to save the auto industry, not the planet.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (5 children)

No, because public transit is the future. I mean, EVs are fine and will have their place but we need better mass transit.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm hoping for electric ferries and cargo ships one day.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

We already have some electric (hybrid) ferries in BC. I think its 2 with an order for 4 total?

Once shore power is installed on both ends of the routes (its going to take years for whatever reason) they'll then run 100% electric all the time.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Buses can be electric too ya know (and stuff like construction equipment). The money right now is in personal evs, but the manufacturing volume and rnd is pretty cross compatible

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There's this one crazy electric construction vehicle that never needs to be charged, it generates all its own power. Some huge rock mover, drives up mountain with empty load and gets to the top near empty battery wise. Then fills up with tons of whatever it's hauling, and then uses regen breaking to fill the battery on the way down.

Rinse repeat.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I just wonder about cost to produce batteries, lack of recycling, and the cost of a car accident with a battery powered vehicle involved. For that, I am so far uncertain of its sustainability.

Hydrogen.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

EV busses, boats, and other vehicles will still need batteries. and in the end the batteries can be sold elsewhere.

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

Canada had a wonderful mass transit system when the vast majority of the population lived rurally. But the urbanization movement saw people move to where the high density allowed one to walk everywhere, so there wasn't much need for the mass transit anymore and eventually it was shut down.

Cars have driven cities to become woefully less dense than they used to be, which is why you see value in a return of mass transit. When you have rural problems (life being too far away to walk to), you need rural solutions. But isn't the even better solution to get the idea of cities being wannabe rural areas out of our heads completely and start densifying again?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

Pay off for who, exactly?

It will definitely pay off for the billionaires who own the car companies.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe, but probably not as much as investing in infrastructure that lowers the 15,000 km the average Canadian drives a year.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

So, internet service? That's has proven to be the most effective tool in seeing people drive a lot less. Driving to and from work is the bulk of those 15,000 kms and a good internet connection allows around 40% of the workforce to work from home, as seen during the COVID period. We are investing quite heavily in that.

In fact, we're investing so heavily in improved internet service that many farms in Canada now have two fibre runs as the government determined one was not enough!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

If employees work from home middle managers loose their reason to exist. And seeing as middle management gets to decide on the question work-from-home...

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

Id like more funding for infrastructure for Ebikes/Escooters

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Infrastructure and regulation. Too many death traps being imported that do not meet CSA standards.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Are these subsidies or tax breaks? I can never be sure tbh

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There's no significant difference between the two.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Tax breaks remove potential future tax revenue, but aren't spending tax revenue acquired from another source.

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

Yea, there's no significant difference - tax breaks spend revenue from a future source.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But with a tax break in an emerging business, that revenue wouldn't otherwise exist because the company wouldn't have opened operations here when it could take advantage of egregious US subsidies instead.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You're falling into something akin to the broken window fallacy. Economic resources aren't created or destroyed by incentives, they are shifted. If that tax break didn't exist those loans, employees, potential capital etc.. would be doing something else. Tax breaks need to be extremely precisely honed to avoid lowering future income.

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

Economic growth doesn't happen on its own. The Canadian economy isn't some entity that magically sees growth without investment.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It can make a big difference in who can use them. An income tax break, for example, is only useful to those who have income to tax. While a subsidy can fund a venture that does not yet have income.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I meant in this context where it's established companies that have the means to build the factories they're planning to build.