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Oxford Professor: Cycling is 10 times more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities
(theconversation.com)
this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025
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That statement is just straight out false. Yes electric cars still represent a huge deal of energy needs for producing, but they are much, much more efficient at using energy than ICE cars. If I remember correctly it was something like 40% vs 90% energy efficiency? That's why if you put several electric cars connected in a row, place them on tracks, externalize the power source, and you get the most efficient way of travelling - trains.
It may help with the car pollution but car infrastructure is also miles and miles of lanes that add to the heat island effect and force homes and business further apart, reducing density. The secondary and third order effects of car culture are significant.
Not to mention that all that car infrastructure is bankrupting US cities/towns (maybe places outside the US too, but I wouldn't know).
Yes, and electric cars still produce lots of tire and brake dust. But to say they are not an improvement over ICE cars, is a lie.
Tire dust, absolutely. Probably even more than ICE cars since EV's are heavier.
But brakes? Yeah no. To get the most range out of your EV you always want to slow down by recuperating/regenerating. The classic brake only gets used at (near) standstill or the occasional hard braking for collision avoidance.
That makes sense. TIL
The (urban) issue is the space they require when not in use. Public transport and cycling require a lot less parking space. Shared (quick easy short term rental) electric vehicles are quite a good thing too.
But that's neither better nor worse than ICEs, not really the point we're discussing
Exactly part of OP’s point?
Sounds right when said like that, but I think very important factors are missing in that comparison. Maily: energy used per person & space used per person.
Most cars on the road are only transporting one person (the driver), which leaves a lot of wasted space. Trains on the other hand can carry way more people than cars can when using the space amount of space.
I don't know energy used per passenger but it's certainly less for train vs car (when both running on renewable energy).
Apparently (I think C02 emissions should give us the same idea if we assume both use clean energy): Eurostar: 6g CO2e per passenger km Electric Car: 53g (one passenger) CO2e per passenger km (or 13g with 4 passengers)
Don't think a lot of trains are as clean as the eurostar worldwide but it's possible to be that clean.
Theres many more benefits to trains too such as: You don't have to drive (browse lemmy while travelling), cheaper, 20x safer, a good train system can save you time, less waste (when your car eventually is scrapped, I'm sure a lot if recycled, but must still be a lot of waste, including energy spent recycling). Probably a lot of other stuff too.
p.s. sorry if i am wrong about stuff im trying to be right ;()
Why do we care much at all about energy consumption if it's all renewable?
Because the grid is not 100% renewable, and even renewables have some carbon cost. That line of thought is what crypto bros and AI idiots often use to justify wasting energy. It's always better to reduce our energy consumption.
Renewable energy also requires mining, processing, production, waste management... It's still a waste to use energy as if it is free, it never is and never can be, all energy usage has a footprint on the planet.
Norwegians and Icelanders need to stop showing off all their hydro and low population density.
Most countires won't be able to scale up their electricity generation by like 20-50% or so (to accomodate a large switch of transportation energy) without burning a lot more fossil fuel. Or building many large nuclear plants. Or damming up and flooding several large valleys. Fossil fuel is still the cheapest fastest and easiest way to scale up electricity generation - and ramping up the duty cycle of existing power stations is the easiest in the short term.
Maybe if each EV came with enough additional solar and batteries to offset their electricity consumption (especially at peak). This'd increase the costs a fair bit but it'd make them much better for net greenhouse gas emissions.
Note that even in an era of fairly rapidly increasing renewables - from 1980s to now - the overall share of renewables in global electricity generation has not increased much, 25-30% ish last time I looked.
This is because new demand has always come along to offset the new renewable electricity generation. This will continue with electrification of transport, heating, plus all this ai and server farms and stuff, add in general population growth and economic development - I don't believe the world is going to be able to grow renewables anywhere near fast enough to keep up with all that. Not without some cold fusion type technology leap.
I think we could do it with sufficient investment. But you make a good point, in the short term it will still be a bit before we're fully renewable.
Come on nobody is that dense. You have to be trolling
Yes, electric cars are just like trains
ngl you had me in the first half
Electric cars just replace a car with another car. I'm not even convinced we need lots more public transport, at least not long-range public transport.
We can replace a lot of existing cars in single digit years it will take decades to build out transit everywhere
This is the same argument that results in the majority of software created being slow stupid trash. "We don't have time to fix those major architectural problems that are going to grind improvement to a halt later, we need to release this new stupid feature yesterday because line must go up."
You actually always have to take care of near and long term in any real world situation.