I do not like the typical conservative line of "there isn't one size that fits everywhere, which is why the [government one size larger than we can control with money and connections] should not create mandates"
However, having moved from Philadelphia to rural New Mexico 4 years ago, I have to admit that I can see the point. E-bikes and mass transit are not effective solutions for the rural west. Doesn't mean they are not great ideas, but you're not going to solve transportation in the rural west with that sort of thing. In metro areas though, absolutely.
Most EV sales happen in urban centers, not rural areas. Not to mention that battery cars doesn't really solve the problem for rural areas too, due to limited range, less charging infrastructure and much higher cost.
New EVs have range longer than the vast majority of people need. A Hyundai Kona is 26.5k after tax credit and 258 miles on a charge. This car has a 64kWh battery.
Most folks don't really need to go that far, or that often. I have a gen1 Nissan Leaf that cost me less than 6k (good luck finding this deal now). From a 15A 120v circuit it charges at about 5 miles of range per hour. If I am driving in EcoSquidward mode I get about 4miles/kWh. I see 60 miles of range.
If the bumper could automatically mate to a regular AC circuit like I charge with at home, you could charge whenever you park. The average speed in urban traffic is 12 mph.
The thing I think is extremely wasteful is these huge battery packs that new cars are hauling around. My ancient leaf came with a 24kWh pack, that is enough for 32 ebikes (750 watt-hours).
The argument isn't really about whether EVs can fill the role played by ICE vehicles. It's about the fact that simply replacing ICE with EV (a) creates gigantic resource requirements (extraction, processing, production) (b) barely touches many of the more problematic aspects of the design of the USA (other places too).
By contrast, shifting people (where possible/appropriate) towards transit and e-bikes might help address both of these issues.
I agree with this. Locking up resources inside a big heavy EV that gets "recycled" after 8-10 years is not sustainable. And cars are still cars, regardless of the method of locomotion, they impact the livability in largely the same ways.
750 watt-hours in an e-bike is a whole lot more efficient than 24 kilowatt-hours in my leaf (which was partly the point I was making). Newer cars are even worse.
Since the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the Kona is no longer eligible for the tax credit, since its final assembly is not in the US. So it's more like $34k.
Right it's a form of harm reduction. Transit and eBikes are undoubtedly the more energy efficient alternative. But the infrastructure improvements American cities need to make them safe and useful options are expensive and most American cities have incredible amounts of bureaucracy replete with veto opportunities for any changes to the built environment. If EVs can affect the built environment first while the harder work of changing urban land-use and building new infrastructure begin in earnest, we can drive down fossil fuel dependency. Or we can accept the American status quo of driving gasoline cars everywhere even in urban 3 mi. radii.
Closing CAFE Standard loopholes would also be a great form of harm reduction.
> Transit and eBikes are undoubtedly the more energy efficient alternative. But the infrastructure improvements American cities need to make them safe and useful options are expensive and most American cities have incredible amounts of bureaucracy replete with veto opportunities for any changes to the built environment.
They’re only expensive because that bureaucracy isn’t some law of nature but deliberate: the people in power tend to be older and stuck in the post-WWII mentality that everyone who matters drives a personal vehicle anywhere past their lawn. If a city gets serious they can roll out bus and bike lanes very quickly and at far less cost than even a modest highway project. Pair it with enforcement and our increasingly-lawless drivers will defray a fair chunk of the costs.
Even if you change the zoning of an area and drop rail or bus lines, it'll take a while for developers to fill in the density. Without the density, you're not going to build an effective network for the rail or bus and nobody will ride it. Even if developers want to fill the space in, it takes at least a couple years to build up the newly zoned area. This assumes that the federal government is offering funds for transit which at this moment is true.
People will ride the bus if it’s not worse than driving. If you have dedicated bus lanes you need fewer buses to provide better headways because they’re not stuck in traffic as much. Density affects the cost per user but you can get a lot of traffic reduction immediately simply by having reliable service – people much prefer watching Netflix to staring at the bumper in front of them and saving $10k/year on average is pretty nice, too - and while American suburbs have sprawl problems there are still many millions of people living in cities with enough density to support bus service.
You need commerical or residential density to make bus lines worthwhile or else you end up having too many stops and you massively slow down the line. You also need to design a bus line around stops where drivers can take restroom breaks and you need to design lines around it.
I’m aware. Most American cities which existed prior to 1950 had that and could have it again if the city leaders chose to stop subsidizing private car travel over everything else.
Yes infrastructure changes are all about driving less. Traffic calming, dedicated bus and rail ROW, higher FARs for denser environments, raised crosswalks, dedicated bike ROW, etc. Unless you know a better way to get Americans to start driving less then infrastructure, zoning, and traffic calming is all we know. It's what worked in Europe and Asia at least.
The current American built environment designs for and around the car in almost every way. Low-income Americans that can afford cars will choose a car over any other mode in most American cities because of this. Changing that is hard work and there's an increasing number of advocates for these changes, but auto companies can churn out cars faster than these laws and the subsequent construction can finish. In the meantime, I encourage you to get involved in your local city planning meetings and advocate for infrastructure to decrease VMT. It's all we can do.
Not at all. The US creates its built environment for cars and only cars. The MUTCD which standardizes a lot of traffic engineering in the US actually requires a traffic study to slow traffic down in any way, so adding any signs, lights, or speed bumps must need a traffic study. There are no guidelines in the MUTCD to design sidewalks or bike paths, which is why parts of the US have no sidewalks. Roads measure capacity in volumes of motor vehicles and not pedestrians, cyclists, or any other mode. Recently a set of standards in the US named NACTO are trying to change this and imagine a street as a modeshared ROW, but only a handful of Americans cities are using NACTO.
This is a stark contrast from how street design works in lots of Europe and some of Asia. Very little about our built environment is decided by individual choice. Almost all road and lot widths are set by regulations which mandate car-scaled widths.
However, having moved from Philadelphia to rural New Mexico 4 years ago, I have to admit that I can see the point. E-bikes and mass transit are not effective solutions for the rural west. Doesn't mean they are not great ideas, but you're not going to solve transportation in the rural west with that sort of thing. In metro areas though, absolutely.