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For the past few weeks, I’ve been focusing on electric vehicles (EVs), examining fallacies being embraced by those who don’t believe we can build a cleaner future. This is a key battleground for fossil fuel interests and people who dismiss the seriousness of the climate emergency. Last month, I focused on the reactionary rhetoric impeding the adoption of EVs. This week, I expose false claims about those heavy EVs.
A friend recently expressed concern about electric vehicles destroying our roads and bridges. She’d read this in a Globe and Mail article and thought it made sense because EVs are so heavy. This wasn’t the first time I’d heard EVs were going to ruin our roads, so I was quick to point out that the top-selling vehicles in Canada are, in fact, much heavier than the top-selling EV, the Tesla Model Y.
Depending on the options, the Model Y’s curb weight is between 1,900 and 2,000 kilograms. The three most popular vehicles in Canada are the Ford F-Series, Chevy Silverado and Dodge Ram pickups. The curb weight of these trucks is between 1,800 kilograms for the six-cylinder F-150 and 3,400 kilograms for the Silverado 3500 HD. The Nissan Leaf is one of the lightest EVs on the Canadian market, weighing in at just under 1,600 kilograms.
One question always comes to mind when EVs are attacked because of their weightiness. Why are we only hearing this now? The Globe and Mail’s Eric Reguly is suddenly calling for a weight-based tax on all heavy vehicles, but his end game is to discourage EV buyers. The timing has more to do with a widespread media campaign aimed at resisting the inevitable transition to cleaner and more efficient transportation technology.
There’s no denying an EV is going to weigh more than an equivalent model of gas-powered car. For example, the Volvo XC40 weighs 2,280 kilograms while the electric version, XC40 Recharge, weighs 2,520 kilograms. Will that extra 240 kilos have a big impact on our roads? If so, perhaps we should have a weight tax on the occupants of vehicles as well.
In the 1950s, the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) performed testing to determine how much road damage was being caused by trucks. The report produced the generalized fourth power law to compare road damage caused by vehicles of different weights.
Based on the formula derived from AASHO’s results, an electric XC40 is roughly 1.5 times more damaging to the road than a gas-powered XC40. The heaviest Silverado is five times harder on our roads than the XC40.
Inside Science concludes heavy trucks are far more damaging to roads than any passenger vehicle. In general, a 40-tonne semi with eight axles is over 600 times more damaging to roads than an average two-tonne passenger vehicle.
Imagine a day when everyone owns an EV except for a few antique collectors. Our roads will be free of those 30,000-kilogram tanker trucks that bring gasoline on a daily or weekly basis to the nearly 12,000 service stations across Canada. That will certainly take a load off our pavement, but action movie directors will have to find something else to jackknife and explode in the midst of a car chase.
Perhaps Reguly is onto something. Lost revenue from dwindling gasoline taxes could be replaced with a weight tax on vehicles. The cost impact on EVs would be minimal if the tax is calculated according to each vehicle’s potential to cause road damage and it might create some motivation for people to purchase smaller vehicles. EV subsidies could also be used to incentivize lighter vehicles by scaling them to favour smaller, lighter and lower-cost EVs.
The misguided concerns over EV weight don’t end with the road damage con job. Apparently, extra tire wear is going to fill our skies with nanoparticles. A report by Euan McTurk commissioned by the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) in the U.K. points out errors in the research that spawned this misinformation campaign.
McTurk explains the EV tire wear suggested in Emissions Analytics’ research would result in EV owners having to replace their tires every couple thousand kilometres. Emissions Analytics’ results were possibly skewed by existing particles on the test track being stirred up during the experiment.
The RAC report also debunks the myth of heavy EVs contributing to more air pollution from brake pad particulate. Regenerative braking in EVs actually reduces brake pad wear.
What about those heavy EVs causing more injuries and fatalities? According to the International Transport Forum profile of road safety in Canada, the leading factors contributing to crash fatalities in 2023 were speeding, drinking and driving, drug use, cellphones and fatigue. Perhaps it would be more effective to address the factors leading to accidents rather than conclude we mustn’t drive EVs.
There are numerous studies that demonstrate large SUVs and pickups account for increases in severity of vehicle-crash outcomes. However, a study of EV crashes in Norway between 2011 and 2018 showed no statistically significant increase in the severity of EV crashes versus internal combustion engine vehicles.
Research does confirm cyclists and pedestrians are more likely to be killed or severely injured when hit by a large vehicle and the Norway study revealed that EVs increase the risk of these types of accidents occurring. This is likely due to the quietness of EVs. But as an avid cyclist and small car owner, I’m far more concerned about being crushed under the grill of an F-150 than being hit by a battery-laden Chevy Bolt.
In spite of all these weighty issues, selecting a means of transportation ultimately comes down to personal choice. If you decide not to own a car and get by with cycling, transit and the occasional Uber, then you’re definitely making our world a better place.
Maybe you believe that SUVs are harmful regardless of the fuel they run on and elect to own a small EV like the Nissan Leaf. That’s also a thoughtful and forward-looking decision. Even if you love your SUV and decide to go electric, it’s still a step in the right direction and a commitment to help reduce harmful tailpipe emissions.
But if you buy a new gas-powered car because you’ve fallen for the false narrative that EVs are destroying our roads, then you’re simply making a bad decision. That vehicle will be pumping out CO2 and other pollutants for another 20 years.
Going electric is just one of many decisions each of us can make to help bring a cleaner future into the present. It’s OK to focus on other solutions or actions first, but 20 years from now, young people are going to look at you with disdain if you’re driving around in a noisy SUV with smoke trailing behind it. They’re the ones who have the most to lose when millions of people continue to make poor choices.
Rob Miller is a retired systems engineer, formerly with General Dynamics Canada, who now volunteers with the Calgary Climate Hub and writes on behalf of Eco-Elders for Climate Action, but any opinions expressed in his work are his own.
Comments
The weight of our long distance trucks never prevented them from replacing more 'efficient' rail transport. But then, jobs for men without university degrees....big business 'trucking companies'(most of which stayed on the road during the 'trucker convoy' none sense) trumped concern for our asphalt.
The objections to a clean grid are unending. By now we should know who's pushing them, and what demographic is buying the none sense and passing it on.
Repairing our roads is a cheap fix compared to all the health dollars we are going to save when those noxious ICE vehicles get off our public by ways. Go electric!!! It's a ticket to freedom from fossil gas....and in the long run, it saves you money.
There's a fundamental reason that long distance trucking was able to significantly displace rail transport: The cost of roads is completely paid by the government, so for long haul trucks that expense is 100% subsidized. The cost of railways is not. If railways themselves were all publicly owned and financed, with trains running on them for free, the cost of rail transport for train companies would be ridiculously cheap, because it IS more efficient (no need for scare quotes). Or turning it around, if the long haul trucking industry had to pay for the highways, long haul trucking would be prohibitively expensive.
Goes to show that public infrastructure is important and we should have more public rail infrastructure.
You nailed it.
Miller's comparison between heavy pickups and light EVs does not pass the smell test. We should compare EV and ICE models of the same make. Consumers will choose a vehicle type, then select the drive train.
Fair comparison: "An electric XC40 is roughly 1.5 times more damaging to the road than a gas-powered XC40."
No one chooses between a Silverado pickup and an XC40 compact SUV. Consumers shopping for a pickup compare pickup models. Consumers shopping for a SUV compare SUV models.
"Standing over two metres high, everything about the Lightning is writ large: the expansive “entertainment system” console, the 1,800-pound battery pack, and not least, the price.
"… EVs are also much more metal-intensive: the F-150 is not just huge, it’s incredibly heavy — it weighs 6,500 pounds, 35 per cent more than a non-electric F-150. That’s largely because this EV is basically a giant metallic battery pack encased in aluminum, finished with over-the-top electronics and posh leather upholstery."
"The weighty costs of an electric truck" (National Observer, 2023)
Miller: "Imagine a day when everyone owns an EV except for a few antique collectors."
That's an environmental nightmare, not a dream. 8 billion people on the planet, Mr. Miller. Wake up.
Heavier vehicles are obviously going to cause more wear on the road, cause more serious injuries, consume more energy, and generate more particulates from tire wear.
Due to regenerative braking, light EVs may produce less particulates from the brakes, but this advantage is offset with heavier vehicles.
The particulate pollution comparison between ICE cars and EVs is a red herring. Both types contribute significantly to urban particulate pollution. All else being equal, the heavier the vehicle, the higher its particulate production. Compared to the alternatives (transit, cycling, walking), cars come off very much the worse for wear.
Cars are the problem. Switching out ICE engines for electric motors or employing regenerative braking does not solve the car or particulate problem. No car is green.
Which car is better for the environment? It's like asking which brand of cigarettes is healthier.
Take cars off the road. Invest in real solutions.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report, "Non-exhaust Particulate Emissions from Road Transport: An Ignored Environmental Policy Challenge," addresses the trade-off between regenerative braking vs increasing vehicle weight:
"'Electric vehicles are estimated to emit 5-19% less PM10 from non-exhaust sources per kilometer than internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) across vehicle classes. However, EVs do not necessarily emit less PM2.5 than ICEVs. Although lightweight EVs emit an estimated 11-13% less PM2.5 than ICEV equivalents, heavier weight EVs emit an estimated 3-8% more PM2.5 than ICEVs.'
"The reason light EVs emit less non-exhaust PM than an ICEV is that they have regenerative braking and not nearly as much brake wear, so there are lower emissions. But as the long-range electric Hummers and Rivians and F-150s roll out, then the weight kicks in."
"OECD Says Electric Cars Won't Save Us From Pollution" (Treehugger, 2020))
Studies from authoritative sources support the obvious finding that heavier cars increase particulate levels from tire, brake, clutch, and road wear, as well as the resuspension of road dust.
Given the choice between a EV and ICE versions of the same model, the heavier EV is more problematic except in the case of the brakes. Given consumers' increasing preference for heavier vehicles, that spells more particulate pollution in future, not less.
Miller: "What about those heavy EVs causing more injuries and fatalities? According to the International Transport Forum profile of road safety in Canada, the leading factors contributing to crash fatalities in 2023 were speeding, drinking and driving, drug use, cellphones and fatigue."
Total red herring. The issue is the consequences of car "accidents", not the cause. Due to greater collisional energies and higher impacts, heavier vehicles cause more severe injury and increase fatalities.
The solution is obvious, but Mr. Miller, Clean Energy Canada, the auto industry, and car addicts would rather promote EVs in sprawled cities than transit, cycling, and walking in cities designed for people, not cars.
Not buying it.
That would be true if one could order up car-free cities with one's morning pancakes.
I'm still waiting for your cost estimate and construction timeline to urbanize the suburbs and defeat car dependency once and for all. It took Vancouver 40 years and probably 50 billion bucks in transit and transit oriented development to reduce car dependency in the daily commute by slightly more than 50%. And that's just the city, not the metro region.
It's a good fight to take on. But it will likely take two or three generations to achieve even a 2/3 reduction in car dependency nation-wide.
What are we supposed to do in the meantime, continue to burn oil sands products for another 60 years? Stop electrifying transportation and give up the advances in battery tech that are now expanding into grid storage of renewable power? That tech started with car batteries.
Lastly, Clean Energy Canada isn't all about EVs as you claim. It not only discusses renewables, home electrification and energy efficiency, but also disses LNG and CCS.
The discussion about EVs should not be subjected to goals based on blanket, ideologically perfect and reactionary objectives that are impossible to achieve. Nor should other's comments be parsed, cherry picked and interpreted inaccurately to support extremely one sided views.
You and I and the majority of readers here likely agree 100% that car dependency needs to be countered. But most also realize that ain't gonna happen overnight because cities evolve at a slower pace. Even with major incentives to electrify, building out entire communities is physically impossible to achieve in a few years. It takes decades.
Cars will be with us in the meantime whether you and I like it or not.
The timeline is that it will take as long as it takes.
Start now and don't quit until you have finished.
It will take forever if you don't start.
It will take forever if you double down on the problem at the same rate as you work on the solution.
Invest in the solution, not the problem.
If you are in a hole, stop digging.
If people want to buy EVs, let them. But make them pay the full infrastructure, environmental, and health costs of their choice. Subsidies for the solution, not the problem.
Devote all your public resources — time, money, labor, planning and design — to the solution, not the problem.
The cost estimate for the solution is less than the cost estimate of doubling down on the problem.
If you want to paint your house green, what is the timeline for that?
If you do not make a start, it will take you forever.
If you use your old black paint, it will take you forever.
If you want to walk somewhere, put one foot in front of the other — and don't stop until you get there. The fact that we cannot arrive at our destination instantaneously does not stop us from travelling. All transitions start by moving in the direction you need to go.
If you walk in the wrong direction, it will take you even longer. Which is why building oilsands pipelines to fund climate action is hopeless environmental policy. And which is why subsidizing EVs is hopeless sustainable transportation policy.
Alex: "But it will likely take two or three generations to achieve even a 2/3 reduction in car dependency nation-wide."
It will take even longer if you continue to build out car-enabled sprawl.
It will take even longer if you train the next generation and the one after that to drive everywhere they go.
Car dependency is hard to break. Best solution is not to start in the first place.
Don't make your problems worse.
The beauty about armchair criticism is that you never have to do the really hard work. You just sit back and issue absolutist word salads and let others go $120K in debt for a masters in community and regional planning or urban design, put in the first decade doing shit work for others on projects you don't agree with and pay lots of dues with several employers before entering positions where you can actually do some good and make a difference. Ditto politicos with hearts and minds in the right places -- years and years of grinding away before ever seeing the possibility of being responsible for enacting laws and policies to fight climate change and foster efficacious cities.
Meanwhile there are roadblocks (pun intended) at every step, namely in finding funds among competing interests and doing the hard math on actually building stuff. Several cities started decades ago and are still going strong and are now just starting to see the results. Telling them to "start somewhere" will only garner furrowed brows and questions about the experience of the critics who have never been in the trenches.
I have ultimate respect for those urbanist critics who write loads of critical analysis based on their deepm, decades long experience doing the work they are encouraging others to do.
Alex wrote: "I have ultimate respect for those urbanist critics who write loads of critical analysis based on their deep, decades long experience doing the work they are encouraging others to do."
No shortage of urban-design people and Sustainable Communities activists calling for more public transit and a rapid shift away from the automobile.
Paris Marx: "Shifting to EVs is not enough. The deeper problem is our car dependence' (CBC, 2022)
"The climate crisis offers us an unprecedented opportunity to reimagine how we move and how we build our communities, but the push for electric vehicles is about making the smallest possible change — one that likely won't deliver the scale of emissions reductions we need. Meeting the scale of that challenge requires taking on the dominance of cars in our communities.
"The federal government has increased transit funding, but much of the money won't flow until 2026 and beyond. Meanwhile, subways in the major cities need expansions to keep up with demand, municipal bus systems need operations funding to provide a more frequent and reliable service, and many Canadian cities lack proper cycling infrastructure.
"Similarly, the Liberals finally approved Via Rail's high-frequency rail plan between Toronto and Quebec City after five years of delay, but even then it won't arrive until the early 2030s. And it still won't match the high-speed rail being built in countries across Asia and Europe. The ambition we need simply isn't there.
"Electric vehicles will be part of the solution, but the deeper problem is how many Canadians are dependent on their cars with no reliable alternatives. Governments serious about climate action need to change that."
Paris Marx is a technology writer, host of the Tech Won’t Save Us podcast, and author of Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation.
"Rush to electric vehicles may be an expensive mistake, say climate strategists' (CBC, Dec 12, 2022)
"With their futuristic designs and new technology, EVs are the seductive consumer-friendly face of the energy transition.…For people with money and a conscience, EVs are doubly satisfying. They allow the affluent to indulge in the time-honoured pleasures of conspicuous consumption while at the same time saving the planet."
"… But for those who have looked more deeply at how the world can escape its dependence on oil and gas, the rush to replace existing gas guzzlers with a new fleet of clean, silent battery-powered personal transport leaves them uneasy.
Many, including John Lorinc, last month's winner of the 2022 Balsillie Prize for Public Policy for his book Dream States, worry that the dash to go electric has not been well thought out.
"The potential result? Unsustainable costs and unnecessary damage to the environment.
"… 'Electric vehicles are large engineered objects that require a lot of metal, they require a lot of components that are shipped all over the place. There's a lot of mining and processing of minerals required to make the components, so it's not an environmental panacea by any stretch of the imagination."
"EVs are here to save the car industry, not the planet, that is crystal clear," said outspoken urban planning advocate Jason Slaughter. "Electric cars use batteries instead of gasoline, but they are still a horrendously inefficient way to move people around, especially in crowded cities."
"… Using a vehicle to move a person and a quart of yogurt is energy inefficient," said Kate Daley, a climate and energy specialist who works in Waterloo region, referring to the drive many suburban Canadians must make just to pick up an essential ingredient from the nearest shop.
"Her community's climate strategy has been to make walking, biking and public transit convenient enough that residents don't have to drive, whether in a fossil fuel burner or an EV. She notes that the move toward large SUVs has already been hard on road surfaces, and the additional load caused by batteries makes the damage worse.
"… Recently, Canada celebrated the opening of a General Motors factory in Ingersoll, Ont., to build electric delivery vehicles, and according to Colleen Kaiser, low carbon transportation expert with the Ottawa-based Smart Prosperity Institute, they may be on the right track.
"'We really want the oldest [fossil fuel] cars off the road ... and we want the ones that drive the most. So we can think about taxi kind of vehicles, whether it's an Uber or a traditional taxi, any kind of fleet vehicles.'
"Effectively, she said, any car or truck that is on the road many hours a day, including buses, delivery vehicles, travelling sales reps, long-distance commuters, car shares such as Communauto or Zipcars, should be the ones to electrify first.
"She agrees that changing the 'built urban form of our communities' may be the most important way to reduce total car use, but she said that takes a long time. 'That is why we have to start now."
"We definitely don't want to replace all the gasoline cars one-for-one with electric vehicles," said Kaiser. "We have an opportunity with the transition to not just repeat the same patterns of the past with a different energy source."
"A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transportation" – Gustavo Petro, Mayor of Bogotá
So you can stop pretending that I am a lone voice on this issue. Or that this point of view is limited to "armchair critics", as you derisively call climate-concerned citizens like myself.
Your constant putdowns in lieu of argument are getting tiresome. Try to be civil.
Cars vs transit. A lot of words, Geoffrey, but still not even a single attempt at calculating the schedule and cost of converting car dependent outlying subdivisions to walkable and transit oriented communities.
A lot of words you choose to ignore.
How many times do I have to answer your question?
It took decades and trillions of dollars to build out our sprawled cities.
It will take decades and trillions of dollars to unwind sprawl and/or build 15-minute cities, where amenities are close at hand and people are not forced to drive.
A huge challenge. No sense in making it worse. No reason to delay.
No reason to make difficult problems intractable.
No reason to put solutions out of reach.
Halving our transportation emissions but doubling the number of cars — most of them in the developing world — does nothing to address climate issues. The environmental and social costs of an EV world are staggering.
How to end global car dependency? Probably not by adding millions or billions more cars to the road. A never-ending nightmare. But such is the dream of EV promoters, car companies, and neoliberal governments.
EVs and fast, efficient, affordable mass transit are not complementary options. They are mutually exclusive.
Choose one or the other.
Sinking public dollars into private cars just slows public transit down — and puts the only sustainable solution out of reach.
There is no evolution from more private cars and more sprawl to efficient public transit. More private cars and more sprawl do not enable efficient public transit at some future date — they make it impossible.
If the goal is efficient public transit, it is self-defeating to promote car use and enable sprawl.
The supply of tax dollars is not infinite. Scarce public dollars spent on private cars are dollars not spent on public transit.
Once middle- and upper-class consumers are happily ensconced in their automobiles, there is no shifting them. There is no incentive for governments to invest in and improve transit if the vast majority vote for cars and EV subsidies.
Transportation policy and investment focussed on cars abandons the marginalized — the poor without political power, seniors, the handicapped, and environmentalists — without hope of essential mobility options. Mass transit does not work without the masses.
Car culture leaves non-drivers -- the poor, the disabled, the old and the young, and the marginalized -- out in the cold. On the social equity index, both cars fail.
Alex: "What are we supposed to do in the meantime…? Stop electrifying transportation…
Absurd. Buses, LRT, subways, trolley cars, and trucks can all be electrified, if they are not already. Consumers who insist on cars can buy EVs — at their own expense.
Alex: "… give up the advances in battery tech that are now expanding into grid storage of renewable power?"
Cars are not a necessary condition for advancement in battery technology. Batteries have all sorts of applications. Including buses and trucks.
Battery technology for small mobile vehicles, where weight and range are key considerations, is not the same as for large-scale grid storage:
"Lithium-ion batteries aren’t ideal for stationary storage, even though they’re commonly used for it today. While batteries for EVs are getting smaller, lighter, and faster, the primary goal for stationary storage is to cut costs. Size and weight don’t matter as much for grid storage, which means different chemistries will likely win out."
MIT: "What’s next for batteries" (2023)
RMI analysts expect lithium-ion to remain the dominant battery technology through 2023, steadily improving in performance, but then they anticipate a suite of advanced battery technologies coming online to cater to specific uses:
Heavier transport will use solid-state batteries such as rechargeable zinc alkaline, Li-metal, and Li-sulfur. The electric grid will adopt low-cost and long-duration batteries such as zinc-based, flow, and high-temperature batteries. (Forbes 2019)
Alex: "Clean Energy Canada isn't all about EVs as you claim."
Where did I make such a claim? Straw man.
Alex: "But most also realize that ain't gonna happen overnight"
Where did I claim otherwise? Straw man.
Alex: "Nor should other's comments be parsed, cherry picked and interpreted inaccurately…"
Exactly.
Geoff, I know you're not a fossil fuel guy. So why do you want to keep business as usual for the petroleum-based transportation system? If you think building out transit systems is going to happen faster than EV adoption, you haven't been watching how long it's taking Calgary to get the green line built. And how do you propose Canadians deal with inter-city travel? Rural communities are also a challenge if you want people to just stop using vehicles.
As I've said before, I agree with you that we need people in cities to take transit more, ride their bikes (and e-bikes too) and walk more. But I find it strange how adamant your are that EVs are so harmful when clearly they have many advantages over combustion engines. Zero emissions is a big deal. I'm also curious if you support electric buses? They're certainly a lot quieter and don't blast you with noxious fumes as they pass by. But maybe you have some other solution that you prefer over EVBs?
RM: "So why do you want to keep business as usual for the petroleum-based transportation system?"
Not so. I advocate massive public investment in (electrified) public transit (including regional and rural), cycling infrastructure, and sidewalks. Cities designed for people not cars. A halt to urban sprawl.
At 60 passengers per bus (full capacity), we can move far more people on transit for less cost. Fiscal efficiency matters.
Even non-electrified public transit in people-friendly cities beats EVs in car-friendly cities. But electric buses top diesel buses, for sure.
People are free to buy EVs if they want them. But they should pay the full infrastructure, environmental, and health costs of their choice.
Handing out $5000 EV subsidies to wealthy people who don't need them while ignoring the transportation needs of people who cannot afford cars or choose not to drive is unjust.
RM: "If you think building out transit systems is going to happen faster than EV adoption"
If climate activists push for transit, the shift to transit will accelerate. If climate activists put 90% of their time, money, efforts, and resources towards EVs, the shift to transit will never happen.
RM: "I find it strange how adamant your are that EVs are so harmful when clearly they have many advantages over combustion engines."
Not my main argument. The problem with electric cars is not that they are electric. The problem is that they are cars. The problem with cars — and the urban sprawl enabled by cars — predates the climate crisis. Environmental activism around cars and sustainable communities long predates the climate issue. My activism goes back decades.
Switching from billions of ICE cars to billions of EVs is not a green solution. Another technological fix that isn't.
Cars and car culture are an environmental and human catastrophe even without a tailpipe. The energy extravagance of billions of people using private vehicles in sprawled cities is obscene. Billions of people commuting hundreds and thousands of kilometres per week is an environmental nightmare. Such a system will never be sustainable.
Obscene energy expenditure. Lost productivity, sedentary lifestyle (and health problems), millions of deaths and injuries, roadkill, and social isolation.
Urban sprawl, disintegration of community, loss of green space, endless freeways and traffic jams, inefficient public transit, strip mall blight, mega-mall culture, parking lot proliferation, accidents, and property damage.
Insanely long commutes in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Sprawl multiplies congestion, energy consumption and waste, time and productivity loss, emissions, and footprint.
In perpetuating sprawl, EVs exacerbate the problem and obstruct real solutions. A one-Earth footprint cannot accommodate an energy-intensive lifestyle where people drive everywhere they go — or an urban model relying on millions of cars to transport millions of people. Using two tons of metal to transport a 150 lb human being is an ecological non-starter.
Large sprawled cities are inimical to efficient, sustainable transport. 20th century sprawl is a failed experiment.
No sense pursuing it further. More cars will just make it worse — regardless of what's under the hood.
We need to hit the brakes on sprawl and car culture ASAP.
When you're in a hole, stop digging.
EVs perpetuate a litany of environmental problems that only public transit and smart urban design can solve. Cities need to be built for people, not cars.
Car culture will never be sustainable. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.
We have a choice: the public good — or private benefits for the few, while perpetuating the same ills that car culture has inflicted on society for decades.
We can either invest in the private automobile, car culture, and sprawl. Or we can invest in the public good: transit, cycling, and smart urban design.
Sinking public dollars into private cars just slows public transit down — and puts the only sustainable solution out of reach.
There is no evolution from more private cars and more sprawl to efficient public transit. More private cars and more sprawl do not enable efficient public transit at some future date — they make it impossible.
If the goal is efficient public transit, it is self-defeating to promote car use and enable sprawl.
The supply of tax dollars is not infinite. Scarce public dollars spent on private cars are dollars not spent on public transit.
Once middle- and upper-class consumers are happily ensconced in their automobiles, there is no shifting them. There is no incentive for governments to invest in and improve transit if the vast majority vote for cars and EV subsidies.
Transportation policy and investment focussed on cars abandons the marginalized — the poor without political power, seniors, the handicapped, and environmentalists — without hope of essential mobility options. Mass transit does not work without the masses.
Car culture leaves non-drivers -- the poor, the disabled, the old and the young, and the marginalized -- out in the cold. On the social equity index, both cars fail.
The shift towards transit needs to start today. Not decades down the road, when our cities are even more sprawled. No sense in delay.
The decisions we make now about urban design set the blueprint for generations to come. Cars enable sprawl, and sprawl forces people to drive. Both make efficient transit impossible. There is no road from more private cars and more sprawl to better public transit. Delay makes the challenge even harder. Kicking the can down the road puts solutions out of reach.
Climate is not our only environmental problem. Cars are not a green solution to any of our problems. Regardless of what is under the hood.
Recommended reading:
'The End of Car Dependency', Newman & Kenworthy (2015).
Hi Geoff,
I understand... and I love that you're so passionate about getting the world off cars (and jets and boats and trucks, and other motorized toys). The world would be safer, cleaner and a lot less noisy without them. And the planet wouldn't be overheating (as much). One of the few silver linings during covid... way less traffic! (quieter streets, fresher air, safer biking, more people walking). I think that's the world you'd like to see and I can't argue with this vision.
But I have to admit I'm only an occasional transit user. Sometimes I take the bus or train because I know it's the right thing to do and in the warmer months I ride my bike as much as possible. Still, I drive my car a lot so I don't have much to be proud of.
I'm writing this series about EVs because they are under attack from politicians and media that want to prolong the burning of fossil fuels (and keep the profits coming) and that's a very dangerous thing to do. I know you think it's a stop gap solution when we should be designing a world where people don't need to drive cars. But I think we need a stop gap solution, right now, and the fossil fuel industry and their minions are fighting like hell to spread misinformation about EVs in order to kill that stopgap solution. To be honest, I think EVs will be a long term trend and the streets will eventually be filled with them - so not ideal.
Anyway, you're not wrong and with the Calgary Climate Hub I've been part of the fight for the Green Line expansion and more funding for the 5A cycle network. More recently I've written councillors to vote against the plebiscite for the new housing strategy that will hopefully increase densification. I'm also against urban sprawl and developments like Ricardo Ranch. I think we're on the same page for a lot of things, but just not EVs. Keep the comments coming, it's a subject that needs to be heard, debated and discussed.
Rob
Rob wrote: "To be honest, I think EVs will be a long term trend and the streets will eventually be filled with them - so not ideal."
Not ideal is right. It's a nightmare. With only one possible solution. Massive investment in public transit now, not decades from now after our streets and cities are clogged with cars.
"I think we need a stop gap solution, right now"
Nothing to stop us from proceeding with real solutions right now.
EVs are not a stop gap. EVs make real transportation solutions impossible.
As noted above:
Large sprawled cities are inimical to efficient, sustainable transport.
No sense pursuing it further. More cars will just make it worse.
When you're in a hole, stop digging.
EVs perpetuate a litany of environmental problems that only public transit and smart urban design can solve. Cities need to be built for people, not cars.
We have a choice: the public good — or private benefits for the few, while perpetuating the same ills that car culture has inflicted on society for decades.
We can either invest in the private automobile, car culture, and sprawl. Or we can invest in the public good: transit, cycling, and smart urban design.
Sinking public dollars into private cars just slows public transit down — and puts the only sustainable solution out of reach.
There is no evolution from more private cars and more sprawl to efficient public transit. More private cars and more sprawl do not enable efficient public transit at some future date — they make it impossible.
If the goal is efficient public transit, it is self-defeating to promote car use and enable sprawl.
Once middle- and upper-class consumers are happily ensconced in their automobiles, there is no shifting them. There is no incentive for governments to invest in and improve transit if the vast majority vote for cars and EV subsidies.
Transportation policy and investment focussed on cars abandons the marginalized — the poor without political power, seniors, the handicapped, and environmentalists — without hope of essential mobility options. Mass transit does not work without the masses.
The shift towards transit needs to start today. Not decades down the road, when our cities are even more sprawled. No sense in delay.
The decisions we make now about urban design set the blueprint for generations to come. Cars enable sprawl, and sprawl forces people to drive. Both make efficient transit impossible. There is no road from more private cars and more sprawl to better public transit. Delay makes the challenge even harder. Kicking the can down the road puts solutions out of reach.
Rob wrote: "But I think we need a stop gap solution… To be honest, I think EVs will be a long term trend and the streets will eventually be filled with them - so not ideal."
Are these statements not contradictory?
Rob does not have a vision for a mass transit future. There is no time in his future vision when cars give way to mass transit. In the world he envisions, the "streets will eventually be filled" with cars.
EVs are not a stop-gap, after all. Cars win.
A dystopian vision. Bleak and hopeless.
Not sustainable. Definitely not green.
Not a solution.
I don't believe EVs will displace ICE cars one-to-one. It will be less. They will offer an alternative to petrol until such time a transit system and planned density increases and zoning changes can catch up in at least 30 years. That process started decades ago in many jurisdictions. No need to tell the planners there to "start sometime." They've been working on it for the better part of their entire careers. Perhaps they should invite you to see their work, and explain how long it takes to get it done, and while they're at it, just what it takes to actually write detailed plans.
In the developing world, EVs will exceed the current population of ICE cars, as more and more people become car owners/drivers. Putting hundreds of millions more cars on the road than there are today.
In many jurisdictions, sustainable planning has yet to plant the seeds of sustainable transportation, much less bear fruit. Few cities have set firm boundaries and halted sprawl.
Cities like Edmonton and Calgary continue to sprawl. Meanwhile, towns are morphing into small cities. Medium cities are expanding into large cities. The cancer of sprawl — and car culture — is everywhere. Most cities are still heading in the wrong direction.
EVs will continue to take us in the wrong direction.
Cities like Edmonton have been running transit into the ground for decades. Cutting service and raising fares. Making it nigh impossible for non-drivers to get around, especially in off-peak hours and in sprawled suburbs with few amenities. Forcing people to drive.
If government truly understood our environmental and climate emergency, sprawl would be banned tomorrow. Drivers would be forced to pay their way. There would be massive investment in public transit.
But developers, not urban planners, run the show at City Hall. While EV promoters help kill the dream for efficient transit in livable cities.
Paving paradise to put up a parking lot.
Careful what you wish for.
False premises lead to false debates.
Hybrid is not an EV, converted ICE cars like the Volvo to EV are not like a clean sheet EV.
For obvious reasons a hybrid will be heavier because of the two powertrains, so is a converted ICE car to EV because it carries over structure that was required for the ICE car into the EV which only adds deadweight to the EV.
My Tesla3 curb weight is less than a BMW3 or even BMW7, and I never heard anyone complaining about the heavy weight of a BMW.
The most diabolic thing about a hybrid is that it receives subsidies like a pure EV, which is an indirect subsidy to fossil again. It should never be more than a percentage of full subsidy according to the size of the hybrid battery.
I have two pure electric tractors at home, and one converted Diseasel to battery. The ICE version of the 2 tractors are heavier, and I actually wish they were as heavy as the ICE version for better traction. The converted one is most likely heavier than the original Diseasel Case 430 because of the transmission, but a pure electric tractor would not need all the complex transmission and I am sure it would be lighter.