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this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2023
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Fuck Cars
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Disagree on inefficient.
Internal combustion engines in standard small size convert 19.65-22.1% of their energy from thermal to kinetic.
The ratio of electron throughput from battery to electric motor can be as LOW as 88% but hovers between 92-98% efficiency.
Even if you had a fuel cell in the back, running electric motors quintuples (5×) the standard energy efficiency owing to the principle of energy quality type preservation in conversion (High to High vs Low to High):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_transformation
So 1 electric car = 4 less carbon liquid fuelled cars worth of pollution.
What you're actually looking for is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
Jevon's Paradox states that improved efficiency of something will only increase its use, and in this case, electric cars will in fact, correlate to car use, and increased mineral demands.
This is a problem you cannot solve endemic to humanity.
I think the point is that compared to public transport when transporting a large number of people, they are inefficient.
The "when transporting a large number of people" is quite a caveat. Sure ok high saturation of public transport / walkable cities is probably achievable with high population density, but in rural / regional areas it's just not possible.
A reasonable comment in this community? Get out!
I think you missed the meaning of inefficency on this matter...
While it is undeniable that electric cars have a better supply-to-engine energy efficency than combustion cars, you can understand that they are equiparated in the meme as "equally bad" if you think outside of the box labelled "rubber wheels on high friction asphalt transporting usually a single individual".
Compare that with a tram or a train, transporting multiple passengers with the same electric engine but also steel-on-steel friction on the wheels and the difference between an ICE and EV vehicle becomes a mere approximation error; god I can do the math for you if you want, but I bet even a disel bus with a lot of passengers has a better efficency/passenger ratio than an EV.
Also I think this is a bit misleading: if I buy an EV this won't magically destroy 4 (where is this number from?) already existing carbon liquid cars, it merely means you avoided adding 1 other ICE car to the total.
so, a box I keep my bike in? :D
When is it efficient to carry several tons of steel with you to pick up eggs and milk?
I mean, Jevon's Paradox works because the increased efficiency leads to decreased costs. It's unclear if that's going to be the case for electric cars because the hardware needed to get to that high efficiency is so expensive, and mostly made cost-effective by government assistance (I.e. eletric cars here in the UK do not pay road tax).
I'm also not sure if lowered costs would massively change the number of drivers (at least in the developed world) in the EU there's one car for every two people. We're not going to see that become 5 cars for every two people just because the efficiency increases, demand is too inelastic.