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Electric cars go mainstream as adoption surges across rich and developing nations
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2026
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Climate
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Electric cars are mostly there so that the car industry can continue to sell one of the most expensive object of consumption. As far as I am concerned, they are mostly greenwashing.
They are climate friendlier than internal combustion engines but not an easy fix for all the other issues they still pose. For example, parking lots are causing heat islands and their impervious surfaces also contribute to flooding.
It's just impossible to have every human on the planet to own a multi ton vehicle that spends energy to move that box and the human it contains everywhere they go. Even if electric.
But no, consume. Buy without remorse, it's climate friendly(er). Hurray for overconsumption.
Parking lots could host solar panels, and there is no reason why parking needs to be paved.
Anything but reduce car usage or invest in public transit. No, the solution to everyone wasting energy to move a personal multi ton vehicle around, and prevent parking lots from worsening climate change, is to install solar panels on top of every parking lot and road.
Cars will one day be made by green energy, powered by green energy, recycled by green energy, and be entirely carbon neutral, of course.
They will still emit tons of microplastic particles but we'll eventually find a technoloical solution for that, I'm sure. They will still kill billions of animals every year but it's not related to climate so no biggie. They will still kill one human every 30 seconds but again, not a climate issue. They augment the risk of cardiovascular diseases and make people fat. They are also a source of noise pollution and stress for millions of poor people living near freeways. And they are also an expensive status symbol. But none of this matters because they will be electric, and have solar panels on top of parking lots, thus solving the problem once and for all!
Personally I'd prefer we get rid of parking lots and build housing on top of it but, where will people park their climate friendly cars?!
Anything but to admit cars are an environmental problem.
EDIT: Sorry about the abrasiveness. I did read a study a few months ago about installing solar panels on top of parking lots and they did have a positive impact, but it's just impossible to do this on every open air parking lot and road because of material and cost. Even if it could have a positive impact on localized areas, it's never gonna be enough to have an overall impact.
Just to give you an idea of how much parking there is in the world, you can look for those maps where parking lots are highlighted. This is for Flint, MI. This is for Philadelphia. I tried to do it for a town of about 80k people in Québec (Drummondville), and just gave up before being done. And that's just counting parking lots, not roads. How many solar panels do you think we should produce to cover all this?