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submitted 1 year ago by NightOwl@lemm.ee to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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[-] Grappling7155@lemmy.ca 29 points 1 year ago

Not as much as they hope it will.

Electric or not, we need less cars in cities, not more. Rather than making the next generation of mildly more sustainable but just as dangerous and space inefficient road congestants, we should be thinking harder about how best to meet people’s mobility needs in more safe, sustainable, and effective ways.

People need options not more car dependency.

Those resources are better used to build up public transportation, (e-)bike shares, sidewalks, and the accompanying infrastructure to go with it all, with seamless handoffs between modes.

Electric cars are here to save the auto industry, not the planet.

[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago

Electric cars are here to save the auto industry, not the planet.

This is an interesting bowling I haven't heard before.

Totally agree that for areas with any population density we need good, regular and frequent mass transit.

I also believe that areas without good density, we need to convert to pockets of density to enable funding for transit. Also, hoarding ornamental land in North America is a dead old throwback to frontier days and we need to remediate those out to more shared or natural or aggro space.

We've spent too many years enabling this land hoarding by changing natural and aggro space to fucking mcmansion estates and that shit has to stop.

[-] Benschnickle@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago

Not just mass transit, we need to make cities walkable and pedestrian friendly. No more stroads. No more big box stores with ginormous parking lots. No more "outdoor" malls. It's just extremely inefficient use of land.

[-] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 year ago

No, because public transit is the future. I mean, EVs are fine and will have their place but we need better mass transit.

[-] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago

I'm hoping for electric ferries and cargo ships one day.

[-] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

We already have some electric (hybrid) ferries in BC. I think its 2 with an order for 4 total?

Once shore power is installed on both ends of the routes (its going to take years for whatever reason) they'll then run 100% electric all the time.

[-] saigot@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 year ago

Buses can be electric too ya know (and stuff like construction equipment). The money right now is in personal evs, but the manufacturing volume and rnd is pretty cross compatible

[-] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There's this one crazy electric construction vehicle that never needs to be charged, it generates all its own power. Some huge rock mover, drives up mountain with empty load and gets to the top near empty battery wise. Then fills up with tons of whatever it's hauling, and then uses regen breaking to fill the battery on the way down.

Rinse repeat.

[-] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago

I just wonder about cost to produce batteries, lack of recycling, and the cost of a car accident with a battery powered vehicle involved. For that, I am so far uncertain of its sustainability.

Hydrogen.

[-] CanadianCorhen@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

EV busses, boats, and other vehicles will still need batteries. and in the end the batteries can be sold elsewhere.

[-] Rocket@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Canada had a wonderful mass transit system when the vast majority of the population lived rurally. But the urbanization movement saw people move to where the high density allowed one to walk everywhere, so there wasn't much need for the mass transit anymore and eventually it was shut down.

Cars have driven cities to become woefully less dense than they used to be, which is why you see value in a return of mass transit. When you have rural problems (life being too far away to walk to), you need rural solutions. But isn't the even better solution to get the idea of cities being wannabe rural areas out of our heads completely and start densifying again?

[-] Rodeo@lemmy.ca 18 points 1 year ago

Pay off for who, exactly?

It will definitely pay off for the billionaires who own the car companies.

[-] SamuelRJankis@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Maybe, but probably not as much as investing in infrastructure that lowers the 15,000 km the average Canadian drives a year.

[-] Rocket@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

So, internet service? That's has proven to be the most effective tool in seeing people drive a lot less. Driving to and from work is the bulk of those 15,000 kms and a good internet connection allows around 40% of the workforce to work from home, as seen during the COVID period. We are investing quite heavily in that.

In fact, we're investing so heavily in improved internet service that many farms in Canada now have two fibre runs as the government determined one was not enough!

[-] nik282000@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

If employees work from home middle managers loose their reason to exist. And seeing as middle management gets to decide on the question work-from-home...

[-] NENathaniel@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 year ago

Id like more funding for infrastructure for Ebikes/Escooters

[-] nik282000@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 year ago

Infrastructure and regulation. Too many death traps being imported that do not meet CSA standards.

[-] zephyreks@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago

Are these subsidies or tax breaks? I can never be sure tbh

[-] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

There's no significant difference between the two.

[-] zephyreks@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago

Tax breaks remove potential future tax revenue, but aren't spending tax revenue acquired from another source.

[-] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

Yea, there's no significant difference - tax breaks spend revenue from a future source.

[-] zephyreks@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago

But with a tax break in an emerging business, that revenue wouldn't otherwise exist because the company wouldn't have opened operations here when it could take advantage of egregious US subsidies instead.

[-] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

You're falling into something akin to the broken window fallacy. Economic resources aren't created or destroyed by incentives, they are shifted. If that tax break didn't exist those loans, employees, potential capital etc.. would be doing something else. Tax breaks need to be extremely precisely honed to avoid lowering future income.

[-] zephyreks@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 year ago

Economic growth doesn't happen on its own. The Canadian economy isn't some entity that magically sees growth without investment.

[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

So demand isn't somehow linked with supply?

[-] Rocket@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Did you accidentally read "does" instead of "doesn't"? Supply and demand being intrinsically linked is why economic growth does not happen on its own. If there was some way to separate them, then economic growth could theoretically happen on its own, but as that notion lives with fairytales and unicorns...

[-] Rocket@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It can make a big difference in who can use them. An income tax break, for example, is only useful to those who have income to tax. While a subsidy can fund a venture that does not yet have income.

[-] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

I meant in this context where it's established companies that have the means to build the factories they're planning to build.

this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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