I hate this car-centric society, but let’s be real cars aren’t going anywhere. Moving away from fossil fuels is a good thing. Not sure why we’re criticizing progress here.
this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2025
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It's because on the modern internet, everyone is all-or-nothing when it comes to their chosen issue. Nuance has become unacceptable.
This community in particular can get a little out of touch at times. In North America in particular, even if every level of government agreed to begin working towards a car free society immediately, we'd still be facing a decades long construction campaign as entire towns and cities would have to be restructured. In the meantime, a shift to electric vehicles is something that can drastically help the global warming issue, and can be implemented in less than a decade.
In reality, we should be shifting to electric cars in the sort term, while we work towards eliminating the need for them in the long term.
Also, I'm convinced that the brake dust/tire wear particulates talking point is the result of oil industry astroturfing. The brake dust thing especially is actually better on electric cars, since regenerative braking reduces the amount of brake wear.
Higher weight and higher torque means tires wear faster on EVs. That’s physics, and the theory is backed up by real world evidence.
The flatter torque curve (peak torque on electric cars is usually very comparable to ICE) is irrelevant, unless you are a shitty driver who treats the gas pedal like a two position switch.
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Its because EVs are being marketed as a green solution, not a stepping stone. If a car must exist it might as well be electric but we should be asking how do we reduce the cars that exist and their frequency of use. Building electrified transit and keeping ICE cars would as a whole be more beneficial than just converting all cars to EVs.
Building electrified transit and keeping ICE cars would as a whole be more beneficial than just converting all cars to EVs.
This choice you've presented is extremely misleading. The build out of electrified public transportation and the shift from ICE to EV cars are not in any way related choices. If the government chooses to build more public transportation, that has no effect on whether or not EVs replace ICE cars.
The government building transit would effect the number of people who need to rely on a car.
Which is good, but still has nothing to do with what the remaining cars are powered by. There's no reason why it has to be "transit+ICE" instead of "transit+EV".
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Electric vehicles
- eliminate tailpipe emissions
- cut brake dust emissions in half
- pollute less as we transition to renewable energy
- let us work toward elimination the huge polluting industries for gasoline refining and distribution
- let us shrink the huge polluting industries of oil extraction and refining
- are a huge step toward slowing the growth of climate change.
While I completely agree transit, and walkable cities are much better, EVs are not nothing. More importantly, given the amount of time to build transit and walkable cities, EVs get us many of the advantages NOW
Yeah, this comic is putting perfect in the way of good.
Not to mention, there are people who do need vehicles, the trades being one example.
They also increase tyre wear particles due to their greater weight and torque
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Car culture evangelist in fuckcars community missing the point as always.
The point is that EVs are not a good solution to the problem with cars - they are just a better car. This individualizes what is a collective problem.
My city is adding six new lanes for cars in the coming years, meanwhile there are already intersections that a person has to jog to get across in time. Cars have their use, but it's far far far less than people realise.
Valorizing EVs leads to perpetuating car centric designs, which is a negative across many dimensions - not only ecologically.
All that being said, better car is still better than a worse car. I live near a big road, and it kinda sucks. Back then when all cars were emitting poison from a tailpipe instead of only some doing it, it didn't just suck, it was a fucking nightmarish hell, dirty, loud, smelly, poisonous dark hell, and some people from my family died prematurely because of that.
I don't think the community in my city can persuade carbrains to quit caring any time soon. They can convince them to start with being slightly less damaging, for starters.
it's also important to remember that electric cars are heavier (you know, batteries) which increases road wear, tyre wear, and makes them more dangerous in collisions (and means they need yet more battery to push the extra weight, very fun).
Electric cars are really only strictly better if they're also made smaller and lighter, electric cars are great but we should be treating 2-seaters with like 200km range as the norm.
The biggest difference is about 20%, if we compare smallest EV with smallest ICE car. The bigger the cars, the less the difference. And even for the maximum, 20% is so negligible compared to benefits, it's not even a question.
Yes, a better car is a better car. That's perfectly reasonable harm reduction logic.
I just would rather people not forget that that's all it is, and know that there are much better communal solutions. Even if they seem utopian, they're actually very sensible and pragmatic.
Materially speaking, we could start building a better world tomorrow morning. We don't have to wait for tech to save us.
That's very true
This, to me, just seems like it's trying to give permissions to ICE car owners not to change anything.
It definitely is not that. However, it is a reminder that, even with electric vehicles, there is a serious, environmental and social impact.
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A report from the Pew Charitable Trust found that 78 percent of ocean microplastics are from synthetic tire rubber. These toxic particles often end up ingested by marine animals, where they can cause neurological effects, behavioral changes, and abnormal growth.
Meanwhile, British firm Emissions Analytics spent three years studying tires. The group found that a single car’s four tires collectively release 1 trillion “ultrafine” particles for every single kilometer (0.6 miles) driven. These particles, under 100 nanometers in size, are so tiny that they can pass directly through the lungs and into the blood. They can even cross the body’s blood-brain barrier. The Imperial College London has also studied the issue, noting that “There is emerging evidence that tire wear particles and other particulate matter may contribute to a range of negative health impacts including heart, lung, developmental, reproductive, and cancer outcomes.”
Cool beans, I've got "Tire Brain".
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Ah, well if an improvement isn't perfect, we should definitely reject it and continue using the worst possible version until a perfect one is created
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Electric cars also reduce particulate dust. Because of regenerative braking they need to brake less often and less agressive. There was a study published just kadt week.
Also noise pollution. Under 35 mph, most car noise is engine noise.
eeeh, i don't think this is a particularly noticable benefit.
The amount of noise given off by cars at those speeds is just an annoyance, the real problem is the tyre noise at high speeds and that's only made worse by electric cars.
They recently lowered the speed on a through-road near me from 70km/h to 60km/h and it made a pretty huge difference in how tolerable it is to be anywhere near the road, the difference between a combustion and an electric car driving on a residential street is so much smaller that it's not even funny.
So much this. Car noise is a huge problem.
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It doesn't solve all the problems, so instead, let's solve none of the problems!
Get an electric car if you want, but you should still support society moving away from needing them in the first place, no?
Imagine a school cafeteria is serving kids the option of 5 hershey's chocolate bars, or a slice of pizza. You can acknowledge the pizza is better, but you should still be asking where the god damn vegetables are.
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Had the right idea but lost me at the end. Better is better. We can both electrify and work to move away from automobiles at the same time. We should not divide a group of people with common interest in a better tomorrow. To do so is how we lose.
Most of the fuckwads in this comment section missed the point of the post
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On one hand, I like that EVs are leaps and bounds above gas guzzlers. On the other, it does still reinforce our current car culture.
EVs would be an objective improvement if people actually bought small sensible ones, but of course that would entail actually changing their lifestyle and thus it cannot happen.
The only good car is a kei car.
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