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Comment by davnicwil | Hacker News Reader

Isn't that the commonly understood strategy of Tesla?

You can't start with the environmental benefits as the main selling point, it has to be a good car. Especially when Tesla started, the base cost of EV tech was extremely high, so the only market-competitive 'good' car you could build on top of it was a luxury car focused on optimising performance, comfort, brand, etc, with a very high price tag.

Obviously as the price of the base tech falls, a mass market car will emerge that's actually good, and sells, bringing the environmental benefits along with it not as a primary thing but a secondary one. That's the way it has to work (fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your perspective). Also seems that's exactly what Tesla is doing, I don't see any evidence to the contrary.

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Any 'mass market car' can by definition not be good for the climate/environment. Cars, whether electric or other, are unsustainable.

While I agree in principle (maybe not that we should get rid of 100% of cars, but probably >90% of cars), there's no way we can do it quickly. And almost certainly not quickly enough to avoid +1.5 C, or very likely even +2.0 C. EVs are a good stepping stone.

I hear what you are saying, but let us not forget that today's mobility environment is a very recent phenomenon. In my opinion the 'change' required is presented as much more insurmountable than it is in practice.

Look at today's world vs the world just 3 decades ago. No mass Internet, no WWW, no mobile phones, no eCommerce, much more smoking, much less obesity, a vastly different financial system, ... Society is apparently extremely plastic in adapting to created changes.

On the other hand 1/2 of world looks more or less the same - rural Africa, india, china...

If you believe we are highly adaptable and new technologies will 'save us' somehow check this presentation : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkj_91IJVBk

...it's eye opening

>Look at today's world vs the world just 3 decades ago. No mass Internet, no WWW, no mobile phones, no eCommerce, much more smoking, much less obesity, a vastly different financial system, ... Society is apparently extremely plastic in adapting to created changes.

The effects of the internet and social media on political discourse already looks like a disaster, obesity is a result of changing food infrastructure and availability, and our financial system goes through a cataclysmic global hiccup every decade or two.

If this is what adaptation looks like, we're screwed.

I find viewpoints like this to be overly regressive in the name of the environment.

Indeed, cars are bad for lots of reasons. But reducing nasty emissions and noise pollution, and making roads safer with various assistance systems, are improvements to the status quo. Since cars are here to stay (for now), improving them is worthwhile.

That is false in the case where the mass market dramatically improves global supply chains for batteries/storage. When the world has low cost batteries, solar energy will dominate due to the fact it is approaching order of magnitude lower $/kW costs than extraction fuels.

All of these cars use precious metals and resources which come from (probably) China who pollutes like hell to get them so who knows what the long-term ramifications are.

What precious metal in a BEV?

Cobalt

The largest export of the DRC. [0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_industry_of_the_Democra...

Pollution comes in various forms. Right now I'm less worried about heavy metals seeping into the land in some remote area of the world than I am about greenhouse gases. I'd rather fence off a square km to pollution for a dozen cars on the road that won't heat up the atmosphere more.

In what way is having a personal 3000lb pile of metal to wheel you around at all efficient? No matter if its gas or electric, 95% of that energy is squandered just moving around 3000lbs of metal everywhere you go in life.

Personal transport is best served on something you can actually pick up and carry. Buy an ebike. Lobby your city council for bike lanes. Anything else is opulent and destructive.

Exactly, there are millions of people who won't ever buy a prius no matter if it fixes the environment, makes them more beautiful, and pays them

What I don't get is how the two are mutually exclusive. Singapore still has cars, right?

As other commenters have mentioned, personal car ownership is very much dis-incentivized in Singapore. It's a city-state so walking, biking, and transit are where it's at.

More transit. It is a tropical city state, so walking and biking any amount of distance outside isn’t very pleasant during the daytime (and will require a shower and change of clothes if going to work).

Singapore really disincentives the usages of cars. Which is understandable when you have to cram 5 millions peoples on 722km2. Car, and especially car infrastructure take a lot of space. It is something you can afford when you have the space of the US or Canada, but when you are a small city states, public transportation makes a lot more senses.

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