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Comment by quotemstr | Hacker News Reader

Why do you think that increasing performance in itself bad for the environment?

Not so much increasing performance, but what's required for that, e.g. the extra weight of the battery and motors to provide ~10km of electric-only range on the McLaren P1.

If it’s just a way to gain the ability to consume even more energy per launch from a stop light, it’s bad. And when most ICE setups (including hybrids that use electric to boost ICE peak output) talk about increasing performance, it’s about acceleration, not efficiency.

Faster you go the more fuel you burn per mile above around 50-60mph depending on the car

The faster you accelerate the more you’re going to braking to slow back down again (unless you’re accelerating onto open roads)

Performance cars are more likely to be driven by people who don’t care about the environment and drive as such.

Tires wear out faster

...

> Performance cars are more likely to be driven by people who don’t care about the environment and drive as such.

I think the success of Tesla says otherwise. There are lots of us who enjoy performance cars who care about emissions. Even someone who drives an Audi v8 car is doing less damage than the single person cruising in a huge truck/suv.

It’s relative- the high performance Tesla’s are worse for the environment than the low performance ones.

EVs are a different category to ICE cars so comparing across them is strange

This is quite silly - a Tesla X or e-Hummer are still better for the environment than any ICE car.

i doubt that very much

Are we supposed to accept your profession of doubt as a form of evidence or argumentation?

That probably holds true in case they have the same usage patterns.

Does your theory still hold if I drive only 2000km/year in an older car versus a Tesla X or e-Hummer? I don't pretend to have the answer to that question, but there is an environmental cost to producing a car too...

Most people buying new vehicles have to (well they don't have to but it's the reasonable thing to do) consult their spouse. This is why certain outlier models are so popular. They facilitate "everyone wins" compromises.

One person wants a practical crossover because that's what is most practical for the situation. The other wants a fun convertible. They buy a 4dr Wrangler because it's both. Everyone goes home happy.

Same thing happens with Tesla.

One person wants to buy a fuel sipping subcompact because that's what makes practical sense for the situation. The other wants a high performance sedan. Tesla checks both boxes so that's what they get. Everyone goes home happy.

Edit: I know you all are recoiling in horror at the thought of having to run your car purchasing decisions by the other decision maker in your household but if you're gonna click the WrongThink(TM) button why don't you at least humor me and tell me why I'm so wrong.

The usual argument basically boils down to "gluttony and pride are deadly sins". You shall only consume/have/want the necessary minimum, any more is morally suspect, even absent objectively apparent problems.

"The puritan hated bear baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators"

Because we don’t need to increase performance, if we think if performance as horse powers and speed. Cars are fast enough, even too fast for private vehicles.

Living in Germany it is quite ridiculous that we don’t have speed limits on certain parts of the Autobahn, nobody needs to drive 200 km/h. You won’t get faster from A to B, it’s dangerous, it’s stressful, you need more energy. If you want to race, go on a race track. I assume it even costs us more to maintain roads so that you are able to drive more than 140 km/h.

The great thing about Autobahns is freedom.

If I travel in Spain, the speed limit is 120km/h. Now they have removed the 20 kms/h extra you could do for overtaking other cars. It is ludicrous.

Everybody goes over the limit, and hence everybody goes against the law, and everybody could be fined with 300 euros, like my father 1 month ago.

In cities, they are putting limits under 30km/h.

Politicians love the fines because it is an extra tax of an extra billion euros nobody controls.

The great thing isn't freedom, it's that the huge speed differences between cars help a lot with keeping drivers focused. People drive instead of just waiting out the time until their exit pops up on the nav. This effect has quite a bit of inertia so that even the speed-limited parts benefit from it so that a blanket speed limit would likely make the already limited sections less safe, after adapting to the relative ease of blanket speed limits. Chances are that overall safety would still increase, but I'm not sure of that (short term it would definitely increase, but that effect could quickly erode as people get used to it).

Reducing the speed limit saves lives and reduces overall traffic as people switch to alternative modes of transport.

Do you object to seatbelt laws under the premise of "Freedom"? What about car safety standards? Isn't it more "Free" if we can make whatever car I want and sell it to whomever wants to buy it, even if it kills millions every year?

The truth is that we need to look at improving society holistically, which means implementing and designing society in a way that benefits humankind over the long term. Civilization isn't very "Free" but it's a trade off we make to live in a fair and progressive society, and allows us to combat things like covid, natural disasters, growing populations and other challenges that face the human race.

Guess we should all eat the most environmentally friendly food too. No one needs to ever eat meat or almonds or anything of the sort because it’s just not efficient.

While we’re at it, let’s get rid of heating past 60 F. You can always wear a sweater or a thicker blanket. It’s not like it’ll be a great inconvenience like not having any heating would be, you’ll still be able to do all the necessary tasks.

Your argument is “people don’t deserve to enjoy anything.”

Nobody needs to have sex more than a few times in their lives. You wanna limit the sex lives as well?

Basically, your morality is all wrong. The point of life (for humans, at least) isn't to do what we need - that's only the lowest, most basic level of Maslow's pyramid. It's self-actualization, which essentially means fulfilling autonomously chosen goals. You might see no reason to drive 200km/h, but others might - why limit them? The only potential reason is safety, but hey, people enjoy plenty of extreme(-ly dangerous) sports, so clearly there are reasons to trade off safety as well.

In addition, an appeal to safety doesn't actually make sense in this instance - why would 120km/h be better than 200km/h? I mean, it's slightly safer but still incredibly unsafe! If we prioritized safety over all else, we'd all be driving at most 30km/h! So clearly "safety" isn't a good, objective reason - at best, it's a subjective, arbitrary threshold, but then we ought to recognize that diifferent people will make different tradeoffs regarding safety.

I chose a dangerous sport on my own. The car speeding with 200km/h into your car, will have an impact on your life even if you stick to 120km/h

See my edit, it addresses your point: "speeding with 120km/h will have an impact even if you stick to 60km/h".

If it's your hobby and like driving 200 km/h, sure please do, on a separate track where it is as safe as possible. But driving it on _public_ roads is inherently dangerous to others. Our society has all kind of rules around protection of others. There are laws and rules around food safety, gun safety, distribution of drugs, hunting, using heavy equipment, operating boats and planes. Often you need a license to do these things.

Noone trains for driving at high speeds in driving school. Also a lot of folks do not understand the relationship between velocity and the time you need to come to a stop. So 120km/h is way better than 200km/h. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3D7XYQExt0

> If it's your hobby and like driving 200 km/h

This is just so wrong. Have you actually ever done that? For example between Jena and Chemnitz, when traffic is light it is so incredibly safe and relaxing.

Don’t confuse fast driving with reckless driving. No speed limits will stop reckless drivers. Even so, it’s totally possible to drive recklessly at 140 kph. Just go figure around Leverkusen literally every day.

"Nobody needs to..." - always such a pathetic argument

Agreed. It's a variation on the old "Stop having fun!" complaint that people who lead lives of quiet desperation trot out every so often.

“Because we don’t need to increase performance, if we think if performance as horse powers and speed. Cars are fast enough, even too fast for private vehicles.”

This is like trying to sell people on veganism by arguing that food doesn’t need to taste good.

i naively support the argument for speed limits concerning safety and emissions.

at the same time i know that the freedom to drive fast does not really impact crash or efficiancy metrics very much and having been to countries with universal speed limits i can confirm that it is an agonizing drive if everybody is going slow (120kph) to the point that i wonder if the resulting boredom is causing a lot more accidents.

> Living in Germany it is quite ridiculous that we don’t have speed limits on certain parts of the Autobahn, nobody needs to drive 200 km/h.

Why? Did you ever have to drive 1000 km for work in one day?

It's kind of funny how comments like this get downvoted into oblivion. Too many ideologically-motivated HN users have access to the downvote button and they use it to suppress anything that threatens certain sacred narratives. This place is a lot less open to intellectual curiosity than it says on the tin.

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