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Comment by jokoon | Hacker News Reader

road transport is responsible for 12% of CO2 emissions.

so electric domestic cars are not going to do a lot...

So, your argument is that double digit percentages are not worth it? I'd say that's low hanging fruit. A no-brainer. Get it done and then worry about the rest separately.

By the way, it's not just cars. Basically most forms of road transport can be electrified. Everything from the largest mining trucks, long distance trucks, short distance delivery vans, garbage trucks, delivery vans, etc. Viable products already exist in each of those categories. We just need more of them. Making more will make them cheaper and even more viable. The main bottleneck here is production capacity.

Nothing in itself is going to do enough. We have to decrease emissions significantly, so that has to happen by making lots of small cuts.

I think we have to make cars more efficient, make them smaller _and_ decrease their use.

I’m not sure where you got the 12% number from as I’ve seen other numbers. But regardless it’s an AND game, not OR. We should be minimizing everything simultaneously, as all those gains add up. It’s also not like all changes will be a step function either, so as things gradually change we absolutely need the addition rather than waiting for certain CO2 sources to become 0%.

It will still remove a significant amount of noise and air pollution from the ground-level of cities.

at 50km/h air friction with tires etc is half of the noise, and it goes from there.

If you've ever listened (from the outside) to an electric car going 50km/hr even, they're not quiet.

I live next to a boulevard, 5th floor. The amount of black stuff that gets onto my balcony every day is absolutely insane. And to think that we are breathing that! I would fully embrace a full conversion for electric vehicle for that alone, this isn't just CO2, this is our air quality in cities.

Keep in mind that electric cars still have tire and break dust. Its not all tail pipes, tho clearly it’d be great to eliminate that.

Due to regenerative breaking, electric vehicles (well at least Teslas) rarely use the breakpads, so less break dust.

Tire dust will still be a problem.

My VW ID.4 has two different breaking modes, one doesn’t use regenerative at all and the other is not nearly as aggressive as Teslas. Probably overall it’ll be less, but I expect variation depending on the manufacturer and consumer preference.

They are even louder than fuel burning cars over 50kph due to the extra weight. I would still rather hear loud tire noise than breathe exhaust as a pedestrian though

Due to the extra weight you also breath in more tire dust.

Do you have numbers to back that up?

I can hear ICE engines accelerating roaringly from miles away. I do not hear the same from electric cars.

The test in this video demonstrates it https://youtu.be/CTV-wwszGw8.

Obviously this applies to the ~average~ car. A hellcat or sports bike tearing down the highway will be louder but the consistent drone of tire noise increases slightly for electric cars.

Is that a bad thing? Warns pedestrians...

Previous comment talks about reducing noise pollution.

They still contribute a good amount to localized air quality since there is still tire particulate at play, and these vehicles tend to weigh more than a given ice car of the same class.

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