Care for Environment and Don't Drive Often? Buy Gas-Powered Car, Harvard Study | Hacker News Reader

Care for Environment and Don't Drive Often? Buy Gas-Powered Car, Harvard Study

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20 pointsrmason16 comments

Harvard study from a sophomore undergraduate. Doesn’t take into account energy mix, improvement in supply chain sourcing that will eventually reduce emissions for bev, not sure if carbon costs of refining gasoline is considered.

Also… don’t people just take an Uber or bus if not driving that often?

> Harvard study from a sophomore undergraduate.

That doesn't indicate the quality of the study either way.

I don't drive that often but I don't use ridesharing services or the bus. I bike.

It's a 19 year old without a college degree, I think it's a reasonable criticism.

Not really. It's the very definition of an ad hominem.

If the study uses non-factual information or does not interpret the data by understanding the nuances that may yield different interpretations, then the author's educational background may offer an explanation. But that isn't the critique here.

It's just reverse ageism with a mix of elitism.

I said to counter the “Harvard researcher” points this article got. If you want to go on merit don’t name drop

I think it was the website that name-dropped, not the author of the study. It seems poor form to criticize the study itself based on how it's reported in pop media.

Studies stand or fall on their own merits. The background of the author isn't actually relevant to that. If the study holds, it holds. If it doesn't, it doesn't.

I mean.. I also explained why I thought study was lacking

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-022-00862

> Also… don’t people just take an Uber or bus if not driving that often?

In big cities, sure, but in most of the US, public transport is over 2x as slow as a car and semi-regular Uber exceeds cost of ownership of a used car. Where I live my total cost to own and operate a lightly used car is under $1000/year. I bought it prepandemic under $5k and could sell it today for around $10k.

> The man said that many BEV owners (be them individuals or families) get rid of their EVs before achieving such mileage. That includes those who sell them and people who must total them after a crash.

Conflating a) totalled cars (which even then can be recycled) and b) cars entering the second hand market, where they will go on to provide years of low polluting service to lower income families.

Does this Harvard student simply not know what happens to cars over 3 years old as they just disappear out of his frame of reference?

Yes. I do this. I commute via mass transit when possible. My gas powered car is for weekend or many errands being run on short time.

I considered switching to electric but the article pretty much sums it up. Also not a fan of the cobalt slave labor that’s going on in Africa and the vast amount of resources it takes to make an electric car just to sit on my garage and use it for weekends or many errands in a short timeframe.

When I was living in dc there was this service by Mercedes I think? I forget the name, that let you rent a car hourly and you didn’t have to pay for gas or insurance but you couldn’t leave the dc area. Worked great on the one or two occasions I needed it.

Wish this was more common. I think zipcar is around but I never seem to be able to work out logistics for my needs

Read the article.

The emissions are net negative for the EV until you put 20K miles on it, due to the added emissions of producing the battery.

After that the fossil fuel engine becomes a net polluter.

This just means the CO2 savings for the EV is amortized over its lifetime.

Not to mention 60K Americans die from air pollution every year.

How do you justify driving a gas vehicle that contributes to that?

Is the population of single car families that require a car but don't drive very far in it big enough to give a damn about?

The best car for the environment is you keeping your current car for as long as humanly possible.

here's the actual study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-022-00862-3

Yes. And don't ban the sale of new gas-powered cars, as some states have pledged to do in the future.

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