I’ve seen a lot of posts here on Lemmy, specifically in the “fuck cars” communities as to how Electric Vehicles do pretty much nothing for the Climate, but I continue to see Climate activists everywhere try pushing so, so hard for Electric Vehicles.
Are they actually beneficial to the planet other than limiting exhaust, or is that it? or maybe exhaust is a way bigger problem?
Short term EVs aren’t making a lot of difference due to the higher energy costs of manufacturing them. Long term cars are just a terrible transportation method, especially within cities, and we really need alternatives so that we can get rid of most of them.
On the other hand as renewable energy sources take over the grid the energy costs of manufacturing EVs will be less relevant to climate change, and it’s just going to be faster to switch power plants and new car manufacturing over than it will be to rebuild the entire transportation infrastructure on all of Earth, especially North America. That time difference will have a large effect on how bad things will get by the end of this century. EVs are dumb, but also a necessary stopgap.