Electric Cars Won’t Save Us
We can't drive our way out of the climate crisis. The answer is fewer cars, not more cars.
Electrifying SUVs may only lower emissions if people drive less. (Spoiler alert: People are driving more.)
Households will need to drive an electric vehicle for 6.5 years before it has an environmental payoff over driving a gas car. If the electric vehicle acts as a second complimentary vehicle to an existing gas car, it will take over 10 years.
Electric cars are dangerous
Largely because of their batteries, electric vehicles are typically around 30 percent heavier than equivalent gas-powered models. For every 1,000 pounds a car weighs over a Corolla, the chance of killing another motorist goes up by 46%.
The Ford F-150 Lightning will weigh about 1,600 pounds more than a similar gas-powered F-150 truck. Similarly, the electric Volvo XC40 Recharge weighs about 1,000 pounds more than a gas-powered Volvo XC40.
Electric vehicle infrastructure requires a lot of resources
Energy companies estimate that an electric truck stop in the future will require as much electricity as a small town.
To run, EVs require six times the mineral input, by weight, of conventional vehicles; primarily aluminum, nickel, cobalt, manganese and lithium.
EV charging is NOT the best use of our street space
NYC DOT plans to install 40,000 plugs for 400,000 EVs by 2030. That breaks out into:
20% of all spaces in municipal public parking lots and garages with level 2 chargers by 2025, increasing to 40% by 2030
1,000 curbside charge points across the five boroughs by 2025, increasing to 10,000 by 2030
These installations will cement car infrastructure for decades, forgoing uses that would better “support the shift from cars to sustainable options like walking, transit, and biking, so that their share of total trips increases from 66% to 80%” - a parallel goal NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate and Sustainabilitylays out in Pathways to Carbon-Neutral NYC.
