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Or how about this for a title: getting people to use smaller vehicles in general is the better environmental choice.
Trains > busses and trams > Smaller EVs > Electric Boats > efficient gas vehicles > large EVs > innefficient gas and diesel vehicles incl boats> Airplanes
The issue with electrifying rail networks is that it’s very expensive and modern diesel-electric locomotives are already over a hundred times more efficient than trucks. So while it does reduce emissions to replace a diesel locomotive with a fully electric train you’re far better off getting hundreds of trucks off the road and adding one new diesel-electric locomotive!
The main issue with Diesel trains is that they tend to be in service for 50+ years. So while they might be decent today, that won’t hold true for very long. Sure, better than diesel trucks, but if there’s a EV truck revolution in 10 years, the Diesel train still has 40 more years to go.
Electric trains on the other hand have been very close to the theoretical limit of efficiency for decades now, and their total system efficiency keeps getting better the more renewable energy sources go online and coal and gas powerplants go offline.
An electric train keeps getting better and better, while a Diesel train does not.
Basically all diesel locomotives are actually diesel electric, where the deisel engine is just a giant generator which feeds the electric motors. It should be extremely easy to put on pantagraphs and have it run on electric power on electrified portions of the tracks while transitioning.
Heck imagine if they just electrified the mainlines and tracks running through city centers then powered up the diesel generator for going onto branch lines and sidings
Of course the biggest benefit of overhead wires is the insane amount of acceleration it enables, plus for big climbs the locomotives don’t have to pollute so much, and dynamic brakes (where the motors are reversed into generators and the energy is dumped into giant resister banks) could be adapted into regenerative brakes to dump energy onto the grid too
But suppose we eliminated 99% of all trucks on the road. Emissions from trucks would then be insignificant in the big picture.
Well that’s what diesel trains do for us. If we could reduce global emissions by 99% across the board we’d be done. Tearing the earth apart for an EV revolution just to eliminate that last 1% would not be worth it.
I would say that’s an efficient diesel vehicle which just sort of slots in with its vehicle type in the list above, but good points.
In Europe, short haul and long haul flights are more efficient than diesel vehicles actually. Short domestic flights are worse though.
The electric Humvee has entered the chat. It has over 200kWh worth of batteries, enough to make 3 more normal-sized EVs. And lord help you if one of those hits you.
This is true. I love my eBike. I highly suggest anyone buying a Specialized Turbo Levo.
Prefacing with, I want an e-bike.
As someone who commuted for a decade on a non e-bike. I’m legitimately wondering how we integrate them into existing infrastructure in the US. 50cc is the limit for gas engines before you need a motorcycle license, which at the high end is ~5HP. I’m seeing e-bikes with way more than 5HP being used on sidewalks. I don’t have an answer to the problem but it scares me to have such easy access to basically motorcycles that are classified as bicycles. I spent 2 decades sweating and learning to ride fast, now an inexperienced idiot can do 20+ mph when they have no business going that fast.
I do a hill ride that takes me a mile or two up a mountain and I easily catch 40mph when bombing down the mountain. But on regular bike paths, I can’t make the motor go faster than 19mph. Unless I am on a hill. It’s 100% peddle assist and has no throttle. As why it’s a level 1. I wanna throttled eBike next. Or I might just buy a motorcycle. Electric or gas.
One thing that annoyed me with the actually good large bill before trump was the lack of incentives for e-bikes.
You mean IRA?
yup.
Yeah most policy makers completely ignoring or being outright hostile to e-bikes is really annoying.
I don’t even ride one since I live in a dense neighborhood and am physically able but for a lot of people they are pretty revolutionary.
I was never wild about them but I am aging and they are becoming a more tempting prospect. I sorta have a dream type where is a fixy and the pedal assist allows for like an automatic type of gear shifting and does regenerative braking. So like a lot of assist to get going from start and up a hill but falling to nothing when going along. I swear I had a gearhub that allowed coasting but also a coaster type break but Im like not sure if Im remembering it wrong.
A lot of ebikes will let you set a speed limit for the motor, so it only adds power below say 5mph. I don’t remember seeing any fixies, but there are some coming out with auto gear shifting
the slate truck is a great concept. simple, low cost, pickup. like a ranger from the early 2000’s.
sucks that its a bezos project. wish they made cheap conversion kits instead of having to spend 10’s of thousands to upgrade an older vehicle to electric.
maybe some day. either way. i have a bike and a sedan that i barely use enough to justify insurance.
bring back kei trucks
If we need to prioritise like that, wouldn’t it be smart to put electric buses even higher than those other two forms of individual transport?
Only if those buses regularly carry less than 4 people.
I don’t follow
Empty buses that stop a lot are not good. Making them electric doesn’t improve the emissions that much.
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E bikes have 3 grams of direct CO2 emissions per passenger kilometre
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e-scooters have of 25 grams per passenger kilometre.
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Long-distance buses generate around 31 grams of CO2 per passenger kilometre.
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Electric buses have a CO2 footprint of 72 grams per passenger kilometre
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Diesel buses have a CO2 value of 96 grams.
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Cars have 166 grams of CO2 equivalents per passenger kilometre driven, (with an average occupancy rate of 1.4 persons per car)
I don’t really know how to understand the site in this context, since it says bicycles produce zero carbon emissions, so it can’t be taking vehicle production into account, and the topic at hand is resources required in production. And battery constituents at that, not carbon emissions.
Also: buses are empty when the service is shitty. It’s being proven every day that people choose the method of transport where the offer is good, be that car centric infrastructure, bike paths, or convenient public transport.
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