Rivian CEO issues strong statement about people who purchase gas-powered cars: ‘Sort of like building a horse barn in 1910’::“I don’t think I would have believed it.”

    • SCB@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      still use plenty of fossil fuels from coal plants

      This is disingenuous as fuck and you know it. Updates to the grid are by far the most effective means of limiting carbon release. Tying engines to the grid maximizes gains in solar, wind, etc that not doing so does not.

      There is no serious plan for climate change mitigation that does not involve EVs.

      • MonkRome@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I own a gasoline car. I was being too flippant. I would point out that our car centric culture is inefficient no matter how you swing it. I agree it’s a part of solving climate change, but cars of any type are still a problem, we need to massively overhaul our urban transit and get away from cars in urban areas.

        In the end all transit only accounts for 15% of the overall problem. Our spread out infrastructure caused by car convenience has many other negative externalities though, like the increased need to maintain more roads, electric loss over longer distribution, heating and cooling in large single family homes made possible by cars bringing you to your job while living way out in the suburbs (arguably way more serious than the cars themselves), etc. The suburban experiment was an environmental disaster, and I say this as someone that lives in a large house in the suburbs currently pumping out AC, so I’m not judging.

        But plugging in your personal tank isn’t really solving the problem. It’s just ignoring it. Cars are the problem no matter the fuel source, because of the impact they have had on how we spread out and grow our consumption… We need multi use zoning, dozens of train lines in every city, bike infrastructure, work at home, massive reduction in fossil fuel based power plants… A reordering of society around alternatives to spreading out, a massive worldwide effort of urban densification. As well as a massive effort to hold corporations accountable for their energy use as well. That and we need to stop having so many fucking kids, the world can’t support this level of consumption forever.

      • Pohl@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Not disingenuous. True. Grid power is still dirty so electric cars are still dirty. Probably about a 50% improvement in carbon emissions based on the most common fuel mix in the US for an e car.

        Clean transportation by car is a luxury that we do not yet have.

        • SCB@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          You don’t engineer for what you currently have. You engineer for where you want to be.

          Renewable energy is the fastest growing segment of the energy market by a mile, growing exponentially.

          I don’t have my numbers at hand, but renewables account for something like 80+% of new energy growth in the US.

          • Pohl@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Yes. The OP is about how TODAY it is silly to use ICE. Today it is silly to pretend that electric cars are clean. They will be at some point. At that point, I will agree with the obnoxious CEO from the article. Today, he is wrong, very heavy (7-8k lbs) coal powered trucks are not clean.

            Make them smaller!

            • SCB@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Purchasing EVs sends price signals. Big trucks are in demand, and it’s easier to cater to demand than shape demand when you’re an emerging market.

              • Pohl@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Seriously the epa doesn’t even bother to rate mpg in vehicles that approach rivian weight. An f250 probably gets a combined 15mpg. It weights 6k lbs vs the rivians 7k. if your only seeing a 50% cut in emissions with the switch to electric. A rivian truck is pretty much the same as an ICE car that gets around 30 combined.

                There are a million reasons that drive them to make these monsters. But the climate isn’t one. I don’t care about the market forces. I care about cutting CO2 emissions. These vehicles do not help that mission today. The CEO is wrong. His vehicles don’t make sense TODAY except as a luxury product for rich people to signal their virtue. That’s it.

                • SCB@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  I don’t care about market forces

                  Then you are not serious about impacting climate change.

    • ilmagico@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The rivian truck (I call it “froggy”) is actually a pretty small pickup truck, by american standard … have you seen a F150? (including the electric “lightning” version)?

    • SMITHandWESSON@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      in before, “but I need my enormous vehicle because once every 13 years I haul 3 2x4’s and am too dumb to use a roof rack or rent a truck for the day!”

      I win!!!

      My enormous eletric vehicle (plug-in Rav4) is powered from my home solar panel system, and I use it to transport my dogs to the park a couple of times a week.

      I’m completely guilt free!!!😃

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Even a subcompact automobile takes up an entire traffic lane and an entire parking space, and providing such spaces is what ruins cities.

      The future is designing our cities for walking, biking and transit, not replacing our disastrous car sewers of gasoline cars with disastrous car sewers of electric cars.