• Grappling7155
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    9 months ago

    Not as much as they hope it will.

    Electric or not, we need less cars in cities, not more. Rather than making the next generation of mildly more sustainable but just as dangerous and space inefficient road congestants, we should be thinking harder about how best to meet people’s mobility needs in more safe, sustainable, and effective ways.

    People need options not more car dependency.

    Those resources are better used to build up public transportation, (e-)bike shares, sidewalks, and the accompanying infrastructure to go with it all, with seamless handoffs between modes.

    Electric cars are here to save the auto industry, not the planet.

    • corsicanguppy
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      9 months ago

      Electric cars are here to save the auto industry, not the planet.

      This is an interesting bowling I haven’t heard before.

      Totally agree that for areas with any population density we need good, regular and frequent mass transit.

      I also believe that areas without good density, we need to convert to pockets of density to enable funding for transit. Also, hoarding ornamental land in North America is a dead old throwback to frontier days and we need to remediate those out to more shared or natural or aggro space.

      We’ve spent too many years enabling this land hoarding by changing natural and aggro space to fucking mcmansion estates and that shit has to stop.

      • Benschnickle
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        9 months ago

        Not just mass transit, we need to make cities walkable and pedestrian friendly. No more stroads. No more big box stores with ginormous parking lots. No more “outdoor” malls. It’s just extremely inefficient use of land.

  • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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    9 months ago

    No, because public transit is the future. I mean, EVs are fine and will have their place but we need better mass transit.

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        We already have some electric (hybrid) ferries in BC. I think its 2 with an order for 4 total?

        Once shore power is installed on both ends of the routes (its going to take years for whatever reason) they’ll then run 100% electric all the time.

    • saigot
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      9 months ago

      Buses can be electric too ya know (and stuff like construction equipment). The money right now is in personal evs, but the manufacturing volume and rnd is pretty cross compatible

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        There’s this one crazy electric construction vehicle that never needs to be charged, it generates all its own power. Some huge rock mover, drives up mountain with empty load and gets to the top near empty battery wise. Then fills up with tons of whatever it’s hauling, and then uses regen breaking to fill the battery on the way down.

        Rinse repeat.

    • yeehaw
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      9 months ago

      I just wonder about cost to produce batteries, lack of recycling, and the cost of a car accident with a battery powered vehicle involved. For that, I am so far uncertain of its sustainability.

      Hydrogen.

    • CanadianCorhen
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      9 months ago

      EV busses, boats, and other vehicles will still need batteries. and in the end the batteries can be sold elsewhere.

  • Rodeo
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    9 months ago

    Pay off for who, exactly?

    It will definitely pay off for the billionaires who own the car companies.

  • SamuelRJankis@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Maybe, but probably not as much as investing in infrastructure that lowers the 15,000 km the average Canadian drives a year.

      • Nik282000
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        9 months ago

        If employees work from home middle managers loose their reason to exist. And seeing as middle management gets to decide on the question work-from-home…

  • N-E-N
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    9 months ago

    Id like more funding for infrastructure for Ebikes/Escooters

    • Nik282000
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      9 months ago

      Infrastructure and regulation. Too many death traps being imported that do not meet CSA standards.

  • zephyreks
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    9 months ago

    Are these subsidies or tax breaks? I can never be sure tbh

    • Avid Amoeba
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      9 months ago

      There’s no significant difference between the two.

      • zephyreks
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        9 months ago

        Tax breaks remove potential future tax revenue, but aren’t spending tax revenue acquired from another source.

        • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          Yea, there’s no significant difference - tax breaks spend revenue from a future source.

          • zephyreks
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            9 months ago

            But with a tax break in an emerging business, that revenue wouldn’t otherwise exist because the company wouldn’t have opened operations here when it could take advantage of egregious US subsidies instead.

            • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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              9 months ago

              You’re falling into something akin to the broken window fallacy. Economic resources aren’t created or destroyed by incentives, they are shifted. If that tax break didn’t exist those loans, employees, potential capital etc… would be doing something else. Tax breaks need to be extremely precisely honed to avoid lowering future income.

              • zephyreks
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                9 months ago

                Economic growth doesn’t happen on its own. The Canadian economy isn’t some entity that magically sees growth without investment.

        • Avid Amoeba
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          9 months ago

          I meant in this context where it’s established companies that have the means to build the factories they’re planning to build.