this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2025
297 points (89.2% liked)

Fuck Cars

12321 readers
2284 users here now

A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!

Rules

1. Be CivilYou may not agree on ideas, but please do not be needlessly rude or insulting to other people in this community.

2. No hate speechDon't discriminate or disparage people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexuality.

3. Don't harass peopleDon't follow people you disagree with into multiple threads or into PMs to insult, disparage, or otherwise attack them. And certainly don't doxx any non-public figures.

4. Stay on topicThis community is about cars, their externalities in society, car-dependency, and solutions to these.

5. No repostsDo not repost content that has already been posted in this community.

Moderator discretion will be used to judge reports with regard to the above rules.

Posting Guidelines

In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:

Recommended communities:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

And I thought Americans were carbrained, holy shit.

(To be fair, he's not wrong in that this is intended to keep the auto companies and the government nice and fat -- but the obvious response to this is to agitate for better public transit, not railing against an environmentally sound policy.)

The article in question.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 90 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Isn't it true that once a car is built, it's basically better for the environment to drive it until its wheels fall off instead of scrapping it to buy any new one (even electric) though ? He's right that a lot of the time these schemes are thinly veiled auto industry handouts to stimulate the economy, instead of actual environmental regulations.

[–] Tabula_stercore@lemmy.world 17 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

Isn't it true that once a car is built, it's basically better for the environment to drive it until its wheels fall off instead of scrapping it

In terms of global warming; maybe. It depends on many factors when looking at a specific case. Another commenter already put some numbers together.

The environment, however, in this case is Dehli, a city with terrible air quality. Removing an active source of CO2, NOx, heavy metals, etc is good for that environment. Especially human lungs.

[–] Benaaasaaas@group.lt 1 points 5 hours ago

Except that i10, even an old one, is not a big source of CO2 or NOx

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 2 points 7 hours ago

If the government provides safe and comfortable public transit instead.

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

The environmental break even period for EVs is getting shorter and shorter as the power grids get cleaner and cleaner.

It was a somewhat solid argument against buying new EVs to replace working ICE cars over 10 years ago, but now it's really not.

[–] thedbp@feddit.dk 27 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Every 35000 km or 21000 miles a gasoline car going on average 20km/l or 47mpg why H have produced the same amount of CO2 that it takes to make an electric car.

So if over the lifetime of the car you go less than 35000km you shouldn't be changing it with an electric. Otherwise please do 😁

[–] BassTurd@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

How long is that offset including charging? I know that EVs are still significant better, but it's not like the moment an EV rolls out that it's carbon emissions stop.

[–] zurohki@aussie.zone 27 points 1 day ago

The thing with EVs is that they get cleaner over time as cheap solar and batteries become a bigger part of the grid and old coal plants age out.

If you buy a diesel today, it'll still be burning diesel in 2045.

[–] PrettyFlyForAFatGuy@feddit.uk 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

depends where you are i guess. if you're in a country with a high proportion of the grid being powered by renewables or nuclear then the emissions do become negligable as soon as it's delivered.

France is 70% nuclear plus renewables etc

[–] Nomecks@lemmy.ca 19 points 1 day ago

The break even on carbon emissions from manufacture vs. daily use is somewhere between around 3 and 10 years. Big trucks on the low end.

[–] basxto@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 day ago

better for the environment

Yes.

Better for your nerves? No.

Also you have to keep your vehicle in a state where it can drive safely, which leads to maintenance costs that rise over time. But safe for your environment as in the people around you, whether you reach your destination alive is of less importance.