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An idling gas engine may be annoyingly loud, but that’s the price you pay for having WAY less torque available at a standstill.

  • @[email protected]
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    1 year ago

    Gas engines have decent range. Gas engines are cheaper (as the electric engine prices are artificially inflated, just look at Chinese prices), with gas engines you can listen to the sound of the engine to diagnose problems before they occur, batteries don’t degrade (you still have car batteries, but when they degrade, you can still drive a car for as long as with the new battery. You can refuel it in a couple of seconds. Anyone can make one sided arguments. There isn’t a best thing for everything.

  • Not a replicant
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    201 year ago

    It’s true. But a v-twin motorcycle like a Ducati or Moto Guzzi ignites your balls like no electric motor can.

  • The Menemen!
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    1 year ago

    He is not wrong, but he is not adressing the actual criticism of electric vehicles, so it is kind of pointless.

    • @[email protected]
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      151 year ago

      I don’t see how making noise is good. I live in a street that doesn’t get much traffic, but even one car is loud enough to be bothering.

      I don’t want to pause my music and conversations just because someone decided that vroom vroom sounds were more important than me hearing literally anything else.

      Even more that noise pollution is definitely a thing, and affect both mental health and physical one.

      • @[email protected]
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        41 year ago

        The majority of sound for cars are not the motor but the wheels compressing air, after I think 50kph, the sound of an ev or a ic is basically the same.

        • Ephera
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          11 year ago

          Well, in a neighborhood, cars won’t always be driving 50 km/h. And the engine will be especially loud, when they need to accelerate after a turn or whatever.

          Either way, I do hear the difference when an electric car goes by.

      • @[email protected]
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        31 year ago

        Vehicles making noise actually is good, for pedestrians’ sake, but yeah ICE vehicles make far more than they need to. Some (? many? I’m not sure how standard it is) electric vehicles make a sort of beeping sound for that reason.

        • Liz
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          41 year ago

          If you’re in an area where pedestrians may be crossing the road, traffic should be slow enough to use permeable brick pavers, which increase road noise, help with rainwater drainage, and add a little green to the road if find right.

          • @[email protected]
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            1 year ago

            Well that sounds cool; what about those of us who live in conservative hellscapes? I’m pretty sure ‘road maintenance’ is a sin here

            • Liz
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              41 year ago

              I dunno, maybe take their conservative advice and violently overthrow your government?

              Real talk, you’ll have a hell of a time arguing for the upgrades, but even so, I only suggest switching to bricks when the road needs to be resurfaced anyway. The road works well enough as-is, this is just an improvement.

              • @[email protected]
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                1 year ago

                Oh, the road needs resurfacing, most of them here do. Decades of conservative government will do that

                • Liz
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                  21 year ago

                  When you’ve inevitably barricaded yourself in city hall, just remember: we never met, this conversation didn’t happen. Revan? Never heard of 'em.

    • Psychadelligoat
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      101 year ago

      When accelerating my Leaf makes a “woooooooooooOOOOOOOOP” noise I’ve seen described as the “UFO sound”

      Tbh I like it a lot more than the vroom of even my motorcycle cuz it’s funny

      • @[email protected]
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        41 year ago

        I do love the whine of the drive units when going full throttle on EVs, it reminds me how much current is surging through those wires

    • BarqsHasBite
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      1 year ago

      It’s incredible how certain people are conditioned to think the sound of a gas motor and shifting because your puny motor is out of optimal torque and rpm range are manly.

      • @[email protected]
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        111 year ago

        I’m a car guy and far from manly. I drive a loud annoying stick shift because it’s fun and life is too short to be bored while driving.

        • Liz
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          51 year ago

          Life is too short to have to fucking drive everywhere.

          • @[email protected]
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            61 year ago

            Yeh, but unless I uproot my life and move to a different country, I’m stuck doing it, so I can either bitch and moan about how much I hate it, or have the best time I can doing it 🤷🏾‍♂️

            • Liz
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              21 year ago

              For sure, I used to drive stick when I drove, but I also argued for town planning that would make driving optional. Personal choices to deal with the reality you’re given, public policy activism for the reality you want.

      • @[email protected]
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        41 year ago

        Yeah, I guess all those professional female race car drivers are doing it to feel “manly”

    • @[email protected]
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      151 year ago

      Think of the most annoying sound you know. Whether it’s country music, rap, lawnmower before 8am on sat, etc that is your “good noises” sound like.

      • @[email protected]
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        181 year ago

        There is a huge difference between a finely tuned V8 with an appropriate muffler versus a gas lawnmower, but to each there own.

        Great username btw

        • @[email protected]
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          141 year ago

          Mr. Monkey subjectively your finely tuned v8 sounds like a 400lb basement dwelling gorilla someone has fed laxatives and recorded from the bottom of a well used coachella porta potty.

          • @[email protected]
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            81 year ago

            I dunno, I’m “team electric is objectively better in every way” but I gotta agree, a fancy tuned racecar engine sounds like angry beast and that’s pretty sexy.

            The jolt of max acceleration of an electric motor in complete silence is also extremely sexy, though.

            • @[email protected]
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              41 year ago

              Lol ok I get it you’re all Car-o-sexuals. It’s cool but can you guys just keep it to your bedrooms and rest stops?

      • @[email protected]
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        71 year ago

        Think of the nicest sound you know. A well-tuned instrument performing a delicate melody, a passionate singer performing their heart out, a cacophony of songbirds. That’s what my good noises sound like when done right.

        Obviously nobody wants to hear a fart can Honda Civic at 4am, but a fantastically engineered Italian V10 has its own melody that can’t really be replicated otherwise. These examples will be missed, and the survivors will be sought after like a vintage violin.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 year ago

        You just gonna sit there and yuck the mainstream yum like your opinions are better than everyone else’s?

  • @[email protected]
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    81 year ago

    On the other other hand, gas car makers have regulators by the ballsack. So we’ve got that going for us which is nice

  • Koordinator O
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    51 year ago

    The reason I’m pretty much undecided about EVs is the rare metals in the batteries. The pollution by gathering and the inhumane treatment of the workers who extract these resources. I’m still hoping for better alternatives in the energy storage medium

  • @[email protected]
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    1281 year ago

    But remember, electric motors also require next to no maintenance and can last for many years of runtime. Pros and cons.

    • @[email protected]
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      51 year ago

      Uh, maintenance is one thing where ICE wins (until very recently, thanks fucktards in car industry). Cars have been generally very easy to work on, with anyone with a toolbox being able to do most their repairs in a shed

      • @[email protected]
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        41 year ago

        That’s a user-hostile feature, not a property of electric engines. An electric car has far simpler mechanical parts, and the circuitry isn’t very complicated either. It could be made incredibly easy to repair, modify, and upgrade, mostly at home even, if they designed them that way

      • @[email protected]
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        41 year ago

        This isn’t a function of the engine though right? Electric engines are inherently simpler and should therefore be easier to maintain (putting aside company fuckery)

        • @[email protected]
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          61 year ago

          High voltage is scary as fuck, but also the fact that absolutely everything from doors to gas pedal and chairs are controlled by a computer you need specialized proprietary equipment to investigate.

          This is an issue with new ice cars too to be honest

          • @[email protected]
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            11 year ago

            EVs have a High voltage disconnect. I repaired my EV(inverter) with normal hand tools in my garage. I did have to buy a license and tool for flashing the firmware, but this is a problem in nearly every new vehicle, gas or electric.

      • @[email protected]
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        61 year ago

        That’s true. But since now it’s all messed up shit that you can’t fix yourself they’re on fairly equal line there.

  • @[email protected]
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    61 year ago

    Someone has to build quite a few more power stations though. Assuming you’re talking about swapping a large fraction of the car fleet to EV, not just a few here and there. That’s a substantial increase in total electricity demand. Enough to radically impact the load on the grid.

    And if you end up burning natual gas / coal to meet the marginal increase in demand - as would seem fairly likely - then much of the thermal conversion losses you’re saving in the higehr efficieny motor just get shifted to the furnace in the power station and transmission/distribution system; so that can erode some of the efficiency benefits.

    I guess you could require for every new EV that they also install roftop solar PV and basically buy a spare battery of near same capacity as the car. that might push the up front and periodic replacement cost a bit though - quite nice for the running costs i guess.

    Another good alternative is to try to convince people to get together and share their electric motors in things callled trains and do as many trips in those as possible - that’s not too popular with most people unless the road congestion is really bad. Something to do with sharing being communism i think,

    • tiredofsametab
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      51 year ago

      And if you end up burning natual gas / coal to meet the marginal increase in demand - as would seem fairly likely - then much of the thermal conversion losses you’re saving in the higehr efficieny motor just get shifted to the furnace in the power station and transmission/distribution system; so that can erode some of the efficiency benefits.

      1. liquid fuels still have to get from the ground -> refinery -> distribution -> gas station -> vehicle so there is transmission cost and loss there
      2. “we can’t immediately solve all of the problems so let’s not do it” is a pretty bad take. Incremental progress is better than waiting for perfect which basically means never doing it.

      Another good alternative is to try to convince people to get together and share their electric motors in things callled trains and do as many trips in those as possible - that’s not too popular with most people unless the road congestion is really bad. Something to do with sharing being communism i think,

      I 100% agree everywhere it’s practical. Still, people are going to have to get to train stations somehow. Multi-modal transit could somewhat cover that, but some people would still practically have to drive. Convincing those people to only drive to the nearest station and not all the way to their destination is another challenge to solve.

  • unalivejoy
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    31 year ago

    On one hand, electric motors […]
    On the other hand, electric motors […]

    Typo?

  • @[email protected]
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    161 year ago

    I would absolutely love to have an EV. But they are very expensive, especially compared to the gas-powered car I already own.

  • BarqsHasBite
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    1 year ago

    The motors have never been the problem, it’s always been the battery. See train engines, they are a diesel generator with electric motors.

    This is where history pisses me off. We should have been headlong into battery research after the oil embargoes. Could have been 40 years faster.

    • @[email protected]
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      251 year ago

      I hope you are not talking about battery locomotives.

      With overhead wires the train has a practically unlimited battery capacity.

      • EarMaster
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        181 year ago

        There are use cases for battery trains. In remote, mountainous locations where the cost for electrifying a track is very high it is not uncommon to use electric trains with batteries. Here in Germany we have several regions where diesel trains have been replaced by them.

    • @[email protected]
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      141 year ago

      Exactly this. Imagine if gas powered motor could recharge in mere 12 hours and run for up to half the distance. Ah, that would be the dream.

      And if you and 5 of your neighbors decide to refuel at the same time during peak hours you have a real chance of overloading your neighborhood grid. And your fuel tank is dead in 5 years, replacing which is more than half of your used cars cost.

      Everything non-portable uses electric motors from the time the first wire was invented.

    • @[email protected]
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      31 year ago

      Not really. Battery tech has always been advancing. Even today electric vehicles have barely come up with anything new, battery wise. Everyone wants something better than lithium base. No one can get anything to market.

        • @[email protected]
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          21 year ago

          Yes, but no one’s even glancing at it for use in vehicles. The one that’s finally getting into production is 70wh/Kg. Not nearly energy dense enough yet for ev’s. Lithium batteries are closer to 300wh/Kg. In other words, they take up 1/4th the space and weight. EV’s are already a thousand pounds heavier than non ev’s and that’s already causing extra tire pollution issues and having to overbuild suspension parts and bearings. Making them another 3,000 pounds heavier than that is just out of the question. Let alone making the space to fit the battery.

          Sodium is going to change the world with its power storage capabilities connected to solar. Anyone on like 75% of the planet could 100% live off the electric grid problem free with enough solar panels and a big sodium storage battery.

          • @[email protected]
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            11 year ago

            Wasn’t aware that EVs were already that heavy. Then yeah, I guess that’s definitely not feasible, at least not at the moment.

            • @[email protected]
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              21 year ago

              Yep. A size of vehicle wise comparison would be that a tesla model s sedan weighs around 4,600 pounds. A toyota Corolla weighs around 1,600 pounds less at around 3,000 pounds.

              Even the newest and most powerful mass produced American made car ever, the “C8 Corvette Z06” with its big V8 gas engine with 670 horsepower weighs in at around 3,650 pounds.

      • BarqsHasBite
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        1 year ago

        It advanced at a glacier pace because there was no massive driving force. It only kicked off a bit with cell phones and then in any substantial way with laptops. (Yes, batteries existed before that for different things, but there was no massive driving force.) Now imagine what would have happened if we funded it starting in the 1970s.

    • @[email protected]
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      71 year ago

      Oil is honestly an amazing product, chemistry wise there is so much we can do with it and energy wise it’s a extremely concentrated and easily transported form of energy.

      Energy wise one liter of oil is equivalent to 10 person working for a day !

      I repeat, using one liter of oil is like having 10 “slaves” working for us for a day.

      Its easy to see why oil became the base of our modern civilization, and easy to see why we don’t manage to stop using it even though it’s destroying us.

      Source - How much of a slave owner am I ?

    • @[email protected]
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      1 year ago

      I think people forget that petroleum is condensed and distilled solar energy. One gallon of gasoline is the results of years of solar energy.

      Spelling

      • aname
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        1081 year ago

        Non renewable solar energy unfortunately.

          • aname
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            81 year ago

            I think I read somewhere that oil will not be produced anymore because now bacteria can break down that biomass that it previously didn’t. Hence, non-renewable even on long timescales.

          • @[email protected]
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            451 year ago

            Not really. Its trees from a time before micro organisms evolved the ability to eat dead trees. These days, the solar energy collected by trees will get used to power the metabolisms of fungi before those trees can get buried and eventually become new coal & petroleum.

            I suppose an impact from a sufficiently large asteroid could turn the entire crust of the planet into magma, sterilizing it and therefore opening the possibility that new oil might be created some day.

            • @[email protected]
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              1 year ago

              IIRC it is actually mostly from algea. A small amount from some fern-like plants. By the time trees existed, they were being broken down by bacteria.

          • @[email protected]
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            1 year ago

            Only if we bring back the dinosaurs. There are six movies (and counting!) explaining why this is not a good idea.

          • @[email protected]
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            101 year ago

            A lot of people have been having their cake days recently. Guess it’s the first anniversary of the Reddit exodus.

        • @[email protected]
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          101 year ago

          Renewable fuels exist and are used today, but the efficiency and pollution aspects still apply.

          • @[email protected]
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            11 year ago

            If you’re making your diesel from CO2 pulled from the air, pollution aspects don’t really apply (at least, CO2 emission issues don’t, there’s still NOx, but that’s what cat piss is for).

            Problem is, converting atmospheric CO2 back into fuel makes the efficiency issue drastically worse. Maybe with enough solar panels and windmills, and use the Fischer–Tropsch process with the excess energy that the grid isn’t consuming.

            Of course, that would be for mobile fuel, if solar plants were going to do anything like that for later use generating electricity during peaks, making diesel is dumb; you’d want to use hydrogen or ammonia for in-place energy storage.

              • @[email protected]
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                21 year ago

                Ah. I’m generally skeptical of any plant-based ‘green fuel’ because they generally take up agricultural capacity that would otherwise be producing food

        • @[email protected]
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          21 year ago

          Energy density is a huge advantage which most people find hard to give up especially when the biggest problem that we face is invisible to most people. We can’t fix a problem if we ignore the cause.

      • @[email protected]
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        321 year ago

        oops you posted irrelevant pedantics that verge on misinformation 😧

        sure it’s distilled solar energy that cannot be renewed. relevant language highligted. no one “forgets,” this. literally no one. it’s just not relevant to a timespan less than millions of years. cheers! ☀️

          • @[email protected]
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            51 year ago

            v true but i also dislike how biofuels get smorked into yet more CO2 which is kind of a problem rn

            • @[email protected]
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              31 year ago

              Biofuels are carbon-neutral. They release CO2 when burned, but it doesn’t matter because that same CO2 had recently been sucked out of the atmosphere by the plant they came from.

              • @[email protected]
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                81 year ago

                In theory true. In reality not true.

                While U.S. biofuel use rose from 0.37 to 1.34 EJ/yr over this period, additional carbon uptake on cropland was enough to offset only 37 % of the biofuel-related biogenic CO2emissions. This result falsifies the assumption of a full offset made by LCA and other GHG accounting methods that assume biofuel carbon neutrality. Once estimates from the literature for process emissions and displacement effects including land-use change are considered, the conclusion is that U.S. biofuel use to date is associated with a net increase rather than a net decrease in CO2emissions. study

                Not passing judgement on anything, just putting the facts out there that I happen to know :) Biofuel may or may not be a good tool to move toward more sustainability, and it’s certainly better than petrol.

                • @[email protected]
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                  1 year ago

                  My biofuel of choice is biodiesel produced from byproducts of chicken rendering that would otherwise become waste/pollution anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

                  The way I see it, we should electrify all the things that can be (urban driving, both freight and passenger trains, etc.), maximize the use of those things (e.g. by shifting long-haul freight away from trucking and back towards rail, and shifting airline travel to high-speed rail), and then use biofuels for the relatively-niche stuff that’s left instead of spending excessive effort trying to get electric to cover 100% of cases.

        • @[email protected]
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          31 year ago

          Um piss off. It is not irrelevant or misinformation. That is exactly what petroleum is.

          You clearly can’t understand a factual statement from an opinion I never said it was good I never said it was bad I just said it was. If you’d bother to take a moment to think about it. You would realize that I was referring to the fact that petroleum is extremely energy dense. For the very reason I stated. That is fundamentally why petroleum has become a successful energy source and why it’s been so difficult to replace.

          You’re welcome to point out where I said it was renewable. I think you’re going to have a difficult time finding that statement.

          As for being a pedantic ass that’s clearly your territory. A pedantic ass that it likes to put words in other people’s mouths.

          • @[email protected]
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            111 year ago

            Your post was bordering on irrelevant to the original comment. In light of that the information you provided can really only be interpreted is as pro-fossil fuel.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 year ago

      pretty sure most trains are powered by either overhead wires or third rails? considering that urban rail systems are always electrified and those have A LOT of trains.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 year ago

          okay? i’m talking about the world though, so typical for people to just assume america is all that matters lmao

          • @[email protected]
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            1 year ago

            The point is about utilization of electric motors, if it happens anywhere on earth it’s possible. You’re trying to insinuate that it isn’t true. And it is. Being American has nothing to do with it you dunce

  • @[email protected]
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    21 year ago

    Because “better overall” is a silly concept to use here, and is bring deliberately done to “both sides” the debate.

    For driving really fast: petrol

    For not killing our planets ability to sustain himan life: electric

    Its not that hard

  • @[email protected]
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    1 year ago

    Cool but they sound like shit. No aesthetics in evs. You don’t feel connected to the car. Don’t feel the engagement. But hey, cars are all about stats, right, right??

    Edit: ok so I get downvoted for having a differing opinion from the majority of Lemmy users here. I’m wrong in saying that EV engines sound like shit?PLEASE one downvoter, explain to me how such a statement deserves a downvote?

    Majority of you probably just use your car as a means of transportation. I don’t. I also drive to have fun. That’s also why I never drive automatic as it is (to me) more engaging and challenging with a manual gear box. Let me give you another example: weight. EVs are heavy, always. I don’t like heavily cars because I don’t find them enjoyable to drive on small roads.

    Please understand that there is more to the world of cars than numbers.