US electric vehicle transition would save over 100k lives and $1T in healthcare

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/30/us-electric-vehicles-save-lives-public-health-costs-study

by myroon5 • 3 years ago

25 32 3 years ago

What externalities are we exchanging carbon emissions for when we switch to electric vehicles?

The places to look might be: heavier vehicles might lead to more fatalities in bicyclists and pedestrians, and something in battery manufacture.

Maybe something from charging infrastructure?

djohnston• 3 years ago

Heavier vehicles would also lead to faster degradation of transport infra

hellotheretoday4• 3 years ago

Vastly increased power usage would be a big one I would think. For one the USA power grid probably couldn’t handle it as is. Increased brown outs/black outs from higher demand could cause health issues from loss of climate control devices in locales where that’s a dangerous prospect. Like losing heat during a Maine winter or A/c during a phoenix summer.

Even ignoring that, ~20% of us electricity is coal generated. ~60% is fossil fuel generated [1] so it’s ultimately just shifting the problem unless there are equivalent infrastructure investments as well.

[1]https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

Ancalagon• 3 years ago

I imagine there will be some longterm unaccounted-for negative externalities just from the benefits listed in the title.

Similar to when people stopped smoking, they started living longer which meant more unproductive retirement years, lower pension yields, higher healthcare costs overall (more older people needing more care all at once).

akomtu• 3 years ago

It's much less brake dust, no exhaust fumes, but slightly more tire rubber particles, because EVs are heavier.

datavirtue3• 3 years ago

One thing I noticed, a Rivian R1T weighs around 7200lbs. My super crew Super Duty weighed around 6500lbs and was taxed and licensed at the 10000lb GVW class.

The Rivian is not taxed like that but it sure as hell is putting a lot more weight on the roads than a Super Duty that isn't fully laden.

The weight of EVs is far more than I even considered to imagine. I am really surprised at the total weight. This is going to cause significant road damage. At current vehicle weights communities can't even afford road maintenance as it is. As far as I know, all road maintenance is financed with debt.

I'm just wondering how we maintain our current usage patterns with vehicles, switch to far heavier ones, and even begin to address the ongoing road maintenance. We haven't even figured out how to tax EVs yet. ICE vehicles pay a hefty tax at the pump...though that is probably not enough. I don't see where the political will is even coming from to deal with this minor issue of increased road maintenance.

jewayne3• 3 years ago

I learned recently that road wear varies as the 4th power of vehicle weight. This means that every 20% increase in weight doubles the amount of damage that vehicle does to the road/street. This means the absolute vast majority of road wear is caused by the largest vehicles -- tractor-trailers, large box trucks, etc. Yes, personal electric vehicles weigh a lot more than their ICE equivalents, but they're still only going to cause a small fraction of the road damage.

What we'll need to worry about and plan for are these electric semis that are rolling out. They will almost certainly cause noticeably more road damage than their ICE peers.

pests• 3 years ago

A M3 yearly renewal in Michigan in over $500. How is that not a solution to the road taxes being avoided? 12,000 miles a year at $3.50 a gallon and assuming 35mpg is only $1600in gas costs. How much of that would really be taxes? I know non-EVs don't pay anywhere near close to hundreds of dollar to renew the registration yearly.

AtlasBarfed• 3 years ago

Doubt that accounts for cancer. Petroleum has lots of documented carcinogenic mechanisms and compounds.

-enes and -anes are not good for you.

Rygian• 3 years ago

I've already started teaching my son to call ICE cars "legacy cars" and EVs "normal cars."

nameless9122• 3 years ago

You know what would save more lives? better public transit. Electric cars don't solve for car accidents and pedestrian strikes.

Yes, this is a bit of a non-sequitur, but electric cars continue to feel like an incremental improvement at best; as someone else mentioned - we're exchanging where the carbon production happens unless we dramatically reduce our fossil fuel usage for power generation. And that doesn't solve the accessibility and affordability problems of car-based transit.

ZeroGravitas3• 3 years ago

we're exchanging where the carbon production happens unless we dramatically reduce our fossil fuel usage for power generation.

The article and the source it's based on are both assuming/advocating a faster move away from fossil fuel electricity generation.

But even if that wasn't true, EVs would still reduce carbon output due to the greater efficiency.

nameless9122• 3 years ago

That's fine, admirable even! But EVs have other problems: mining lithium and other metals for batteries is still terrible for the environment, and other battery technologies are not yet promising enough to replace them. Not to mention that electric cars are still cars, so we still have tire and brake dust, etc. Less than before, of course, but they still exist.

JumpCrisscross2• 3 years ago

You know what would save more lives? better public transit.

Do both. Public transit over vehicle electrification is a false economy; in that competition the status quo will win.

jewayne3• 3 years ago

false dichotomy

ulkhf• 3 years ago

Public transit only makes sense in urban areas. Urban areas tend to have high rates of crime. This is one of the driving factors behind the popularity of personal transportation and suburban schools.

polski-g• 3 years ago

My county wanted to put in trams. You know the things that require non-alterable tracks? It was $14m per mile.

We have buses. Why couldn't people just use the buses? Because they're filled with trash and crime. So instead of just enforcing the law and imprisoning criminals, the county was courting spending hundreds of millions for a tram system. And the non-enforcement would have turned the trams into the same state the buses were in within a few years.

Just insanity.

US electric vehicle transition would save over 100k lives and $1T in healthcare

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