cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/319198
I got a lot of push-back on a comment I made here about how bigger trucks/suvs are the primary cause the increasing pedestrian death-rate in America so apparently more people need to see this video.
So my family has two trucks. We run a ranch in a rural area and we use them a lot. I also use my skid steer and tractor multiple times a week. That said, if we can be more economical as a whole, great. But electric vehicles are ignoring the mining and shipping costs of batteries and there’s no way an electric truck can haul what I need to now and there’s no viable solution for electric farming or construction equipment. Also, wasn’t it found that about 70% of pollution comes from shipping? And wasn’t more that 90% of pollution from the top 100 companies in the world? So why are a small part of consumer vehicles the problem? Or is it just more conscionable people to offload on?
So? You have a narrow use case that has nothing to do with what’s being discussed here. Every time SUVs clogging cities is discussed you people come out “but how will I run my farm”.
People running farms or similar businesses have been using pick-ups and other utility vehicles since times immemorial. I don’t know if you’re lying about the farm or not, frankly it doesn’t matter, it shouldn’t be any of your business whether or not suburbia is using massive trucks to ferry their kids to and from school.
Actually they’re actively hurting you. Because manufacturers now target people who won’t ever use them as utility vehicles, you can no longer buy basic cheap reliable pick-ups. They’re all swollen with plastic bodywork that won’t hold up to farm work, all the pointless faff inside is adding weight that’s actively hurting your fuel efficiency whilst again making it less rugged.
The target audience is now an urban/suburban dweller who will lease it for three years and swap for a newer one, so everything is now less repairable when something goes wrong 6 months after the warranty runs out.
Plus now you’re paying a luxury tax.
Really I fail to see how your life has been improved by the SUV invasion into cities.
Personally I think you’re disingenuous and making a strawman argument because you like your lifted truck that’s never seen mud.
Did you watch the video? None of those things are terribly relevant to its thesis.
By that logic, consumers should quit conserving water and recycling. Agriculture uses around 70% of all freshwater globally and 20 corporations produce over half of all the plastic waste in the entire world.
The video actually specifically stated SUVs have the second greatest increase in emissions by sector.
Most of all plastics recycling is a lie and aluminum is now excluding anything with shrinkwrap or adhesive labels. Where I live, we can pay extra to recycle, but they dump it in the same truck and take it to the same landfill because they can’t get anyone to pay enough to truck it out.
It’s not a small part of consumer vehicles in the USA anymore.
Don’t have to ban gas trucks but there shouldn’t be special breaks that incentivezes car companies to push them on people.
Battery mining and shipping should definitely be accounted for. But oil also requires extraction and transportation.