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0 pointslucideer2y ago0 comments

> on a path towards electrified transport

If not for Tesla, America (& the Western world in general) might not be on a path towards private inefficient electrified road transport, leaving much more room for investment in & upselling of vastly more sustainable non-road transport, as has been done in China.

Musk in particular has form here - consistently blocking & derailing all potential high-speed rail projects for the west coast in favour of white elephants (the material result being a maintained reliance on roads, and - by extension - his big cobalt-mine-dependent business).

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JumpCrisscross2y ago

> derailing all potential high-speed rail projects for the west coast

Musk ran California’s high-speed rail through the Central Valley?

I like public transport. But America isn’t built for it. Switching to trains would mean upending and dissolving tens of millions’ communities. There was no other path without EVs and trains galore; it was—and is—between EVs and ICE cars.

beedeebeedee2y ago

> I like public transport. But America isn’t built for it.

You mean, America was un-built from it. We had it, but the car and oil industry lobbied it away. We can rebuild it. Don't believe the hype.

badpun2y ago

Weren't communities dissolved to build the massive highway network US has?

JumpCrisscross2y ago

> Weren't communities dissolved to build the massive highway network US has?

Yes. It was traumatic and widely regarded as a mistake. Given the precedent, and our massively increased per-capita resources today versus in the post-War era, you'd be fighting an army of suburban Jane Jacobs to remake America à la China or Europe.

lucideerOP2y ago

> Musk ran

Seems a very honest interpretation of events to purport that Musk has had no influence over transport in California.

> America isn’t built for it.

That rhetoric is used the world over as an excuse to bolster against progressive innovation of all kinds. It's been debunked countless times. "Dissolving" communities to make way for rail is of course also nonsense.

DennisP2y ago

China may be investing in rail but that doesn't seem to be incompatible with BEV adoption. As of 2022, 22% of all new car sales in China were electrics.[1] In the US it was only 6% that year[2], and looks to be about 8% for 2023.[3]

[1] https://www.wri.org/insights/countries-adopting-electric-veh...

[2] https://cleantechnica.com/2023/02/25/us-electric-car-sales-i...

[3] https://electrek.co/2023/10/12/ev-sales-7-9-us-market-volvo-...

(Side note: the standard-range Teslas use lithium iron-phosphate batteries which don't contain cobalt.)

seanmcdirmid2y ago

China also would have invested heavily in EVs regardless of Tesla. They simply don’t have much oil, and importing it is a huge national security problem for them. Couple that with their huge pollution problem and tons of cars even with lots of mass transit options, EVs were inevitable and already coming along before the model 3 came out.

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