[kEiThZ]

Obviously though, it's not like the government has stood still on urban sprawl or transit development. Better Place is one piece in a whole host of initiatives and it should be seen that way.

 

[LAz]

It's not going to help reduce all externalities. But it will help reduce emissions drastically and it will speed up the adoption of EV technologies. If this catches on, we'll have fully electric buses in a few years. And fully electric delivery vehicles are already catching on.

Well this is the problem... mainstream thinking in the US is that the only problem is emissions. I am sure it's the same in Canada.

The motorization has to be tackled. It has to be identified as a problem, and the subsidies for the auto must be reduced, or reallocated so that more subsidies go towards transit.





As dunkalunk points out, what is going on is the concept of 'induced traffic'.



edit:

Obviously though, it's not like the government has stood still on urban sprawl or transit development. Better Place is one piece in a whole host of initiatives and it should be seen that way.

But, it did not do enough to promote transit, or to limit sprawl.

 

[hkric88]

An extremely important point that was also missed in the now dieing (thank god!) 'hydrogen revolution', is that electric cars will still produce ample amounts of emissions, just not directly from the vehicle. I understand that centralized electric power generation, as well as 'green' power increase the efficiency overall, its still a sham that people are often lead to believe that electric cars produce no emissions. Looking at rail, light or heavy: electrically powered, with weight of passengers at crush load matching or exceeding weight of vehicle, steel wheels on steel tracks, limited ability to handle curves, and often overall decreased travel distance (a la density); If you wanna talk efficient transportation, that's where its at. Also remember the weight of a car (AND BATTERIES!!) vs the weight of the (usually single) occupant: most of the energy is going to move the vehicle not the passenger. That's a problem.

 

[kettal]

It's not going to help reduce all externalities. But it will help reduce emissions drastically and it will speed up the adoption of EV technologies. If this catches on, we'll have fully electric buses in a few years. And fully electric delivery vehicles are already catching on.

We had fully electric buses 60 years ago. They were called trolleybusses. They were very efficient, had minimal energy waste, and didn't have to lug around a giant battery. In almost every public transit bus scenario, this is better than the battery nonsense.

 

[kettal]

Well this is the problem... mainstream thinking in the US is that the only problem is emissions. I am sure it's the same in Canada.

I think it's worse in the US. The guy giving the talk didn't even mention public transit. In that part of the country, PT is seen purely as something for poor people who can't afford cars. His dream will lead WORSE traffic, yet he doesn't even mention it.

 

[dunkalunk]

Externalities are fun, aren't they?

 

[Second_in_pie]

An extremely important point that was also missed in the now dieing (thank god!) 'hydrogen revolution', is that electric cars will still produce ample amounts of emissions, just not directly from the vehicle. I understand that centralized electric power generation, as well as 'green' power increase the efficiency overall, its still a sham that people are often lead to believe that electric cars produce no emissions. Looking at rail, light or heavy: electrically powered, with weight of passengers at crush load matching or exceeding weight of vehicle, steel wheels on steel tracks, limited ability to handle curves, and often overall decreased travel distance (a la density); If you wanna talk efficient transportation, that's where its at. Also remember the weight of a car (AND BATTERIES!!) vs the weight of the (usually single) occupant: most of the energy is going to move the vehicle not the passenger. That's a problem.

Yep, totally correct. In fact, with a single person driving an average city car (not even honking SUVs,) only about .5% of the energy from fuel goes into moving the driver, and that doesn't take into account the energy required in moving the fuel there. Even with a coal fired power plant coming from Sudbury, a subway would have better efficiency than that.

 

[kEiThZ]

Like it or not, people are going to be driving for the foreseeable future. I think it's far better that we work to make sure that they drive a vehicle that's as clean as possible. This does not mean we stop building transit or tolerate sprawl or build more roads. And given that we haven't built any new highways in the GTA in decades, I highly doubt an electric car is suddenly going to change that. Heck, even the most radical Conservatives (like Randy Hillier) now support increased subway expansion in Toronto. Society is moving to a less car-dependent future. That's happening on its own. But expecting people to simply change overnight is fantastically unrealistic. Even Metrolinx's RTP, and places to grow don't anticipate massive reductions in driving or the level of congestion. With that in mind, wouldn't we all breather a little easier if people were buying electric cars, instead of gas ones?

As for the argument that electric cars aren't clean because of the way power is produced. Well Ontario gets less than a quarter of it's power from fossil fuels:
http://www.opg.com/power/
...and that proportion will decline even further over the coming years with McGuinty government's emphasis on green power. And all that doesn't even matter. Better Place signed a deal with Bullfrog Power so that their charging staitons will be 100% power by clean energy.

 

[kettal]

Keithz, you are right, cars will be around forever, and at best we can have 60% of the workforce using alternate means of transport for their commute. And outside of big cities with big-city gridlock and land prices, the car is usually the best option.

The problem I have with this is: 1. our taxes are subsidizing this experiment; 2. batteries are full of yucky toxic chemicals; 3. the guy who made that speech doesn't acknowledge the externalities of his project; 4. bikes rule!!

 

[kEiThZ]

Point 4 I can't disagree with.

1) Our government is hardly pitching in that much. I think it was more about encouraging them to move here, providing a supportive environment for electric vehicles (through tax incentives, benefits for green vehicle operators, etc) and offering Ontario as a test/launch market. I haven't been able to find any actual financial commitments by the government directly to Better Place. And I doubt they need it. They've actually been successful raising capital on the market. They're backed by HSBC, Morgan Stanley and Macquarie. That should say something about their potential for success.

2) Partially agree. Batteries have been getting a lot cleaner and more recyclable recently. And the beauty about Better Place's proposal is that as better battery technology comes on stream it can be put into the supply chain immediately. No waiting till you replace the car.

3) I agree. However, I don't think he talked about the externalities because that's not his goal. His goal is to make cars cleaner. That's what he set out to do. I don't think he's out to be an enviro-crusader combating all the evils of the car. Somebody else will have to deal with the externalities. But if we don't deal with the immediate emissions from automobiles we will have huge problems. Climate change is probably not the worst. The economic swings associated with oil are probably what we should be worrying about in the short to medium term. And all these problems are only going to get exacerbated by the Indians and Chinese who are starting to buy cars in massive numbers. Is anyone really going to be able to stop them? Far better that we get them on electric asap, then worry about getting everybody off cars right now.

 

[LAz]

Like it or not, people are going to be driving for the foreseeable future. I think it's far better that we work to make sure that they drive a vehicle that's as clean as possible.

Sure thing that they are. They are greatly subsidized too.

Hence, the need to discourage their usage, and to funnel people towards transit.





Too often do we see people being concerned with emissions, but they don't give a rats ass about imposing more significant petrol taxes to fund mass transit. Why don't we reduce the huge quantities of subsidies that we give to the roadways and auto-users? They do not pay anything for their negative externalities - well I guess they spend more time in traffic, but that's it.



edit:

But expecting people to simply change overnight is fantastically unrealistic.

Is it? I experienced the very thing back two summers ago er so when the price of oil rose really high. People were rushing to use mass transit. Some people just gave up on the car.
Then the price of petrol went down and people went back to their driving habits.

Change can happen, and it can happen fast. Currently the only thing at our disposal to make change happen is to pray for high petrol prices.