YouTube’s Loaded With EV Disinformation::When it comes to articles on a website like CleanTechnica, there are two kinds of articles. First, there are the … [continued]
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YouTube’s loaded with disinformation about everything. Especially egregious are the awful ads YouTube runs about scammy health cures and devices.
“Use this eye mask to protect you from 5g while you sleep” yes, such a thing existed, and it was removed from amazon for putting out harmful radiation.
Not just ads, but actual content creators themselves. If a channel has someone calling themselves “Dr.” and giving out medical advice, 99% they are a chiropractor.
To be fair EVs only solve the tail pipe emission problem of cars and not like the 50 others. It’s would be much better to focus on public transit and pedestrian and bike infrastructure, that solves more issues and is accessible to everyone.
They solve tailpipe emissions AND all the emissions associated with mining, refining and transporting the fuel - which is enormous and usually left out of the calculations. Public transportation / walkable infrastructure is god-tier but lots of people live away from dense neighbourhoods. Ev’s are not a golden bullet solution to climate change but they’re pretty good and neither is anything else. It makes sense to attack the issue from as many angles as possible instead of getting all tunnel-vision about one particular solution.
AND all the emissions associated with mining, refining and transporting the fuel
Except it’s nowhere near that simple. Manufacturing and shipping batteries is hardly a clean process. And the impact of the fuel is dependent upon the method used to generate the electricity, and both in the US and globally fossil fuels are still used widely for that.
Plus a lot of the pollution and carbon generation is virtually identical for personal vehicles regardless of how it’s powered. You still have tires that wear, tons of plastics and fluids (even EV’s need lubrication), and of course all of the metals involved. Then of course there is road infrastructure: thousands upon thousands of miles of asphalt and concrete separating neighborhoods and habitats. Acres upon acres of impermeable pavement soaking up heat and occupying valuable space that could be used for something more productive.
EV’s are better than ICE options because they at least will get greener as the electrical grid does, but still have the same fundamental issues that all personal vehicles do. You could add in bil-diesel and hydrogen cars too. It’s saving pennies when things like better public transportation and more walkable cities saves pounds.
The pollution from EVs is far lower than ICEs even if they are powered by 100% coal - the absolute worst electricity source. This is because a large generator is inherently more efficient than lots of small ones simply due to the efficiency of scale. And most grids are far cleaner - the UK uses almost ZERO coal.
The problems that you’ve just described are real and I support your solutions to them - but they apply to the entirety of modern industrial society. Public investment should absolutely go to these things, but since people are spending their private money on EVs ( which in many cases makes economic sense AND are better on emissions ) , why push against that? They are two totally different revenue streams. Spending on one doesn’t detract from the other. A private individual can’t buy a bus. American suburbia is not going to become walkable any time soon.
Except it’s not private money. Private vehicles have been heavily subsidized for almost a century in the US. We’ve had decade after decades or tax credits, interest-free loans, and bailouts to the oil and automotive industries. Most local road maintenance is financed with debt, and that debt has started to bankrupt municipalities. Minimum parking requirements encourage sprawl and reduce the tax base by filling these municipalities with land that is economically unproductive.
This all applies to electric too. Tesla famously would not exist if not for years and years of government money propping them up and artificially lowering their prices. Plus all the incentives for building owners to add charging stations, and the billions of dollars going towards expanding EV charging infrastructure in general.
And if you want to optimize for efficiency, personal EV’s are still not even close to buses or trains. Personal vehicle ownership absolutely does NOT make economic sense for anyone except the owners and managers of the companies who profit from them.
American suburbs aren’t ever going to become walkable if everyone just keeps saying “well it’s just too hard to have nice things” and keeps throwing money at perpetuating the problem instead of using that money to get out of the hole.
but lots of people live away from dense neighbourhoods.
then we should focus on creating a 15 minute city
all the emissions associated with mining, refining and transporting the fuel
Not trying to be pedantic… But, EVs have the same essential issue, their batteries require the same mining, refining, and transportation process as any other powered vehicle. And if your electricity isn’t sourced from renewables, you’re just kicking the problem down the road.
And if your electricity isn’t sourced from renewables, you’re just kicking the problem down the road.
Partially. With the exception of maybe coal, fossil fuel energy plants are more carbon efficient than an internal combustion engine can be just due to difference in scale.
The better option is to have it powered through 100% renewable, but it isn’t an automatic lost cause.
AND all the emissions associated with mining, refining and transporting the fuel
Highly dependent on the grid you use to charge the car.
It’s would be much better to focus on public transit and pedestrian and bike infrastructure, that solves more issues and is accessible to everyone.
Or both…?
Yeah this sort of either or mentality and that “perfect is the enemy of good” is an absurd argument.
Make things better if even a little and iterate. At least you’re moving in the right direction.
infrastructure and public transit solve the same issue but infinitely better while EVs are accessible only for people with enough disposable income and are comparably very bad at helping with climate change so I’d rather focus on a more accessible solution that helps more.
In my country people buy used cars pretty much always because of cost and used EVs aren’t really a thing I have seen. There also aren’t many charging stations and local power is mostly produced from oil shale so EVs do squat to help with anything. Public transit on the other hand is easy to advocate for because it’s widely used and most people prefer the tram over car in my city already which is like the best form of transportation over short distances.
I’d rather focus on a more accessible solution that helps more.
I get that. But I think it’s extremely important to not mix climate policies with ideology. You risk alienating a very large chunk of the population, especially in the US, who are ideologically against public transportation.
We need everyone to get onboard with the green transition. Also conservatives.
I’m not in the US so I’m not advocating for anything there as I have no power to do that. Here advocating for public transit over cars is pretty simple and accessible, also not alienating to any group I’m aware of. I’m just saying EVs are not very helpful in comparison to public transit.
They also introduce their own share of issues like increased road wear due to weight and environmental costs from the mining of rare metals like cobalt and lithium.
With the fact that vehicle size is generally trending towards larger, at least stateside; we’re looking at a situation where those shiny electric pick up trucks that need a battery that’s four to eight times larger than a compacts or sedans battery are going to require further scaling of rare metal mining and are going to result in vehicles that blow way past the weight of anything our roads were designed to handle. Public transit is just far more sustainable. Trains can be hooked directly to a grid so no ridiculously heavy battery, buses carry the same number of people on a road that it would take… Let’s be generous… 30 cars, so even if they were using a cell larger than a pick up truck, their wear would be far lower than the 30 or so cars they could replace.
Of course the issue with America is we’ve got bigger fish to fry like boys who kiss boys and people who want to fuck without having kids.
youtube’s loaded with
EVdisinformation…In other news, sky’s still blue.
I wonder who is funding such efforts 🤔
Not sure either, I’ll have to think about it while I drink my coke
Verification can accepted.
Just in case my intended joke was missed:
Koch is pronounced like coke. Koch Industries is a megacorp involved in fossil fuel production and related manufacturing. The Kochs have a long history of donating millions every year to Republican politicians. They also engage in a LOT of astroturfing.
Huh, I figured you were referencing this.
I hate that grotesque faces are a clickbait technique.
That and the feigned look of surprise youtubers use, mouth open eyes wide with titles like “mr beast reaction compilation”
EV marketing is also full of misinformation, like net zero.
But they are planting trees!!!1!
Only on EV? It’s hard to find reliable informacion between 99% influencer crap and bullshit. YT is good for music and some movies which someone had uploaded, little else.
YouTube used to be good for music until they put 2 ads before AND after EVERY VIDEO!
I know this comes off as “old man yelling at clouds” but there used to be a time when there were NO ads on YouTube. You could make an entire playlist of songs without having to hear a single ad.
Novadays not even a Playlist, without YT paused it after some pieces or in the middle of those, which also need an extension to skip this, apart of another extension to avoid the clickbaits in most of the videos. As least, YT only with a good adblocker + the uFrame script + YT Nonstop or similar (depends on the store) + Clickbait Remover, as basics, or otherwise and better frontends (before Google kills these all) Piped, Invidious, PokeTube, or desktop, apps like MotionBox Video Browser (the best, but shitty UI), FreeTube or at least SMplayer. YT lacks a really alternative, the only I know which in ammount of content can it be in the future is Odysee, PeerTube is nice but the ammount of content…mhe. Only for music I use this one sometimes, there genres for every taste and mood 24/7 nonstop https://www.internet-radio.com , well in the browser or also with downloadable m3u files in any mediaplayer.
Fuck google seriously. The fact that these videos are not deleted and they don’t detect all these obviously fake comments tells a lot.
Has anybody else noticed that youtube is porting comments from related videos? I’m seeing the exact verbatim comment jumping from vid to vid in the same category per the algorithm, with fresh vote counts. It’s very obvious youtube is stuffing the comments with old material just to generate more views. Kind of pathetic really. Terrible user experience.
Are you sure it’s YouTube doing that and not just bot accounts? It seems like you’re jumping to the conspiracy conclusion.
If that’s true, that would indicate that the vast majority of comments are just bot spam, making it even more of a cesspool than I originally thought. None of the comments are advertising anything. I guess there’s money to be made in stuffing the comment section in either direction.
yea, i think thats just bots reposting the same comment.
Not surprising considering it’s the biggest shilling platform currently available. Low price of entry and easy way to reach masses combined with plenty of people with large following and questionable morals… you can push pretty much any idea and agenda. But good thing they don’t allow swearing. That’s just too much.
Lol, you just described every open content platform out there. This is not a YouTube-specific problem. You can’t personally control what’s uploaded on these sites, but you can choose if and how you interact with it.
YouTube does control what people upload… however they have a specific fetish on what is punished and what allowed.
Just like Toyoda likes it. Him and his lemmings were parroting how bad sales were for their garbage EVs.
Some of the criticism is perfectly valid, frankly. I’m hyped for EVs but there’s a lot of work to be done before they’re really competitive. Glossing over glaring issues isn’t doing anyone any favors.
Aging wheels did a great video on the charging station problem. He drove a Polaris and a Tesla on the same route and demonstrated really well how unreliable charging stations are, unless you have a Tesla. This guy loves electric cars and has been reluctant to actually recommend any.
That problem is going to be addressed as American manufacturers adopt Tesla as a standard, but that won’t happen for two model years at least.
And in the long run, they won’t address climate change in any meaningful way either. We’ve just exchanged one resource disaster for another, and there’s far less rare earth minerals than there is oil. And we’ll still need oil. The only way we’re doing that is by massively overhauling every city and going away from any individualized transportation larger than a bike.
Honestly it’s the other way around. Most of the downsides are vastly overstated in my experience, and people don’t really grasp how nice it is to never visit a gas station and always have a full tank to start the day, until they are living it. If you have the ability to charge at home and aren’t making 1000 mile trips very often, there is basically no reason to not have an EV.
The first question I always get about my EV is “how long does it take to charge?” Most people can’t wrap their head around the concept of waking up every day with a full battery.
And also that they are probably stopping for around 20 minutes every 300 miles on road trips anyway. A certain 450 mile trip I have make several times per year for two decades takes me about 20-30 minutes longer in an EV vs my previous 35mpg vehicle. There are just a bunch of these small cognitive blindspots people have about their own driving habits that you see repeated over and over again.
I dunno man, the 5 minutes a week at a gas station doesn’t really seem like that much of an inconvenience. Especially if you live in a state that taxes EVs more than gas cars, my home state taxes EVs so heavily that it’s more expensive, even with fuel costs considered.
Winter and summer conditions are also an issue where I live, temps from very cold to very hot, sometimes within the same week, and the fact that most of the people who live around me who can afford an EV, are in fact taking routine road trips. Often to go camping where EV support is pretty minimal. Meaning at minimum, 1 car cannot be an EV.
Like, I get it. I’ve been trying to convince my wife to let me buy a sprinter van EV. Because you can’t get a decent pick up truck EV for a reasonable price. And even if you could you’re locked in to one of those giant 4 door monstrosities with a minimum sized bed.
We’re not even going to talk about the horrifying lack of an affordable station wagon EV, at least in the US (Peugeot’s got one coming in Europe at least), honestly that’s the biggest crime here.
I dunno man, the 5 minutes a week at a gas station doesn’t really seem like that much of an inconvenience.
Here in Indiana, where it can get into the minuses for a month or more in the winter, it can be a huge fucking inconvenience.
If you have the ability to charge at home and aren’t making 1000 mile trips very often, there is basically no reason to not have an EV.
Well, except for reasons not to have any car at all, of course.
Was the cost benefit worth it? How much more did you pay for the EV? Did you do it to reduce your carbon footprint and if so have you evaluated how dirty your local grid is (the remote combustion fallacy of EVs)?
I think the bigger issue with EVs (at least in the USA) is that there’s a huge gap between what EV’s actually are and what EV industry players are claiming EV’s are and can be. It makes EV conversations divisive and ripe for misinformation.
This idea that batteries should ever be used in trucking and heavy machinery (before massive boosts to battery capacity and sustainability/recycling) is a total crock of shit. The idea that you’re doing the environment or yourself a favor by buying an electrified SUV or truck is a crock of shit. Buying a vehicle with 250mi+ of range using today’s battery tech is bad for the environment.
Small to medium sized commuter vehicles and delivery vans/fleet vehicles with < 50kWh batteries are prime EV candidates. EV buyers need to charge at home and drivers need to change their behavior, not chase 300 miles of range at the expense of the environment.
Everything else is better off with a hybrid engine for the very distant foreseeable future.
Instead, buyers are unloading perfectly good ICE vehicles for EV’s with 100kWh+ batteries and companies like Tesla are destroying the credibility of the EV industry with their stupid stunts and ridiculous EV semi claims. Others are making a bad problem worse by ratcheting up the consumerism and disposability of vehicles in the EV space by building premium vehicles that are inevitable purchased as a second or third car, completely negating any environmental benefit of the vehicle.
These buyers and industry players are making EV’s easy targets for an anti-EV crowd which wants to undermine the truly green and sustainable aspects of an automotive technology shift.
Something I don’t think is really talked about in tandem but should be is the “tech” side of things. There’s a massive race to go as proprietary as possible none of this crap is easily serviceable by people. The tech that they put in most of these cars is cheap garbage. I don’t want some tablet with what is probably a fork of Android controlling my vehicle. First I know support for it is going to go out the window and I don’t want to have to think about software security for my damn car.
Then you have these companies that are putting features that are in the car behind subscriptions because the car can now support subscription model. I don’t want always online DRM for the DLC for my goddamn car.
Unlike oil, rare earth minerals can be recycled to a degree. What is today your car battery may end up in 10+ years as someone’s house battery, or a power bank or other low-load energy store. The raw materials can eventually be recovered to an extent as well.
A resource disaster is inevitable either way as nobody wants to give up the convenience that we have become accustomed to. Encouraging affluent economies to adopt EVs is pure damage limitation at this point, our biosphere is already fucked from over a century of waste emissions, the least we can do is try and find solutions that don’t involve burning fossilized plant matter for every car journey.
Newsflash — Tesla is opening its stations to all EVs. Guess that solves the “unless you have a Tesla” problem.
