Yelling at the Clouds

I often hear arguments about how EVs are a necessary stepping stone to reducing carbon emissions. It is such an important problem that we should throw all we have at it and bet the future of cities around the EV model.

My response to this is that the powertrain is just the tip of the problem of the ICE automobile. The rest of the problem is found in the automobile itself, wasting an immense amount of concrete, steel and space just so everyone can move around in their own little box.

And it is so funny, because it is a problem that is just so IN YOUR FACE. Look anywhere that’s not a dense city and you’ll see it. Vast swaths of suburbs destroy l i f e so people can have the same looking house within a 15 min drive of a Home Depot Power Center. And, of course, with freeway interchanges galore connecting everything together.

Per capita, these places are deeply infrastructure intensive. They cost an immense amount concrete, steel, energy, pristine habitat and mental sanity of residents.

To begin to even try to understand the sense of scale, we can simply just imagine how efficient a bus is relative to a vehicle. A bus can hold 50-80 people, but is only about three cars long. Replace 50 cars of space with a bus 3 cars long.

The being below is created by the smoke of 48 personal automobiles. It is 16 automobiles long, 3 automobiles wide. A single bus can comfortably move the same number of people.

You wanted a sense of scale? Here it is, struggling to move along. How sad.

Instead of this being, let’s replace the cars with buses. Every 48 cars has a bus in the center now, personal vehicles be damned.

I can see the road. Finally. Our individualistic need for speed slows all of us down. The powertrain is not the answer.

For god sakes, ride the fucking bus.

© Simar Sawhney. The author warrants that the work is the author’s own and that no other organization provided input. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.