Then why do people buy cars? You can also manage without running water, people did it for most of human existence, but it doesn't mean it's what we want to do. Money talks - when they afford it, a supermajority of people prefer to own a vehicle. And we're on the cusp of making it non-polluting, cheap and sustainable. Let's not blow it because "trains are marginally more energy efficient".
I kinda hate this kind of semantics. Paper cups are polluting, using this definition. Literally everything in human civilization is polluting.
I practical terms, when using words to actually mean something as opposed to bash opponents over the head with them, EVs take away something which is burning gas exactly in the places with the most population density and replaces them with something which is not burning oil in the places with the most population density. What's left in terms of local pollution? Break pads? Still less than gas vehicles, due to regenerative breaking. Microparticles from tires? Yeah, that's about it.
If you also want to count pollution from manufacture and energy generation, then you kinda have to also count pretty much every activity humans engage in, including hiking in the woods because your backpack is manufactured somewhere, using energy.
The effects of car pollution for human health are 99% burning fuel. EVs take this away. I think it's fair to call them non-polluting, and not play word games with this.
Local air pollution of newish cars is primarily from tyres and brakes, as is the effect of vehicles on waterways. What is from burning is mostly trucks (which are better replaced with trains for about 70% of use cases in a sanely designed area). An EV with decent range will also take until well after it is bricked by a remote software update to break even with keeping a small capacity hatchback running.
Producing an EV and building and maintaining car infrastructure uses massive amounts of fossil fuels and entails horrifically destructive mining of large quantities of rare elements such as cobalt and niobium.
All for the end result of wasting vast amounts of time, space, and tax money in any urban area to force a suburban lifestyle that is even more destructive, economically unsustainable, and wasteful.
If you want to disincentivise congestion, or car accidents, or road wear, or suburban sprawl fine.
But don't just spout climate change denier talking points about EVs.
EV busses are a hot trend right now, they make public transport cheaper, safer and greener.
Do you really want people to believe that they are environmentally worse than the ICE vehicles they are replacing? What about urban delivery trucks going EV? How does spreading that fiction help?
Oh, so the busses are not safer in terms of collisions or pedestrian fatalities.
How do you account for dangers of battery production and disposal? Are injured EMTs and mechanics, due to high voltages, also considered? How do you account for pollution of installing upgraded transformers and lines to the bus depot for charging batteries?
To be fair, a sanely designed bus system (ie. RBT or busses that aren't useless because they're stuck behind a car) is just is safe as light rail...but then you can just build light rail because it's cheaper.
The US is absolutely massive - and in some places, this is absolutely not true and you can use public transport for everything AND it's better than driving. And in other places, the nearest public transport is hours away (by car!!).
There are also a whole lot of places places in the US that no one would call a city or even a town. And a whole awful lot of people live in those places! Rural in the US often means living an hour or more drive from the nearest place with a real grocery store.
That’s totally doable in a big city such as NYC. Been in here for 20 years and never owned a car. I do drive occasionally and rent a car for a few days to a week. Always works out for me and my non glamorous lifestyle.
Owning a car gives you a lot of freedom and flexibility but you either live in a place that requires a car every day, or one where you need it less.
If your neighborhood is well planned, with good access to public transportation, groceries, daycare, etc. then renting a car becomes viable for the cases bikes don't cover.
Trains, trams, buses and bicycles don't need to cover every case.
