Unpopular Opinion
Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!
How voting works:
Vote the opposite of the norm.
If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.
Guidelines:
Tag your post, if possible (not required)
- If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
- If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].
Rules:
1. NO POLITICS
Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.
2. Be civil.
Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...
Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.
5. No trolling.
This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.
6. Defend your opinion
This is a bit of a mix of rules 4 and 5 to help foster higher quality posts. You are expected to defend your unpopular opinion in the post body. We don't expect a whole manifesto (please, no manifestos), but you should at least provide some details as to why you hold the position you do.
Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
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Because of climate change and my hatred of breathing in diesel fumes when a truck passes by. I want to see more efficient electric vehicles. With gas prices high the alternative becomes more viable, and it exposes how volatile fossil fuels are.
I agree, but expecting change in the next 6 months, maybe up to five years, is unrealistic, particularly under a government that actively encourages the use of fossil fuels.
You can throw up a bike lane in a few hours with nothing but a few traffic cones. This isn't something that takes years to implement if there's actually political will to do so.
But it can be a waking call for many people that didn't though about changing to EV and solar panels.
I can buy so much diesel for the price of an EV. Those are completely out of my price range and higer fuel prices aren't going to change that.
While I don’t know your use case or required vehicle type, there are many EV’s around $35K and tons on the used market for way less. There are tons of things to calculate but assuming a diesel vehicle is driven about 10K miles a year, you’ll spend around $2K/year on that, yea? Every year you own the vehicle you can deduct that from the purchase price to get the Net Present Value of the vehicle as home-charging rates are negligible at around maybe $100 a year. If you own it for 5 years, that vehicle could be considered to have cost you roughly $25K, net. 10 years would be $15K net. Then there’s the lower maintenance cost on EV’s to consider, as well. In the long term, EV’s aren’t as expensive as people think but you have to have the funds to cover the high purchase price at the start and plan to own the vehicle for a long time. As gas prices rise, these calculations only improve for EV’s and worsen for gas-powered vehicles. A helpful metric to use is that gas vehicles cost about $0.30/mile to run and EV’s, when charged at home, cost about $0.03/mile.
35k is a completely outrageous price to pay for a vehicle. That covers my fuel for 17 years, but it wouldn't even buy me an equivalent EV. Those are up from 50k used.
I don't have anything against EVs on principle. I just can't afford one - whereas I could total my work truck tomorrow and just buy a new (used) one. Or five.
EVs are already cheaper than ICE vehicles. You pay a bit more up front, but you save long term of gas and maintenance.
There's about 8k between the cheapest EV and the cheapest gas car. Whatever difference is overshadowed by the cost of gas.
You are looking for reasons.
I have no use for the cheapest EV. I need a vehicle that's able to transport more than just me. My livelihood depends on it.
Yea I hear you, all the heavy duty EVs are still expensive. They'll come down in price over time. Here's a used 2023 Ford F-150 Lightning for $37,888. If what you have works for you then that's great, but electric vehicles CAN do what your gas powered vehicle does right now, just still expensive because of tariffs and other financial fuckery.
https://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/5a31312f-0fba-4531-9f70-7986dfeab27c/
F-150 is way too big for me, but the cheapest one for sale here is a '23 model with 60k km on it and an 82k€ price tag.
Ideally I'd just want a super basic one - a pure utility vehicle with zero luxuries. Kinda like the Slate truck.
We'll get some in the future, I wish I was in a position to design one. I don't know why US companies are so fascinated with building luxury trucks. It's a tool, I don't need fancy bells and whistles.
Tell that to Amazon. They have changed all its vans to EV. You should warn them that they are making a mistake.
Can you be any more disingenuous? Have I claimed that switching to an EV is a mistake? I can't afford one. I'm a struggling solopreneur with a 17-year-old pickup truck. If I had the level of expendable income Amazon has, I'd be more than happy to splurge 80k€ on an equivalent EV.
I'm not a long distance driver and I have driven 40K Km. That, with a diesel, would have costed me near 4K€. I've spend less than 1K€. And remember: no oil change, less moving parts, less noise, ...
You just keep ignoring the price of the vehicle itself.
Look for the difference in price and think how many Km you have to drive to get back your money. Even if it's 20K it will be cheaper if you use it for work.
35k€ buys me fuel for 17 years, but it doesn't buy me an EV pickup truck. Those cost upwards of 50k€ used. I drive an ancient truck for a reason - I don't have that kind of money to throw at a new one. Telling me to spend money I don't have now so I can "save" it in the future is just ignorant.
It’s completely fair that these vehicles are still out of your price range! It’s also valid that the vehicle you have now has a slightly higher usage cost than an EV. Right now the financials still don’t work for your use case, mostly because you need a truck so I get where you’re coming from. While the market matures, I’d expect we will eventually see more EV truck options at more reasonable prices and then the used market will also expand. I found an F150 lightning (discontinued) for $22K online. We’re not far from the reality where most people in the market to buy a car can afford the upfront price of an EV but we’re definitely not there yet. I will say that I have saved around $9k on gas alone in the almost 6 years of ownership of an EV sedan. However, my net cost is still over $30K without factoring in the low maintenance costs.
I agree with this completely, especially with gas prices rising now, even more so.
Today I have made the calc. With 1€ of electricity (at home) I can drive 75km. That 1€ gives me today half a liter of gasoline.
Diesel vehicles are the same price range as electric vehicles if not more expensive. The cost of ownership on diesels is way way more than an EV.
That's hilarious. I'm not even getting a handshake at the local EV dealership for the price that I paid for my 17 year old work truck with 300k km on it. The cheapest used EV pickup truck for sale here currently is 25k€ and is completely unfit for what I need it for and the size of those American monster trucks - no thanks.
The amount of money you would have to spend to keep a diesel on the road for 300k is more than the cost of a new EV.
If we don’t stop putting greenhouse gasses into the stratosphere today then we will be extinct by the end of the century.
Said no reputable climate scientist ever.
Also, greenhouse gases are primarily emitted into the lower atmosphere, not the stratosphere
Climate change: Potential to end humanity is 'dangerously underexplored' say experts
The stratosphere is in the lower atmosphere. Thanks for showing everyone you don’t know what you’re talking about.
You want to highlight the part where they claim extinction by the end of the century because I'm not seeing it.
Source
Source
Source
I’ll just share the first line:
Definition of Catastrophic adjective US /ˌkæt̬.əˈstrɑː.fɪk/ UK /ˌkæt.əˈstrɒf.ɪk/: causing sudden and very great harm or destruction: An unchecked increase in the use of fossil fuels could have catastrophic results for the planet.
It’s hilarious that the example for the definition of the word Catastrophic is also proving you wrong.
Or are you trying to argue that if it doesn’t happen at exactly the end of the century that the destruction of our species doesn’t matter?
Here was your original statement:
Your own source states that the stratosphere is part of the lower atmosphere. Thanks for proving my point for me and again showing everyone that you either don’t know what you’re talking about or you’re a fossil fuel shill spreading their misinformation trying to downplay climate change.
Its not just america paying more for oil. Countries world wide will experience this and future volatility. It could be a tipping point for some to take alternative energy and transportation more seriously.
Not a lot of massive cargo ships are gonna stop using bunker fuel in favour of turning electric. And that's just one example.
Well, we're either going to have to find a way, or we're all dead. So maybe higher gas prices are a small price to pay for the literal salvation of the species.
It will happen over time, especially with higher oil prices.
https://electrek.co/2024/05/02/fully-electric-10000-ton-container-ship-begun-service50000-kwh-batteries/
This situation is making oil more profitable for the other countries that produce it. Coincidentally, that includes the USA who started this mess, and who also kidnapped the leader of another oil producing country a couple months ago.
Climate change is a producer problem, and this price increase only hurts consumers.
Thankfully I can drive on E85 so I'm not that affected by the price hike. I would love to switch to electric. But can't afford it. Maybe when the cars come down do 20-30k, then I could start thinking about it
Look at the used market! Plenty of EV’s in that price range. For instance: https://www.cars.com/vehicle/153a974c-1ea1-4a76-892e-31032334d488/
All the research and real world usage has shown that EV’s generally last well over 100K miles so you’ll get a lot of usage out of a used EV.
Bought mine for £17k 6 years ago. Don't buy off the forecourt.