EVs Are Not *the* Answer

I have a lot of respect for Brent Toderian, former chief planner for Vancouver and a highly respected urbanist and planning consultant. I quote him in my Twitter round-ups pretty frequently but it looks like I've only mentioned him once otherwise, almost in passing.

He's been getting clearer and clearer lately about the responsibility of planners to do their part to deal with the climate crisis, and I think this particular thread is worth quoting as part of that. 

Many people think that electric vehicles (cars, trucks) will solve a significant piece of the climate problem, but they don't. Toderian's thread explains why.

I’m going to try to clearly state my perspective on electric vehicles, car dependency and better cities, to those who frequently ask me, including media, elected leaders and many others.

To be clear, despite the complexities, problems and grey areas that make electric vehicles much more complicated than the “silver bullets” many claim them to be, I do support the replacement of internal combustion vehicles with EVs. It will take longer and be more complicated than boosters think.

But it’s important to understand what EVs won't do, that we still badly need solutions for.

We know for sure that EV cars, trucks and SUVs still badly pollute from manufacturing, brakes and tires, creating serious health issues, even if the energy source is renewable (many aren’t).

We know for sure that there are huge pollution, climate, health, equity and cost consequences connected to continued car dependency from all the highway, road-widening and parking construction that supports more vehicles, whether they are EV or not, and siphons $ from better solutions.

We already know for sure that even if every motor vehicle currently out there was replaced with an EV, it wouldn’t get us far enough in addressing the transportation part of the Climate Crisis. It doesn’t do enough to reduce emissions, even before we consider all the other issues.

We already know for sure that EVs don’t solve the huge space, parking and congestion problems in cities caused by too many vehicles no matter what their power source (and remember, vehicles are getting bigger), OR the shocking number of deaths and injuries each year from car crashes.

But the part that’s maybe the most concerning is our tendency (see Jevons Paradox) to buy more/bigger vehicles and drive them further if we think they’ve gotten better (“greener”). We know the resulting more/bigger cars and kilometers driven has been outpacing the benefits of “better cars.”

All this is to say that it’s critical, as we strive to achieve “better cars,” that we make every move necessary at the same time (or even before/proactively), to ensure that we are achieving fewer cars, less driving, more inviting transportation alternatives and better communities/cities!

The big problem is because of car manufacturing influence. Most media and political energy is in EVs, with not nearly enough going into fewer cars/less driving. But the priority has to be the latter, since it’s the part of the solution that will actually do much more public good.

So the next time you hear someone make the assumption that switching out cars and trucks for EVs will allow things to go on as they are, remember Toderian's points, and this meme that sums it up: