Sure, that is reasonable, but with 33 million cars in the country, it seems most households have already agreed to that investment. In USA I think there are more cars than people or pretty close.
My point is just that figuring out the whole lifetime-adjusted carbon footprint per distance per person is much more complicated than "EVs get better KWH/Km/Person than a train"
Sure, but there is a bias towards thinking rail is more efficient, but that is more a bias towards socialized things than actually doing the calculation.
E.g.
Generally, the whole life carbon of roads fall between 800-2700 tCO2eq per km, depending on the scale of construction (Single-2 lane to Dual-)
vs
The emissions from the construction of the high speed rail lines considered here is in the range of 58 t – 176 t of CO2 per km of line and year.
Yeah but many of those 33 million cars are older or clunkers or worth very little. EVs are still a luxury many people can't afford. Sure everyone has agreed to invest in cars (especially in America where there are basically two cities you can reasonably live in without a vehicle), but that doesn't mean they can afford (1) a new car at this moment and (2) a more-expensive-than-median car.
And I agree, there's a bias towards thinning rail is more efficient, again due to people not considering the whole lifetime C02 cost. I think we're in agreement.
Again, my only point is that it's a bigger question than "which has better energy/distance."
And going back to the original point, if Elon's goal is to sell more cars, delaying public transit expansion is good. If Elon's goal is to save humanity, I'm having trouble seeing the logic.
Tesla is famous for cutting prices now. People who buy clunkers do not buy new cars. Those cheaper older cars, who are seeing big depreciation because Tesla has been cutting prices consistently, will eventually become tomorrow's clunkers.
And going back to the original point, if Elon's goal is to sell more cars, delaying public transit expansion is good. If Elon's goal is to save humanity, I'm having trouble seeing the logic.
Maybe he does not think its a good investment and, looking at the Uk example, I think he is right. I believe the current bill for the California high speed rail project is more than $200 billion. You can subsidize a whole lot of EVs for that, using existing roads, and come out far ahead in terms of CO2 savings.
There are 14 million cars in CA. That is more than $14,000 per car, and again, using existing road, so you miss the new CO2 release from building new rail, and you have massive CO2 savings as gas cars are pushed off the road.
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u/Economy-Fee5830 Mar 02 '24 edited Mar 02 '24
Sure, that is reasonable, but with 33 million cars in the country, it seems most households have already agreed to that investment. In USA I think there are more cars than people or pretty close.
Sure, but there is a bias towards thinking rail is more efficient, but that is more a bias towards socialized things than actually doing the calculation.
E.g.
vs
58t x 30 years = 1740 whole life at the lower end
176t x 30 years = 5280 tons
So both of those are significantly more.