[schwoll]

The EV push is marketing. It's someone trying to sell something. If countries were interested in solving anything they'd just install more electric trains. Even less of a commitment would be just use diesel commuter trains until the electric comes online. Until this happens everything else is just someone trying to sell stuff.

[ladyattis]

Yeah, I think the long term solution to decarbonization is to focus on making it possible to get around without a car which includes a heavy focus on legalizing mixed-use and transit oriented development which for the United States and Canada are basically illegal last time I checked.

[jackmott42]

This is a pretty lazy take. I could also characterize a push for trains as someone trying to sell something.

Someone is going to be selling something. Does the thing reduce carbon and pollution or not, is the question.

Building trains is simple, getting/forcing people to use them is the hard part. Making them viable in a lot of american cities requires a complete refactor of how the cities are laid out. Easy to say very hard and expensive to do. Americans also turn to violence at the suggestion of a paper mask, so forcing won't be simple.

But if you build a badass EV, they will buy it, and pollution is reduced somewhat.