[clairity]

instead you get to breathe in that sweet, sweet tire dust, which hybrids and EVs tend to make more of because they're typically heavier than their ICE counterparts.

but until the electrical grid is moved to cleaner sources (including nuclear for baseload), it doesn't make much difference what you drive. with the current distribution of generation, we'd be mostly shifting the pollution from tailpipes to smokestacks (especially at the margin) rather than getting rid of it--coal emissions are many times worse than tailpipe emissions, not to mention the pollution from coal, oil & gas extraction.

and pollution is exactly what we should be worried about, not CO₂, which is the worst sort of distraction when trying to make sense of the environmental dangers we're creating (it muddies the waters to create uncertainty and inaction).

[bryanlarsen]

> coal emissions are many times worse than tailpipe emissions

The CO2 output of a coal powered EV and a gasoline car are roughly equivalent. If you add in the CO2 used when refining the gasoline and when transporting the fuel to gas stations, gasoline cars are about 50% worse.

> and pollution is exactly what we should be worried about, not CO₂,

For most pollutions, especially for PM2.5, locality is super important. Gasoline engines run in populated areas, power plants aren't.

[clairity]

again, CO₂ doesn't matter, despite the mediopolitical hysteria over it. it's a gas that life depends on and is well-adapted to. but pollution has been killing millions of people a year for at least a hundred years already and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. generation and transportation account for the majority of that pollution.