
The First Quieter Megacity, Thanks to Electric Vehicles - mariushn
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-30/shenzhen-the-first-quieter-megacity-thanks-to-electric-vehicles
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adrianN
Meanwhile, established car makers are twiddling their thumbs and paying their
lobbyists to delay the phase out of internal combustion engines for as long as
possible.

In Germany the Deutsche Umwelthilfe has to literally sue ever city separately
to force their hands to do something about pollution. Bavaria simply ignores
the court orders. Efforts to improve bikeability and public transport plan on
multi decade timelines. Here in Berlin there are plans to extend the subway
that are older than I am and are still being discussed. Electric busses are
somehow not suitable for cities outside of China, we're still "evaluating
options".

~~~
anjc
> Meanwhile, established car makers are twiddling their thumbs and paying
> their lobbyists to delay the phase out of internal combustion engines for as
> long as possible.

Why wouldn't they? Why should a government have the power to end a legitimate
industry, which contributes massively to GDP and society's well-being, without
a long changeover process?

~~~
ajuc
> Why should a government have the power to end a legitimate industry, which
> contributes massively to GDP and society's well-being, without a long
> changeover process?

Because of external costs.

When it turned out radioactive toothpaste kills people it was banned. When it
turned out CFCs destroy ozone layer they were banned. The only reason petrol
is treated differently is - our economy depends on it. This will eventually
change, we can work to make it happen faster or not.

If we don't - all the external costs that could be avoided are our fault.

~~~
anjc
These external costs are less-bad in the short/medium term than the societal
costs incurred from an artificially terminated industry.

~~~
ajuc
Banning non-electric cars (except for public transport, police, ambulances,
etc) in biggest cities is hardly going to have societal costs. You can argue
personal cars should be banned there altogether. There are many cities where
private transport is already restricted in city centers.

Public transport is cheaper, more ecological, saves time for everybody in
traffic jams. What's the cost? That you have to drive to work or school with
other people in same vehicle? You will get used to it. I have to die earlier
because of all the shit that's in the air and car industry doesn't care.

And that's just the first step, then you can tax internal combustion engines
increasingly.

As for the car industry - who cares? It's not like we cared about horse
industry when cars appeared. Let them adapt or die. Government should protect
citizens, not corporations.

~~~
anjc
> As for the car industry - who cares?

We care about industries such as this because they contribute massively to the
public purse, provide stability to entire regions via employment, and make
products that much of the world relies on right now.

> It's not like we cared about horse industry when cars appeared.

Horses weren't banned to encourage a car industry to emerge, users gravitated
towards cars until eventually horses were superfluous/a burden.

~~~
ajuc
> We care about industries such as this because they contribute massively to
> the public purse, provide stability to entire regions via employment, and
> make products that much of the world relies on right now.

Most of the world doesn't produce cars. Why should they care? They are still
using cars, wasting their lives in traffic jams and dying early because of air
pollution. Many of them will have to migrate because of climate change.

> Horses weren't banned to encourage a car industry to emerge, users
> gravitated towards cars until eventually horses were superfluous/a burden.

What does it change? Industry died. Societal costs were there. Nobody cared.

------
mixedbit
Chinese move to EVs in impressive. In Shanghai to register a new car you need
to wait on average more than a year and pay an equivalent of several thousand
dollars. Unless you buy an electric car, in which case you can register it
immediately without any payment.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Sincerely, screw the fossil fuel / internal combustion lobby.

If there was any _leadership_ in a _political leader_ here in the West we'd
have done something similar already.

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peterwwillis
Buses also contribute the _beepbeepbeepbeep_ and _PSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHH_ and _"
Pedestrian, bus is turning_" sounds. Living across from a bus stop, I all but
ignored each of these.

My city soundscape has mostly hidden the sound of engines, save the rare
Harley or Hemi. The sounds that penetrate the air (for me) are of both buses
and cars blasting horns, music blaring, tires screeching, and the zooming of
cars through air. That, and people taking loudly/yelling/screaming, the sounds
of barking dogs, car alarms, fire truck/ambulance/police sirens, and air
conditioners kicking on next door, and of course sounds from neighboring
apartments.

But that's nice that the buses run quieter now.

~~~
F_r_k
What are these "pedestrians, bus is turning" sounds ? I'm Switzerland I have
never heard those.

Is every bus turning emitting these sounds ? Seems crazy to me.

~~~
peterwwillis
It's a sound made by the free shuttle buses in Baltimore, Maryland. But it's
no more audible than the beeping and kneeling-bus air compressor. I have the
feeling it was added for blind pedestrians, as we have some blind schools
nearby.

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jacobmoe
The noise is annoying, but as someone who jogs daily in NYC, I'm just hoping
my lungs survive long enough to see the end of the combustion engine age. It's
obviously better than it was but I run by trucks billowing blue exhaust daily.
I can never understand why we don't seem to value breathable air.

~~~
kaybe
Just a FYI, literally every meter you get away from the street helps immensely
with your exposure, from what we see in the data.

Heavy traffic and stop-and-go at traffic lights are the worst (no surprise),
avoid those if possible.

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olivermarks
Reality check 'As Shenzhen’s housing prices skyrocket to rival Hong Kong’s,
real estate for charging stations isn’t easy to find, and then they have to be
fitted to the grid, says BYD spokesman Xiao Haiping.

At Shenzhen Eastern Bus Co., one of BYD’s three bus-fleet partners, the
monthly electricity bill of 17 million yuan is one-third of what its diesel
bill used to be. The company has 15,000 employees and 5,800 buses, which use
seven charging stations. Most of the buses are charged at night, when
electricity is cheaper, though they sometimes have to top off in the
afternoon. Each bus takes about three hours for a full charge and has a range
of 250 kilometers (155 miles).'

These are coal powered buses
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China#Co...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China#Coal_power)

~~~
adrianN
The change to electric vehicles is at first mostly about local emissions in
cities. The percentage of coal in the energy mix is falling btw, and China
installs more renewables and nuclear than anyone else.

~~~
adventured
Their total coal consumption is rising again.[1] US coal use as a percentage
of its energy base is far too high at ~30%. China is twice that at 60%.

When you have the extraordinary financial resources that China has and your
coal use is climbing despite nearly consuming more coal than the rest of the
world combined, it's not enough to add renewable energy, you must aggressively
remove coal. China isn't doing that and they never said they would. Their
public plans include decades more of coal consumption near present levels.

Greater Asia Pacific is consuming four times the coal of the US and EU
combined (representing nearly $40 trillion of GDP).

[1] [https://www.reuters.com/article/china-energy-
coal/corrected-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/china-energy-
coal/corrected-chinas-2017-coal-consumption-rose-after-three-year-decline-
clean-energy-portion-up-idUSL4N1QI48M)

------
diafygi
Not affiliated with them (other than just friends), but EV Complete[1] has
seemed to tap into the whole wtf-do-i-need-an-ev-now thing.

There's a joke in the cleantech space about how people in cleantech can't even
understand how energy efficiency, solar, batteries, or EVs affect them, so how
the hell can non-cleantech people understand the benefits of what we do.

Overall, we need help. We have the tech and the vision, but most of the
cleantech space needs help on the marketing, education, and execution.

[1]: [https://www.evcomplete.com/](https://www.evcomplete.com/)

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
In the EV space it looks like cleantech is getting a lot of help.

From the article:

* began exporting its vehicles to the U.S. BYD has inked deals to supply electric buses to Facebook Inc.’s sprawling headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., the transit authority in Long Beach, Calif., and the campuses of Stanford University and the University of California at Los Angeles. The most recent victory came in August, when BYD won a bid to supply all Georgia government entities with EVs.

 _The company is using the immense financial backing at home to its advantage.
A $9 billion credit line from China Development Bank, for example, is helping
BYD place electric monorails in Brazil, Egypt, and the Philippines._

And government grants that _cover a third of the cost_ of building an electric
bus.

It's hard to imagine any of the Western democracies doing this, in the near
future.

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angled
I was in Shenzhen on Tuesday in the Futian district, and while the vehicles
might be quieter, there is still a large amount of street level construction;
and worst of all, the streets /smell/. Shenzhen still has a long way to go for
it to be pleasant for pedestrians. I am sure they will have it sorted within a
few years!

(My phone's autocorrect tried to replace Futian with Durian!)

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singularity2001
There are already 100 million (!) electro scooters in use in China:

[https://www.accessmagazine.org/fall-2010/electric-two-
wheele...](https://www.accessmagazine.org/fall-2010/electric-two-wheelers-
china-promise-progress-potential/) .

This mega trend went pretty unnoticed in the West.

Can't post this often enough.

~~~
baybal2
>There are already 100 million (!) electro scooters in use in China:

Despite all big cities been keen on banning them

~~~
singularity2001
really? why?? that would be a tragic strategic mistake!

~~~
baybal2
According to the party's doctrine...

They think that mopeds are poor mans mean of transport and should not be
allowed in big cities to not to shame the country.

Every peasant should drive Benz S600 to show country's affluence to
foreigners.

I know, that's beyond schizo...

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newnewpdro
Am I wrong in thinking BYD is quite the existential threat to Tesla in the
long-term?

~~~
tim333
They seem to be targeting different ends of the market - high performance vs
cheap busses and taxis. I think Porsche and Mercedes are more direct threats.

~~~
newnewpdro
It looks like a huge missed opportunity for Tesla to not be getting all those
domestic mass transit contracts at the very least.

Tesla isn't laser focused on high-end exotic cars, look at the Tesla Semi for
example, and energy storage.

I think Tesla's existing targets are more a product of their limits to
production scale than anything else.

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doombolt
I wonder how EVs really compare to trolleybuses (tech from XX century)
pollution and money-wise?

EVs have more route flexibility, and don't need expensive infrastructure, but
they need expensive (and polluting) batteries and spend idle time charging.

The city I live in ponders EV-Trolleybus hybrid. I can routinely see them
minding their business with poles down. Still I'm not really sure if they'll
waste a lot of time manually setting it up and down and whether pure EV is a
better idea.

~~~
baybal2
Shenzhen already tried trams, they can't survive local driving etiquette at
all.

The few tram lines are all in outskirts of the city.

~~~
doombolt
Trolleybuses are not trams - you can still block them, but it takes much more
effort. With Chinese city density and love of infrastructure I would have
expected them to have a massive number of trolleybuses.

~~~
baybal2
I think they wouldn't survive either.

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cimmanom
What makes traffic loud isn’t engines. It’s the damn horns.

~~~
doombolt
It's a question of culture. I live in a country with awful driving culture,
but blaring horn is still considered very rude. Car alarms sometimes misfire,
which is more of concern.

~~~
GoMonad
Curious. Where is that?

~~~
doombolt
Russia.

