While I agree there are issues with capitalism. I disagree this was capitalism working as intended. If it were, the better/more innovative technology (green/cheap energy) would have surpassed the worse technology (dirty energy reliant on continued investment and extraction) because as we are finally seeing, there is more money to be made with green energy than fossil fuels. Suppression of green energy took active anti-capitalist anti-competitive efforts to preserve the edge of fossil fuels.

Fossil fuel companies knew about global warming since at least the 1970s. Those companies have used their enormous wealth to reverse trends towards public transit (e.g. Los Angeles used to have street cars…), halt the green energy transition until very recently, and spread misinformation and buy politicians.

Edit: also think about how all of those oil spills, mountain top removal, air and water pollution, cancers, asthma, heart disease that were “necessary for the economy” over the past couple of decades. When instead we could have already had fully sustainable energy systems with similar economic growth. Vote for politicians willing to do something about it.

As others have said, the tech is evolving rapidly. Batteries are the biggest cost of a new EV and they are getting cheaper and better every year. There’s reasonable estimates we’ll see EVs with 500mi of range on a charge by 2026 for example.

Another thing that hasn’t been mentioned yet was how absolutely bonkers the car market was coming out of the pandemic with the “chip shortage”. There were months to years long wait lists for any type of new car, so if you wanted a car immediately it had to be used. Those wait lists are becoming resolved and the market is stabilizing.

When we went to buy our Ioniq 5 about a year ago, the comparable used EVs were scares and $35-40k compared to $45k for a brand new Ioniq. And our rusty 11 year old ICE car traded in for $6k, way more than it was worth.

EV batteries don’t typically catastrophically fail, they gradually degrade in max capacity. And many combustion cars also have expensive repairs needed near the 10-15 year mark. My Ioniq 5 has 300 miles of range now, and we really only need about 120 miles for a week of commuting for my wife. So we could afford a 50% hit before needing to do something about it, which should be quite a long while from now. We just couldn’t take it on long road trips. So at least for me, the battery replacement cost in 10-15 years is not a big concern. We’d probably lean towards replacing the the whole car before just the battery.

For comparison, our combustion car is 11 years old at this point. It’s in rough shape and could be replaced, but my commute is short. Hoping to hold off on replacing it for another ~4 years unless there’s an expensive repair needed. The EV battery tech is evolving so rapidly these days that I expect cars with 500+ miles of range will be on the market by the time we buy a second EV.

You have conservatively at least 10 years before needing to replace a battery. Even with a greater upfront cost compared to combustion cars, EVs are considerably less expensive over a 10 year period because of the lower energy and maintenance costs. The only regular maintenance most EVs should need are tire rotations and replacements of consumables like the cabin air filter, windshield wipers, brakes, and tires.

That’s only pre-2015 models without a push to start button

That only affects Kia models before 2015

It’s hard, but there are more adults in the U.S. alive today who have successfully quit smoking than currently smoke.

Check out SmokeFree.gov for free science-based resources!

Maybe you want lower back love then?

Yoga with Adrienne has a really great 10 min upper back stretch video that does wonders for me

My Hyundai Ioniq 5 has ample physical buttons on the center console, steering wheel, and door, and a physical door handle that Teslas lack. Sure there is a touch screen (smaller than industry average), but I don’t frequently use it, the buttons outside the screen are enough.

The copious amounts of sugar in our diets, antibiotics for livestock (or just factory farming in general), single-use plastics, and new pesticides/herbicides are today’s things that are “perfectly safe”…but not really.

With the exception of medicine, a big issue in the U.S. at least is that companies don’t have to proactively prove a new chemical/product is safe for the environment or public health before selling it. The EPA really only has the authority and staffing capabilities to step in once issues arise years or decades later. Just look at PFAS which are finally getting regulated decades too late.

I say outdoors. Indoors has a vibe of being human made to me, and a low likelihood of encountering wildlife. So I guess walking around a mine is indoor cave exploration

Ours was 50 amp, which seems to be pretty common for 30-36in wide cooktops

Yeah we went with the GE Profile 36in induction cooktop.

It’s more responsive than either gas or electric coils. The catch is you need pans that a fridge magnet will stick to. A trip to the thrift store with a magnet worked out for us.

The heat goes down immediately with most pans. Cast iron retains more heat though.

We went to the thrift store with a fridge magnet to buy our new pans, stainless steel lasts a long time

Love my new induction stove! Our old gas stove was leaking and could have blown up the house. We’ve noticed a lot less waste heat too, metal pan handles can be grabbed without a hot pad, the kitchen doesn’t heat up as much from cooking. And it heats up blazingly fast.

Battery powered leaf blowers are absolutely feasible. Battery tech has come along way and it takes less time to swap out a battery than fill a gas tank.

We have some similar tastes. I think you’ll like:

Borns

Florence and the Machine

Lorde’s 2021 album Solar Power

Spoon

Billy Raffoul

Hozier

Bishop Briggs

Dedicated bus lanes can have multiple times the capacity in terms of moving people compared lanes that allow cars. Say you got a six lane road in the suburbs, convert the center lanes in each direction to dedicated bus lanes, then have a small median/curb separating the bus and car lanes on both sides. This will make buses faster than cars because of the lower congestion and incentive people to use them, making car congestion go down as well, because people who would otherwise drive are now on the bus.

City Nerd has a great channel focusing on stuff like this on YouTube and Nebula