Nissan faces Class Action over it's "Leaf" vehicle

[Human No More]

Electric cars are a placebo. Sure, they reduce emissions per mile, but they are far more environmentally costly to manufacture to the point that only the high-mileage use cases will have a lower impact, and then only when compensated over the entire life of the vehicle, even before range and convenience (or rather, the lack of it) come into play.

Hybrids have the same problem of total impact vs. end efficiency. Honestly, I don't see these problems ever being resolved to a satisfactory level. Hybrids are a good stopgap for high usage cases, but often enough, people want to do something visible even if it has a neutral or negative impact, and this will continue until hydrogen fuel cells become viable.

Originally Posted by Exoblade

Yes, the reason american cities public transport systems are so bad is partly due to the car culture, partly due to a lack of federal transport strategy/finance and lumbering state and local planning committees that drag on your years. Even if they do develop a public transport system it will often be over-budget and won't get people out of their cars.

...and partly because of public transport's inherent flaws. Even in cities with comparatively good systems, there are always capacity problems, as anyone who's been on the Northern or District Line can tell you
It's a problem of planning - plan for future growth, and it will never be enough. Build for it from the start, and it will be too expensive and be a loss leader for a long time. In some cases, it simply becomes mismanaged and inefficient - over here, the railways are both one of the most expensive and one of the least reliable systems in the western world... but used to be worse.