EVs aren't going to save us

There's another oil war, thousands of innocent people have been killed, and "electric vehicle" are the words on everyone's tongue.

The discourse around the rising cost of oil has me feeling like I've died and ended up in the stupidest hell imaginable.

What is replacing internal combustion engine vehicles with EVs supposed to solve, and over what timescale?

In the short-term, we're going to run out of EVs to buy in the first place. And how do we get more? By shipping them here in boats fuelled by...?

The only people who will be able to make the switch are people with either the money or access to finance to buy a new car. Everyone else? Good luck.

And in the long-term, what have we accomplished? We've pasted EVs over the petrol cars in our current disastrous model of development.

Putting the places people live, the places they work, and the places they play all in completely separate areas is terribly inefficient, as it turns out. It's also expensive, if you care about that sort of thing.

There are a lot of practical and financial issues with the way we build our environment now: it ties people to car ownership, it creates a lot of unnecessary travel, it makes flooding worse by covering excess amounts of permeable land, it makes public transport more expensive and ineffective, it maximises destruction of the environment, and I could go on (and I mean that: ask any of my friends; they'll tell you).

My personal issues with the way we build are less tangible: the way we build our cities and neighbourhoods isn't just making us sick from fumes, particulates, noise pollution, light pollution–it's making us spiritually sick. We're alienated from each other: living, working, and moving around in our little isolation pods. We treat the environment we're all part of like it's something to control, to block out. "I am sovereign! No rain shall intrude on me!"

Changing our model of development to be sustainable, to be healthy, to be beautiful–it'll take time, sure. But valuable changes can be made more quickly than they'd like you to believe.

But what can we do now? Like, right now? Some people will buy EVs, and good for them. But you know what's better than a petrol car trip replaced with a trip by EV? A car trip displaced altogether.

The government could make public transport free overnight, if they wanted to. Every person on the cusp of driving and public transport would immediately have the choice made for them. Why pay to upgrade to an EV if you hardly need to drive?

In the short-term, low-traffic neighbourhoods can be built by just blocking off some streets. Let's let kids take themselves to school. Then we can start to build out cycle networks, bus lanes, better footpaths–call them Streets of National Significance.

Investment in rail is obviously a must. Even trains powered by fossil fuels are an improvement over long-distance trucking–not just using less fuel, but demanding less petroleum-based products for road repair.

One of the first things I'd do, if I were keen not to waste a crisis, is to ban greenfield development. It's a tragedy to needlessly concrete over so much land, and the last thing we need in an oil crisis is a bunch more car-centric development. Once we've learned how to properly utilise all the land we've already covered up, then we can be trusted with new development.

I feel like I'm beginning to write a policy statement here. My point is this:

Petrol car or EV–you're not going to have a chance encounter with a friend in your isolated box.

Petrol car or EV–motor vehicles demand an inordinate amount of space that can only be accommodated by destroying the spaces we live in.

Petrol car or EV–when grandma drives over a traffic island, they're going to take her keys away.

Petrol car or EV–when a child is killed, a family grieves.

Our problem isn't what we're driving–it's what our built environment is driving us to do.