CMV: Electric Vehicles aren't as bad as people make them out to be

Just wait til you try smartphones. They're pretty cool too, no physical buttons and you can browse the Internet!

EVs are dope. anyone saying they're bad is either an industry shill, someone who has never even sat in an EV, or both. I say that as someone who has owned and driven a lot of both ICE vehicles and a few EVs. EVs are far superior in almost every way.

I think the biggest thing you’re missing here is the lithium batteries, how they’re produced and the impact they have and will have if they were produced in mass to the point everyone could get one. Lithium mines are primarily in fairly poor countries and produce many environmental hazards these countries can’t really afford to contend with. The labor is largely inhumane as well. EVs are pushed as if they are a renewable replacement to fossil fuels but that isn’t really the case. It’s just trading one limited resource that negatively impacts the environment for another.

You’re probably seeing a lot of that backlash because car forums tend to be populated by people who care about the experience of driving, not just the transportation part of it. For that crowd, “soul” usually means things like engine sound, shifting gears, mechanical feel, etc., and EVs just don’t offer that in the same way. So some of the criticism is less about whether EVs are objectively good or bad, and more about them changing what people enjoy about cars. That said, a lot of the other complaints are kind of stuck in the past. The “electricity isn’t clean” argument ignores that grids generally get cleaner over time, whereas a gasoline car will always burn gasoline. Same with range anxiety. It was a real issue a decade ago, but most newer EVs already have ranges that cover the vast majority of daily driving. For most people the bigger adjustment is charging habits, not actual range. I think the reality is EVs are just another tool. They’re great for commuting, cities, and reducing local emissions. But they probably won’t completely replace every use case for internal combustion anytime soon, especially for enthusiasts or long-distance driving in areas with limited charging infrastructure. So the future probably isn’t “EVs replace everything,” but more likely EVs take over the majority of normal driving while ICE sticks around for niches and enthusiasts.

Regardless of the source of drive train, the United States would benefit from a stronger focus in public transit rather than further investment into car infrastructure. Cars can still exist alongside public transit but compared to public transit, cars are worse for the environment, less safe, and less energy efficient.

Could hit a bottleneck in lithium supply chain in the near future. It won't last long though. But no, nothing bad in EVs imho. I think first gen or 2 of EVs were just **atrociously** ugly. Newer models aren't nearly as bad, especially when they mimic "regular" cars. Early EV's, imho, were mostly about a public statement. All Tesla's were *"look at me i'm rich"* and all Prius's (hybrids tho) were, *"My wife cheats on me, but at least I save the environment"* lmfao I'd get one. It doesn't have a fancy brand. Tesla's are pretty awesome though. Granted, a lot of social media hate, but idgaf - if it drives well, it works for me. I live in the South and we got plenty of Tesla's and everyone I know who has one loves it. Once I buy a house, I will definitely look into setting up a charging station in the garage in the future. But I did buy a brand new (off the lot) VW Tiguan R 2022 in 2022, and I'm WFH, so in 4 years I only got 20k miles on it. This baby will last me a long af time. Never looked it up myself, but I've seen a few TikToks/reels talking about EV's and recent political environment - TLDR - a lot of liberals are selling EV's, so the EV market is becoming more accessible to everyone. If the infrastructure grows, I'm down for it. At the end of the day, I care about $$$, ease of use and convenience. I frankly can't even pretend to care about politics around products. If I like it - I get it. If others wanna fume and lose sleep over it, shave your head for all I care.

I used to be a massive EV hater until my wife bought a Tesla. Now we’ve been driving them for years. I’m not a “green” guy or anything they’re just genuinely great and practical daily drivers if you have home charging. You wake up every day with a “full tank” and there’s basically no maintenance. Not to mention my Tesla makes over 1,000hp, is quicker than basically every supercar, and drives me around whenever I want it to. I also own a newer F-150 and honestly it feels ancient in comparison.

>Lithium mines are primarily in fairly poor countries and produce many environmental hazards The same is true for oil extraction. The difference is that when the batteries break down, they still have all the lithium and other metals inside, so they can be recycled. We already see a very circular supply chain with lead-acid batteries being recycled. The difference is that you *cannot* recycle burnt gasoline, because its in the air.

My comment isn’t saying lithium is better or worse than crude oil. Just that it isn’t the clean alternative that is pushed nor is it the actual answer to clean energy.

Is Australia a poor country? Canada? What about China?  Chile, Argentina? Maybe. Your comment just doesn't hold true.

> the United States would benefit from a stronger focus in public transit rather than further investment into car infrastructure.  The United States is too big and too decentralized to be able to adopt majority mass transit. Also, you'd need a complete culture change as public transit is viewed by most as slow, expensive, dirty, and unsafe.

Electric cars are to damn expensive. Do you have over 10k to replace the battery when it dies, I sure as hell don't. Electric cars are also more expensive to fix when it breaks down because you have to ether go to the dealer or a specialized mechanic that knows how to fix them.

Cars are dumb. In the future we will travel around on genetically modified kangaroos.

I friggin love ev’s. I’ve had two of them. Silent, smooth as silk, brutally quick, never need to pump gas, always warmed up or cooled off, they piss people off. What’s not to love?

its not necessary to have every person stop driving cars, you just need to reduce the number of cars. We have a lot of room to improve transit within cities / metro areas without needing to vastly restructure everything. As we progress into this century, we're increasingly finding that cars just don't scale well to fit the entire transportation for large metros.

EVs are horrible for the people that need engine noise to compensate for their lack of masculinity EVs are horrible for petroleum companies looking to keep making record profits EVs are horrible for automakers like Toyota that has simply sunk too much money in the development of hybrid systems EVs are horrible for fake enthusiasts and anti-car people

> We have a lot of room to improve transit within cities / metro areas without needing to vastly restructure everything. Oh? I'm interested to hear what you have in mind. My city took decades and hundreds of millions of dollars to build light rail whose operating costs must be subsidized because no one uses it except the homeless. A couple of years ago we started having electric scooters appear on every corner, but no one used them, so they went away. We have busses like every major city, but no one who owns a car would ever choose to use one. I live in the suburbs for from my work. And I literally can't conveive of mass transit that could possibly replace my car.

Why would there be a bottleneck in lithium supply? There’s loads in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, US… even in Europe. And even if there is, sodium could very well replace lithium for some use cases.

EVs are dope man. I just hope that they become more affordable. Like to the point were you could buy a reliable one for the same price as a toyota yaris or a Susuki swift.

You would LITERALLY have to pay me thousands, maybe tens of thousands to make me go back to a gas car. Electric is that much better. Almost all the opponents of it are people who have never tried it in their daily lives with an appropriate setup. Home charging + EV for a normal lifestyle is VASTLY better than a gas car.

Huh? Most lithium comes from Australia, Canada, Chile, China and Argentina. Middle income countries at worst. It’s not really dirtier than other hard rock mining, and for the brine based mining… it usually done like old school salt mining, evaporation in shallow ponds, although there are more modern processes being developed.

To be frank, EVs drive better. The torque is better, the power doesn't fall off, the only "soul" that's missing is that people have an anachronistic connection to a powerful car being LOUD and shaking a lot, and the torque curve sucking enough that you have to rack through 5 or 6 gears to get up to speed. That's fucking wild. And it will be seen in the same vein as people who really were opposed to "them fancy automobiles" when having an intimate personal relationship with a horse was the most stately form of transportation.

I hear this constantly. So many people are just afraid of change and/or have a political mindset that makes them want to see it as negative because of "damn liberals" or whatever. My friend lives in Norway and nearly 100% of new cars (actually 96% last month) are EVs. People there just don't understand why Americans are so stuck in the past. And it's becoming a very "American" thing to refuse to change... that's a bit unfortunate because America got to where it is today as a world leader in basically everything by being the opposite... being the first to be willing to change while the stodgy Europeans refused to change and the rest of the world was too poor to do so. It's a tiny bit sad watching the US shoot itself in the foot over and over again due to this mindset, while everyone else overtakes.

Too expensive? Cheapest one in AU right now is $25k aud or so. All cars have gotten expensive. And the battery is likely to last the lifetime of the car. Not like you have to change it every 5 years. And there’s way less moving parts in them too - less likely to break.

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It’s not that hard, make the car more expensive to drive ( aka not subsidize fuel and infrastructure as much as we do) and use the money to invest in public transport

To be perfectly honest, the Tesla Model S was one of the best car designs of the last decade. This is a 14 year old car: [https://media-r2.carsandbids.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=2080,quality=70/7a0a3c6148108c9c64425dd85e0181fa3cccb652/photos/3BOPnaX4-uBY2ZGzc8r-(edit).jpg?t=170910977819](https://media-r2.carsandbids.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=2080,quality=70/7a0a3c6148108c9c64425dd85e0181fa3cccb652/photos/3BOPnaX4-uBY2ZGzc8r-(edit).jpg?t=170910977819)

Well if you dug alil deeper instead of just relying on what I assume is some sort of AI like Google you’d see I would be referring to the cheap labor and inhumane conditions of African mines and miners which where notable ev producers are acquiring lithium for cheaper then the alternatives.

I’m an EV hater because it’s going to completely tank the used car and maintenance markets in a major way. The whole car is just one battery, then maintenance is just sending it back to the manufacturer unless it’s a suspension or whatever issue. Makes us more reliant on corporations

Africa [is not a significant producer of lithium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_lithium_production).

I thought the same until I got an EV. Now I wouldn't go back to petrol cars. People are afraid of things that they don't understand.

Environment: They truly are not much better (even potentially worse) for the environment. Cobalt mining presents huge human rights issues. Batteries, while recyclable, aren’t always recycled. A newer electric car that crashes has no opportunity to offset the environmental damage of mining the minerals required for production of a battery, let alone the shipping via oil powered ship to produce then deliver said battery. Electric cars use up tires faster which are almost always disposed of by burning in open air in a third world country. Range anxiety: For people with no ability to charge at home (or work) and no secondary gas vehicle for long trips this is a real issue. Some people who live in cities and don’t go far, sure, charging once a week is a non issue, but that isn’t the case for most people. The actual car itself: They’re phenomenal. I had a tesla, very fun and nice car. The soulless thing is true though. Sure it was faster off the line than the vast majority of cars, but at freeway speed it wasn’t that crazy. Driving it fast around corners felt great but also terrifying at the same time, you can really feel the weight and that makes throwing it into a corner scary. It is worth noting they are very safe too (unless a crash incapacitates you and starts a battery fire). My thoughts: Battery tech needs to get better and we need to address the very real environmental destruction as well as human rights issues. A modern gas car produces very little emissions and if we stop with the ethanol nonsense they will last longer and get better mpg and allow us to replace corn fields with trees to offset carbon footprint. Unless something bad happens the act of pumping oil isn’t bad for the environment in comparison so strip mining for minerals. Battery weight increasing car weight and therefore tire wear should be accounted for in that discussion more often. These vehicles also tend to be more expensive on top of the charging inconvenience, which is not a great value proposition. Edit: I’m not arguing that once assembled an ev is worse for the environment, I’m taking into consideration the manufacturing and mining as well. Toyota agrees, and you’ll find most studies that show EVs being better don’t account for anything except emissions, which is just one favtor of environmental damage. Sorry this hurts so many people’s feelings but it is just reality with current battery tech.

Given focus, majority mass transit would be reasonably achievable. The majority people live in metro areas, and very few of those people travel between metros for their daily needs The obstacles, decentralization and size, are minimized if building from the inside outwards, diverting investment to individual population centers. The area to cover would be a small portion of the USA’s land. Most of the rest is sparsely populated or empty On the possibility of connecting metros, we have already done it between some on the coasts. They’re just not very good, because we do not invest in them I do agree the culture change required to support plans to improve is a big barrier, and there I do not know. Mass transit is incredibly feasible if “we” make the choice, but getting to that decision is a tough climb

Correct. However notable EV companies like Elons Tesla flock to African sourced materials because they’re cheaper. It’s irrelevant to my point that they only produce a couple % of the world’s supply.

>It’s irrelevant to my point that they only produce a couple % of the world’s supply You said "Lithium mines are *primarily* in fairly poor countries". "Primarily" implies that the proportion is relevant. As well, if you look at any supply chain hard enough, you'll find someone somewhere who's getting hosed. That's why it's important to look at their production conditions in aggregate instead.

Public transit is great for urban areas, yes. Some investment into extending transit to suburbia might help. But the US sailed that ship a long time ago. Denver is a great example here. Denver spent like $50b to build rail lines in every cardinal direction into every major suburb. Now the ridership is so low, there's a ton of debate on what to do with all the transit. "Empty trains" is the headline. That's because the cities were already built... they had low-density suburbs and just sticking trains in them turns out to be a really bad development plan. So.. it's more than just "build public transit". I was also curious about HSR (high speed rail). I wrote some software that took maps and populations for metro areas and ran them on Europe and China and developed a model on how "connected" two cities population centers needed to be to justify HSR between them. Once it was tuned, it accurately predicted the China and Europe and Japan HSR. Running the same model on the US connects east coast cities. Boston - NYC - DC, it connects those to the Great Lakes Corridor Chicago-Detroit-Toronto-Montreal. Those two corridors may be interconnected with the east coast corridor from NYC via either Buffalo (to Toronto) or through Cleveland to Detroit/Chicago lines, but really not much more. Then it had a tenuous link from DC to Atlanta via Charlotte... but that was kind of borderline. There was also a Portland - Seattle - Vancouver line and a SF-LA-SD line. And a somewhat tenuous "texas triangle" with the 4 major cities of texas. And that's it. That's the only HSR that was supported by existing population densities. A full national interconnect just isn't that supported by population densities, even at the build thresholds of China (which heavily subsidizes some lines). Just a caution when discussing transit in the US. And do keep in mind I've bee an advocate for transit and lived in one of the rare places outside NYC with a "walkscore" and a "transit score" each above 98. Been there, done that, enjoyed it but also saw its flaws. Fixing the "car centric" nature of many cities is a multi-generational issue at this point... so electric and self-driving cars are a FUNDAMENTAL part of that solution.

Last time I checked there were just a few smaller operational lithium mines in all of Africa, mostly in Zimbabwe. The risk is a lot higher there (as some people who invested in ventures in the Sahel found out, the hard way) which makes it less attractive to investors. There might be a couple more now, and there are quite a few projects that might or might not go live, but it’s not a substantial portion of global lithium production.

I think your finding a selection bias, of people who want to work on cars but with electronics and batteries it is much tougher. That said I do think m electric cars still have a ways to go, hopefully the range of batteries can keep improving and issues around fires and such can be addressed.

This I'm not against ev persay but manuals are just to fun to drive that if I got an EV I would still keep a manual as well

Wouldn't it be helpful to provide examples of what you're talking about? You're asking people hear to convince you that some evaluations you've seen are wrong but we're only getting them second hand.

> They truly are not much better (even potentially worse) for the environment This [wasn't true with the Prius nineteen years ago](https://np.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/2kou6r/does_anyone_know_what_happens_to_the_batteries/clnlkue/), and it's [not true with EVs now](https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2022-09/driving-cleaner-report.pdf).

Electric cars are generally extremely anti right to repair. Yes many new ICE vehicles are too but EV's tend to be by far the worse offenders.

Colbalt and lithium is mined with child slaves. It poisons the ground and water for miles around the mines. There are more ways to destroy the environment then emissions.

Cars are transportation, I prefer if I'm comfortable but that's not primary. I don't enjoy the act of driving anymore, so I don't give a shit about soul. I like the per mile price of electricity. Otherwise it's a car.

> Colbalt and lithium is mined with child slaves Lithium isn't. And at least EVs can use LFP batteries that don't use any cobalt - gas cars, meanwhile, are stuck consuming cobalt for desulfurizing gasoline. >It poisons the ground and water for miles around the mines. There are more ways to destroy the environment then emissions Even if you define environmental impact in terms of harm to human health, resource quality loss, and ecosystem diversity loss to account for environmental impacts not adequately portrayed by emissions, EVs [are still better for the environment than ICE vehicles](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/es903729a).

It's also why carmakers are experimenting with fake engine noises played over the stereo and fake gear shifters with software that mimics the feel of losing torque as you shift gears. Whether those experiments will bring in any of those people who have made up their mind about EVs without alienating those of us who are already with it remains to be seen.

Electric cars also have a low centre of gravity so they handle better.

An electric car is still a car, right? It just has an electric drivetrain instead of an internal combustion one. But all of the other parts and systems are pretty much the same.

Brave of you to think today's youths can afford a $60K+ car AND a house to charge at.

If my starter on my ICE car breaks, I can get one for around $200. If my engine blows I can get another one for about $4-6K and install it myself. Repairs on ICE vehicles (exception for high end exotics), will be cheaper and is doable by the owner

Study after study has consistently shown that unless your power grid runs on basically nothing but coal, the environmental impact of an EV is dramatically less than an ICE car.

>They truly are not much better (even potentially worse) for the environment. Utter nonsense. Unless you're grid is running on straight coal or something EVs will always beat out ICE vehicles.

Who mentioned youths affording it? And not all EVs cost $60k. You can get a used one for $10-$15k.

What is this, nobody here trying to change OPs view? Yes, EVs have certain benefits over ICE, but there are also plenty of cons to EVs as well: - Unless you have your own charger at home, they're incredibly time consuming to charge. - The more electric vehicles there are, the more (public) chargers you need. Look at how many electric chargers your average parking has? 2, 5, 12. Compared to the 100s of parking spaces. Countries with more electric cars you already notice that you have to search longer or wait longer for an electric charging spot - It is not realistic to put down enough chargers everywhere for everyone. Think about large apartment complexes, or places where there is only street parking available. The infrastructure of electric cars just doesn't scale that well. - Financially, electric cars depreciate quicker in value due to their battery, they are harder to repair and therefore more expensive to repair when something is broken. Electric cars are relatively quickly considered "totalled" when there is an accident, and are more expensive to insure.

>Who mentioned youths affording it? So they're meant to steal an EV, to own an EV you would have to aquire one first. (I would hope this was common sense) What's the battery life on a used one? Just because you can get a used one, if the battery life is trash it's a worthless investment. Just like it's not logical to buy an ICE car with 500,000 miles and unknown history on it.

How about the lithium ion batteries?

Lithium has fallen in price by 75% since it's 5-year price peak a few years ago. Add to that the lithium-free Na-Ion batteries hitting the market now are setting an upper limit on the price of lithium.

People who hate on EVs have never owned EVs. If EVs had been invented before the combustion engine there would never have been ICE cars.

Do you think that EVs are somehow put together differently? The parts I buy for my Tesla get installed in the same garage and with the same tools as my old BMW. The former has fewer moving parts than the latter so I don't have to do it nearly as often.

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I can replace the starter myself, I buy it at AutoZone for $200, then I buy a 6 pack and spend a hr yelling and cussing at my car until it's fixed. Does Tesla sell parts to the consumer directly? Does AutoZone sell Tesla parts? I can cut out a major markup on installation, by doing it myself. Even some newer ICE cars aren't consumer friendly. Rich Benoit, look him up, tried to get parts from Tesla to fix his car, they refused so he just V8 swapped it. I just bought a new transmission for my 99 Skyline a few years ago from Nissan, if they have the parts they'll sell me anything.

It's Tesla specifically.

EVs would be more attractive if they ... 1) Worked better in cold environments 2) Right to repair: if only they were more friendly to enthusiasts being able to work on them and mod them. They took the Silicon Valley Tech mindset and made you feel like you never OWN your car. 3) Privacy issues: we're not corporate spyware on 4 wheels. While this also applies to new ICE cars, a lot of folks, myself included, just buy older cars which tend to be ICE

I enjoy driving. EVs drive so much better in every way. If people want loud noises they can play engine sounds over the stereo xD

Agree. That was a crazy peak though and not reflective of the long term price. Lithium is better for cars (higher performance ones at least), but yes there’s loads of use cases where Na-Ion works just as well. Home batteries for example.

I'm not sure right now, but I believe the electric car introduction approach the last 10 ish years was a complete mess and a mistake. Toyota is now behind the times and lagging, but their original idea was that we shouldn't push electric cars as much, we should be pushing hybrids, then PHEV, then electric, as the tech matures. Electric car batteries had so many design issues due to trying to scale up size and design, etc. I cringe to think how many Nissan Leafs and other early gen electric cars ended up in the landfill after barely any miles, all the while we were claiming to be environmental, and subsidizing primarily mid-upper class people that could afford a second car (most people weren't getting electric as their only car, partly due to early reliability, partly due to range). Just to do napkin math, a Rav4 in gas only is $3-4k cheaper than hybrid. If we had instead subsidized $2k per person for hybrids and $4k for PHEV instead of $7k for full electric, I think the actual environmental impact reduction would have been much higher. You can build like 7 hybrids with the lithium needed for one electric car. Early battery failures would have been much more iteratable on smaller batteries vs just totaling the whole car. The PHEV to full electric would have just been a matter of scaling up the battery tech and battery size over time.

The prius is a hybrid built by Toyota who themselves argue EVs are worse for the environment than ICE cars, so not the best example.

I remember reading about the V8 Tesla, but I don't really know the situation behind it. I just bought suspension parts for my car directly from Tesla a few weeks ago and it was fine. They even make the service manual available for free, which is unusual but in a good way. > Even some newer ICE cars aren't consumer friendly. That's basically the point I was eventually going to arrive at: the valid complaints you have about affordability and repairability are industry-wide.

Charging an EV isn’t the only consideration in environmental damage. Look up the mineral mining and battery assembly process.

It still comes out ahead.

Your arguments about charging availability have more to do with greed and public policy failure than the tech itself. After all, electricity is already everywhere.

On Tesla’s website you can order parts and any tools needed and have them delivered. They provide many maintenance manuals. From beginner to expert. They even have a section for if you would like to add repairing and servicing Teslas to your current business garage. Also EVs have 20-25 moving parts in the drivetrain. ICE cars have 200-2000 moving parts in their drivetrain.

I have both atm. And honestly they are both fun in different ways. I like the sound and the feel of a gear change and turbo spooling up. But I also like the feel of being pushed into my seat by a clean linear acceleration, and the comfort of silence on a long drive. Both cars are equally fast to 100kph, but the EV feels faster where it matters - pulling out into traffic. In saying that I'm pretty rare in that I own a very small EV so the weight isn't all that much and it is much more nimble than the SUV EVs I've driven. Those drive like ass, but then so do ICE crossovers and SUVs.

Norway is probably one of the countries that use them the most despite our cold. 95% of new personal vehicles registered were EVs in 2025. About half on the road are electric.

In many cases they're basically not economical. Compare a full electric vehicle to something like a hybrid (or better yet, a plug-in hybrid). Let's compare, as an example, the Hyundai Ioniq 6 (a sedan) with the Hyundai Elantra. The Ioniq 6 costs approximately $0.03 per mile to drive. The Elantra Hybrid costs about $0.05 to drive in its Blue trim. Sounds great, no? Well, there's a caveat here. EVs cost *a lot* more than hybrids. An Ioniq 6 has a starting MSRP of about $40,000. The Elantra Blue hybrid starts at about $23,000. How many miles would you have to drive the Ioniq 6 before you save money on its costs relative to the Elantra? Well, turns out the average driver (who drives about 14,000 miles per year) would reach the break-even point after about a decade of driving. Nearly 2/3 of Americans keep their cars for *five years or less* before upgrading to a new one. So in this respect it doesn't actually make a ton of economical sense to buy the much more premium EV when you could instead just... get a hybrid, not have to worry about things like range or charging availability, and save a lot of money in the timeframe that the average driver will have their car before upgrading.

But most grids are not designed for a high amount of extra EV consumers.

Imagine how people complained when horses were replaced by cars. They were noisy, broke all the time, needed gas, were expensive, and had no soul.

I can’t tow a 5500lbs trailer for several hundred miles without a recharge with an EV. I’d legitimately love to, but they just can’t do what I need.

>It is not realistic to put down enough chargers everywhere for everyone. This is just wrong. Most people will do fine with level 1 charging (i.e., literally just an extension cord to a regular outlet) which takes 12+ hours for a full charge, but most people simply don't drive enough on a daily basis to need to charge that much. They just need to plug in overnight a couple nights a week.  This is a problem for apartment complexes with only on-street parking, I'll give you that. But it is obviously quite solveable for buildings with garages or parking lots.  Furthermore there is level 2 charging, which on my car takes 6 hours to charge to full. This is relatively cheap and easy to install and it would be very simple for building owners to install one or two of these with a metered connection. They don't use high voltage so most buildings could install them right now. In my city the electricity company has stuck one of these on nearly every distribution substation so they're already pretty easy to find. The average person could probably get away with charging on one of these for a couple hours each week.

Keep in mind that lots of forum posts etc are bots, trolls, engagement accounts, propaganda etc.  They spread out fake opposition to a topic, making it seem those topics are more controversial than they really are. How does that compare to people you talk with in-person? Online 'haters' may heatedly rant about it, most people I see in real life are just indifferent about electric cars.