> it stinks. > it's toxic. > it's too noisy.
These three points affect anyone who lives near heavy automobile traffic. Just because it's an externality doesn't mean it doesn't exist!
I live near a heavily trafficked road. To be honest these aren't problems; the noise issue is far outweighed by a) people playing uber-loud music on their car stereo (not any different with electric cars) and the noise of the electric train (BART) that runs above the road.
As an example of the externalities of gasoline, living near a highway has been shown to have high correlation with the incidence of childhood asthma hospitalizations.
Fair enough about stink and noise, but personal experience really isn't good for judging toxicity. Automobile-related pollution is a pretty big deal, but it manifests as large-scale health changes, not immediate personal changes.
Well, yes, if there's a train right by the road, of course it will be louder. A train is one of the noisiest things you can have around. That's hardly a point in favor of gas cars. This seems a bit like trying to demonstrate that eating a bucket of deep-fried twinkies isn't so bad for you by comparing it to a bottle of bleach.
(too late to edit the parent) I didn't so much want to defend gasoline cars, as to observe that the externalities are much less of a burden nowadays than people might expect. I was surprised by this myself, but then vehicles in California are orders of magnitude cleaner than the cars I grew up with.
I live near a heavily trafficked road. To be honest these aren't problems; the noise issue is far outweighed by a) people playing uber-loud music on their car stereo (not any different with electric cars) and the noise of the electric train (BART) that runs above the road.