Electric vehicles would completely get rid of this problem. I doubt we will be talking about this in 10 or 15 years, though I wish the transition would occur more quickly.
> I doubt we will be talking about this in 10 or 15 years
Currently only ~2% percent of vehicles sold are electric. Going to take 10 years just to get to 50% of sales. That's not even including commercial vehicles.
TLDR - it's going to take somewhat longer than that.
Many states and countries have vowed to prohibit ICE sales by either 2030 or 2035. So eventually the choice is gone, but the tech is catching on rapidly anyways, and who wants to be the last person to by an ICE?
> Electric vehicles would completely get rid of this problem.
If the truck is 'idling' with the electricity flowing from its batteries, the pollution and climate impact is just dislocated in space and time to the power plant when the truck is charging.
If the truck is off, then there is no problem, but now ICE motors also can automatically turn off and on.
'Just' dislocating the pollution away from a dense city block at street level, where people live and work, to a power plant where emissions have less human impact and can be addressed more effectively, sounds great.
Trash collection just dislocates rotting food scraps and garbage from city streets to a landfill. I think it's an acceptable arrangement!
Trash is not a meaningful analogy, for obvious reasons. I agree there are some benefits to dislocation to the power plant, but nearly enough nor as many as just turning off the engine.
Keeping a battery or even a cab warm doesn’t require so much electricity. Also, it depends on how the electricity is generated (hydro, nuclear, coal with much better scrubbers than a small ICE). Even let’s say the electricity is generated by coal without decent scrubbers (something not allowed in the USA at least, but let’s pretend we are in Mongolia): the coal plant is still way outside of the city (in this case, Ulan Bator).
I assume the vehicles are idling to keep the heater on, or the engine warm. Also, it seems like diesel is different from unleaded gasoline in terms of what engines can do or not.
When idling an internal combustion engine burns fuel just for not stopping. This needlessly wastes fuel, causes CO2 emissions, stinks and spreads unhealthy soot blackening lungs and walls of nearby people and houses.
An EV engine just stands still. If people use power, they draw that from the battieres, however this energy is not wasted but employed for something useful.
