4 ms·

luxury doesn't have to mean enormous or resource intensive (in physical materials at least). a car with a well designed interior and good driving dynamics doesn

luxury doesn't have to mean enormous or resource intensive (in physical materials at least). a car with a well designed interior and good driving dynamics doesn't isn't necessarily worse for the environment than a prius.

tonyedgecombe 7y ago
The cheapest Tesla is three times the new price of the car my wife currently drives (£38,000 vs £12,500). That kind of implies the Tesla is a lot more carbon intensive than buying a cheap car, even over its lifetime.
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  Part of our trouble with climate change is that price is not strongly correlated with carbon, and our economic models are not carbon-sensitive. Cheaper does not mean "less carbon intensive", it just means presumably less demand and/or more supply of that model on the market.
  - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
    In this case it means less material in the car and less costs in the supply chain. You just need to look at the dance the price of oil and the health of the economy go through to realise money and energy are deeply intertwined. It’s not obvious to me that we can completely decouple them.
    - WorldMaker 7y ago
      Without something like carbon taxes the supply chains and economy will never correctly account for carbon because it is an externality. The price of oil itself has no correlation with carbon output. (Total production numbers might tell you something, but that is only vaguely related to price in market economics, given the competing forces of supply and demand. Total usage numbers would tell you a lot more, but isn't a statistic even tracked by economics and if it has any correlation on price depends on the type of demand [elastic versus static] whether it is following/lagging or pushing the price.) Sure money and energy can be considered intertwined, but not all energy is carbon, don't forget that as much as business tries to underprice it, a lot of the energy reflected in a supply chain is labor (which admittedly people do also produce carbon, but exhalation effort is not something I've ever seen properly reflected in someone's wages). So again: higher prices in EVs and EV supply chains absolutely does not correlate with carbon costs. EVs generally have less material because a) weight matters a lot more, and b) fewer moving parts / simpler drive trains. Price differences likely reflect other market realities such as supply/demand and things like perceived luxury.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- leetcrew 7y ago
  it's a loose correlation. a 911 gt2 rs costs about fifteen times as much as a Civic, but it's not fifteen times worse for the environment. there are SUVs that cost only 2-3x as much as a civic and are as bad or worse than the sports car.
- sandworm101 7y ago
  The tesla paradox: which reduces more carbon, buying the expensive tesla or spending that money on solar panels on your house? All in, over their lifetimes, those non-fashionable solar panels will save far more carbon than the tesla. So unless you have already maxed your solar options, the tesla is more fashion statement than "green" decision.
  - sxates 7y ago
    Either way you're reducing carbon emissions, which is good. Ideally you do both! It doesn't matter how many solar panels you have - if you're driving an ICE car you're always emitting carbon.

tonyedgecombe 7y ago

The cheapest Tesla is three times the new price of the car my wife currently drives (£38,000 vs £12,500). That kind of implies the Tesla is a lot more carbon intensive than buying a cheap car, even over its lifetime.

WorldMaker 7y ago
Part of our trouble with climate change is that price is not strongly correlated with carbon, and our economic models are not carbon-sensitive. Cheaper does not mean "less carbon intensive", it just means presumably less demand and/or more supply of that model on the market.
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  In this case it means less material in the car and less costs in the supply chain. You just need to look at the dance the price of oil and the health of the economy go through to realise money and energy are deeply intertwined. It’s not obvious to me that we can completely decouple them.
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    Without something like carbon taxes the supply chains and economy will never correctly account for carbon because it is an externality. The price of oil itself has no correlation with carbon output. (Total production numbers might tell you something, but that is only vaguely related to price in market economics, given the competing forces of supply and demand. Total usage numbers would tell you a lot more, but isn't a statistic even tracked by economics and if it has any correlation on price depends on the type of demand [elastic versus static] whether it is following/lagging or pushing the price.) Sure money and energy can be considered intertwined, but not all energy is carbon, don't forget that as much as business tries to underprice it, a lot of the energy reflected in a supply chain is labor (which admittedly people do also produce carbon, but exhalation effort is not something I've ever seen properly reflected in someone's wages). So again: higher prices in EVs and EV supply chains absolutely does not correlate with carbon costs. EVs generally have less material because a) weight matters a lot more, and b) fewer moving parts / simpler drive trains. Price differences likely reflect other market realities such as supply/demand and things like perceived luxury.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
leetcrew 7y ago
it's a loose correlation. a 911 gt2 rs costs about fifteen times as much as a Civic, but it's not fifteen times worse for the environment. there are SUVs that cost only 2-3x as much as a civic and are as bad or worse than the sports car.
sandworm101 7y ago
The tesla paradox: which reduces more carbon, buying the expensive tesla or spending that money on solar panels on your house? All in, over their lifetimes, those non-fashionable solar panels will save far more carbon than the tesla. So unless you have already maxed your solar options, the tesla is more fashion statement than "green" decision.
- sxates 7y ago
  Either way you're reducing carbon emissions, which is good. Ideally you do both! It doesn't matter how many solar panels you have - if you're driving an ICE car you're always emitting carbon.