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Only if it considers the total emissions required for making and using a particular vehicle. If I buy a 10 year old civic to drive for the next 5 years, I will

by bubleh 5y ago

Only if it considers the total emissions required for making and using a particular vehicle. If I buy a 10 year old civic to drive for the next 5 years, I will be producing MUCH less emissions than what's released when building and using a brand new tesla. This will never happen though, because the virtue-signalling 'green' politicians and companies still have a bottom line which is MUCH more important for them than any real improvement.

farisjarrah 5y ago
Engineering Explained youtube channel tackled this question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2IKCdnzl5k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2IKCdnzl5k The verdict appears to be that the answer to this question is a bit more complicated then a blanket "Its better to buy a new car for the environment" but its highly dependent on gas milage and time of ownership, as well as new gas car vs new hybrid car vs new electric car. He does take into account carbon needed to build the cars too. It seems that in most cases a new EV will be better for the environment then your 10 year old honda in roughly 4 years. Skip to 6 minutes in the video for when he starts showing compiled data of when its better to buy a new car vs keep old.
- bubleh 5y ago
  The CO2 emissions of 10400 kg for producing new tesla is taken directly from tesla's own marketing materials ('impact report') and arguably highly inaccurate as admitted by the author. I'm willing to accept his revised figure of 20800kg however. Next, moving on to the pollution and externalises (besides emissions) required to produce a tesla - he correctly points out that acquiring several of the metals involves human trafficking, pollution, release of toxic chemicals, etc (he gives no useful numbers). He then moves on to state that's not a big deal because the relative weight of these metals in one car is much smaller than the total weight of the car? What a bizarre argument. > It seems that in most cases a new EV will be better for the environment then your 10 year old honda in roughly 4 years. 2011, manual, 10 year old civic, gets 29mpg not 25mpg, which even based on the bullshit numbers from tesla's marketing pamphlet means it's better for the environment to buy a 10 year old civic and drive it for 5 years. If we use more realistic numbers you can probably buy 90% of 5-10 year old car models to drive to 5 years and emit less CO2 than a new tesla. Also, people buying 10 year old civics generally already have economy and frugality in mind and aren't loaded with cash, they often don't have the option of buying a tesla. Trying to economically punish them for this is just counterproductive.

by bubleh 5y ago

farisjarrah 5y ago

Engineering Explained youtube channel tackled this question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2IKCdnzl5k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2IKCdnzl5k The verdict appears to be that the answer to this question is a bit more complicated then a blanket "Its better to buy a new car for the environment" but its highly dependent on gas milage and time of ownership, as well as new gas car vs new hybrid car vs new electric car. He does take into account carbon needed to build the cars too. It seems that in most cases a new EV will be better for the environment then your 10 year old honda in roughly 4 years. Skip to 6 minutes in the video for when he starts showing compiled data of when its better to buy a new car vs keep old.

bubleh 5y ago
The CO2 emissions of 10400 kg for producing new tesla is taken directly from tesla's own marketing materials ('impact report') and arguably highly inaccurate as admitted by the author. I'm willing to accept his revised figure of 20800kg however. Next, moving on to the pollution and externalises (besides emissions) required to produce a tesla - he correctly points out that acquiring several of the metals involves human trafficking, pollution, release of toxic chemicals, etc (he gives no useful numbers). He then moves on to state that's not a big deal because the relative weight of these metals in one car is much smaller than the total weight of the car? What a bizarre argument. > It seems that in most cases a new EV will be better for the environment then your 10 year old honda in roughly 4 years. 2011, manual, 10 year old civic, gets 29mpg not 25mpg, which even based on the bullshit numbers from tesla's marketing pamphlet means it's better for the environment to buy a 10 year old civic and drive it for 5 years. If we use more realistic numbers you can probably buy 90% of 5-10 year old car models to drive to 5 years and emit less CO2 than a new tesla. Also, people buying 10 year old civics generally already have economy and frugality in mind and aren't loaded with cash, they often don't have the option of buying a tesla. Trying to economically punish them for this is just counterproductive.