3 ms·

The impact Tesla has on climate change is so small as to be complete negligible. Electric cars are entirely insufficient, and we need to move past this rhetori

The impact Tesla has on climate change is so small as to be complete negligible. Electric cars are entirely insufficient, and we need to move past this rhetoric to actually get anything done.

walkhour 4y ago
Maybe you're right, but EV is definitely the direction USA is going [0]: > The president is restoring and strengthening tailpipe emissions regulations from the Obama era and has set a target that half of all vehicles sold in the United States be electric by 2030. So you would think the press has a favorable opinion of him, at least when it comes to climate change. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/05/climate/biden-tailpipe-emissions-electric-vehicles.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/05/climate/biden-tailpipe-em...
- kieselguhr_kid 4y ago
  Why would they have a favorable opinion of him? They mostly live for sensation and Musk as villain gets a lot of clicks. Defending his labor practices on the notion that he's a climate savior when even cursory research disproves that seems ridiculous to me.
  - walkhour 4y ago
    I agree, it seems ridiculous to me as well, who has defended his labor practices on the notion he's a climate savior? Can you quote or provide an article link?
- viraptor 4y ago
  Everyone's going in that direction and scheduling the end of ICE sales. Tesla started first and they got lots of good press at the time. Now they aren't doing many new things in that area beyond fighting over the autopilot-that-isn't. They get noticed when they actually do something newsworthy https://thedriven.io/2022/05/11/musk-says-tesla-superchargers-around-world-will-be-open-to-other-evs/ https://thedriven.io/2022/05/11/musk-says-tesla-supercharger... but otherwise... what do you expect news outlets to care about? "Musk is still doing X after N years" is not great material.
geertj 4y ago
> The impact Tesla has on climate change is so small as to be complete negligible. How are you defining impact? I think it's reasonable to conclude that Tesla caused the global move away from IC cars to EVs. According to the EPA, 27% of carbon emissions are from transportation [1]. I realize that there's other types of transportation than cars included in that number, that we still need to generate the electricity in a carbon neutral way (Tesla is contributing here as well), and that we also need to address the other 73%. The only way I can see your comment to be true is if you narrowly look at the number of Tesla cars that are exclusively powered by solar today. But that's a very narrow view that misses the broader picture entirely. [1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...
- danaris 4y ago
  > I think it's reasonable to conclude that Tesla caused the global move away from IC cars to EVs. I agree—but that's "caused", past tense. The shift has begun and is continuing, and Tesla no longer has much influence on it. If every one of Musk's companies went belly-up tomorrow, the fight against climate change would not be harmed.
- threeseed 4y ago
  > I think it's reasonable to conclude that Tesla caused the global move away from IC cars to EVs No it's not. EU regulations are arguably more responsible. They forced all car manufacturers to transition to EVs.
  - geertj 4y ago
    > They forced all car manufacturers to transition to EVs. That happened after Tesla had proven the model though, primarily that you can build an EV that has sufficient range and that people find desirable.
dijit 4y ago
> The impact Tesla has on climate change is so small as to be complete negligible Agree, but before Tesla electric cars were quite niche, now they're mainstream. One could probably argue that this is unrelated but there seems to be some correlation at least, That the cars themselves are negligible is a bit unfair, Electric cars allow you to use renewable energies instead of fossil fuels- its a huge amount of energy consumed by transportation. Demand for EV car infrastructure is higher now and once built benefits everyone. Is public transport better- undoubtedly, but Americans have infrastructured their way into a corner- they seem to fundamentally require cars for day-to-day operations and continue to make choices that force car dependence. Space travel (in a similar way) is still needed, not just to get off this planet when we kill it (which I don't agree is a goal based in reality) but because there's absurd amounts of resources in the universe and some of it wizzes by us constantly.
- skyfaller 4y ago
  A point that I made in a much longer comment is that Elon Musk seems to be applying pressure to maintain our society's car dependence. So it's not just him making the best of a bad infrastructure situation, he is contributing to keeping the infrastructure terrible.
CryptoPunk 4y ago
7952 4y ago
Sometimes you are just a small part of a global movement. I doubt any single company Will ever move the dial much by itself. But you should still try.
ETH_start 4y ago
Switching to electric vehicles is a very significant part of combating climate change, without which there is no hope of achieving zero carbon, and no company has done more to make that happen than Tesla. Minimizing how significant Tesla's contribution to reducing CO2 emissions has been relative to other carmakers', and in fact, relative to any other single company, is not an honest way of evaluating its impact on the world, and suggests to me a motivation unrelated to environmentalism behind it.

The impact Tesla has on climate change is so small as to be complete negligible. Electric cars are entirely insufficient, and we need to move past this rhetoric to actually get anything done.

walkhour 4y ago

Maybe you're right, but EV is definitely the direction USA is going [0]: > The president is restoring and strengthening tailpipe emissions regulations from the Obama era and has set a target that half of all vehicles sold in the United States be electric by 2030. So you would think the press has a favorable opinion of him, at least when it comes to climate change. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/05/climate/biden-tailpipe-emissions-electric-vehicles.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/05/climate/biden-tailpipe-em...

kieselguhr_kid 4y ago
Why would they have a favorable opinion of him? They mostly live for sensation and Musk as villain gets a lot of clicks. Defending his labor practices on the notion that he's a climate savior when even cursory research disproves that seems ridiculous to me.
- walkhour 4y ago
  I agree, it seems ridiculous to me as well, who has defended his labor practices on the notion he's a climate savior? Can you quote or provide an article link?
viraptor 4y ago
Everyone's going in that direction and scheduling the end of ICE sales. Tesla started first and they got lots of good press at the time. Now they aren't doing many new things in that area beyond fighting over the autopilot-that-isn't. They get noticed when they actually do something newsworthy https://thedriven.io/2022/05/11/musk-says-tesla-superchargers-around-world-will-be-open-to-other-evs/ https://thedriven.io/2022/05/11/musk-says-tesla-supercharger... but otherwise... what do you expect news outlets to care about? "Musk is still doing X after N years" is not great material.

geertj 4y ago

> The impact Tesla has on climate change is so small as to be complete negligible. How are you defining impact? I think it's reasonable to conclude that Tesla caused the global move away from IC cars to EVs. According to the EPA, 27% of carbon emissions are from transportation [1]. I realize that there's other types of transportation than cars included in that number, that we still need to generate the electricity in a carbon neutral way (Tesla is contributing here as well), and that we also need to address the other 73%. The only way I can see your comment to be true is if you narrowly look at the number of Tesla cars that are exclusively powered by solar today. But that's a very narrow view that misses the broader picture entirely. [1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...

danaris 4y ago
> I think it's reasonable to conclude that Tesla caused the global move away from IC cars to EVs. I agree—but that's "caused", past tense. The shift has begun and is continuing, and Tesla no longer has much influence on it. If every one of Musk's companies went belly-up tomorrow, the fight against climate change would not be harmed.
threeseed 4y ago
> I think it's reasonable to conclude that Tesla caused the global move away from IC cars to EVs No it's not. EU regulations are arguably more responsible. They forced all car manufacturers to transition to EVs.
- geertj 4y ago
  > They forced all car manufacturers to transition to EVs. That happened after Tesla had proven the model though, primarily that you can build an EV that has sufficient range and that people find desirable.

dijit 4y ago

> The impact Tesla has on climate change is so small as to be complete negligible Agree, but before Tesla electric cars were quite niche, now they're mainstream. One could probably argue that this is unrelated but there seems to be some correlation at least, That the cars themselves are negligible is a bit unfair, Electric cars allow you to use renewable energies instead of fossil fuels- its a huge amount of energy consumed by transportation. Demand for EV car infrastructure is higher now and once built benefits everyone. Is public transport better- undoubtedly, but Americans have infrastructured their way into a corner- they seem to fundamentally require cars for day-to-day operations and continue to make choices that force car dependence. Space travel (in a similar way) is still needed, not just to get off this planet when we kill it (which I don't agree is a goal based in reality) but because there's absurd amounts of resources in the universe and some of it wizzes by us constantly.

skyfaller 4y ago
A point that I made in a much longer comment is that Elon Musk seems to be applying pressure to maintain our society's car dependence. So it's not just him making the best of a bad infrastructure situation, he is contributing to keeping the infrastructure terrible.

CryptoPunk 4y ago

7952 4y ago

Sometimes you are just a small part of a global movement. I doubt any single company Will ever move the dial much by itself. But you should still try.

ETH_start 4y ago

Switching to electric vehicles is a very significant part of combating climate change, without which there is no hope of achieving zero carbon, and no company has done more to make that happen than Tesla. Minimizing how significant Tesla's contribution to reducing CO2 emissions has been relative to other carmakers', and in fact, relative to any other single company, is not an honest way of evaluating its impact on the world, and suggests to me a motivation unrelated to environmentalism behind it.