6 ms·

also Tesla is only average for the automotive industry which is mind-boggling.

andrepd 4y ago
Well why shouldn't they be? Most major auto makers are phasing out development of new ICE drivetrains, and phasing out ICE manufacturing altogether. Meanwhile Tesla is certainly not without criticism.
- gnarbarian 4y ago
  >plans to phase out vs >never offered and never will offer isn't that criticism political in nature?
  - SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
    YMMV on exactly what counts as "political", but I can easily imagine someone having an honest, good faith belief that investing in Toyota's transition to EVs is just as good for the planet as investing in Tesla's from-scratch EVs.
baobob 4y ago
> To manufacture each EV battery, you must process > 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium > 30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt > 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, 25,000 pounds of ore for copper > Digging up 500,000 pounds of the earth's crust > For just - one - battery. https://twitter.com/brianroemmele/status/1503176565974216710 https://twitter.com/brianroemmele/status/1503176565974216710 Would appreciate a fact check if this is anyone's business here
- gnarbarian 4y ago
  They can be recycled once we have a large install base
  - washbrain 4y ago
    Can they? I've seen people make this claim, but I've not seen it actually substantiated. Who has successfully recycled one, what was their yield, what was the cost?
    - gnarbarian 4y ago
      https://www.tesla.com/support/sustainability-recycling https://www.tesla.com/support/sustainability-recycling already happening
      - washbrain 4y ago
        Cool! What are their yields? What are their costs?
    - jjoonathan 4y ago
      The techniques that separate lithium from ore are extreme overkill for separating lithium from dead batteries. Recycling lithium is like mining lithium on easy mode: better yield and cost. If an EV can justify the raw resource extraction within one car lifetime -- and it can, handily -- it justifies the recycling. We should expect recycling to be (average EV lifetime) behind on the scale curve, though, which will make it a prime source for anti-EV talking points until the market saturates in a decade or two. > washbrain Ha, nice try.
  - joosters 4y ago
    i.e. they can't be recycled now. We judge companies on their actions now, not on what they might do, or might be possible in the future.
    - gnarbarian 4y ago
      as I mentioned above it's already happening https://www.tesla.com/support/sustainability-recycling https://www.tesla.com/support/sustainability-recycling already happening
- jjoonathan 4y ago
  Lithium is storage. You dig it up once. Then you recharge and recharge and, eventually, recycle it. You never emit it into the atmosphere. Petrol is fuel. You dig it up and burn it into the atmosphere again and again and again for every mile you drive.
- Robin_Message 4y ago
  My rough and ready sums put 30,000 pounds of petrol through the lifetime of an average ICE car. Meanwhile, I see numbers like this a lot and they always seem to trend high. You're talking 250 tons of ores to make perhaps 250-1000kg of the car; an efficiency of between 0.1 and 0.4 percent over some pretty straightforward, widely available ores. That doesn't really stack up with the numbers you get if you look at the efficiency of commercial ores for those minerals. So I think the mining is comparable between battery and petrol, but as others point out, you can recycle the battery; the petrol had become problematic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If nothing else, you could grind up the batteries and treat them as ore for any single one of the minerals used, and by your numbers you'd be way better off.
  - DeRock 4y ago
    > My rough and ready sums put 30,000 pounds of petrol through the lifetime of an average ICE car. My calculation shows ~50,000 pounds. 200,000 mile lifetime at 25 MPG = 8000 gallons * 6.30 pounds/gallon fuel density[0] = 50,400 Also keep in mind that gasoline is a refined product. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline#Density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline#Density)
- sigma_ligma 4y ago
  This is basically just an appeal to big numbers. "500,000 pounds? That's a lot! ICE cars must certainly be less polluting. I mean, just look at the numbers: you have to dig up FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS of Earth's crust! FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND! That's HALF A MILLION!" Proper comparisons look at both sides.
cardanome 4y ago
A electric cars are mostly a luxury item for rich people to feel better. Not sure why you think Tesla should have a good rating. They are harmful in that they are actively distracting from the proper solution: that people shouldn't have private cars. The environmental cost to produce car, the space they take up in the cities, in the end private car ownership can not be made sustainable even if they run on electric. Tech wont solve the climate crisis, only societal change will.
- gnarbarian 4y ago
  I don't live in a city. I'm 20 miles from the nearest grocery store. I build real physical things with my hands that require physical materials like lumber to haul around. I can't haul 2000 lb of lumber on the back of my road bike.
  - nemo44x 4y ago
    - gnarbarian 4y ago
  - cardanome 4y ago
    What would be the issue with just having your stuff delivered then? And yeah every rule needs exceptions, of course there should be ways to rent cars for special occasion, I am just against general private car ownership for most people. Edit: General private car ownership of people living in the cities that is
    - gnarbarian 4y ago
      I think your view is skewed towards living in a city. your solution doesn't work for a number of reasons. if I wanted to go somewhere I would call an Uber and they would drive 20 or 30 miles to pick me up and then 40 or 50 miles more to drop me off and then the reverse would happen when I wanted to go home Rather than me just driving the 100 miles there and back You have additional overhead of somebody having to come pick me up doubling the miles driven. That person has to get paid which makes it even more expensive. And there are still cars! I'm just not allowed to own one. if I'm sharing a ride which is unlikely it will take up way more time which is also an expensive drag on the economy. delivery here is unreliable and expensive. if I'm picking out wood I have to go through dozens of boards to find ones that aren't fucked up. I need to find ones that are suitable for the job that I'm trying to use them for. A delivery guy would just grab whatever and throw it in the truck. It's not like I'm ordering an iPod off of Amazon. no mileage savings would be had because it is unlikely that anybody else would be having something delivered in the middle of nowhere.

Well why shouldn't they be? Most major auto makers are phasing out development of new ICE drivetrains, and phasing out ICE manufacturing altogether. Meanwhile Tesla is certainly not without criticism.

gnarbarian 4y ago
>plans to phase out vs >never offered and never will offer isn't that criticism political in nature?
- SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
  YMMV on exactly what counts as "political", but I can easily imagine someone having an honest, good faith belief that investing in Toyota's transition to EVs is just as good for the planet as investing in Tesla's from-scratch EVs.

baobob 4y ago

> To manufacture each EV battery, you must process > 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium > 30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt > 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, 25,000 pounds of ore for copper > Digging up 500,000 pounds of the earth's crust > For just - one - battery. https://twitter.com/brianroemmele/status/1503176565974216710 https://twitter.com/brianroemmele/status/1503176565974216710 Would appreciate a fact check if this is anyone's business here

gnarbarian 4y ago
They can be recycled once we have a large install base
- washbrain 4y ago
  Can they? I've seen people make this claim, but I've not seen it actually substantiated. Who has successfully recycled one, what was their yield, what was the cost?
  - gnarbarian 4y ago
    https://www.tesla.com/support/sustainability-recycling https://www.tesla.com/support/sustainability-recycling already happening
    - washbrain 4y ago
      Cool! What are their yields? What are their costs?
  - jjoonathan 4y ago
    The techniques that separate lithium from ore are extreme overkill for separating lithium from dead batteries. Recycling lithium is like mining lithium on easy mode: better yield and cost. If an EV can justify the raw resource extraction within one car lifetime -- and it can, handily -- it justifies the recycling. We should expect recycling to be (average EV lifetime) behind on the scale curve, though, which will make it a prime source for anti-EV talking points until the market saturates in a decade or two. > washbrain Ha, nice try.
- joosters 4y ago
  i.e. they can't be recycled now. We judge companies on their actions now, not on what they might do, or might be possible in the future.
  - gnarbarian 4y ago
    as I mentioned above it's already happening https://www.tesla.com/support/sustainability-recycling https://www.tesla.com/support/sustainability-recycling already happening
jjoonathan 4y ago
Lithium is storage. You dig it up once. Then you recharge and recharge and, eventually, recycle it. You never emit it into the atmosphere. Petrol is fuel. You dig it up and burn it into the atmosphere again and again and again for every mile you drive.
Robin_Message 4y ago
My rough and ready sums put 30,000 pounds of petrol through the lifetime of an average ICE car. Meanwhile, I see numbers like this a lot and they always seem to trend high. You're talking 250 tons of ores to make perhaps 250-1000kg of the car; an efficiency of between 0.1 and 0.4 percent over some pretty straightforward, widely available ores. That doesn't really stack up with the numbers you get if you look at the efficiency of commercial ores for those minerals. So I think the mining is comparable between battery and petrol, but as others point out, you can recycle the battery; the petrol had become problematic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If nothing else, you could grind up the batteries and treat them as ore for any single one of the minerals used, and by your numbers you'd be way better off.
- DeRock 4y ago
  > My rough and ready sums put 30,000 pounds of petrol through the lifetime of an average ICE car. My calculation shows ~50,000 pounds. 200,000 mile lifetime at 25 MPG = 8000 gallons * 6.30 pounds/gallon fuel density[0] = 50,400 Also keep in mind that gasoline is a refined product. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline#Density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline#Density)
sigma_ligma 4y ago
This is basically just an appeal to big numbers. "500,000 pounds? That's a lot! ICE cars must certainly be less polluting. I mean, just look at the numbers: you have to dig up FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS of Earth's crust! FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND! That's HALF A MILLION!" Proper comparisons look at both sides.

cardanome 4y ago

A electric cars are mostly a luxury item for rich people to feel better. Not sure why you think Tesla should have a good rating. They are harmful in that they are actively distracting from the proper solution: that people shouldn't have private cars. The environmental cost to produce car, the space they take up in the cities, in the end private car ownership can not be made sustainable even if they run on electric. Tech wont solve the climate crisis, only societal change will.

gnarbarian 4y ago
I don't live in a city. I'm 20 miles from the nearest grocery store. I build real physical things with my hands that require physical materials like lumber to haul around. I can't haul 2000 lb of lumber on the back of my road bike.
- nemo44x 4y ago
  - gnarbarian 4y ago
- cardanome 4y ago
  What would be the issue with just having your stuff delivered then? And yeah every rule needs exceptions, of course there should be ways to rent cars for special occasion, I am just against general private car ownership for most people. Edit: General private car ownership of people living in the cities that is
  - gnarbarian 4y ago
    I think your view is skewed towards living in a city. your solution doesn't work for a number of reasons. if I wanted to go somewhere I would call an Uber and they would drive 20 or 30 miles to pick me up and then 40 or 50 miles more to drop me off and then the reverse would happen when I wanted to go home Rather than me just driving the 100 miles there and back You have additional overhead of somebody having to come pick me up doubling the miles driven. That person has to get paid which makes it even more expensive. And there are still cars! I'm just not allowed to own one. if I'm sharing a ride which is unlikely it will take up way more time which is also an expensive drag on the economy. delivery here is unreliable and expensive. if I'm picking out wood I have to go through dozens of boards to find ones that aren't fucked up. I need to find ones that are suitable for the job that I'm trying to use them for. A delivery guy would just grab whatever and throw it in the truck. It's not like I'm ordering an iPod off of Amazon. no mileage savings would be had because it is unlikely that anybody else would be having something delivered in the middle of nowhere.