[schallertd]

I'm pretty sick of all that hype around Tesla for example, pretending to be the real solution for independence of oil and gas. That is simply not the case. Tesla hasn't solved any of those issues so far, they only shifted the problem once again. Of course they design very beautiful electronic cars, but this isn't a solution for our energy and resource problem either.

[ericd]

How is it not a solution? It decouples transportation from fossil fuels. Yes, the energy can still come from fossil fuels, but it no longer has to. The entire transportation fleet could now be nuclear powered, for example.

[dashundchen]

Because it doesn't address the ridiculous amount of energy and resources spent on private transportation to begin with.

I see many people excited about the fact that electric cars can be powered by renewables, and efficiency gains automation can bring, without acknowledging the downsides of an auto-dominated society.

What it does not solve is:

* The energy spent producing a 2000kg+ car (there's 255 million cars in the US alone, 797 for every 1000 people) [1]

* That that 2000kg+ car in the US is moving on average less than 2 people per trip [2]

* The energy spent moving single commuters on hour long commutes (average of 25minutes each way [3]). I see many comments discussing how drivers will be productive on long automated commutes, while not addressing the inefficiency of that commute to begin with

* The destructive and wasteful development patterns of auto-oriented cities - (sprawl, destroyed agricultural lands, the enormous health costs of sedentary lifestyles)

* The resources required and pollution generated for the production/maintenance/powering of all these vehicles, renewable or not - renewables only produced ~13% of all electricity in 2015 [4]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_Unit...

[2] http://energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-613-march-8-2010-vehicl...

[3] https://www.google.com/search?q=number+of+cars+in+the+us&ie=...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_United...

[ericd]

I totally agree that it's be nicer if we could eliminate cars and build more pedestrian friendly cities. A cultural shift like that is much harder to pull off than a simpler technical solution. Don't let your idealism blind you to the fact that this is a large improvement to the status quo.

[eudox]

>they only shifted the problem once again

Shifting the problem is a sometimes a good thing.

In this case, because it means the energy can now come from effective sources (nuclear) instead of carrying petrochemicals in the vehicle.

[Bartweiss]

I live in a place where the largest sources of electricity are nuclear, wind, and hydro power, simply because they're cost effective for the region. So electric cars here shift not only to an easier problem, but to a largely solved problem.

As in math, transforming one problem into another is often just as good as finding a direct solution.

[dredmorbius]

The gain of Tesla is that:

1. It decouples transport from fossil fuel use.

2. It achieves greater efficiency per unit energy input than combustion-based systems, if using non-thermal (nuclear-excepted) fuel. Carnot's Law limits heat engines to ~20 - 45% efficiency, max.

On the negative side:

1. Tesla doesn't fundamentally change the dynamics of land-use which lead to massive amounts of personal transit being necessary.

2. Thermal energy (coal, gas, oil, biomass, and even nuclear, though without the CO2 emissions) still has a peak generating efficiency of only about 45%.

3. It's possible that synfuels might prove a better route for portable energy storage. Carbon-neutral synthetic petrol, kerosene (jet fuel), deisel, and methane would be infinitely miscable with current fossil-based liquid and gas fuels, and would require no replacement of extant transport, refining, dispensing, or utilisation capital. (The cost would be higher, though there's an accounting argument to be made there as well.) Energy densities (by volume and weight), handling properties, safety, and very, very long-term storage capabilities (tens to hundreds of millions of years, proven) make this attractive.

4. The entire system is predicated on economical sources of lithium (or other battery substrate). Lithium is not an abundant mineral, and present recycling rates are low. Even with 90% recovery, the stock of material would fall by 80% in 15 generations. Most metals see recycling rates of closer to 30%, if that.

http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/recycle/rec...

[Bartweiss]

Where I live, the majority of electricity sources are renewable (or nuclear). Powering a home without fossil fuels is a semi-solved problem.

Powering a car without fossil fuels, by contrast, is not on the table for most people. Quality, budget electric cars stand to 'shift' the resource problem over to one we've already dealt with, which sounds like a huge win to me.

[hx87]

Even if every Tesla was 100% powered by coal power plants, it would still be an improvement since it's much easier to control efficiency and emissions at a single 4GW plant than in a fleet of 40000 100kW cars.