[SECProto]

> Fact Checking Tesla's "Impact Report"

> It's no surprise that the electric automaker is having a positive environmental impact, so why does it need to exaggerate the good and gloss over the bad?

I have a similar view of this article as this article has of Tesla: Why does it need to exaggerate the bad and gloss over the good?

The only hard number it criticizes is the number Tesla used for the average mileage of the US fleet (25.4 vs 22) - nevermind that the higher efficiency would work in their favour: it would mean that the same number of Tesla vehicles displaces a larger number of ICE-vehicles.

Oh, and the author doesn't like that the report includes both the to-date solar electricity generated by Solarcity (13.25 TWh) and the to-date electricity used to charge Tesla fleet (5.26 TWh).

There's lots to criticize about Tesla, but this article doesn't do a great job of it, in my personal opinion.

[mr_toad]

> Why does it need to exaggerate the bad and gloss over the good?

Car enthusiasts & journalists have a storied history of being biased against electric and/or self-driving vehicles.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/dec/24/jeremy-clarkso...

https://www.tesla.com/blog/most-peculiar-test-drive

[danso]

They have a far, far more storied history of being positive. Which is why Tesla, quite rightly, says in its 10Qs that it doesn’t need to pay for advertising because it expects to generate positive media coverage.

[dbasedweeb]

Jeremy Clarkson really really doesn’t represent the world of “car enthusiasts” or journalists in general. He’s an entertainer, part of a latter day Three Stooges and tarring an entire branch of journalism with his brush is like saying that because Sean Hannity is a fuckwit, so was Walter Cronkite.

[tedivm]

> The only hard number it criticizes is the number Tesla used for the average mileage of the US fleet (25.4 vs 22) - nevermind that the higher efficiency would work in their favour: it would mean that the same number of Tesla vehicles displaces a larger number of ICE-vehicles.

I don't think your math is right on that- higher efficiency in ICE vehicles would mean that the Tesla vehicles displaces fewer ICE vehicles, would it not? It would make their claim that Tesla is "the equivalent of saving emissions from being released into the environment from over 500K ICE vehicles" closer to 425K ICE vehicles.

[SECProto]

> I don't think your math is right on that- higher efficiency in ICE vehicles would mean that the Tesla vehicles displaces fewer ICE vehicles, would it not?

Hard to tell - the report doesn't show all it's math so there are two ways to interpret. But I'll post the relevant paragraph from the report here:

> Over 550K Tesla vehicles have been sold, and they have driven over 10B miles to date, resulting in a combined savings of over 4M metric tons of CO2. This is the equivalent of saving emissions from being released into the environment from over 500K ICE vehicles with a fuel economy of 22 miles per gallon (MPG).

The way I read that, the hard number is 4 million metric tonnes of CO2 (which they determined is equivalent to 500000 vehicles at 22MPG, given average distances driven and CO2 output from that amount of gasoline). If my interpretation is correct, it would be equivalent to (500000*25/22=) 568 thousand cars at 25 MPG (the more efficient cars put out less co2 per mile, so the same amount of co2 reduction is equivalent to more cars).

But it may just be worded poorly, and they know how many cars it kept off the road, and calculated their emissions savings based on an equivalent average of 22 MPG. In which case, your calculation would be correct.