[rgrove]

The article claims Tesla is incorrect when they say that "the average ICE vehicle gets around 22 MPG", and counters with EPA stats showing that the average fuel economy of all vehicles in the US is 24.9 MPG.

But these aren't the same thing.

The set "all vehicles in the US" contains both ICE vehicles _and_ hybrid/battery-powered EVs. But Tesla is explicitly only talking about ICE vehicles, and Tesla doesn't specifically indicate whether they're talking only about US ICE vehicles or all ICE vehicles worldwide.

I'm not sure what the source is for Tesla's number, and it's entirely possible it's inaccurate, but The Drive's counter-argument makes an apples vs. oranges comparison.

[slg]

>but The Drive's counter-argument makes an apples vs. oranges comparison.

I will go one step further, The Drive's number is just straight dishonest. It lists that number as "the average fuel economy of all vehicles in the US hit 24.9 MPG in 2017". If you click through to the EPA report it list that 24.9 number as for "all new vehicles". It also says the number was 23.6 in 2012. The average car on the road is roughly 10 years old so that 23.6 number is still too modern to apply to "all vehicles in the US". So if you subtract non-ICE vehicles and factor in that MPG has been improving, the 22 MPG number from the original report seems perfectly reasonable.

[7e]

It's fair to compare Tesla's new cars with others' new cars. That's the benchmark. If someone didn't buy a Tesla, they would have bought another type of new car (though probably a new hybrid or plug in hybrid, which have even higher average MPG). Tesla is disingenuous here.

[slg]

Except they aren’t comparing their cars. They are trying to quantify the total carbon saved from their cars and other ventures like solar panels. People have no idea what a “ton of carbon” equates to, but saying it is the equivalent of taking 500k cars off the road is meaningful to the general population.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

People have no idea what a “ton of carbon” equates to, but saying it is the equivalent of taking 500k cars off the road is meaningful to the general population.

Is this meant to be an off the cuff remark, or is a ton of carbon and 500,000 cars meaningfully linked?

[slg]

Thanks for pointing that out, I definitely phrased that poorly. The report said they saved "four million tons of carbon" and they equated that to "saving emissions from being released into the environment from over 500K ICE vehicles". They are basically converting one unit that is hard to understand "one ton of carbon" to a unit that people can relate to in "one ICE vehicle".

[exolymph]

The writer probably fucked up, I doubt that it was intentional.

(Is that worse or better? Worse, because lying on purpose would be more obvious, even without fact-checking. Well, that's the hope — can't say for sure...)

[xfitm3]

Don't forget that a substantial amount of fuel is burned while parked. Lights and other electronic equipment consume a lot of energy.

"In one recent report about police vehicle fuel consumption, the cruiser studied was found to idle 60% of the time during normal operation and used 21% of its total fuel while parked. While the engine provided 250 horsepower (hp), together all of the accessories needed less than 2 hp. (Air conditioning consumed the most power, followed by external lighting.)"

https://afdc.energy.gov/files/u/publication/idling_emergency...

[geomark]

Didn't read the article, but the engine doesn't provide 250 hp while parked and idling, that's for sure. Certainly it is inefficient compared to an engine sized to provide 2 hp but that's not the same as running it at max rated power.

[disiplus]

afaik data is for new cars with ICE.