[FirmwareBurner]

>I'd be tempted to guess that they've had a larger impact on reducing emissions than any other single company on the planet.

I need to remember the name of the book where I read that, but statistically the people who buy Teslas produce more global emissions than others, simply on the fact that manufacturing a Tesla vehicle produces nearly 2x emissions as manufacturing an equivalent ICE, and the class of people who can easily afford Teslas engage in a lot of environmentally damaging activities like excess consumerism, lots of traveling, etc. versus the people who can only afford to keep using their ICE car instead of throwing them away to buy a Tesla.

It's one of the reasons why despite the boom in EV adoption, global emissions are also skyrocketing with them. So EVs alone won't save this planet. In fact, according to that book, if we were to replace all ICE cars on the road with EVs, the manufacturing, materials and the mining necessarily to extract all the materials necessary for that to happen, would cause such an increase in emissions that would be catastrophicall to the planet.

So the solution is actually less cars for earth, not more cars except Teslas instead of ICEs. It was an interesting analysys that I need to find.

Self driving cars in the form of fleets of autonomous robo-taxis that you hail on demand, would solve that "too many cars on earth" problem since most cars stay idly parked all day anyway, but we're very far away from actually achieve that level.

[rndmize]

> statistically the people who buy Teslas produce more global emissions than others [...] and the class of people who can easily afford Teslas engage in a lot of environmentally damaging activities like excess consumerism, lots of traveling, etc.

This line of argument has nothing to do with Tesla or EVs. If you aim to make the case that the wealthy produce more emissions, that seems fairly clear, whether EVs exist or not.

> It's one of the reasons why despite the boom in EV adoption, global emissions are also skyrocketing with them. So EVs alone won't save this planet. In fact, according to that book, if we were to replace all ICE cars on the road with EVs, the manufacturing, materials and the mining necessarily to extract all the materials necessary for that to happen, would cause such an increase in emissions that would be catastrophicall to the planet.

> So the solution is actually less cars for earth, not more cars except Teslas instead of ICEs. It was an interesting analysys that I need to find.

Obviously, things would be better if people just stopped buying cars. Obviously, things would be better if everyone had good public transport available and dense development and didn't need cars. Obviously, things would be better if just less people existed and didn't need to be transported. None of this contributes in useful fashion to the here and now. I can go to my city development planning meetings and argue against car-oriented development and seas of parking until I'm blue in the face (and I do), but cities take generations to change. Cars, on the other hand, can be largely cycled out within a generation and a half. And like it or not, cars aren't going anywhere.

[vel0city]

> keep using their ICE car instead of throwing them away to buy a Tesla

I imagine very few people are taking their older ICE and crushing it and shoving it into a landfill once they buy a Tesla.

Buying the Tesla is (usually) offsetting the sale of a different new ICE and selling/trading in the old care to add to the used market, not demanding a new car that would have never been built to come into existence and then destroying the old car.

[xnx]

This is the right line of thinking. Best to consider the situations where someone buys a Tesla vs. what would've happened instead.

[reducesuffering]

The initial emissions cost of an EV is somewhere in the range of 5 - 10% of total emissions of the ICE over its lifetime. Then as to the consumerism bit, there's generally two types people who buy Teslas. The practical side isn't doing excess consumerism and is likely to buy something like a Toyota Camry or RAV4 instead, still causing 10x the emissions eventually. The other side, luxury and consumerist, is going to be buying a Mercedes instead and still doing all the excess consumerism and traveling. EV are a net emissions positive on the margin, but feel free to inhale the particulate emissions sitting in traffic if you'd prefer. Only about 5 million globally dying of air pollution every year...

[FirmwareBurner]

>Then as to the consumerism bit, there's generally two types people who buy Teslas ... The other side, luxury and consumerist, is going to be buying a Mercedes

Pointing fingers and shaming groups of people we don't anecdotally like for one brand or another, is not how statistics work. Statistically rich westerners, whether they drive a tesla or a Mercedes, all engage in environmentally destructive activities through excess consumerism and lavish lifestyles than less well off people.

For example according to that book, statistically rich westerners, the tesla owning kind, tend to have bigger single family houses, buy a lot more stuff they don't need, throw away more food, travel and fly a lot more or go golfing or have heated swimming pools. Less well off people on the other hand can't afford eco-friendly Teslas but they also have much more eco friendly hobbies, travel less, live in denser housing, consume less stuff, therefore tend to be less environmentally damaging than the Tesla owning class by simple fact that they're poorer.

>but feel free to inhale the particulate emissions sitting in traffic if you'd prefer.

You're pointing out a "false choice". Yes, it would be nice that we all switch overnight to EVs, but the truth is that the global emissions of replacing all the existing cars on earth and replacing their numbers 1:1 with EVs is not feasible at that scale without destroying the planet in the process of mining and manufacturing at that scale needed to achieve the conversion.

The secret to the environment is less cars overall, not more cars but EVs. Therefore less consumerism in general. But tell rich westerners they need to stop owning/using cars see how that goes.

Hence the ever increasing global polluting despite the growing number of EVs.

[reducesuffering]

I'm in agreement that EV's are not a panacea, less cars and consumerism would be better, and the political difficulties of reducing those are especially fraught.

However, since rich westerners did the politically realistic move of increasing emissions standards and EV's, we are actually reducing our emissions[0], instead of doing nothing but hand-wringing that we "should" have less cars and get nowhere because 3/4 of the US won't have it.

Per capita US emissions are down 25% since 2007 and peaked back in 1979.

We help the environment by finding the wins whereever we can politically. If you get too idealistic, you halt progress because the rest of westerners aren't in for the ride.

[0]https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states

[orwin]

I'm pretty sure the move from coal to gas was way more effective at reducing emissions than the "move" from ICE to EV.

[reducesuffering]

Of course it was. Which is why we shouldn't be advocating for purist idealistic moves, but practically what can we do to reduce emissions the most per $.

[FirmwareBurner]

Fair enough. but out of curiosity how much of those emissions are strictly down to EVs?

Because to me it seems emissions went down to tougher broader environmental policies, especially on coal, rather than just people buying EVs now, as ICE cars were only 9% share of emissions anyway, yet people tend act as if they're the main culprit for it.

[kwhitefoot]

> he fact that manufacturing a Tesla vehicle produces nearly 2x emissions as manufacturing an equivalent ICE,

And those extra emissions are paid for before the car reaches half its lifetime.

[FirmwareBurner]

The point was that EV manufacturing is definetly not free of emissions. And all car owners switching to EVs is resposible for a lot of upfront environemtnal damage, not just "saving the world" as they like to tell themselves.

[vel0city]

Raising and rebuilding most cities in the US to reduce car usage is also definitely not free of emissions.

[FirmwareBurner]

You don't need to raise cities. Public transportation is more environmentally friendly than everyone driving alone in $80k EVs.

[vel0city]

The point was that ~~EV~~ bus manufacturing is definetly not free of emissions. Operating busses is definitely not free from emissions either.

The point was that ~~EV~~ train manufacturing is definetly not free of emissions.

Buying an EV instead of an ICE reduces net emissions. Riding the bus instead of buying an EV reduces emissions more, but it is still not zero. Should more people ride the bus? Sure! But I'm not in charge of my city's planning, I can't make them buy more busses and hire more drivers.

I bought an EV when a family member was needing a cheap car, so I sold them my old cheap ICE. I was probably going to buy a new car anyways, so its not like I went out and crushed my ICE and dropped it in the lake and then suddenly willed a new EV into existence creating new emissions. A car was going to get built, I was going to buy one.

[FirmwareBurner]

Nothing is ever free from emissions, but people taking buses is still more eco friendly than those same people riding alone in expensive EVs.

> But I'm not in charge of my city's planning, I can't make them buy more busses and hire more drivers.

Sure, but we do live in democracies no? Where we have the power to change those in charge to others who will if our goals if we desire our goals to be betters public services including transportation.

Simply starting with a defeatist mindset of "nothing will ever change from our leadership so it's every man for himself to better his own situation, I got mine you go get yours" will never work for the environment. It does work for selling a lot of cars though.

If we can't change anything collectively, what about those living in less democratic countries?