[cones688]

> engine still burns fossil fuels

It does, it's just centralised and called a power station... it's incredibly naive to think a Telsa isn't contributing to burning fossil fuels - it's just not in front of your face.

Also I am not sure whether any modern power grid in the world could cope if even 10% of cars became PHEV, imagine the spike when everyone got home and plugged in their car - would be like a "TV Pickup[0]" on steriods, they usually cover these with short term solutions such as hydro pump but this wouldn't run the time it takes to charge a car.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup

[zzzeek]

well then Elon Musk himself is "incredibly naive".

http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musks-ted-talk-on-tesla-...

> First of all, he said, burning fossil fuels in a plant to generate electricity is more efficient that burning them in a combustion engine in a car. Because it is large and stationary, the plant can use the fuel much more efficiently:

> In a stationary power plant, you can afford to have something that weighs a lot more, is voluminous, and you can take the waste heat and run a steam turbine and generate a secondary power source...

> Even using the same source fuel, you're at least twice as better off.

> Part two of Musk's argument is not based on numbers, but on the fact that electricity can be produced from renewable sources, most notably solar power:

> We have to have sustainable means of power generation anyway, electricity generation. So given that we have to solve sustainable electricity generation, then it makes sense for us to have electric cars as the mode of transport.

[greglindahl]

Teslas already have a feature that can be used to delay charging until the time-of-day electricity price is lowest. It's not rocket science to extend that to be sensitive to the amount of charging needed and the load on the grid. Most days, most Teslas only need a couple hours of charging.

Also keep in mind that Tesla plans to develop a battery-based energy storage business.

[SeanLuke]

> it's incredibly naive to think a Telsa isn't contributing to burning fossil fuels

What if your area is predominantly nuclear or hydroelectric?

[agumonkey]

Interesting, I wonder if there's been some early studies for mass scale electric vehicles usage.

ps: the tv pickup thing is funny.