Carbon Footprint of attending the Model S Factory tour

[AndrewBissell]

Anyone see the Carbon Footprint Elephant-in-the-Room? All this flying to ride in an electric car? Hate to be a party pooper, and I really want to go, but if I do it could only be because I had to be in the close area anyway for some other essential reason.

The European alternative is to see it in March at Geneva, with either electric trains or our own electric rides to take us there.

[GSP]

Some of us use electricity from the oldest coal power plant in the US to charge our electric vehicles. Not helping CO2, but we still love our EVs, which do still help in other ways.

Every day we have to decide how we will spend our electric miles (a limited asset for non-Tesla EVs). The best CO2 answer is to just stay home, but life must go on, so decide what trips are important, or add value to our lives, and go.

Likewise, everyone has a limited time to live. We all have to decide how to spend this limited time. If an activity is important or enriches your life, do it.

Likewise, we all have a travel budget. We only have so much vacation time, or just time period. We also have a monetary budget, and must decide what is most important to us, then use our money, and our time, for that. Some are also consicous of our CO2 budget. It is not zero. We have to decide what is important in life and spent our CO2 on that.

If anyone thinks that flying to beautiful SanFrancisco, meeting fellow Tesla enthusiasts and employees, and riding in a the new BETA Model S is worth spending their time and money to greatly enrich their life, it is also worth spending their CO2 budget as well. The time, money, and CO2 would most likely be spent on a different leisure trip somewhere else if they did not come to to celebrate Tesla's new EV.

GSP

[vfx]

Nice, GSP.

As many have gleefully pointed out, Al Gore does not sit in a cave with candles and blankets.

[PopSmith]

Likewise, we all have a travel budget. We only have so much vacation time, or just time period. We also have a monetary budget, and must decide what is most important to us, then use our money, and our time, for that. Some are also consicous of our CO2 budget. It is not zero. We have to decide what is important in life and spent our CO2 on that.

For the CO2 part, find a nearly-full flight and use it to go to California for the tour. The planes are going to fly whether or not a Beta "Test Ride" attendee is on board.

I hope Tesla does a similar event for BlueStar and beyond when they are first introduced.

[dpeilow]

Anyone see the Carbon Footprint Elephant-in-the-Room? All this flying to ride in an electric car? Hate to be a party pooper, and I really want to go, but if I do it could only be because I had to be in the close area anyway for some other essential reason.

The European alternative is to see it in March at Geneva, with either electric trains or our own electric rides to take us there.

Absolutely

Some are also consicous of our CO2 budget. It is not zero. We have to decide what is important in life and spent our CO2 on that.

What actually is the level this budget should be set at?

For the CO2 part, find a nearly-full flight and use it to go to California for the tour. The planes are going to fly whether or not a Beta "Test Ride" attendee is on board.

The planes are flying there anyway argument is the one that keeps them flying. So your personal emissions for the flight must be 0 then...


To give an idea of what this involves, if one took a flight from London to SFO just to see the car, you would have to drive more than 33000 km in the Model S just to offset the emissions from that flight compared with getting a 3 litre Audi A6 TDi from the local dealer. (I've used UK grid emissions in that calculation but German and Dutch are very similar.) 'Fraid I'm with Andrew on this: If you have to go there anyway, fair enough, but if you're just going to see the car then it kinda wipes out the benefit of the car.

[Kevin Sharpe]

If you have to go there anyway, fair enough, but if you're just going to see the car then it kinda wipes out the benefit of the car.

this personal responsibility stuff sure is tough sometimes

[AnOutsider]

Can we please not turn this thread into this? Not everyone is into EVs for the uber green credit. With me, discussions about my "Carbon Footprint" is nearly equivalent to PETA telling me I can't have a steak.

It's all hypocritical anyway unless you're living like the Amish folk around here, but if that's what you're about: great. Just don't preach to me.

[dpeilow]

[Kevin Sharpe]

CIt's all hypocritical anyway unless you're living like the Amish folk around here, but if that's what you're about: great. Just don't preach to me.

nobody is preaching to you... just asking a grown up question about the choices that we make...

[TEG]

Carbon Footprint Calculator

Total Flights Footprint = 1.53 metric tons of CO2

1.53 metric tons:

Economy class direct return flight from LHR to SFO

Where is that 'electric jet' we keep hearing about?

I try to avoid flying as much as possible these days, but it sure does feel constraining.