I was surprised by this article today, and would appreciate any help in responding:
Tesla's Long-Range Model 3 Has A Heavier CO2 Footprint Than Toyota's Camry Hybrid - Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) | Seeking Alpha
Thesis here is that BEVs, including the efficient Tesla Model 3, do not save emissions compared to the most efficient hybrid cars. And that we should not invest them or provide incentives.
The main part of the case (I strongly urge you to read it), is that we cannot use average power utility emission levels for comparison, we have to use the emissions levels from natural gas, because (1) EVs are primarily charged at night, when wind and solar are unreliable, and (2) EVs must be assumed to be using the most reliable on-demand power source.
The number quoted for natural gas emissions is 600 grams of CO2 per kwh generated. Author then inflates that to account for inefficiencies in delivering the power to you wall socket, and then more for inefficiencies in delivering that power to the Tesla battery.
End result he comes up with 193 kg of CO2 per mile for the delivered power, then ads 85kw for amortized CO2 from battery production/replacement (arguably way smaller but would like to ignore this for now), totaling 278kg/mile for Tesla Model 3, vs 244kg/mile for th Camry Hybrid.
There is a lot of other stuff in the article that can be countered, like the CO2 footprint of manufacturing Tesla batteries amortized over the life of the Model 3, but I consider that beside the central point of “Charging your Tesla Model 3 from a power utility generates more emissions than burning gasoline in an efficient Hybrid car”.
If there is a really strong way to shoot down the numbers and/or reasoning in this article, I would like to know about it. Here is my source for power company emissions that was dismissed with a hand wave by the author of the seekingalpha piece because it is just averages they don’t count blablabla:
New Data Show Electric Vehicles Continue to Get Cleaner
Thank you for your feedback.
Tesla's Long-Range Model 3 Has A Heavier CO2 Footprint Than Toyota's Camry Hybrid - Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) | Seeking Alpha
Thesis here is that BEVs, including the efficient Tesla Model 3, do not save emissions compared to the most efficient hybrid cars. And that we should not invest them or provide incentives.
The main part of the case (I strongly urge you to read it), is that we cannot use average power utility emission levels for comparison, we have to use the emissions levels from natural gas, because (1) EVs are primarily charged at night, when wind and solar are unreliable, and (2) EVs must be assumed to be using the most reliable on-demand power source.
The number quoted for natural gas emissions is 600 grams of CO2 per kwh generated. Author then inflates that to account for inefficiencies in delivering the power to you wall socket, and then more for inefficiencies in delivering that power to the Tesla battery.
End result he comes up with 193 kg of CO2 per mile for the delivered power, then ads 85kw for amortized CO2 from battery production/replacement (arguably way smaller but would like to ignore this for now), totaling 278kg/mile for Tesla Model 3, vs 244kg/mile for th Camry Hybrid.
There is a lot of other stuff in the article that can be countered, like the CO2 footprint of manufacturing Tesla batteries amortized over the life of the Model 3, but I consider that beside the central point of “Charging your Tesla Model 3 from a power utility generates more emissions than burning gasoline in an efficient Hybrid car”.
If there is a really strong way to shoot down the numbers and/or reasoning in this article, I would like to know about it. Here is my source for power company emissions that was dismissed with a hand wave by the author of the seekingalpha piece because it is just averages they don’t count blablabla:
New Data Show Electric Vehicles Continue to Get Cleaner
Thank you for your feedback.