If you’re selling that perfectly good car to buy a brand new Tesla, you’re not doing a good deed; you’re just buying a bright, shiny, ecologically problematic toy.
Yep electric cars like the Tesla are the sexy new thing, and a big part of their appeal is that car companies have marketed them as greener than a pocket square on Saint Patty’s Day.
Yeah turns out that message is pretty sketchy. Look, electric cars are more energy efficient than gas cars, but where do you think that energy comes? It comes from the energy grid. If you buy an electric car today, you’re just shifting your fuel source from the gas pump to a power plant. And if those power plants burn coal, driving an electric car can actually put more CO2 into the air than a hybrid. According to one study, even if 1/3 of all drivers switch to electric cars the carbon savings could be tiny. In fact, your new Tesla will probably break down before we covert to a renewable energy grid.
And in the meantime, you’re going to be pumping out a ton of CO2 from everything that goes into just making the car. Building an electric car requires steel, copper, and aluminum, just like a regular car. But worse their batteries are made of rare metals that take intensive mining. And even the mere act of putting the car together produces greenhouse gases. Add that up, and if we all ditched our trusty old cars in favor of brand-new electrics we’d actually end up increasing our carbon footprint.
Meet
Mike Berners-Lee. He’s an expert on carbon emissions who’s written extensively on this subject. “While electric cars are more efficient, manufacturing typically adds about 50% to the total carbon footprint. So, if you buy a new car too often you could completely undo all the carbon savings that you might get from buying an electric car. If you really want to help save the environment, the best thing you can do is to reduce the amount you drive and to drive your current car as long as possible, provided it’s reasonably efficient. But if your car is beyond repair and you absolutely need to buy a new one, then go ahead buy yourself a nice small electric car – perhaps even a used one.”
When it comes to saving the planet the efficiency of your car’s engine is small potatoes. The real problem is that Americans bought 17.5 million cars last year, and drove a total of 2.7 trillion miles. I’m sorry, but buying another car just isn’t going to fix that. And if you’re not careful, these companies will use your desire to own a new car “to help the planet” to sell you more stuff that’s hurting the planet. Buying green products won’t solve the problem, because buying stuff is part of the problem. We need to reduce what we buy, and reuse what we have. We can’t shop our way out of this.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
I’ve always subscribed to the idea that electric cars are just a way to sell overpriced automobiles to rich, virtue-signaling leftist elitists with taxpayer subsidies.
Earth sciences here. You are wrong once again. That last sentence is utter bullshit, and the rest glosses over one very important detail: electric cars, unlike gasoline-, gas-, or diesel-powered cars are compatible with green energy. Their batteries are not environmentally friendly, but they’re still better than the alternative, which is of course rampant climate change.
Actually, you never really disproved that last sentence, because as usual you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Whether these cars can use renewable energy is a completely moot point when so-called “green energy” makes up such a small portion of electric production. Moreover, alternative energy makes up only a tiny percentage of total energy consumption. Take out hydro and bio-mass and you have only 2.2% coming from wind and solar. That’s quite pathetic.
And the costs do not make alternative energy a reliable plentiful source of energy yet. Despite all the upbeat hype about how renewables will be “cheaper” than fossil fuels by 2020, the trends don’t confirm that estimate. Without massive subsidies, green energy growth and output is stagnant. It costs too much to produce because it takes more labor and expensive materials to produce, and there are no practical ways of properly storing the energy yet. In other words, we are not there yet.
So, investing in a “renewable energy” ready vehicle is a very stupid investment. But by all means, knock yourself out and buy one, and feel like you’re saving the planet from “rampant climate change.”
The video is correct, you are wrong…as usual.
So, stick to counting rocks or whatever you think you’re studying, because you are economically obtuse.
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