No, the Tesla Model S Doesn't Pollute More Than an SUV

thecarchik writes "In an exhaustive 6,500-word article on the financial website Seeking Alpha, analyst Nathan Weiss lays out a case that the latest Tesla Model S actually has higher effective emissions than most large SUVs of both the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and smog-producing pollutants like sulfur dioxide. This is absolutely false. Virtually all electric car advocates agree that when toting up the environmental pros and cons of electric cars, it's only fair to include powerplant emissions. When this has been done previously, the numbers have still favored electric cars. The Union of Concerned Scientists, for example, concluded in a 2012 report (PDF), 'Electric vehicles charged on the power grid have lower global warming emissions than the average gasoline-based vehicle sold today.' Working through every one of Weiss' conclusions may show a higher emissions rate than Tesla's published numbers, but in no way does a Model S pollute the amounts even close to an SUV."

Comments

Same as last time

[RustyTheCat]

When the Prius first got popular the same thing was said about it. Was soon proved false.

Re:Same as last time

[Synerg1y]

A Prius is so efficient that you can't even feel yourself pressing the gas pedal, unfortunately the speedometer doesn't either.

Re:Same as last time

[gl4ss]

Not true. With a good foot, you can have decent fuel economy in PWR mode.
It takes self-training, though. You obviously can't slam your foot down and expect 50 MPG.
That being said, I use ECO normally and PWR when people get stupid and I need to distance myself from mustangs or ricers.

Driving with a light foot is the same as keeping ECO on... and as shitty as mustangs are your prius isn't distancing away from them unless you just happen to be speeding and they happen to be driving within limit.

What kind of discussion is this anyway, where people try to argue that a Prius with 134 hp combined feels "reasonably fast" when compared to having 300hp?? what the fuck? 130hp is plenty to move normal sedan in traffic outside of autobahns but what the fuck do you have to be sniffing out of the tailpipes to try to compare the experience as equivalent as having over DOUBLE THE HORSEPOWER ? ? ? that's like some fella coming in with a ps3 and saying that "essentially it's as fast as a 3ghz 8 core intel with 16 gigabytes because it doesn't need to run an OS". you'd fucking get laughed at.

and don't even begin with the "but oooh electric motors have so much torque it goes like the wind"
not that the prius has anything to do with this article anyways since very few people are charging their prius's, coal power or not. it's a fuel efficient car which is just fine since most people use it with gas.

(plug in cars would lose all their appeal if their electricity was taxed at the same level as fuel for cars is by the way).

Re:Same as last time

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not really that slow. I'm used to driving 300hp+ sports cars, but the Prius (the 2012 version, at least) still feels reasonably fast to me once PWR mode is enabled.

At which point all efficiency goes out the windo...err...tailpipe.

This is absolutely true. In my 2012 plugin Prius, if I drive to work in power mode at 75 mph I only get about 50 mpg, and my exhaust emissions jump up to almost 40% of a normal vehicle if I lead-foot it the whole time.

And frankly the car's just not very powerful; the tiny 4-cylinder and mid-sized electric motor can only do 0-60 mph in 10.9 seconds, and it takes 18.5 to turn a quarter mile. In fact the original Prius is actually only slightly more powerful than the original Chevrolet Corvette, which we all know was a totally pussy car no real manly man ever drove.

Also, it does not have wings, ponies, or an automatic martini mixer, which obviously means it's a total crap car. But sadly it's what I've had to settle for... because after twelve years of driving a 2002 Prius, I only saved enough money on gasoline costs to buy this lame thing. I really wanted a 6000 SUX, with reclining leather seats, but the city refused to pay for it.

Let's compare the two

[MrEricSir]

* Can you power a Tesla Model S with non-polluting renewable energy?
* Can you power a gasoline SUV with non-polluting renewable energy?

One should think about those two questions for a moment before saying that the Tesla pollutes more than an SUV.

Facts don't deter FUD

[ebno-10db]

Facts don't deter FUD. Glad somebody has, for the two billionth time, debunked the "electric cars cause more pollution than my 3 ton 5 mpg SUV", but it's not going to stop stop the True Believers (True Disbelievers?) from spreading the same old FUD. You'd think they'd be embarrassed by it, but you'd be wrong. I don't get it either.

Re:Kind of a biased group?

[norminator]

You didn't read the last half of that sentence... It's not saying virtually all advocates agree that electric cars are better. It's saying that they all agree that the powerplant emissions should be included. In other words, the advocates all agree that electric cars need to be measured by the more rigid standard, which the skeptics already agree with.

Haters gonna hate

[Ol Olsoc]

Question. What is thepaybck period on a Prius?

Question: What is the payback period on a Tesla Roadster?

I've been asked these questions a number of times. The Electrical car hater beams, as he has clearly won the argument.

Fair enough - since the question was asked - "What is the payback period on a Bugatti, or Corvette, or even a Kia Soul or Toyota Corolla? "

Or even my Motorcycle, for that matter. I don't drive my motorcycle because of some great payback, I drive it because I want to.

Tesla shorts, not Ford investors.

[mbkennel]

Mainstream automobile industry is considered a long-term dead-money play.

Tesla stock was very heavily shorted by hedge funds. They are hurting now. And yes they'd say anything, and pay anybody to say anything to keep their money from going down the drain.

They were convinced 100% that shorting Tesla was a guaranteed win---in significant measure because they really believed their right-wing ideology. They thought that Tesla was a short-term dead-money play.

Remember the mostly slanted NYT article? Why, when everything else has been very positive? Because NYC's the financial capital. Who might be susceptible to pressure or lucre? People in the financial industry or in New York close to the financial industry.

Re:what about the batteries?

[mbkennel]

Why is this particularly or uniquely bad vs the lifetime environmental impact of steel and mining of metallurgical and power coal and oil? Are we going to count the much lower amount of engine oil used? How about the pollution from the trucks delivering gasoline? And the refineries? And the tanker ships?

Are we going to count the hills removed in West Virginia?

Re:Same as last time? Well, nope.

[BasilBrush]

The concept of the battery-powered electric car has been tossed around for 100+ years, and it always failed on the marketplace until very recently.
What suddenly changed?

Batteries got better. Fuel got more expensive. And people started caring about the environment.

There was no major technological breakthrough at all

Tesla runs on lithium-ion batteries. Prius uses NiMH. You don't realise that they are better than the lead-acid batteries that used to go into electric vehicles?

There's no Moore's law for batteries. But vehicular battery technology does make incremental improvements every year. On top of the occasional entirely new battery technology.

The only reason we have hybrid passenger cars (as well as electric cars) is because the government agreed to pay part of the cost. And the only reason to do that is to hide the total cost.

The government LENT Tesla a big sum of money to be paid back over 10 years. They paid it back in about a year.

Re:Irrelevant - private cars are not a problem

[BasilBrush]

You seem to have jumped from 15% to "no measurable impact", through some arbitrary divisions, that are irrelevant because ALL categories of vehicles are being targeted for efficiency improvements.

I don't see Tesla Buses coming any time soon

Allow me to help you out with your myopia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_bus

Why, if changing the entire world fleet of personal cars into electircal vehicles will have no measurable impact on CO2 emissions, are all the environmental nuts yacking about this?

Frankly, because they are more intelligent and have more insight than you.

Juxtaposition!

[Radtastic]

Mod Parent +1 for use of a computer analogy in a discussion about cars!