Tesla seems to be dominating the news in the past couple of years.
It’s been built up as the saviour of an outdated car industry.
Granted, some of the news has been troubling, especially when the lens turns on the company’s
CEO Elon Musk
Despite all this, the electric car company has succeeded in placing battery operated
vehicles on the map not just as an alternative to a conventional car, but as a serious competitor.
Today, I’m going wade through this green revolution hype by looking at the life cycle
of Tesla cars in order to understand whether or not they are as clean and emissions-free
solution to personal transportation.
Let’s start at the beginning.
Manufacturing.
All cars require extraction of raw materials for processing and manufacturing.
As a result, every conventional and electric car generates an environmental impact before
they even hit the road.
According a two year study conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists on the life
cycle of electric vehicles, however, this impact is usually 68% more emissions heavy
for long-range electric cars like Tesla’s.
In part this is due to the energy-intensive process of extracting rare metals which make
up Tesla’s lithium ion battery, and can be found throughout the car in headlights
and on-board electronics.
And the actual search and extraction process for rare materials can be an extremely dirty
process.
Lizzie Wade of WIRED magazine points towards the Jiangxi mine in China, which digs massive
eight foot holes into the ground and then douses them with toxic chemicals in order
to obtain a miniscule amount of rare earth.
All told, Wade says 0.2 percent of what gets pulled out of the ground is used, and the
other contaminated 99.8 percent is dumped back into the environment.
Mining companies employ energy intensive coal fired or gas powered equipment in order to
successfully extract materials resulting in high levels of greenhouse gas emissions.
So, when we look at the manufacturing stage of Tesla’s cars then, it’s not something
that starts in the often touted Gigafactory.
Instead, the metals used to create Tesla’s sleek design have roots in a dirty extraction
process halfway across the world.
So in general, the manufacturing process of a Tesla car is much dirtier emissions-wise
than a conventional car.
But that changes quickly once the car starts moving.
In the same 2015 study of electric cars, the Union of Concerned Scientists found that battery
powered cars make up for manufacturing’s steep environmental cost after only eighteen
months of driving.
However, this differs widely according to where you live because electric cars still
have emissions associated with them, it’s just not coming out of their tailpipes.
The environmental impact of a Tesla depends upon the type of grid you’re plugging into.
If it’s reliant on dirtier energy sources, the car most likely will have lower miles
per gallon equivalency, like in Colorado where the equivalent fuel efficiency is around 35
mpg.
But in California, where there are much more renewables, using a Tesla’s might equate
to something more like 87 miles per gallon.
Overall, by the end of their time on the road, gas-powered cars have almost double the amount
of emissions when compared to an electric vehicle like Tesla, although that all depends
on where electric cars are plugging into the grid.
Finally, on the waste end of its operations, Tesla does well in reusing spent materials.
The CTO of Tesla, JB Straubel, told shareholders that they recycle and will recycle “all
of [their] spent cells, modules, and battery packs.”
But information is hard to come by.
According to both NPR and Tesla’s website, they recycle about 10% of the battery in house,
and use a third party to recycle another 60% of the battery.
All told, right now they recycle about 70% of the battery.
This is this is another important means of reducing waste and the company’s impact,
in that it not only diverts unnecessary waste from landfills but it also reduces the environmental
costs of manufacturing by using raw materials already in existence.
Tesla’s electric cars are, for the most part, more energy efficient and better for
the environment than traditional gas-powered cars.
And Tesla challenged a stagnant auto industry by pushing battery powered cars into the mainstream
as a viable alternative to conventional cars, but even so, their approach is environmentally
limited.
Buying a new car is certainly more wasteful than using what you’ve got, and buying electric
vehicles and supporting a large corporation is not the solution to climate change, even
though an electric car might lower your individual carbon footprint.
So, should you go out and buy a Tesla right now to save the planet?
Probably not.
To me, it’s better to invest time and money in groups organizing for climate action and
legislation like the Sunrise Movement, or local groups in your area working for environmental
justice.
Electric cars do have a role to play in the climate movement, but they must be paired
with so many other actions in order to create viable lasting environmental change.
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