And how does that compare to the fleet of electric cars his companies make to replace gas cars?
Is he net negative?
Is he net negative?
Not only that, but focusing just on emissions is not comprehensive enough when thinking about the environmental impact of these technologies as a whole. As an example, the extraction of lithium in south america is decimating extremely delicate ecosystems (such as ancient archeon that resides in these extreme environments).
So I do wonder if trying to offer an similar but not quite alternative to car transportation is actually doing as much good as we think, it might be better for governments to push for more collective solutions to transportation that will drastically reduce environmental impact as a whole. Not that electric cars are not better than petrol or gasoline cars, but still, I think as a whole the car industry (this includes electric) is probably a net negative to environment and electric cars in particular are prolonging the life of technology that we should be thinking of reducing as much as possible.
I like how speculative and yet casually confident we get on here. Cities like NYC and Chicago have respectable public transportation systems. Have we analyzed what cars are used for here?
One problem is how do you propose getting people from a dense area to a weekend getaway to the woods, the mountains or a beach?
Another problem is, people live in semi rural and suburban areas, too, not everyone lives in an apartment building five minutes from a bus or subway.
Cars are obviously useful for the country side, but that's not really the issue. The issue is that cities in America are designed with cars in mind first, the whole idea of the suburbs is a car-centric city design. Reducing the need for cars is a huge ordeal that doesn't just touch transportation but housing and jobs as well.
I think it's pretty conceited to think we can have both sustainability and car-centric design at the same time. But it is possible to transition, I mean, the city I live in (Melbourne, Australia) has lots of suburbs but you can get anywhere by tram, train or bus and this obviously includes residential suburbs and the city center. It's a little crazy to me when you say people don't live five minutes away from bus stops, I just can't imagine how you'd get around such a living situation. I mean, what do you do when you go out drinking? How do you get home? I guess you rely on ubers and taxis?
But reducing the need for cars of course means increasing the means people for people to go places in different methods of transporation and changing the way our cities are structured. To me, starting to invest in public transporation is the right way of moving forward, rather than subsidies to electrify cars.
The batteries in each Tesla Semi could make multiple shorter range delivery trucks/vans that benefit from stop and go regenerative braking much more.
The problem isn't that Tesla is selling. The problem is that others are buying. At the end of the day it's not Tesla's fault if these government schemes aren't resulting in ideal overall outcomes.