[lowii]

Building millions of electric cars and shipping them around the world is extremely energy intensive. Many countries where those cars are shipped to use fossil fuels as their main source of electricity too. Nothing about it is green or will "stop climate change", but it gives them good marketing.

[montalbano]

The CO2 output to build and ship the cars is amortised over the first few years of the car's use so unless the car is destroyed in a crash before that time, there is a significant net CO2 benefit.

My supplier (United Kingdom based) provides 100% renewable electricity. I'm sure there are plenty of other countries (where Tesla is on sale) that can provide energy generated in a more efficient way than internal combustion.

It isn't perfect but it's the lesser evil when compared to combustion engines.

[Doxin]

Not to mention that a big-ass power plant burning gas (or coal or some other fuel) is going to be wildly more efficient than the relatively tiny engine in your car. Economies of scale apply to CO2 output too, so running an electric car on not-green energy is still better than running an ICE car.

[tonyedgecombe]

http://www.carboncounter.com lets you play with various options. ICE vehicles only look better if you compare the smallest petrol vehicle to the largest EV.

[apsec112]

Electricity is rapidly switching over to renewable sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics

Having an electric car fleet means that transportation will get greener "automatically", as the power grid switches over to wind and solar. Having a fossil fuel car fleet means you're screwed no matter what happens in the electricity sector. Having a smaller fossil fuel car fleet just means that you're screwed a little more slowly.

[weberc2]

I would also expect that it’s easier to address the co2 output of a single coal plant than a million cars due to economies of scale. The solution space for internal combustion engines is constrained by size, weight, and serviceability which is less an issue for power plants. Note that this is not to say that we shouldn’t prefer green energy, only that it shouldn’t deter us from investing in electric cars.

[Iwan-Zotow]

coal production is growing for the last three years

[standardUser]

Making and distributing anything always requires energy. Making and distributing things that lead to fewer carbon emissions is the only way to slow climate change.

[Scarblac]

Not the only way.

Driving less is much more effective than switching to electric vehicles.

[ses1984]

Making and distributing fewer things could also slow climate change.

[graks]

I really don’t like this take. You should consider the fact that an equivalent volume of fossil fuel vehicles would be shipped around the world if electric cars did not exist. The carbon cost of shipping can thus be cancelled out and it becomes clear that this is a massive step in the right direction.

[sowbug]

You seem to be concerned about climate change. Do you have a better idea than electric cars to address the problem?

[gaze]

Build infrastructure for public transportation and bicycles and such things. Try to eliminate cars.

[lowii]

It's a difficult problem for sure. But I don't think we'll ever come up with a truly "clean" personal vehicle like the cars we know today. I think the solution would have to be something like better, cleaner public transit, encouraging people to live in walking/biking distance from their work, encouraging remote work, and reducing car usage overall as much as possible.

Electric cars are better than regular fossil fuel cars, yes. But the article talks about "stopping" climate change, not just making it slightly less bad.

[Scarblac]

Far less driving.

[rococode]

While it's true that electric cars still use tons of fossil fuels and the marketing can be misleading, I think the big picture goal is to simply have cars that can actually run on electricity.

Generating electricity in an environmentally-friendly way is almost an entirely separate problem from using electricity to run things that used to not run on electricity. Electric cars try to solve the latter problem, and the hope is that the widespread existence of electric cars will make the transition to clean energy easier in the future.

[NeedMoreTea]

Using fossil fuel generated electricity is still more efficient than drilling oil, cracking it into petrol, along with lubricant oil to stop your ICE seizing, driving it to a petrol station, filling your car and burning it at awful efficiency.

Renewable sources of electricity are a huge improvement to be encouraged, but EVs running off fossil generated electricity are better than petrol or diesel ICE.

[fenwick67]

A whole lot of emissions in the US are from transportation. Electric cars can be part of a wider solution.

[woodandsteel]

But if these electric vehicles were not built, then people would buy icev's instead that over their lifetime put 10 times as much co2 into the atmosphere.

I am guessing you are someone who wants us to stay on fossil fuels forever, and are only pretending to care about the environment

[dang]

Personal attacks will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong another comment is or you feel it is. Please don't post like this to HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html