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sneak | on: Trump wins presidency for second time
> It's not clear that Elon Musk has a good sense for efficient means to reduce climate harming activity

I think that this is one of the most incorrect, and, what’s more, plainly and obviously incorrect things I’ve ever read. I am almost at a loss for words when I read it.

Are we going to pretend that people would have adopted EVs anyway in the west without Tesla? Did you think we would just abandon the entire western auto manufacturing infrastructure and start driving BYDs? Did you forget what the auto industry looked like before (and during, in the early years) Tesla?

This is like saying that he doesn’t have a good sense for building orbital rockets. The guy has basically only done two big and meaningful things with his life and attacking the #1 carbon emission source is the bigger of the two.

margalabargala | parent | next
> Are we going to pretend that people would have adopted EVs anyway in the west without Tesla?

EVs are growing, and will continue to grow, for reasons unrelated to climate.

They are the superior product in nearly every way. Regenerative braking is a huge objective improvement. The acceleration and torque control is a huge improvement. The lack of maintenance is a huge improvement.

The only downside of EVs is range and charge time, and both of those are being actively improved.

Elon deserves some credit for joining on to Tesla in 2004, long before these benefits were clear, and for being at the first company to really demonstrate these benefits in reality with the Roadster in 2008. But I do not think the existence of Tesla accelerated the adoption of EVs by more than a couple years.

The Model S was released in 2012. The Nissan Leaf was released in 2010.

komali2 | parent
Improved private cars, electric or otherwise, are an unserious solution to climate change or a sustainable future. Simple geometry makes this obvious - they're quite literally the worst solution to moving many people. If I asked someone, "move ten thousand people ten kilometers," and they came back with "I will put each one in a 2x2 meter box with four seats, but only one will be occupied by a person. The box needs to be stored at the origin and destination, and independently operated by every single person," how could I do anything but laugh them out of the room? Addendum: "by the way, the infrastructure to sustain this means the box is required for trips of all lengths greater than 1.5 kilometers, and sometimes even less!"

Attacking cars as a carbon emission source would not mean killing an HSR project on purpose. It would mean building public transit.

Anyway EVs aren't special. Every major car manufacturer has them now, and the PRC makes shitloads too. Elon Musk probably beat the market, but it's not like his designs were genius - they lacked critical, simple safety features for example. Need I truck out the stories of people slicing their hands open on the cybertruck frame?

As for orbital rockets, that doesn't really have anything to do with climate change.

sneak | root | parent
The fact that EVs aren’t special, and that every major manufacturer has them now, are almost entirely the result of his hard work. I think a lot of people forgot what the world was like before Tesla. This is sort of like saying “every phone manufacturer makes touch screen phones”. The foregone conclusion that “this is just how phones/cars are now” wasn’t foregone until someone made it that way, at scale, first to show everyone the better way.

Also, I think your idea that cars themselves are the problem is probably incorrect. Decarbonization isn’t primarily about reducing overall energy use per person, although you can possibly deflect with the argument that it requires both that and also clean energy.

In any case, American culture and cities are car culture and cities, and even if you could do the impossible and magically deploy tons of HSR between every metro in the US it wouldn’t make people stop driving. Any solution that requires first rebuilding the whole country and replacing its whole population with people who don’t want to drive a large vehicle to the grocery store is obviously a nonstarter.

NoLinkToMe | root | parent
Nah the nissan leaf was released about 15 years ago. Electric mobility was a proven use case years before the release of the roadster or model S. It wasn't the paradigm shift that the iPhone was. (and I don't have any doubts we wouldn't have gotten to an iPhone experience a few years later, either. I used smartphones before the iPhone with touchscreens, less smooth and intuitive, but already had miniaturized mobile-first apps based on touch. Android was released a few months after iOS and had been in parallel development for 5 the previous 5 years prior to iOS being unveiled...)

Tesla accelerated the electric car market several years, that's for sure. But nothing more than that.

The most important development for the feasibility of electric cars has not been automotive innovation (not the powertrain, the motor, the wheels, the interior or whatever), but battery innovation.

And battery innovation (i.e. cheaper, lighter, more capacity, better heat management, better durability) has been ongoing regardless of automotive even existing as an industry.

This has been the driving factor for the electrification of cars, not any one car company but the battery industry. Tesla simply was the best first mover.

https://ourworldindata.org/images/published/Battery-cost-dec...