Does Elon Musk’s Tesla need to cut its carbon emissions?
The internet and the world at large is no stranger to Elon Musk or his accomplishments.
Elon Reeve Musk is a business magnate, industrial designer, and engineer. He is the founder, CEO, CTO, and chief designer of SpaceX; early investor, CEO, and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; founder of The Boring Company; co-founder of Neuralink; and co-founder and initial co-chairman of OpenAI. More recently he has been on the news for his impact on cryptocurrency and his activity on Twitter.
However, Tesla might need to reevaluate a few of its business decisions.
Tesla, Inc. is an American electric vehicle and clean energy company. However, the darling of “green energy” looks like it might be upping its carbon emissions.
Thanks to its explosive expansion in China and a planned car plant in India, Tesla Inc. is in the process of not just increasing the total sum of its emissions — a pretty inevitable consequence of the growth in our current carbonized world — but increasing the amount of pollution each of its vehicles generates, too, reports Bloomberg.
Not only are Tesla's total emissions set to grow — an inevitable consequence of growth in our carbonized world — but the amount of pollution each of its cars generates will, too, thanks to:
🇨🇳An explosive expansion in China
🇮🇳A planned car plant in India https://t.co/Wj1Wp7qBYB pic.twitter.com/jWuyCGFTuQ— Bloomberg Opinion (@bopinion) February 21, 2021
That’s because carmakers’ emissions aren’t just a product of the energy consumed in their factories — they’re a result of the pollution their products pump out while they’re being driven around.
A car with its battery made in China and charged up in Poland, where coal makes up about two-thirds of the electricity mix as it does in China and India, puts out 193 grams of high carbon emissions per kilometre.
As a result, the more cars Tesla sells in China and India, the more the intensity of the emissions per vehicle sold, or per dollar of revenue, will rise.
The main problem is that, allegedly, Tesla isn’t providing adequate documentation of its emissions.
Not only does it not disclose the Scope 3 emissions (those dominated by emissions from the cars it sells), it doesn’t even layout Scope 1 (from on-site power consumption) or Scope 2 (from purchased electricity). Nor does it disclose its electricity consumption.
Is Tesla going to take accountability for this issue? Will it continue to stay true to its aim of making green energy more mainstream or will that goal be lost in the want for profits and higher investments?