Elon Musk - superhero entrepreneur. Tackling big ideas (how often do you see comments in threads bitching how Silicon Valley doesn't tackle big ideas any more?). Addressing energy crisis problems. Building real, hard, technology.

Doing so in a way that is making money and beating an industry which has massive legislative protection, political support from all kinds of protectionist players, known lobbying organizations with a track record of killing innovation JUST like this.

Not sure that for this audience this is getting too carried away with Tesla. The Tesla story is the epitome of much that many many folks on here believe in, aspire to, and stand for.

The article seems very long-winded and stops short of facts sometimes. For example:

"Solar cells contain heavy metals, and their manufacturing releases greenhouse gases such as sulfur hexafluoride, which has 23 000 times as much global warming potential as CO2, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."

At this point I expect the article to tell me how much CO2 is produced in the lifetime of the vehicle and how much sulfur hexaflouride is produced while manufacturing photo-voltaics for a typical electric car. Instead the argument is left hanging.

There's not enough attention paid to the fact that cars and the sedentary lifestyle they encourage are a net-negative for most people. Many of the folks I talk to who'd like to move to an active form of transportation don't because they are scared of being hit by a car. We've effectively ceded huge swaths of public space to single occupancy vehicles, and made it off limits to humans. This is bad for the health of the people in those cars, but also bad for everyone else.

What I gathered from the text was that, with somewhat pessimistic input numbers, electric cars are more or less on par with gasoline cars. But this is assuming no changes in the power grid, which will be essential if we are really going to transit to a greener economy. Which means more nuclear, hopefully new nuclear, more solar, massively more wind and hopefully less coal during the transition. Note that the Tesla Model S uses few to no rare-earth metals (there are usually employed in the permanent magnet of the motor).

But this is sort of a moot point, since properly engineered electric cars appear to be better than their gasoline equivalent, and will eventually sell better regardless. I do agree that this is something which should show up on the HN front page.

Here is my problem with this cover. Just like the NYT picture with the Model S getting towed, it creates a bad image of the car and Tesla in peoples mind. Not just electric cars in general but Tesla. And I have a problem with this. Thats not because I have stock in Tesla, I don't and not because I'm a Musk, Tesla and SpaceX enthusiast, I am. I have a problem with this because, as it stands right now, Teslas goal and mission is aligned with progress and a brighter future for humanity and the planet. This is in opposition to most big car manufactures. Like you, I worked for one so I know that most employers there DON'T GIVE SHIT about humanity or the planet. The people at Tesla do and the results so far speak for them. You can argue whatever you want in your article. You can not deny that Tesla is trying to improve the status quo by pushing forward the state of the art. They are the bright side of the force and Detroit, Munich, Wolfsburg etc. are the dark side. After having read your article I will say that it is well written and researched and I agree with many points. However, this does not change my opinion about what I wrote above, which is about the picture of the Tesla car on the dirty coal hill. Seeing you and IEEE (which I'm now glad not to be a member of) attack Tesla in such a dirty way hurts.

Your main point seems to be that "Focusing only on greenhouse gases, however important, misses much of the picture."

And, I couldn't agree more. However, reducing greenhouse gas production is an important goal, and like destroying the rainforest or wiping out species, the damage is almost impossible to revert. We keep polluting the atmosphere with gasoline cars every day. Yes, mining for resources like metal does hurt our planet. However, I can not imagine how we can progress in the future without more mining. Can you? Software can't solve all our problems, neither can timber. We need those metals. Maybe, we can mine asteroids one day, but until then all we can do, is make sure that mining happens with minimum damage to the environment and miners and that no precious resources get lost. That is, we need to build products with a focus on long product life and ease of repair and recycle them once they die for good.

"Compounds such as lithium, copper, and nickel must be coaxed from the earth and processed in ways that demand energy and can release toxic wastes. And in regions with poor regulations, mineral extraction can extend risks beyond just the workers directly involved. Surrounding populations may be exposed to toxic substances through air and groundwater contamination."

Yes, so how about we work on solving these problems, which relate to pretty much every product we produce? Should be very doable. But, why pick out electric cars?

I also have a problem with the general tenor of the article: "Are electric cars a sleight of hand that allows peace of mind for those who are already comfortable at the expense of intensifying asthma, heart problems, and radiation risks among the poor and politically disconnected?"

Im sorry to say, but many of the arguments remind me of the well meaning 'environmentalists' who killed the maglev train in Germany, arguing that it was too expensive, needed too many resources like copper and was incompatible with the existing rail network. These people fail to see, that real progress requires heavy investment and does not immediately lead to a new optimum but takes time to mature.

Given things as they are and likely will be for long time, that is many people want cars, Tesla improves the status quo by leading us away from fossil fuels. They do so by starting with luxury cars, simply because it seems to be the only viable option to finance such an expensive investment in R&D. Weather the problem of pollution during production can be significantly improved in the future might be debatable. But personally, I'm sure that Tesla will do much better than what the paper estimates for 2030.

"As for greenhouse-gas emissions and their influence on future climate, the researchers didn’t ignore those either. The investigators, like many others who have probed this issue, found that electric vehicles generally produce fewer of these emissions than their gasoline- or diesel-fueled counterparts—but only marginally so when full life-cycle effects are accounted for. The lifetime difference in greenhouse-gas emissions between vehicles powered by batteries and those powered by low-sulfur diesel, for example, was hardly discernible."

Does this take into account that todays cars are designed to have a artificial short life time in order to increase profit? Yes, the battery life time of a Tesla is short despite best efforts. But is it naive to believe that their life time and especially ease of refurbishing and recycling will improve?

"At the end of their useful lives, batteries can also pose a problem. If recycled properly, the compounds are rather benign—although not something you’d want to spread on a bagel. But handled improperly, disposed batteries can release toxic chemicals. Such factors are difficult to measure, though, which is why they are often left out of studies on electric-car impacts."

How about we make sure this won't happen then? How can this be a sensible argument against electric cars? You can make the same argument against cell phones vs landlines or laptops vs PCs. How can we progress if every new technology has to face such arguments? It's not like old batteries are not nuclear waste.

"All of the aforementioned studies compare electric vehicles with petroleum-powered ones. In doing so, their findings draw attention away from the broad array of transportation options available—such as walking, bicycling, and using mass transit."

No. This simply won't work in the foreseeable future. Unless we radically change our way of living, especially in the US, people won't be able to do away with their car. I don't speak for myself. I've never owned a car. Almost all my transportation is walking, biking and trains. I have a year pass for the Swiss railway, even avoid buses when possible and haven't been on an airplane in years. But for most people in the world this is not an option.

If we want to solve the transportation and other efficiency problems we need to live in ever denser places. I am all for that, especially if we return the freed space to nature and don't use it to farm more plants and meat. Fortunately, there is a world wide trend towards urbanization. Meat production however is an increasing problem. Anyway, we can not force it! That would be inhuman. Clearly the best way to heal the planet is to wipe out humanity. Otherwise, there is a trade off between peoples freedom and opportunities versus environmental protection. And if we don't want to make a 'big leap forward' like Mao, it will take very, very long until the average human lives as dense as, say, a Swiss today. And even that doesn't lead to the required efficiency with todays technology and standard of living. So, changing our way of life alone won't do it, we need technological progress.

I agree that Tesla does not solve the most important environmental problems of today. But I would say that it is one of the most shining examples of progress in the field of transportation and of how much can be achieved by being bold, ignoring the naysayers and fighting big mega corps which have anything in mind but the betterment of our world. Please, support them, even if you have objections!

I think your thesis is an important one and yes we need to figure out how to best save our environment. I believe for instance, that preserving the rain forest, wild life areas in general and finding alternatives to todays meat production are more important. If anyone has new ideas on how to tackles those, I would love to hear them! I'm also keen to hear arguments what the most pressing environmental issues of our time are.

The IEEE Spectrum print version has a big coal dump with a half covered Tesla Models S on top of it.