Tesla motors

Knowledgeable people in the industry have concluded that corn ethanol is not an efficient way to reduce CO2 emissions. The same thing is true of electric cars but that has yet to be pointed out. When using fossil fuels at the power plant to produce electricity the amount of CO2 produced varies with the type of fuel. Coal produces 2.1 pounds of CO2 per KWH, oil produces 1.7 pounds of CO2 per KWH and natural gas produces 1.2 pounds of CO2 per KWH. The Tesla Model 3 electric car uses 77 KWH to charge the batteries and will go 250 miles per charge. Using coal this will produce 162 pounds of CO2, using oil 131 pounds and using natural gas 92 pounds. The normal car getting 30 mpg and going 250 miles will use 8.3 gallons of gas and gas produces 20 pounds of CO2 per gallon of gasoline to this comes to 166 pounds of CO2 or very similar to burning coal. Electricity produced by source. • Coal = 33% • Natural gas = 33% • Nuclear = 20% • Hydropower = 6% • Other renewables = 7% • Biomass = 1.6% • Geothermal = 0.4% • Solar = 0.6% • Wind = 4.7% • Petroleum = 1% • Other gases = <1% In addition using electricity to charge a battery and then to run a motor causes a 10% loss in efficiency. 2/3rds of our power plants still used fossil fuels. Tesla Motors is the darling of the electric car industry and they are not doing well. Liberal entrepreneur Elon Musk’s business ventures have benefited from nearly $5 billion in government subsidies in the past few years, but apparently that’s not enough taxpayer support to stop his electric car business from losing $4,000 on every vehicle it sells. Update on Tesla. Interestingly enough, Tesla’s losses may be much higher than the company reports. Reuters notes that using “generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, used by GM or Ford, Tesla’s operating losses per vehicle have steadily widened to $14,758 from $3,794 in the second quarter of 2014.”