
Fact Checking Tesla's “Impact Report” - dbasedweeb
https://www.thedrive.com/tech/27484/fact-checking-teslas-impact-report
======
rgrove
The article claims Tesla is incorrect when they say that "the average ICE
vehicle gets around 22 MPG", and counters with EPA stats showing that the
average fuel economy of all vehicles in the US is 24.9 MPG.

But these aren't the same thing.

The set "all vehicles in the US" contains both ICE vehicles _and_
hybrid/battery-powered EVs. But Tesla is explicitly only talking about ICE
vehicles, and Tesla doesn't specifically indicate whether they're talking only
about US ICE vehicles or all ICE vehicles worldwide.

I'm not sure what the source is for Tesla's number, and it's entirely possible
it's inaccurate, but The Drive's counter-argument makes an apples vs. oranges
comparison.

~~~
slg
>but The Drive's counter-argument makes an apples vs. oranges comparison.

I will go one step further, The Drive's number is just straight dishonest. It
lists that number as "the average fuel economy of all vehicles in the US hit
24.9 MPG in 2017". If you click through to the EPA report it list that 24.9
number as for "all new vehicles". It also says the number was 23.6 in 2012.
The average car on the road is roughly 10 years old so that 23.6 number is
still too modern to apply to "all vehicles in the US". So if you subtract non-
ICE vehicles and factor in that MPG has been improving, the 22 MPG number from
the original report seems perfectly reasonable.

~~~
7e
It's fair to compare Tesla's new cars with others' new cars. That's the
benchmark. If someone didn't buy a Tesla, they would have bought another type
of new car (though probably a new hybrid or plug in hybrid, which have even
higher average MPG). Tesla is disingenuous here.

~~~
slg
Except they aren’t comparing their cars. They are trying to quantify the total
carbon saved from their cars and other ventures like solar panels. People have
no idea what a “ton of carbon” equates to, but saying it is the equivalent of
taking 500k cars off the road is meaningful to the general population.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
_People have no idea what a “ton of carbon” equates to, but saying it is the
equivalent of taking 500k cars off the road is meaningful to the general
population._

Is this meant to be an off the cuff remark, or is a ton of carbon and 500,000
cars meaningfully linked?

~~~
slg
Thanks for pointing that out, I definitely phrased that poorly. The report
said they saved "four million tons of carbon" and they equated that to "saving
emissions from being released into the environment from over 500K ICE
vehicles". They are basically converting one unit that is hard to understand
"one ton of carbon" to a unit that people can relate to in "one ICE vehicle".

------
SECProto
> Fact Checking Tesla's "Impact Report"

> It's no surprise that the electric automaker is having a positive
> environmental impact, so why does it need to exaggerate the good and gloss
> over the bad?

I have a similar view of this article as this article has of Tesla: Why does
it need to exaggerate the bad and gloss over the good?

The only hard number it criticizes is the number Tesla used for the average
mileage of the US fleet (25.4 vs 22) - nevermind that the higher efficiency
would work in their favour: it would mean that the same number of Tesla
vehicles displaces a _larger_ number of ICE-vehicles.

Oh, and the author doesn't like that the report includes both the to-date
solar electricity generated by Solarcity (13.25 TWh) and the to-date
electricity used to charge Tesla fleet (5.26 TWh).

There's lots to criticize about Tesla, but this article doesn't do a great job
of it, in my personal opinion.

~~~
mr_toad
> Why does it need to exaggerate the bad and gloss over the good?

Car enthusiasts & journalists have a storied history of being biased against
electric and/or self-driving vehicles.

[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/dec/24/jeremy-
clarkso...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/dec/24/jeremy-clarkson-top-
gear-tesla-electric-car)

[https://www.tesla.com/blog/most-peculiar-test-
drive](https://www.tesla.com/blog/most-peculiar-test-drive)

~~~
danso
They have a far, far more storied history of being positive. Which is why
Tesla, quite rightly, says in its 10Qs that it doesn’t need to pay for
advertising because it expects to generate positive media coverage.

------
bearcobra
I really like Telsa's mission, but stuff like this is why they get a bad rap.
I don't understand why they try to oversell everything. You've got a good
product and are making a positive impact, don't squander it by making claims
that can't be backed up.

~~~
robertAngst
> You've got a good product

They have a product their buyers like, but the car doesnt have buttons or a
center console. "Good" is in the eye of the beholder.

Tesla has a weird situation that despite a product that breaks often and
doesn't have niceties, their customers have a high satisfaction.

~~~
m463
> They have a product their buyers like, but the car doesnt have buttons or a
> center console.

You're not the target market. Really it's for people who don't have money for
a model s/x who don't care about touchscreens and want to control the car from
an app.

(fwiw: I'm not the market either, I want a dashboard)

What's kind of interesting is looking at older model S cars and searching back
for what the UI looked like in the early years vs what it looks like now.
Looks loads more modern now. These folks have upgraded their cars like their
iphones throughout the years. The "niceties" are software and have just
appeared over time.

~~~
goshx
The Model 3 has a large touch screen.

I recommend both of you to just go visit a Tesla store and do a test drive. At
least it will help preventing the spread of misinformation.

------
zaroth
Written by Ed Niedermeyer of “Tesla Death Watch” fame. This guy has been
feuding with Tesla since 2008, and you can’t miss the malice when reading TFA.

This guy can’t get over the fact that Tesla hasn’t failed. Makes me wonder how
much he lost shorting the stock.

------
derkster
Tesla has almost highhandedly kept the public interested in electric cars. By
becoming a viable car company, there's been huge amounts of money put into
research from their competitors alone. I don't think it's good for them to
over exaggerate their personal impact, but looking at the overall scale of
what they have done.... I don't care that their marketing team went overboard
on something I wouldn't have read anyway. We all know what Tesla has done laid
the groundwork for some very important work that otherwise wouldn't have a
footing.

------
revscat
“ Tesla also compares crash statistics for Autopilot which, in addition to the
comparative distortions mentioned above, is only supposed to be used on
divided highways that are about twice as safe as non-divided roads.”

This statement about Autopilot is flatly incorrect. AP has worked on every
road and street I have driven on for at least a year without caveat. I’m not
sure where he gets the “supposed to” from, but I have never seen such warning,
nor does the car itself seem to have any significant problems navigating non-
divided roads.

This is a terrible article that smacks of fear-lingering.

------
omgwtfbyobbq
Ugh, Neidermeyer...

He's been anti-PHE/EV for over a decade at this point.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/opinion/30neidermeyer.htm...](https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/opinion/30neidermeyer.html)

He's been focusing on Tesla recently, but that's only because they're pushing
EV production more than anyone else.

------
robertAngst
Marketing.

But its 2019, if you still believe Tesla doesn't have ethics problems, you
haven't paid attention or don't care.

~~~
Hurpterderper
I don't care. If I buy an electric car, it will be because it goes faster than
a petrol car.

Get ready for the dated South Park reference. There is enough smug people who
like to smell their own farts.

------
7e
Tesla's report does not include the damage it does to the world by selling
carbon credits it earns to polluters, cheaply—thereby enabling them to pollute
more and defer cleaning up their own acts. I wonder if Tesla's sum
contribution is net negative when viewed from this perspective.

------
tdhz77
I’m not stating anything other than this website is owned by Time, inc. Time,
inc owners is currently on several boards for the oil and gas industry.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.a...](https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=22992797)

~~~
justinclift
"The Drive" website... doesn't seem to mention "Time, Inc." anywhere, and your
link is to an overview of "True Multimedia Co. Ltd.", described on that page
as:

`True Multimedia Company Limited provides high-speed multimedia network
services in Thailand. `

... which _seems_ completely irrelevant.

Maybe provide better references? :)

~~~
tdhz77
Thank you for visiting one of the sites within the network of sites of Time
Inc. and its subsidiaries. Ads delivered on these sites may be delivered from
participants in the Digital Advertising Alliance's (DAA) Self-Regulatory
Program, whose goal is to provide you with enhanced notice about online
advertising practices and choices about the ads you see.

~~~
justinclift
k. What's with the link to the Thailand place?

~~~
tdhz77
Corrected link was below. The owner of Time, inc is on several traditional
Energy and Gas boards.

~~~
tdhz77
This may help you understand the relevant facts:

[http://fortune.com/2018/11/09/fortune-sale-chatchaval-
jiarav...](http://fortune.com/2018/11/09/fortune-sale-chatchaval-jiaravanon/)

------
xkcd-sucks
"Impact Report" is a poor choice of words in light of all the autopilot
crashes

~~~
DeonPenny
If by impact you mean the very very very few AP crashes

~~~
serf
>the very very very few AP crashes

(tl;dr : 'very very very few' is entirely relative )

I don't know if comparing frequencies is such a hot idea with regards to a
paradigm shift.

If that's the comparison you want to make, the few AP accidents that _have_
happened are infinitely more than came before Tesla.

Since there is no A/B comparison to make in order to judge severity, maybe we
should treat _every_ AP accident as important and research worthy until there
is a standard to compare against -- unless of course you want to compare AP to
non-AP crashes, but that metric is mostly only useful for marketing AP towards
people, not improving the system itself.

