Here is an interesting insider piece by someone who used to work for Tesla. Elon Musk's eccentricities aside, what caught my attention are the quotes relating to attempts by the motor industry to kill electric cars. I recall a documentary about this some years ago as well as other reports. What makes this relevant are the comments that still keep cropping up here and elsewhere about electric cars burdening the environment more than ICE vehicles and other fossil fuel propaganda. I find these quotes of particular interest:
"Fossil fuel groups have been lobbying and campaigning and spreading disinformation about electric cars for a long time now - and continue to.
"Most recently the Koch brothers - who are two of the richest people who have ever existed ... last year they funded this campaign called ‘Fuelling US Forward’ which was supposed to espouse the benefits of glorious fossil fuels, but actually instead focused on taking down Elon Musk and taking down electric cars."
He says one of the things the company was trying to suggest was that electric cars are worse for the environment than petrol, which "is just not true".
"Even in the dirtiest coal grid situations electric cars are better for the environment when you account for the total production costs than even the most efficient gasoline vehicles ... that's out of a study from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"The other point … the electric grids in the US and China are cleaning up - so in the US, coal accounts for 30 percent of the electric grid and 10 years ago it was 50 percent. Renewables are on the rise.
"Those electric cars clean up as the electric grid cleans up, and that’s an advantage that can never be said … for petrol cars."