[updated] How many people (guys, mostly) did you know that liked to show off their green lifestyle with the help of a Tesla? Their numbers seem to dwindle since hard data on the company’s green performance show that other shades of colors prevail. Is Tesla sustainable? As sustainable as its owner, which is, no longer.
Elon Musk is a master at attracting attention with provocative oneliners and suggestive tweets. Many of those used to aim at boosting his green image, and that of his companies and products. Like Tesla’s electric cars. The facts, however, tell a different story.
Let’s start with a matter of choice. Does a road car need to have the same power a formula 1 racing car has? So if you claim to be sustainable, why build one in the first place?
Ok, it may be a personal challenge to build the most sustainable 1000++ horsepower family car around. Still, the question remains: who needs the power of a Formula 1 racing car? That fact alone makes the process of building it wasteful.
If that would be the only problem, we might just have a discussion about opinions. However, the statement that Tesla and its owner are not as sustainable as they want you to believe is based on facts.
This we already knew.
Top Greener Cars 2022
All-electric vehicles (EVs) now account for fewer of the dozen greenest cars available, partly because of a shift toward larger and heavier EVs that are less environmentally friendly, according to this year’s GreenerCars ratings, released by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).
These EVs take only three of the top 10 spots on the ratings’ “Greenest List” for 2022 vehicles—down from seven last year. And none of them is a Tesla.
“Automakers are pledging more all-electric models, but they’re discontinuing some of the most efficient ones, leaving consumers with fewer compact, ultra-green choices,” says Peter Huether, ACEEE’s senior transportation research analyst. “Automakers shouldn’t produce only huge EVs. Such EVs, though more energy-efficient than similarly sized gasoline counterparts, mean higher consumer costs and planet-warming emissions than small electric cars.”
Greenest List
This year’s Greenest List features the most environmentally friendly cars for model year 2022. Each car receives a Green Score based on an environmental damage index, which reflects the cost to human health from air pollution associated with vehicle manufacturing and disposal, the production and distribution of fuel or electricity, and vehicle tailpipes. ACEEE evaluated more than 1,000 models, including vehicles fueled entirely by gasoline or diesel (including hybrids), plug-in hybrids powered by energy both from gasoline and electricity from plugging into the grid, and all-electric vehicles.
While the rise in the number of hybrids on this year’s Greenest List occurred in part because of the shift to heavier EVs, it also resulted from updates to the scoring methodology. Based on periodically updated estimates from the federal government, GreenerCars considers the emissions from producing a vehicle’s materials. For model year 2022, the federal estimate showed an increase in the emissions associated with mining lithium, a crucial mineral used in EV batteries.
| Greenest | Power Train | EDX | Green Score |
| Toyota Prius Prime | Plug-in Hybrid | 0.62 | 69 |
| Hyundai Ioniq Plug-In Hybrid | Plug-in Hybrid | 0.65 | 68 |
| Mini Cooper SE Hardtop 2 Door | EV | 0.66 | 67 |
| Nissan Leaf | EV | 0.68 | 67 |
| Kia Niro Plug-In Hybrid | Plug-in Hybrid | 0.72 | 65 |
| Hyundai Elantra Hybrid Blue | Gasoline Hybrid | 0.73 | 65 |
| Mazda Mx-30 | EV | 0.74 | 65 |
| Toyota Corolla Hybrid | Gasoline Hybrid | 0.74 | 64 |
| Honda Insight | Gasoline Hybrid | 0.75 | 64 |
| Toyota Camry Hybrid LE | Gasoline Hybrid | 0.77 | 63 |
On top of this, Tesla moves on with that Cybertruck, an energy guzzling macho machine that can’t compete with a petrol car when it comes to environmental standards, instead of making efforts to develop a small, affordable and really green EV for everyday city use.
Now, about Tesla, not producing the greenest car around is not the only fact. As a company, Tesla does not report enough details about the production of its vehicles or the sourcing of its products for consumers to have any idea about how sustainable that process is.
Also, Tesla is remarkably inefficient in its use of raw materials, with 40% of its purchases of raw materials being scrapped.
They sacrifice worker safety in the name of production speed, responded to them in a beautiful PR move, and then didn’t follow through. They bully their workers into not joining unions.
All that makes Tesla just another company that makes electric cars, concludes this post.
As a result, Tesla even has a ‘green debt value’ of USD 1,5 Bn.
ESG, what ESG?
A recent study conducted by Arabesque (not publicly available) found that the car company is among the 15% of the world’s largest companies, across 14 indices, that do not disclose their overall greenhouse-gas emissions, as writes Morningstar.
In its reports, Tesla shows its carbon emissions in graphs, which means they do not disclose the exact numbers. They also do not offer details, such as Scope 1 or Scope 2 emissions, or the percentage of operations that these graphs cover. What’s more, the company’s data are not timely: the figures in its 2019 report are for 2017.
The company also has failed to commit to carbon targets.
General Motors and Ford are far more transparent according to Morningstar, —about both the emissions they create in making their vehicles and their targets for reducing those emissions.
Because of its meager ESG results, S&P Global decided to boot the automaker from the sustainable version of its flagship S&P 500 index, citing the company’s weak handling of a federal investigation into multiple deaths linked to its self-driving cars and claims of racial discrimination and poor working conditions at its Fremont, California, factory.
Elon Musk is now turning his Twitter sights on sustainable investing, calling ESG a “scam” after Tesla was given the boot from a widely-followed sustainability index.
But what Tesla’s chief executive is ignoring, Morningstar writes, is that sustainable investing is more than about which companies produce environmentally-focused products, as Tesla does. The other two legs of the stool in “ESG” investing are social and governance issues, and that’s where Tesla comes up short, as we saw before. Tesla sustainable? Not so much.
Unions still not welcome, but called for – again
[ update Dec 5, 2023 ] In Sweden, Tesla, and its leader Elon Musk, decided to willfully ignore the law in Sweden. As a result, Swedish unions answered the declaration of war with nationwide boycotts of Tesla, which are now spreading to Denmark, and possibly even further.
Earlier that year Tesla workers in New York launched a new unionization campaign, Axios’ Ivana Saric wrote in their newsletter. So far Tesla managed to keep the unions out of its facilities in the US. Elon Musk himself opposed unions back in 2017 and allegations were made about intimidating workers who wanted to join a union.
Tesla workers want better wages, job security, a say in workplace decision-making, and a reduction in monitoring and production pressures, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the news.
About face
[ update December 10 2024]
Now, as The Washington Post reports extensively, Elon Musk’s stance on climate change and Tesla’s mission has shifted further, moving to prioritize technological goals like AI, robotics, and space exploration. Early this year, Musk rejected a proposal for a budget-friendly Tesla Model 2 to address climate change, opting instead for a multi-billion-dollar investment in AI chips for luxury cars and a humanoid robot. This reflects a broader change in his priorities and views on climate change, influenced by his rightward political shift, tensions with Democrats, and skepticism of catastrophic climate predictions.
Musk now sees climate risks as overstated and emphasizes solutions like nuclear power and carbon capture over aggressive CO2 reduction. His alliance with conservatives, including figures like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, has deepened, focusing more on deregulation and fostering his business ventures than on Tesla’s original climate mission. Musk has also become critical of environmental groups, viewing some as obstructive to his projects.
This transformation has led to internal conflicts at Tesla, departures of key executives, and concerns among shareholders about Musk’s commitment to Tesla’s mission. Critics warn that Musk’s actions and alignment with anti-climate policies risk undermining the EV industry and accelerating environmental harm. Musk, however, appears committed to pursuing his broader vision of humanity’s future, prioritizing technological advances and regulatory relief for his companies over direct climate action. His preparations to escape to Mars might well be a sign that he has given up on Earth entirely. Let’s wish him a safe flight.
Your next read: Why it is not sustainable for everyone to have their own Tesla or Rivian (or any other) EV
[ First published July 3, 2022 ]
