Both Honda (FCX Clarity)and Toyota (Mirai) currently produce Hydrogen powered cars but they haven’t had the coverage that Tesla gets. The issue is availability of Hydrogen refilling stations but the tech is there.
Also this guy isn’t yet a believer, not sure of his credentials or how accurate his data is (and I’m too lazy to look him up) but its probably an opinion held by a few.
Tesla 3 yet to exist and won't save the world
by Bjorn Lomborg
As Elon Musk presented the Tesla 3, a fawning press announced the “world-changing car” could “dominate” the market.
Within days, 276,000 people had put down $US1000 ($1300) to pre-order the car.
However, the Model 3 doesn’t exist yet. There is no final production version, much less any production.
Musk is “fairly confident” deliveries may start by the end of 2017.
The Tesla 3 is still far from production.
The Tesla 3 is still far from production. Supplied
However, running on schedule isn’t Tesla’s strong suit.
Meanwhile, Tesla’s current best-seller has been plagued by quality problems.
All of this may just be another iPhone v Galaxy conversation; except that these vehicles are hailed as green saviours and so are subsidised to the tune of billions of dollars.
Before unveiling the car, Musk sanctimoniously declared Tesla existed to give the planet a sustainable future.
He pointed to rising CO₂ levels. He lamented that 53,000 people died from air pollution from transportation.
Tesla, the story goes, is a lifesaver. Like other electric cars, it has “zero emissions” of air pollution and CO₂.
However, this is only true of the car itself; the electricity powering it is often produced with coal, which means the clean car is responsible for heavy air pollution.
As green venture capitalist Vinod Khosla likes to point out, “electric cars are coal-powered cars”.
If the US had 10 per cent more petrol cars by 2020, air pollution would claim 870 more lives. A similar increase in electric ones would cause 1617 more deaths a year, mostly because of the coal burnt.
If this was scaled to Britain, electric cars would cause the same or more air pollution-related deaths than petrol-powered cars.
In China, because its coal power plants are so dirty, electric cars make local air much worse.
In Shanghai, pollution from more electric-powered cars would be nearly three times as deadly as more petrol-powered ones.
Moreover, while electric cars typically emit less CO₂, the savings are smaller than most imagine. Over a 150,000-kilometre lifetime, the top-line Tesla S will emit about 13 tonnes of CO₂. However, the production of its batteries alone will emit 14 tonnes, along with seven more from the rest of its production and eventual decommissioning.
Compare this with the diesel-powered, but similarly performing, Audi A7 Sportback, which uses about seven litres per 100 kilometres, so about 10,500 litres over its lifetime. This makes 26 tonnes of CO₂. The Audi will also emit slightly more than seven tonnes in production and end-of-life.
In total, the Tesla will emit 34 tonnes and the Audi 35. So over a decade, the Tesla will save the world 1.2 tonnes of CO₂.
Reducing 1.2 tonnes of CO₂ on the European Union emissions trading system costs £5 ($9.40); but, instead, the British Government subsidises each car with £4500.
All of the world’s electric cars sold so far have soaked up £9 billion in subsidies, yet will only save 3.3 million tonnes of CO₂. This will reduce world temperatures by 0.00001 degrees in 2100; the equivalent of postponing global warming by about 30 minutes at the end of the century.
Electric cars will be a good idea, once they can compete, which will probably be by 2032. However, it is daft to waste billions of dollars of public money on rich people’s playthings that kill more people through air pollution while barely affecting carbon emissions.
The Tesla 3 is indeed a “zero emissions” marvel, but that is only because it does not yet exist.
Bjorn Lomborg is a Danish author and environmentalist and director of a non-profit think tank, the Copenhagen Consensus Centre.
Telegraph, London
The Telegraph, London