Tesla released its 2022 Impact Report this week, and it gives the clearest picture yet of the electric car company's carbon footprint. Tesla disclosed numbers on its supply chain emissions for the first time, which makes its overall carbon footprint much bigger than it has reported in the past.
Last year, the company only disclosed how much greenhouse gas pollution it generated from its direct operations and from customers charging their EVs. Altogether that was roughly equivalent to 2.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. But that missed the big picture since supply chain pollution — considered indirect emissions — often make up a major chunk of a company's carbon footprint.
This year, Tesla finally released data on its supply chain emissions for 2022, which is equivalent to roughly 30.7 million tons of carbon dioxide. That's a huge change from what the company reported last year.
The disclosure really highlights how important it is to count up all of a company's direct and indirect emissions. It's especially pertinent with a fight brewing in the US between companies and the Securities and Exchange Commission over how much of those emissions ought to be reported under law.
A company's carbon footprint is usually divvied up into three main groups or "scopes." Scope 1 includes direct emissions from its own factories, offices, and vehicles. Scope 2 encompasses emissions from its electricity use, heating, and cooling. Scope 3 comprises all the other indirect emissions from supply chains and the lifecycle of the products a company makes. And there are 15 different categories of emissions within Scope 3 alone to give a sense of how wide-ranging it can be.
It's a common practice for companies to only share their Scope 1 and 2 emissions, which can make its carbon footprint appear much smaller than it actually is. Tesla's Scope 1 and 2 emissions, for example, only add up to 610,000 metric tons of CO2 in 2022. That's minuscule in comparison to the company's indirect Scope 3 emissions.
Last year, the SEC proposed rules that would mandate that all public companies share their Scope 1 and 2 emissions. But what caused the most uproar with that announcement was a stipulation that would also require large companies to report their indirect Scope 3 emissions in certain cases. Since then, the SEC has delayed finalizing the rule, which was supposed to happen in October. And SEC chair Gary Gensler has hinted that the final rule might not mandate Scope 3 disclosures after all, alarming some Democratic lawmakers.
Tesla's a great example of what a difference those rules could make. The company has lagged behind other automakers in sharing details about its greenhouse gas emissions. Ford, for example, has garnered "A" grades for its climate change disclosures since 2019, while Tesla earned "F" grades from the CDP, a nonprofit that evaluates companies' environmental reporting.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by istartedi on Friday April 28, @10:36PM (13 children)
By no means can I speak for everybody, but I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that the desire for EVs pre-dates Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth and ubiquitous stories about CO2. The desire for EVs was mostly about telling Big Oil and the Saudis where to stick it when gas prices got high. That Big Oil from Saudi might be a significant input to producing the vehicle itself is, to some extent, not relevant for most people as long as you can ignore those big ever-changing (mostly increasing) signs in front of stations on the highway.
Of course if CO2 exceeded that of ICE cars for the life of the vehicle, that would defeat the purpose; but EV manufacturing can equal the CO2 output of ICE manufacturing and it's still a winner because you're no longer fueling up at the pump, with the caveat that you're using electricity from whatever the local generator's profile is. Those profiles have been emitting less, and that trend is likely to continue.
The release of EVs also has a positive feedback effect, especially trucks since electric trucks delivering supplies to factories producing EVs will also reduce CO2 output of manufacturing.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Tork on Friday April 28, @11:28PM (3 children)
I'm not a car-nerd so I'm probably missing some subtext here, but assuming these memes aren't coming from Russia (in the context of Russia's sanctions over the Ukraine war that theory makes some sense...), I don't understand the EV hate. I understand it being too expensive and "where do I charge?" is a huge practical problem, but I don't get it showing up on anyone's radar long enough to gatekeep over it.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 29, @02:04AM
-> My Facebook feed...
Found the problem.
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Saturday April 29, @05:18AM
Anything the people they hate buy and advocate must, in the eyes, be evil. To the point of banning them: https://wyoleg.gov/Legislation/2023/SJ0004 [wyoleg.gov]
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday April 29, @06:45PM
The oil industry has had two full years of record profits. They can afford to pay a lot of shills.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Saturday April 29, @02:49AM (8 children)
EVs are only going to be part of the equation for low-emission transportation, and probably not a very big part when all is said and done, though.
For moving humans around, the 2 best options by a wide margin are bicycles and trains. Bicycles because you can get moving reasonably quickly, but you're moving 25 pounds of metal along with the person instead of 2500 pounds for a smaller car. For longer distances, you'll want trains, which can be run on electricity, and each one can carry something like 1600 people, so that divvies up the carbon emissions a lot more than cars each carrying something like 1-6 people. Of course, you have to redesign your transportation infrastructure to match those goals, but there are cities and even entire countries that have been moving heavily in that direction with a lot of success.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 29, @02:58AM (4 children)
> For moving humans around, the 2 best options by a wide margin are bicycles and trains.
Sure, from the viewpoint of a transportation planner.
But as an individual: bikes are for fun (and local errands in my case), cars* are for transportation, and trains are either horrible (crowded, dirty subways) or novelties when I visit Europe (long haul trains in USA are next to useless, the schedules make no sense and there are very few destinations).
*and light trucks, unfortunately. Imo this was the result of uneven regulation that let trucks be cheaper due to less regulation...several decades ago.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Thexalon on Saturday April 29, @10:59AM (3 children)
Local errands are precisely the niche where bikes make a lot of sense. Stuff within 10 miles, which is a lot of trips a lot of people need to do.
First off, I don't find them particularly dirty, but maybe it's because I'm not a stickler about white-glove tests. But if they're crowded, that's an indication that a lot of other people decided that was their best option for getting around, and everyone who made that choice reduced the number of cars you had to deal with on the roads. And in Europe, trains are a popular way to get around, because they don't suck like Amtrak largely does (for reasons that have more to do with the freight rail lobby than anything inherently wrong with passenger rail).
Cars may be transportation, but let's not pretend that they don't have any major problems, as anyone who has had to handle a daily rush-hour traffic jam or been unlucky enough to be caught up in an accident can tell you.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday April 29, @06:51PM (2 children)
Bicycles may be fine in a nice warm climate, but it gets damned cold where I live. In 2004 it took ten bucks worth of gas to get to St Louis, I paid $30 for a one way ticket there. [mcgrewbooks.com]
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by gawdonblue on Saturday April 29, @10:44PM
No, you can't cycle in winter in North America [youtube.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30, @02:19AM
They're wonderful in those goldilocks climate places. Where it's not cold (no icy roads) but cool enough to enjoy cycling in.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Saturday April 29, @03:59PM (2 children)
Parent shouldn't be modded Troll. There's a Disagree mod, or really you should have just left his post alone.
He's right, and the only thing that stands in the way of what he's saying is culture. In the USA, car culture is ingrained and huge rail infrastructure projects aren't popular or carried out in sane ways as evidenced by CA's HSR. Bicycles work well if you're young and/or healthy, and San Francisco has a strong bike culture even with all the hills.
OTOH, China had the opportunity to do what parent is talking about and went for uncontrolled emissions from factories, and a greater reliance on autos but *also* trains. I recall reading an article written a few years after Tienamen when China was moving towards becoming more industrial. They interviewed a man who was complaining that the "bicycle city" was rapidly becoming something else, that he couldn't cycle without coughing or wearing a mask that rapidly filled with soot. China had the opportunity to do what parent is talking about and blew it.
Amsterdam, now there's a city that exemplifies such a scenario--bikes everywhere, cars too but allegedly not getting in the way too badly. Not sure about trains, but it's Europe so I'm wagering it's got a good rail network too.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday April 29, @05:18PM
Don't worry, I interpreted those Troll mods as somebody having no real argument and resorting to the online equivalent of argumentum ad baculum instead because they love their car so much or something (although I bet they don't love the associated bills for insurance, repairs, registration, garage space, parking, etc).
Amsterdam is indeed a great example of the kind of thing I'd be wanting to see more of, and yes they have a good rail network too, both above-ground trams and a sometimes-underground metro. There are other European cities moving in that direction as well, including but not limited to Copenhagen, Oslo, Berlin, and even London.
But if you want an example of an American train-centric city, there's an obvious pick: New York. Sure, the subway is an endless source of jokes, but it's also the way a huge percentage of the population chooses to get around, along with using their feet. Plus there's significant rail connections out to Long Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
Total crapholes, all of them, though, right?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by r_a_trip on Monday May 01, @09:37AM
Ah yes, Amsterdam. Yes, public transportation in that city is great. Now, the problem is that Amsterdam may be a shining example, but The Netherlands is bigger than Amsterdam. Once you get outside of the metropolis Randstad (of which Amsterdam is a part), the situation deteriorates quickly.
Since the privatisation wave of the 90's, the quality of public transport has declined steadily in the rest of the country. The larger cities have relatively adequate bus routes in the cities, but go a few miles outside of the city and the situation breaks down. Not all bus routes are profitable and since "public" transport is now owned by a for profit company, many previously served areas are now being axed or greatly reduced in service.
There are areas that are now "served" with one bus in the morning and one back in the afternoon. Other areas get more frequent service, but impractical transport schedules makes using public transport a no go. It's basically F you when those times don't line up with your travel needs. Which practically forces the use of privately owned transport, which mostly translates to cars.
The cost of traveling by train is equivalent to travel by car for one person. When you add more travelers into the mix it gets worse. From 2 to 4 passengers the costs of traveling by train doubles to quadruples, while the same is not true for a car, even when maintenance and parking fees are taken into account. So current Dutch policy favours travel by car for the non-city areas.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by deimtee on Saturday April 29, @12:18AM (3 children)
So do all the supply chain companies get to claim zero emissions or are they counting emissions multiple times?
I may have solved the problem of the missing carbon dioxide!
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 29, @12:31AM (2 children)
Nice start. Now, solve the missing dark matter problem...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 29, @02:07AM
If it's dark, it doesn't matter. Next.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday April 29, @02:53AM
It's not missing, we know where it is, we just can't observe it.
My personal wild guess on it is that it's matter that went into a black hole, got accelerated to faster than light and flung out of that black hole as tachyons. One way to make the tachyons behave sanely from our understanding of physics is to reverse the time variable, so these things are moving backwards in time towards the Big Bang, where they'll form the matter that creates it. But gravity moves at c with matter, so with this FTL stuff it's still moving at c, and thus behaves exactly like matter gravity.
But I'm probably wrong, and someone who actually knows the physics could probably explain to me in great detail why I'm wrong.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Saturday April 29, @01:20AM (1 child)
Everyone's carbon footprint is bigger than they estimate for themselves, especially when they are advertising how great it is. Corporations have duty to their shareholders to maximize profits, but all they have to do for environmental regulators is avoid being fined or shut down. For speculative statements (like when the Cybertruck will be shipping in volume to customers) there are virtually no penalties for massive stretching of the truth.
This is why standard independent assessments, regular onsite inspections, and open reporting are important.
Transparency is always the answer.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 29, @04:23AM
Not for the sociopaths that rule the world
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday April 29, @08:44AM (1 child)
Does the figure include the numerous carbon based units that Musk has created? - 10 known, maybe more. Like Boris Johnson, apparently this genius and/or his several sycophantic partners seem never to have got the hang of birth control.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Saturday April 29, @04:22PM
This isn't a bad thing. The second derivative of the population curve is negative. If that first derivative goes negative, we'll have serious social issues that we aren't prepared to handle.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DadaDoofy on Saturday April 29, @10:23AM (7 children)
It's high time this is taken into consideration. The fact is coal is a far dirtier energy source than gasoline and a significant portion of electricity used by electric cars comes from coal. This has long been ignored by virtue signaling EV drivers.
(Score: 4, Informative) by ElizabethGreene on Saturday April 29, @04:49PM (4 children)
For CO2, the numbers on this don't check out. Charge a Leaf from the least efficient coal plant in the US and you still have less CO2 per mile than a 25mpg gas car. If you charge it from an "average" of the US electrical supply with 39% zero co2 nukes and renewables then it has CO2 than any legal* gas car.
* - Experimental vehicles like the 100Mpg MAX from Mother Earth news still win, but since you can't buy one of those and it doesn't meet road safety requirements I'm hesitant to include it.
I'm not anti-gas or anti-ev, BTW. I want a fuel-efficient EV, gas, or diesel in a small-truck format like the old Chevy Luv or Mazda B series. The smallest truck you can get here is a Hyundai Santa Cruz, and it is, IMHO, fugly. I don't understand why GM et al will sell tiny trucks in Asia (for super cheap, BTW) and only sell land yachts here. :(
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30, @02:24AM
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Monday May 01, @06:47PM (2 children)
This is exactly what I want, but I'm only interested in a EV. I'd already have one if anyone actually sold one.
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday May 02, @02:42PM (1 child)
I'd prefer an EV, but if the fuel economy and price is right I'm flexible.
To draw a box around what that compromise might look like, a Wuling Zhengtu gets 60+mpg and retails new in China for under $10k USD. I'd stand in line to buy one of those.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday May 02, @03:35PM
That's not a bad looking truck, and the form factor is perfect. I'm still set on going EV though. YMMV :)
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday April 29, @07:03PM (1 child)
But that's not what I want an electric car for. I want an electric car because first, I hate standing in the snow, or the hundred degree heat (IIRC that's about 40C) to fill its tank with carcinogens. Plug it in and go inside and go to bed. Then there's all the damned scheduled maintenance in the ancient Rube Goldberg drive train with its thousands of moving parts, many of which are only rubber or plastic. An electric motor has one moving part and is the entire drive train, no transmission fluid, oil changes, or coolant. They must handle better than their gasoline counterparts because all the weight is on the bottom, giving it an incredibly low center of balance. Have any EVs rolled over yet?
The piston engine has only one advantage over EVs, which will go away this year when chargers are installed in all interstate highway rest stops, all Chevy dealers, and likely all other auto dealers as well.
The gasoline/diesel engine is as obsolete as cable TV and telephone dials, replaced by superior technology.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday May 02, @02:59PM
An electric motor has one moving part and is the entire drive train, no transmission fluid, oil changes, or coolant.
With my deepest regrets I have to share that modern EV drivetrains are significantly more complex than this.
Tesla's big innovation that made their cars obscenely performant was they used a liquid cooled rotor. Their modern vehicles have a stunningly complex (and expensive) system that heats and cools the cabin and batteries and cools the motors and motor controllers. The gearboxes, dual-motor cars have TWO, use Dexron 6 or mobil SHC 629 depending on model. You're right that they don't have 3k mile oil changes, but the planned maintenance services for them are expensive enough that I can't say if it cancels out. (... Unfortunately Tesla isn't particularly DIY friendly in a way that make both the open-source and car-enthusiast parts of me unhappy.)
All that said, I still want one. The big selling points for me are the convenience of waking up to a full battery every morning and having autopilot to help me be a safer driver.
(Score: 2) by Username on Monday May 01, @08:47AM
Why on earth should people be legally forced to track their carbon emissions?
If the government wants to know, send osha/epa/dnr/etc to test levels. Companies will just lie anyway.