Fact Checking Tesla's “Impact Report”

The article claims Tesla is incorrect when they say that &quot;the average ICE vehicle gets around 22 MPG&quot;, and counters with EPA stats showing that the average fuel economy of all vehicles in the US is 24.9 MPG.<p>But these aren&#x27;t the same thing.<p>The set &quot;all vehicles in the US&quot; contains both ICE vehicles _and_ hybrid&#x2F;battery-powered EVs. But Tesla is explicitly only talking about ICE vehicles, and Tesla doesn&#x27;t specifically indicate whether they&#x27;re talking only about US ICE vehicles or all ICE vehicles worldwide.<p>I&#x27;m not sure what the source is for Tesla&#x27;s number, and it&#x27;s entirely possible it&#x27;s inaccurate, but The Drive&#x27;s counter-argument makes an apples vs. oranges comparison.

&gt; Fact Checking Tesla&#x27;s &quot;Impact Report&quot;<p>&gt; It&#x27;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?<p>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?<p>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 <i>larger</i> number of ICE-vehicles.<p>Oh, and the author doesn&#x27;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).<p>There&#x27;s lots to criticize about Tesla, but this article doesn&#x27;t do a great job of it, in my personal opinion.

I really like Telsa&#x27;s mission, but stuff like this is why they get a bad rap. I don&#x27;t understand why they try to oversell everything. You&#x27;ve got a good product and are making a positive impact, don&#x27;t squander it by making claims that can&#x27;t be backed up.

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

Tesla has almost highhandedly kept the public interested in electric cars. By becoming a viable car company, there&#x27;s been huge amounts of money put into research from their competitors alone. I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s good for them to over exaggerate their personal impact, but looking at the overall scale of what they have done.... I don&#x27;t care that their marketing team went overboard on something I wouldn&#x27;t have read anyway. We all know what Tesla has done laid the groundwork for some very important work that otherwise wouldn&#x27;t have a footing.

“ 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.”<p>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.<p>This is a terrible article that smacks of fear-lingering.

Ugh, Neidermeyer...<p>He&#x27;s been anti-PHE&#x2F;EV for over a decade at this point.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2010&#x2F;07&#x2F;30&#x2F;opinion&#x2F;30neidermeyer.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2010&#x2F;07&#x2F;30&#x2F;opinion&#x2F;30neidermeyer.htm...</a><p>He&#x27;s been focusing on Tesla recently, but that&#x27;s only because they&#x27;re pushing EV production more than anyone else.

Marketing.<p>But its 2019, if you still believe Tesla doesn&#x27;t have ethics problems, you haven&#x27;t paid attention or don&#x27;t care.

Tesla&#x27;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&#x27;s sum contribution is net negative when viewed from this perspective.

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.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;research&#x2F;stocks&#x2F;private&#x2F;snapshot.asp?privcapId=22992797" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;research&#x2F;stocks&#x2F;private&#x2F;snapshot.a...</a>

&quot;Impact Report&quot; is a poor choice of words in light of all the autopilot crashes