First Tesla delivered.

[Kitdy]

The Tesla went on sale in Canada yesterday, and I learned this from Tesla/Autoblog:

Canada and Norway are the only two countries worldwide where the majority of electricity comes from renewable resources, including run-of-river small hydro, wind, biomass, geothermal and solar energy. An EV recharged from the current Canadian grid, on average, would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 85 percent compared to an equivalent gasoline-powered vehicle. In hydro-dominant British Columbia, Quebec and Manitoba, the reduction would be an impressive 98 percent.

So electric cars make a lot more sense in a country like Canada - especially if they are built here. Considering a lot more of our power is nuclear, which they don't count but is pretty green in my eyes, Canada is pretty rocking at energy production.

OK, I am done waving my flag now.

Deliveries start in Q4 this year.

[teatako]

Please elaborate on why do you consider nuclear fission a "green" process.

[NSXType-R]

Originally Posted by teatako

Please elaborate on why do you consider nuclear fission a "green" process.

It's the most green way for producing the most electricity. Handled properly, it's a good way to do it. Handled in the wrong way, you could get Chernobyls.

[Kitdy]

Originally Posted by teatako

Please elaborate on why do you consider nuclear fission a "green" process.

The environmental damage is minimal if stored well and there are no accidents.

[RacingManiac]

Originally Posted by gtface

Tesla has answers to all of these criticisms. First, a Tesla powered by electricity that is generated from coal still produces less emissions than any production car in the US (including hybrids). Second, Tesla claims that they will recycle all of the batteries for free when they need to be replaced (after 125,000 miles or more). Third, as others have pointed out, this car is still very lightweight. It is significantly heavier than an Elise but lighter than corvettes, most ferarris, etc. It is very quick and a pretty decent performance bargain. Also, driving this car aggressively results in much less efficiency loss than driving a gas-powered car aggressively, so you don't have to feel like you're wasting fuel when you floor the accelerator. There are other advantages as well.

Where are the "recycled" battery going to go? And what's the environmental footprint of the production for Li-ion battery? The problem with the current "green car" love child, the Prius, was that the battery travels the world before it gets made into a car and sit on your driveway.

[scottie300z]

Originally Posted by RacingManiac

Where are the "recycled" battery going to go? And what's the environmental footprint of the production for Li-ion battery? The problem with the current "green car" love child, the Prius, was that the battery travels the world before it gets made into a car and sit on your driveway.

The problem with any current "green" tech is that somewhere along the line there is waste.

You can't jump to the end of technology.

[NSXType-R]

Yeah, if you generate your electricity through nuclear power, electric cars make sense. For America, we get our electricity mainly through coal. Which makes no sense for electric cars. The thing is, you just don't see the waste. But it's still being produced. How much of electricity production for coal is clean anyway for America?

[Pando]

Originally Posted by Kitdy

The environmental damage is minimal if stored well and there are no accidents.

Good storage isn't all that's needed - one also needs to forward the storage locations to coming generations... for 10's of thousands of years to come...

That said, I'm all for fission until there's fusion!