Is A Toyota SUV "Greener" Than A Tesla?

Engineering Explained · 427K views · 2021 · 13:52

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Cars, EVs & motorcyclesClimate policy, solutions & debateexplainerdated

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN cites it for reasonable estimates comparing the emissions of EVs, hybrids and ICE cars.

What it is

Engineering Explained compares the lifetime CO2 emissions of a Toyota RAV4 Prime plug-in hybrid with a Tesla Model Y, looking at break-even mileage and whether electric cars are worse for the environment.

Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2021 to 2022.

What Hacker News said

Recommends novok · 2021-10 · on “Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data”

I like this youtube video that goes over various crossover points. The tesla beats the RAV4 prime at ~45k miles and a rav4 ICE at ~28k miles: [this video] I think 5k miles is a bit low, and using tesla as your only source biased.

Recommends hasdf · 2021-11 · on “Electric vehicles could fully recharge in 5 minutes with new cable design”

this video compares co2 emissions of a tesla vs hybrid vs regular ice car. I think it is an interesting exploration of the topic although I think the presenter had a hard time getting correct data and his data on the EV is more conservative than Tesla's numbers. I would definitely be interested in exploring this further. It seems probable to me that we won't have a better grasp on this for years yet as EVs are still pretty new and not widely adopted. [this video]

Cites djhn · 2022-01 · on “The Idiocy of Tiny Houses and Electric Vehicles”

Though not a write up per se, Engineering Explained has made several videos with reasonable estimates: [LINK] [this video] [LINK]