Tesla pause German gigafactory construction after environmentalists protest cutting trees

[spartaman64]

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A German court has forced Tesla to temporarily halt preparation work for its Gigafactory near Berlin after local activists raised concerns about its impact on wildlife and water supplies, Reuters reports. The electric car company is currently in the process of clearing 92 hectares of forest in Gruenheide, east of Berlin, where it hopes to build its first European Gigafactory.

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Tesla announced plans for Gigafactory 4 last November, but has not yet been granted official planning permission for the factory itself. However, Germany’s environment ministry told the company it could start preparing the site in advance “at its own risk,” according to BBC News. Local activist group Gruene Liga Brandenburg (Green League of Brandenburg) subsequently complained about the work, citing environmental concerns.

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Since Tesla was due to complete its tree-felling in just three more days, the court told the car company to temporarily stop the work so that the environmentalist group’s objections could be considered. “It should not be assumed that the motion seeking legal protection brought by the Green League lacks any chance of succeeding,” the court said in a statement justifying the stoppage, according to Reuters. Further court hearings are expected to take place this week.

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Reuters notes that hundreds of demonstrators have protested over the factory and its impact on the environment. However lawmakers from two Germany political parties, the Christian Democrat and Free Democrat parties fear that the legal battles resulting from these environmental complaints could harm Germany’s pro-business credentials. Tesla is not the only large company to have faced difficulties in the country. Back in 2018, Google abandoned plans to launch a start-up incubator in Berlin’s Kreuzberg neighborhood after locals protested the impending corporate gentrification.

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The company’s CEO Elon Musk has also defended the factory’s impact on the environment. In a series of tweets, Musk claimed that the Gigafactory 4 won’t use much water on a daily basis, and that the forest being cleared is “not a natural forest” (it was planted for a cardboard factory) and that only a small part will be used for the Gigafactory. “Giga Berlin will build sustainable energy vehicles using sustainable energy, so net environmental impact will be extremely positive!” the CEO tweeted.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/17/21140666/tesla-gigafactory-4-berlin-gruenheide-environmental-protest-pause

 

Pretty ironic that tesla is being stopped for environmental concerns when one of the selling points for their cars is that they are better for the environment. But if Musk is right that it's not a natural forest then I don't see a big problem with clearing part of it. 

[Bombastinator]

6 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/17/21140666/tesla-gigafactory-4-berlin-gruenheide-environmental-protest-pause

 

Pretty ironic that tesla is being stopped for environmental concerns when one of the selling points for their cars is that they are better for the environment. But if Musk is right that it's not a natural forest then I don't see a big problem with clearing part of it. 

Germans have this thing about wildlife.  It’s pretty hardcore.  Ever since the black Forrest had problems in the 80’s  it’s been a big deal.  Germany has been populated for thousands of years.  They’ve already cut down and replanted the place several times.  It’s not a conceptual problem it’s a functional one.  Germans like to wander around in the Forrest and pick mushrooms and waldmeister and stuff.  Trees are trees.  He’s probably going to have to find a place to plant some other ones.

[Sauron]

33 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

But if Musk is right that it's not a natural forest then I don't see a big problem with clearing part of it. 

Who cares if it's "natural" or not? Just because humans planted the trees doesn't mean those trees aren't important to the local wildlife and the environment as a whole. Remember the Team Trees thing? Do you think those trees don't matter just because someone went and planted them?

 

And Musk is full of shit when he says this will have an overall positive environmental impact - electric cars are not sustainable despite being more energy efficient than their gas counterparts. A factory like this can only have a negative impact, whether that impact is acceptable or not depends on the circumstances but it's certainly not what Musk would have you believe. The only positive impact this would have would be for his pockets. At this point Elon is the CEO of faux environmentalism - the kind of environmentalism that only serves as a selling point or as a popularity boost rather than a call for a much needed systematic change.

 

Oh, and 92 hectares (or 920000 m^2) aren't a small area. That's almost a million trees being cleared going by the average of trees per square metre. And that's only part of the environmental impact - the water necessary for a car factory of that size ("not much" according to Elon) is so much that a single source won't be enough beyond the first few batches of cars.

 

Now, is that the worst environmental impact a factory has ever had? Of course not. Does that mean it's irrelevant and people shouldn't care? No. There are real concerns with things like this and we need to stop dismissing protests by saying "it's just a few more trees and a couple of endangered species".

33 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

parties fear that the legal battles resulting from these environmental complaints could harm Germany’s pro-business credentials. Tesla is not the only large company to have faced difficulties in the country. Back in 2018, Google abandoned plans to launch a start-up incubator in Berlin’s Kreuzberg neighborhood after locals protested the impending corporate gentrification.

Imagine that, not letting corporations get their way in everything might mean they'll invest less in your country! Well tough luck, maybe when you need to put the interests of a single megacorporation ahead of those of millions of people to make your economy function it's a sign that something needs to change.

[spartaman64]

4 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Who cares if it's "natural" or not? Just because humans planted the trees doesn't mean those trees aren't important to the local wildlife and the environment as a whole. Remember the Team Trees thing? Do you think those trees don't matter just because someone went and planted them?

 

And Musk is full of shit when he says this will have an overall positive environmental impact - electric cars are not sustainable despite being more energy efficient than their gas counterparts. A factory like this can only have a negative impact, whether that impact is acceptable or not depends on the circumstances but it's certainly not what Musk would have you believe. The only positive impact this would have would be for his pockets. At this point Elon is the CEO of faux environmentalism - the kind of environmentalism that only serves as a selling point or as a popularity boost rather than a call for a much needed systematic change.

 

Oh, and 92 hectares (or 920000 m^2) aren't a small area. That's almost a million trees being cleared going by the average of trees per square metre. And that's only part of the environmental impact - the water necessary for a car factory of that size ("not much" according to Elon) is so much that a single source won't be enough beyond the first few batches of cars.

 

Now, is that the worst environmental impact a factory has ever had? Of course not. Does that mean it's irrelevant and people shouldn't care? No. There are real concerns with things like this and we need to stop dismissing protests by saying "it's just a few more trees and a couple of endangered species".

Imagine that, not letting corporations get their way in everything might mean they'll invest less in your country! Well tough luck, maybe when you need to put the interests of a single megacorporation ahead of those of millions of people to make your economy function it's a sign that something needs to change.

but its for a cardboard factory so they probably didnt make an effort to make sure the trees are native and conductive for wildlife and they were meant to the cut down anyways. and he donated a million trees to the team trees thingy so he already made up for it

[Bombastinator]

12 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Who cares if it's "natural" or not? Just because humans planted the trees doesn't mean those trees aren't important to the local wildlife and the environment as a whole. Remember the Team Trees thing? Do you think those trees don't matter just because someone went and planted them?

 

And Musk is full of shit when he says this will have an overall positive environmental impact - electric cars are not sustainable despite being more energy efficient than their gas counterparts. A factory like this can only have a negative impact, whether that impact is acceptable or not depends on the circumstances but it's certainly not what Musk would have you believe. The only positive impact this would have would be for his pockets. At this point Elon is the CEO of faux environmentalism - the kind of environmentalism that only serves as a selling point or as a popularity boost rather than a call for a much needed systematic change.

 

Oh, and 92 hectares (or 920000 m^2) aren't a small area. That's almost a million trees being cleared going by the average of trees per square metre. And that's only part of the environmental impact - the water necessary for a car factory of that size ("not much" according to Elon) is so much that a single source won't be enough beyond the first few batches of cars.

 

Now, is that the worst environmental impact a factory has ever had? Of course not. Does that mean it's irrelevant and people shouldn't care? No. There are real concerns with things like this and we need to stop dismissing protests by saying "it's just a few more trees and a couple of endangered species".

Imagine that, not letting corporations get their way in everything might mean they'll invest less in your country! Well tough luck, maybe when you need to put the interests of a single megacorporation ahead of those of millions of people to make your economy function it's a sign that something needs to change.

So not actually about the factory at all but a rail about electric cars in general.

 

Every time I see “electric cars are not sustainable” it’s someone arguing for gasoline cars, which are far less sustainable, or hydrogen, which has its own problems.

Hydrogen is being persued in small heavily built up countries like Japan where it makes more sense than electric.  Let’s pretend for the sake of argument that hydrogen is more sustainable than electric:  in the US it doesn’t matter, because hydrogen infrastructure can’t be built in the first place.  It’s a problem in all the large countries.  Even if it’s better it doesn’t matter.

 Are they not sustainable? Perhaps.  They’re less unsustainable than gasoline cars though.  Cars as a concept in general aren’t sustainable.  It’s trains, horses, and feet for humanity eventually.

[Sauron]

1 minute ago, spartaman64 said:

but its for a cardboard factory so they probably didnt make an effort to make sure the trees are native and conductive for wildlife and they were meant to the cut down anyways.

Originally, sure. But they seem to not only have adapted well, they also are hosts to endangered species that may not be able to inhabit other zones. What matters is what impact their removal would have now, not why they were planted in the first place - and given the current rate of deforestation, every tree counts.

2 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

and he donated a million trees to the team trees thingy so he already made up for it

Which will only (possibly) matter in a few decades when those trees have fully matured, and those trees won't be hosting any unique endangered wildlife anytime soon. Tesla has also promised to replant the trees that it will take down here, that's not the point (though Musk did try to make the "small" number of trees being cut down a point in his favor, which it isn't). Plus that doesn't account for the rest of the factory's impact - the water usage and pollution, which could both have a significant impact on the quality of life of the surrounding area. They're also producing cars. Luxury, high performance cars no less. Those are inherently inefficient and wasteful products, no matter how relatively efficient they are compared to other cars.

 

As I said, Musk is only interested in paying lip service to environmentalism when it makes him look like the good guy while still being advantageous for his business. The moment it's more profitable to not care, he won't care. And to be clear, maybe he even believes what he's saying when he claims that his business is good for the environment - but in that case he's lying to himself, and regardless he will act to favor his business because he believes that's actually what's best for the environment even when it isn't.

 

It's like someone acting smug about recycling a soda can and acting as though they saved the environment through their heroic action, ignoring the fact that they drank a can of soda which was incredibly wasteful to produce in the first place. Just because it's better than throwing it in a river doesn't mean it's meaningful progress towards halting environmental abuse.

[Sauron]

5 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

So not actually about the factory at all but a rail about electric cars in general.

It's a factory that will produce electric cars. How can the connection escape you?

6 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Every time I see “electric cars are not sustainable” it’s someone arguing for gasoline cars, which are far less sustainable, or hydrogen, which has its own problems.

Well you're wrong, I argue for public transportation. Which is more sustainable than any form of car if done properly.

7 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Cars as a concept in general aren’t sustainable.

Indeed.

8 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

It’s trains, horses, and feet for humanity eventually.

No need for horses, buses are fine. Cars would be fine too if they were used sparingly - just not for daily mass transportation. For instance it would be fine for someone who lives in a small town 25KM from the nearest city to use a car to get there; but people living in the city should be able to rely on fast, reliable and convenient public transport for all their needs within that city.

[pas008]

9 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Originally, sure. But they seem to not only have adapted well, they also are hosts to endangered species that may not be able to inhabit other zones. What matters is what impact their removal would have now, not why they were planted in the first place - and given the current rate of deforestation, every tree counts.

Which will only (possibly) matter in a few decades when those trees have fully matured, and those trees won't be hosting any unique endangered wildlife anytime soon. Tesla has also promised to replant the trees that it will take down here, that's not the point (though Musk did try to make the "small" number of trees being cut down a point in his favor, which it isn't). Plus that doesn't account for the rest of the factory's impact - the water usage and pollution, which could both have a significant impact on the quality of life of the surrounding area. They're also producing cars. Luxury, high performance cars no less. Those are inherently inefficient and wasteful products, no matter how relatively efficient they are compared to other cars.

 

As I said, Musk is only interested in paying lip service to environmentalism when it makes him look like the good guy while still being advantageous for his business. The moment it's more profitable to not care, he won't care. And to be clear, maybe he even believes what he's saying when he claims that his business is good for the environment - but in that case he's lying to himself, and regardless he will act to favor his business because he believes that's actually what's best for the environment even when it isn't.

 

It's like someone acting smug about recycling a soda can and acting as though they saved the environment through their heroic action, ignoring the fact that they drank a can of soda which was incredibly wasteful to produce in the first place. Just because it's better than throwing it in a river doesn't mean it's meaningful progress towards halting environmental abuse.

you have a source for this

 

could is a very weak word and

and if they are more efficient and less wasteful that is a step in the right direction

so everyone should just continue to use less efficient and more wasteful because we shouldnt go in the right direction?

 

[RonnieOP]

4 minutes ago, Sauron said:

It's a factory that will produce electric cars. How can the connection escape you?

Well you're wrong, I argue for public transportation. Which is more sustainable than any form of car if done properly.

Indeed.

No need for horses, buses are fine. Cars would be fine too if they were used sparingly - just not for daily mass transportation. For instance it would be fine for someone who lives in a small town 25KM from the nearest city to use a car to get there; but people living in the city should be able to rely on fast, reliable and convenient public transport for all their needs within that city.

Depending on the area public transportation is not viable at all.

 

Personally i couldnt care less about endangered species. Unless it plays a vital role in life it can go. Bald eagles, red pandas, some german raccoon, etc i have no issues if they die off.

 

 

The water part i understand. That should of been ironed out long before they picked that area.

[Unixsystem]

19 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Well you're wrong, I argue for public transportation. Which is more sustainable than any form of car if done properly.

Indeed.

No need for horses, buses are fine. Cars would be fine too if they were used sparingly - just not for daily mass transportation. For instance it would be fine for someone who lives in a small town 25KM from the nearest city to use a car to get there; but people living in the city should be able to rely on fast, reliable and convenient public transport for all their needs within that city.

Well you're never going to get public transportation in a large percentage of the world due to practical, logistical and cultural reasons. So either we can work towards electric cars that are objectively better than ICE in every meaningful way, or we can keep playing "well the better solution isn't perfect and therefore I'd rather have nothing and just complain". 

[mr moose]

8 minutes ago, Waffles13 said:

Well you're never going to get public transportation in a large percentage of the world due to practical, logistical and cultural reasons. So either we can work towards electric cars that are objectively better than ICE in every meaningful way, or we can keep playing "well the better solution isn't perfect and therefore I'd rather have nothing and just complain". 

Or the other argument that is so popular on this forum,  "I can find a reason that solution isn't 100% effective therefore it shouldn't be considered".  . 

[mr moose]

Also, this is the country who's trying to build a coal power station because nuclear is to dangerous.

 

Obviously a sensationalist article so don't read into it other than the one inescapable issue of them increasing coal usage.

https://www.climatechangenews.com/2020/01/09/wont-let-germany-build-new-coal-power-plant/

[Guest]

28 minutes ago, Waffles13 said:

Well you're never going to get public transportation in a large percentage of the world due to practical, logistical and cultural reasons. So either we can work towards electric cars that are objectively better than ICE in every meaningful way, or we can keep playing "well the better solution isn't perfect and therefore I'd rather have nothing and just complain". 

Have you ever been to Germany? In places like Augsburg the tram system is astonishingly good as well as cheap. It carries much of the workforce there. Now if Germany could end their massive reliance on coal, and their plans for increasing coal use,  that would be wonderful. The whole tram system is expanding and is just one element of reducing our impact on the planet.

 

We need to get over the whole car ownership model too and instead utilise transport in a far better way. Most cars are sat for over 90% of their life enjoying a bit of entropy. Imagine a world where we reduce the number of cars on the road by 90% and instead use each car 99% of its life. While at it use those cars to carry more than just one person.

 

As for the forest I fully understand the protests. Berlin has a lot of brown field land, but it is expensive. Tesla are trying to save money here, not think green. Why are they building in Berlin of all places? Well the city has coming online the largest battery recycling facility in Europe capable of recycling 99% of all batteries. So it gives Tesla a line of materials from an easy source.

[RonnieOP]

9 minutes ago, Phill104 said:

Have you ever been to Germany? In places like Augsburg the tram system is astonishingly good as well as cheap. It carries much of the workforce there. Now if Germany could end their massive reliance on coal, and their plans for increasing coal use,  that would be wonderful. The whole tram system is expanding and is just one element of reducing our impact on the planet.

 

We need to get over the whole car ownership model too and instead utilise transport in a far better way. Most cars are sat for over 90% of their life enjoying a bit of entropy. Imagine a world where we reduce the number of cars on the road by 90% and instead use each car 99% of its life. While at it use those cars to carry more than just one person.

 

As for the forest I fully understand the protests. Berlin has a lot of brown field land, but it is expensive. Tesla are trying to save money here, not think green. Why are they building in Berlin of all places? Well the city has coming online the largest battery recycling facility in Europe capable of recycling 99% of all batteries. So it gives Tesla a line of materials from an easy source.

But what tesla would be working on wouldnt be just limited to Germany. So while their public transportation might be viable other areas not so much 

 

Tbh i dont understand this notion that people shouldnt own or drive cars. Gas cars will eventually be phased out. But why phase out all cars in general?

 

Id hate to live without a car personally..i mean itll never happen in my lifetime but even the thought of it i hate.

[bcredeur97]

just plant twice as many trees as you removed?

I mean tesla has the money to do it...

[SpaceGhostC2C]

1 minute ago, RonnieOP said:

Tbh i dont understand this notion that people shouldnt own or drive cars.

It's not that they shouldn't, everyone should be free to make informed choices. Owning cars should not be subsidized, though - in other words, people should be free to own cars while facing their (full) cost. However, by the very nature of externalities, the private cost of cars is substantially lower than the total cost of cars, leading to individual choices that add up to inefficiently high levels of private car usage in the aggregate.

 

Personally, I much prefer the use of electric cars to gasoline cars, mostly because of pollution displacement, rather than elimination, since building electric cars and producing electricity sill is for the most part an environmental problem - I just prefer moving the sources of pollution out of the cities, to centralized facilities, and deal with it in a consolidate manner. Having said that, I must agree with @Sauron that the idea that Tesla, or electric cars more generally, are some sort of "green crusade", is laughable, and the net, overall effect on the environment is often misrepresented.

If someone thinks it's better to build this factory, fine. If someone thinks it's better to preserve the forest and not built it, fine. If someone thinks the decision is obvious and there are no intricate pros and cons to weigh... they are uninformed to say the least.

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, pas008 said:

you have a source for this

 

could is a very weak word

I didn't say I'm sure of it, I said it's possible (the protesters sure seem to think that) and Musk didn't address it.

1 hour ago, pas008 said:

and if they are more efficient and less wasteful that is a step in the right direction

No, because they don't have to build that factory there.

53 minutes ago, RonnieOP said:

Depending on the area public transportation is not viable at all.

I can't think of any case where a city would be unable to provide public transportation but cars would be able to go around freely. As I said, if you're far from a city in a rural area this doesn't apply - the majority of car related pollution comes from daily commutes within a city or between a city and another, which can both be covered by buses, trams and trains.

45 minutes ago, Waffles13 said:

Well you're never going to get public transportation in a large percentage of the world due to practical, logistical and cultural reasons.

See above, as I said we don't need to get rid of cars entirely. I live in a pretty small city and yet the streets are always chock full of cars for all sorts of small commutes because the public transport system isn't as well funded or as well organized as it could be. By contrast, when I studied in Germany I could get literally anywhere by taking a bus in about the same time as I could with a car.

5 minutes ago, RonnieOP said:

Tbh i dont understand this notion that people shouldnt own or drive cars. Gas cars will eventually be phased out. But why phase out all cars in general?

Because having a separate vehicle for everyone (or at best every 5 people) is wildly inefficient compared to having a single vehicle that can carry 30 people. Even if the cars were electric, a combustion bus would have them beat by a significant margin in terms of emissions per capita - and that's not accounting for trams, which are mostly electric and less wasteful to produce since they don't need massive li-ion batteries. Electric buses exist too.

10 minutes ago, RonnieOP said:

Id hate to live without a car personally..i mean itll never happen in my lifetime but even the thought of it i hate.

I like driving too but that's not an excuse to destroy the planet. It's not even a matter of not owning a car at all - it's a matter of drastically cutting down its use. You can have a car for your day trips in the mountains or whatever, it's just not good for everyone to use their car every day to go places a bus could take them.

4 minutes ago, bcredeur97 said:

just plant twice as many trees as you removed?

Where? Wherever it is, why not build the factory there instead? Also that doesn't account for the wildlife and water pollution.

47 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Or the other argument that is so popular on this forum,  "I can find a reason that solution isn't 100% effective therefore it shouldn't be considered".  . 

See the soda can example - the problem runs deeper and pretending you're offering a solution when you're not is dangerous.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

It's a factory that will produce electric cars. How can the connection escape you?

Well you're wrong, I argue for public transportation. Which is more sustainable than any form of car if done properly.

Indeed.

No need for horses, buses are fine. Cars would be fine too if they were used sparingly - just not for daily mass transportation. For instance it would be fine for someone who lives in a small town 25KM from the nearest city to use a car to get there; but people living in the city should be able to rely on fast, reliable and convenient public transport for all their needs within that city.

It doesn’t escape me.  At all.  That’s the point.  

[Sauron]

11 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

It doesn’t escape me.  At all.  That’s the point.  

I think it was the point that escaped between the moment you thought about it and the moment you wrote that post.

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

I think it was the point that escaped between the moment you thought about it and the moment you wrote that post.

Nope.  You’re point was based on the concept that electric cars were a problem.  That was the content load of the statement.  

 

There was stuff about the factory too but that was the declarative.
 

I said that point is often made because people argue for a different type of car.  Generally either gas or hydrogen.  This is an already long ago worked out issue.  Gasoline won’t work anywhere.  Hydrogen is more viable in the EU than it is in the US, but it is still somewhat narrowly beat out by electric.

 

Public transportation will eventually win.  It’s inescapable.  It’s math.  The problem is that the world hasn’t been set up for public transportation since the turn of the last century.   We CANT jump from gasoline cars to public transportation.  There are suburbs.  The concept of the suburb did not exist before cars. For a reason.  It’s going to take 50 years or more to transition, and some cars will still be needed even WITH public transportation for emergency services. 

[Unixsystem]

54 minutes ago, Phill104 said:

Have you ever been to Germany? In places like Augsburg the tram system is astonishingly good as well as cheap. It carries much of the workforce there. Now if Germany could end their massive reliance on coal, and their plans for increasing coal use,  that would be wonderful. The whole tram system is expanding and is just one element of reducing our impact on the planet.

 

We need to get over the whole car ownership model too and instead utilise transport in a far better way. Most cars are sat for over 90% of their life enjoying a bit of entropy. Imagine a world where we reduce the number of cars on the road by 90% and instead use each car 99% of its life. While at it use those cars to carry more than just one person.

 

As for the forest I fully understand the protests. Berlin has a lot of brown field land, but it is expensive. Tesla are trying to save money here, not think green. Why are they building in Berlin of all places? Well the city has coming online the largest battery recycling facility in Europe capable of recycling 99% of all batteries. So it gives Tesla a line of materials from an easy source.

I didn't say public transportation didn't work well in many places, however it also doesn't work at all in others. Most European countries have much, much higher population density than somewhere like America or Canada; I live on the outskirts of a major American city and have needes to take the bus to work in the past, which has between a 60 or 90 minute commute depending on how the schedule lined up. Now that I have a car, it's an 8 minute drive. 

 

Could infrastructure be improved here to make it more viable? Absolutely, but the distances involved around in many American residential areas mean that it will never make economic sense to try and run metros or bus lines to every area. Not to mention, that some people actually like to be able to move things with their vehicles. I like to be able to drive to Costco and buy a month's worth of groceries at a time, or go to Home Depot and buy some building supplies. Not only would it be impractical to use public transit for that, in most cases it would be literally impossible. Not everyone lives in a tiny apartment in the middle of a major city, and thank god for that. 

 

Also just to add to the greater discussion, Tesla and other car companies don't exist in a vacuum. Tesla themselves has open sources a massive amount of patents and technology which benefits basically every industry to works with electricity. Public transit can always been made to run full electric as well, which will benefit from improved electric motors or denser batteries. That same battery technology combined with Tesla's solar tech can help make green energy somewhat more practical in many areas (although the lack of nuclear is only going to make the transition that much more painful). Self driving tech not only has the potential to eventually make driving much safer and create a ton of free time for the average commuter out of thin air, but it opens to doors for automated ride sharing which essentially creates another pillar of public transit that actually can work in less dense/more rural areas. 

 

Am I saying that Tesla is some noble, altruistic entity that's going to save the human race? Of course not, but they are pushing electric transport and solar energy harder than anyone else on the market. Just as importantly they've managed to make a market formerly dominated by the Prius into something that people see as somewhat luxury and cool. If we want to get everyone to transition off of fossil fuels, that's one of the biggest hurdles to get over. If the cost is a few trees that can be replanted, or a bit of water being consumed, then so what.

[Guest]

49 minutes ago, RonnieOP said:

But what tesla would be working on wouldnt be just limited to Germany. So while their public transportation might be viable other areas not so much 

 

So each region needs to work on their transport solutions. From public transport to shared vehicles. We also need to create jobs nearer to peoples homes, and increase the number of people working from home. In just 30 years we have gone from and average 14mile per day commute to 160 miles per day commute. That needs to change. We also need to reduce the number of sub 1 mile journeys we make, which is surprisingly a large percentage of journeys made.

49 minutes ago, RonnieOP said:

Tbh i dont understand this notion that people shouldnt own or drive cars. Gas cars will eventually be phased out. But why phase out all cars in general?

 

It should not be hard in cities to just use an app to find the nearest available car or other transport. Use it to make your journey then leave it for the next person. Well managed that could easily reduce the number of cars produced each year by a huge amount.

49 minutes ago, RonnieOP said:

 

 

Id hate to live without a car personally..i mean itll never happen in my lifetime but even the thought of it i hate.

Tough decisions will have to be made. We have all become reliant on cars, currently I have a car, my wife has one as does my daughter. My other daughter will probably get one when she is old enough. I feel guilty about it every day, and rightly so, It needs to change, and we all have to make sacrifices.

[Sauron]

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Nope.  You’re point was based on the concept that electric cars were a problem.  That was the content load of the statement.  

 

There was stuff about the factory too but that was the declarative.

Musk defended the factory by saying it's good for the environment because it makes electric cars. I refuted that statement. Am I going too fast for you?

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Waffles13 said:

I didn't say public transportation didn't work well in many places, however it also doesn't work at all in others. Most European countries have much, much higher population density than somewhere like America or Canada; I live on the outskirts of a major American city and have needes to take the bus to work in the past, which has between a 60 or 90 minute commute depending on how the schedule lined up. Now that I have a car, it's an 8 minute drive. 

 

Could infrastructure be improved here to make it more viable? Absolutely, but the distances involved around in many American residential areas mean that it will never make economic sense to try and run metros or bus lines to every area. Not to mention, that some people actually like to be able to move things with their vehicles. I like to be able to drive to Costco and buy a month's worth of groceries at a time, or go to Home Depot and buy some building supplies. Not only would it be impractical to use public transit for that, in most cases it would be literally impossible. 
 

It would and is possible. In many places here you can simply use an app to locate the nearest free car. The app unlocks the car and you use it until it either needs recharging or you have finished. When you are done you get out, and in some cases plug it in, and you get charged for that use. The car then becomes available for the next person. Does it make sense to invest in a car you are leaving parked for over 90% of the time, or just pay for the usage? You still get all the freedom but without the ownership or the wastefulness of not using a car to its full potential. Sure, the designs of cars for this kind of use will be very different from what we use now. There will be none of the keeping up with the Jones’s, none of the look at me in my expensive metal box crap. Cars will simply be transport and nothing more.

6 minutes ago, Waffles13 said:

 

 

[pas008]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

I didn't say I'm sure of it, I said it's possible (the protesters sure seem to think that) and Musk didn't address it.

No, because they don't have to build that factory there.

 

but it would eventually close gas car factories

 

but that goes off your base of electric car factories pollute/etc

which would need numbers but all factories pollute imo somehow

 

so its a trade off in theory