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Comment by esotericsean | Hacker News Reader

Sidenote: it's better for the environment to buy a used Ford pickup truck than to buy a new Prius. The pickup will have been made in one factory while the Prius is made from parts from all around the world. It's already done a million miles by the time you buy it. Tesla not only has zero emissions, but they're also vertically integrated. For me, it's not all about which is the cheaper option to own. It's about what's going to help the environment the most.

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Do you have a source on that? It doesn't seem right to me. Transportation is not the largest energy expense that goes into a product like a car; the largest energy expense is extracting and refining the raw materials into processed materials that are ready to be used for final production.

There's no way that the equivalent of one million driving miles' worth of pollution is emitted merely by moving around the pieces that then get turned into a car. Bulk surface/marine transport is extremely efficient.

> Transportation is not the largest energy expense that goes into a product like a car; the largest energy expense is extracting and refining the raw materials into processed materials that are ready to be used for final production.

Sure, maybe the GP's point is that (she thinks) (environmental impact of new Prius construction + n years of Prius driving > impact of n years of driving an existing pickup truck). I have no evidence for or against this, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's true for n=5 years and typical mileage/day. As you point out yourself, besides bringing the parts from all over the world, you need to mine the resources, spend the energy to cast them, etc.

That pickup part is not true(this is a myth invented by Top Gear). Most(over 80%) of the life cycle emissions of a car come from driving, not manufacturing. During its lifetime a Prius saves more than two metric tonnes of gasoline(comparing to another car of this size) - that's more that it weights.

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