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Comment by ta8645 | Hacker News Reader

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The problem with that logic is that its clear now that Tesla is run by someone who is has directly said that we can wait 50-100 years to set up a sustainable energy economy, and is currently working against federal scientific bodies.

Combined with the fact that there are many EV's on the market of similar quality, it is clear you do not need to purchase from Tesla.

So you can avoid enriching someone who is in direct opposition to climate action while also making your own move to EVs. You can have your cake and eat it too.

I also take issue with "petty grievance". I do not know and will never meet Musk, there is no personal feud here.

I simply do not believe he is doing good things for the world, and the quality of the product offered does not force my hand in any way, so I will simply choose to take my money elsewhere. No petty grievance involved.

Revolutionized the battery industries and the electric car industries.

How much faster than 50 year do you think the global economy can be turned sustainable?

And what is your source for Elon working against federal scientific bodies?

You can still choose to buy your electric car from some other company. At this point I think that would be my preferred choice.

Why does this one man, then, work for a government bent on ignoring science and denying climate change? I'm just laughing at the idea that the grievances are "petty" when the guy is leading a fascist coup right now.

What does it matter what one man thinks? What does it matter what coup happens if the world ends because of global warming? The only way to think that party politics matters more than doing every single thing we can to fight global warming, with no distractions, is to not truly believe in global warming.

Because if you actually believed it, you'd be too terrified to be distracted by party politics.

That’s a little like worrying about the roof replacement your house will desperately need in a decade, meanwhile there’s a guy trying to burn your house down right now. Let’s put the fire out, then we can worry about the roof.

Wrong. What we do TODAY determines what happens in a decade. Global warming is determined by what we do today, even if the final destruction doesn't show up until later.

You are literally a climate change denier.

The administration Musk is a part of has suspended leasing and permitting for wind energy projects: https://apnews.com/article/wind-energy-offshore-turbines-tru...

It has suspended renewable energy approvals on public lands: https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5105492-trump-...

And it's quitting the Paris climate agreement so it can "drill, baby, drill": https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20px1e05w0o

If you're serious about addressing climate change, you can no longer buy Tesla.

OK. Still going to focus on the arsonist first.

You think that individual choice is the one and only way to fix climate change? The new regime's policy is "drill baby drill". That's a lot more impactful than people electing not to buy a particular brand of electric cars.

> Because if you actually believed it, you'd be too terrified to be distracted by party politics.

Weirdest instance of "whataboutism" I've ever seen. Yes pay no attention to eg forthcoming deaths due to withdrawal of pepfar, anti-malarals, etc but do pay attention to the effect of EVs on climate change (don't worry that it's the same guy selling the EVs that's causing the deaths).

Like Jesus Christ you really expect people to be convinced by this reasoning?

I think the opposite choice would be not purchasing a car at all? I've managed to live without one so far.

Or squeezing an extra 100K miles out of a vehicle that was headed for the scrapper.

Right. I think the environmental argument for EVs rings pretty hollow until we've exhausted the world's extremely large supply of used cars (and built commuter rail just about everywhere even marginally economical; the US circa 1920 would be a good reference point).

If there was a gross over abundance of used cars, they would be extremely cheap. They aren't cheap.

Shifting new sales from gas to EV is also likely to be more effective than wishing for more transit.

It’s not that simple: the economics of used cars are tied to export patterns and to cultural norms. In other words: used cars aren’t (relatively) expensive because they’re actually scarce goods; they’re relatively expensive because Americans generally like buying new cars and therefore don’t support a larger used car market.

Besides, it’s a relative comparison: a used older car is still going to be cheaper. We’re talking about Teslas, which are luxury sport vehicles.

My observation is about the dynamics of the used car market (reliable cars that are out of warranty still command relatively high prices), it's not a comparison to the cost of new, high end electric vehicles.

My point was that the firm prices in the used market actually reflect demand for those cars and they aren't just tragically going to waste, a counter to your disgust at our supposed refusal to use them up. If they are getting exported and used up, that still prevents them from being available cheaply here.

> it's not a comparison to the cost of new, high end electric vehicles.

Sure, but the point of this entire thread is making this comparison.

There are some people who can make that choice, and that's preferable. But not everyone can do that. And to leave a single EV unused, just because we hate a single man, is unconscionable for anyone who believes the world actually hangs in the balance.

As others have pointed out, you could buy a different EV. The market appears to have many options.

But also, I simply don't buy the environmental argument here. I'm pretty sure buying a used Toyota Camry and driving it into the ground is better, on net, for the planet than buying a brand new EV.

Not sure about that. Use emissions is the majority

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/life-cycle-emissions-evs-vs...

Yes, for equivalent cars purchased new. The point was that a 10 year old used sedan than you drive for another 10 years will still produce fewer tailpipe emissions than a new EV's manufacture.

You do know there are other EV manufacturers, right? Tesla can go bankrupt today, and supply will not be all that worse.

I don't agree that it's unconscionable. To me, supporting a man like Musk who actively promote climate change denial is the worse option.

Teslas are sports cars.

mr musk has been instrumental in preventing this option from developing unfortuantely. his "hyperloop" and "boring company" are ploys to distract people and delay the development of high speed rail

I think high speed rail is perfectly capable of finding delays all on its own, and doesn't need this supposed help

You're right; Republicans were killing high-speed rail long before Elon awkwardly gestured his way into politics.

tell that to China

You mean the China where nobody has a voice and the government is allowed to do whatever they feel like whenever they feel like to whomever they feel like? The same China where property rights don't exist so there's no need for eminent domain. The same China that, oh nevermind

How about Japan, then?

Good grief. Fine. USofA development of high speed rail does not need any help on finding ways to not get made. </facepalmForPedants>

this sounds like sore loser, and honestly, highly propagandized, talk to me. as far as i can tell, China is more democratic

Clearly you and I have different understandings of democratic to the point I bid you good day

do you even know anything about China or Chinese history???

I know LGBT identity is criminalized there. As much as Trump would love to do that in the US, it hasn't happened yet.

Also, we're allowed to make fun of the president of the United States, whereas Xi throws a little pissy tantrum if anyone compares him to Winnie the Pooh.

Finally, uh... do you really think no one here knows about the Great Firewall? Yes, I know you can get around it with a VPN, but you shouldn't have to.

It's not about distaste. The motivation for buying an electric car is in part about believing your individual choices contribute to larger outcomes. The same logic links your Tesla purchase to Elon's growing wealth and power, which if you are concerned about global warming and fossil fuels, you likely are also concerned about the long term consequences of his current use of his wealth and power, so your motivation to buy an electric car, comes from a similar place to the motivation not to buy it from Elon. Perhaps because this is not reddit I don't need to preempt the trolls, but the relationship between those two motivations remains true even if you were motivated only by virtue signalling

> won't let petty grievances get in the way

Lol if these are "petty" grievances I can't imagine what legitimate grievances look like.

All grievances are petty compared to the destruction of our world.

The administration Musk is a part of has just suspended the NEVI EV charger program:

https://electrek.co/2025/02/06/trump-just-canceled-the-feder...

If you care about the world (or even just America), don't buy Tesla.

I own an EV and it is not a Tesla. I would never buy or rent a Tesla again based only on Musk's prominence in the company and use of the Nazi salute and support of Nazi affiliated nationalist political parties in Europe.

Musk's support for a president that has halted renewable grants, halted permitting for renewable projects on private land and plans to roll back emissions standards, increase coal mining and use, and generally everything in https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/unle... makes a Tesla a complete non-starter for anyone that cares about climate change now.

Your statement seems to assume that Teslas are the only EVs available for people to buy

Yeah it interesting that some people are able to make such, lets put it mildly, not-really-smart argument.

If we were facing an existential warming crisis I would agree. But since we’re facing a warming crisis that is severe but not existential, I’m not sure. It seems plausible that the damage done by Elon in supporting trump outweighs the benefits we get from his contribution to a cleaner transportation story.

Not existential to whom?

Lets asks the people of Tuvalu.

There are far more options than Tesla these days. The options aren't limited to "buy Tesla" and "deny climate change".

Electric cars are useless if the power is still generated by oil, coal and gas.

So helping the guy who supports a climate change denier will make things worse.

There is still a benefit to having pollution not come out of the tailpipe. When I go for a bike ride or a run and half the cars are EVs, I'm glad (even though I understand the electricity may come from fuel burning elsewhere).

So you trade your health for more pollution for others.

My understanding is that power plants have scrubbers that reduce their environmental impact more than tailpipes. Also, power plants tend to be located in places that are not as heavily populated as neighborhood streets.

If they have scrubbers and if they are placed in non-heavily populated areas.

My point is an electric car a such says not much of environmental benefits.

Take for instance the Nissan e-power. The car drives electric but it uses a combustion engine to load the battery.

If you'd said less beneficial I could agree. Since batteries can soak surplus power and make it available at other times there is a substantial social utility to ev as energy soaks irrespective of the source.

The "less efficient because coal" thing is massively overstated sometimes, it's tendentious.

Not less efficient, useless. Imagine instead of directly powering the car by combustion engine, you first use a combustion engine to generate electricity to fill the battery.

How would the car benefit the environment?

Coal generation favours long run times and is inefficient at being ramped up and down quickly. Using battery systems to soak surplus power time shifts a commodity which otherwise has to be negatively priced. The ideal input for a battery is of course renewable energy but there is a case for batteries as energy soak during times of low consumption, and to help stabilise demand in the network. This isn't an individual car efficiency statement, it's about socialised costs.

Electricity generated by natural gas or oil and used to power a vehicle is still cleaner than burning gasoline in a vehicle because the generation plant has better emission controls than a gas vehicle.

This is entirely incorrect. I sure hope you are just misinformed instead of purposely touting misinformation. This is the common talking-point of OIL aligned lobbyists and misinformation campaigns.

A grid scale generator is wildly more efficient than the small generator that exists in every single vehicle.

Oil -> Gas -> ICE Combustion -> Wheel Movement

Is far less efficient than:

Oil/Coal/etc. -> Electricity -> Wheel Movement

Not to mention capturing emissions is far easier when you have a few sources of static emissions then 100s of thousands of moving source of emissions.

The grievances aren't petty. He is one man among several who are overtly and actively working to destroy the US. Buying anything related to Musk is helping to finance that destruction.

yea, but they will probably buy from another company. if i had to ditch my gas car, my first impulse is i would see if i could swing something from BYD, but i hear the tariffs are high

How about switch from natural gas to electricity for all households heating and appliances. How about public transportation.

No one is going to mitigate climate change by buying things.

Or they'll just buy a different brand of EV.

> buying electric cars, even from Tesla, is more important than any distaste we have

The man empowers Trump, who is anti climate change action. As is the AfD, Nigel Farage, and all the other wingnuts he supports.

So it's not that simple.

That is of course ignoring any other negative effects from Musk's actions. Sure, the climate crisis is real and should be among the top priorities, but that doesn't mean we can just waltz over anything else.

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