Climate change and Tesla

Posted: Dec 30, 2019

Categories: climate


I’m finding a way to apply technology in solving climate change, this small essay is me gathering my thoughts and sharing what led me to care about this global issue.

I will start with 2 assumptions: climate change is our fault, and the best way to stop climate change is to reduce greenhouse gas(GHG) emission.

First, we need to understand what exactly the greenhouse effect is?

Illustration of how greenhouse effect works

Every morning, when the sun shines light to the earth, it brings heats. Normally our planet will absorb part of those heats, and the rest will be reflected and send back to the space.

But when our atmosphere is filled with a lot of greenhouse gases ( CO2, Ch4, CFC... ) it acts as a mirror wrap around our planet reflects the reflected heat back to the earth..

Or in short, the heats from the sun is trapped inside our earth by GHG..

Reports showed that CO2 (a GHG) has increased 40% since 1880. At the same time the global temperature has increased ~1°C since then.

The question is what causes the rising of GHG?

Looking at this chart: Transportation(29%), Electricity(28%), Industry(22%) have the most significant shares, but all have one cause in common: burning fossil fuels to generate energy.

Transportation is about burning gasoline/diesel to generate kinetic energy to move vehicles.

Or we burn coals to generate electricity that light our house, power the air condition…

Industries are indirect processes, but still, it's about burning fossil fuels to produce goods or raw materials like plastic, building materials…

I find that electricity and industry is harder to solve because it involves large and sophisticated systems. Meanwhile, transportation can start by individuals. We just need to change our day-to-day habits.

Tell me more

Sure, There are 2 main roads :

Reduce transport activity

Short distance and single travel emit the most CO2 in the transportation sector. The public transport systems are built to reduce these needs, it covers most of the places that we need to go. I personally have never take more than 2 buses to go to where I need.

At its best, public transport like buses is much more energy-efficient. With the same amount of gas burned it carries 10 to 30 times more people.

Try to travel by bus, I agree that it’s inconvenient at first, but the more you get used to it you will like it. Just like going to the gym, it feels exhausted at first, but if we keep trying and start to feel the positive changes in our body and our mind, we will be addicted to it. Who don’t like mind-free while going to work?

But it requires dedication at first.

Just a small note that VinGroup is developing an electric bus 😌.

Another effect of using public transportation frequently is that it’ll reduce traffic congestions which also makes our life better.

Switch to sustainable energy powered vehicles

Electric-powered vehicles are becoming more viable, you must be heard of Tesla cars at least once.

But the most used vehicles in Viet Nam are motorbike, so I will try to find an alternative for that first, we will talk about Tesla cars later.

Vinfast Klara lithium batteryHonda Airblade
Price50m VND55m VND
CO2 emission per 10000Km67kg460kg
Cost per 10000Km345k VND3,5m VND

This table shows that using a Klara emit 5/6 less CO2 and 1/10 the cost.

I’m not trying to advertise for Vinfast ( even though I should ). All I’m trying to say is it benefits both our finance and the environment.

Tesla

I didn’t research about climate change at first because I care about the earth, I admit. If I have to find out 1 reason why I do this It’d be Tesla.

Now I want to share how Tesla convinced me to care about the earth, and hopefully It’ll give you some inspirations to do the same.

Start with Tesla’s vision: to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. Sustainable transport means we can still meet our needs of transports without taking the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

Have you ever heard of any for-profit company that encourages other companies to develop? Tesla wants other car companies to make and be better at producing electric cars because they know Tesla alone can’t accomplish its vision.

And they don’t say it to sounds cool, they've published all of their patents.

In my opinion, Tesla stands for a genuine attempt to make a good impact and have revolutionized the whole industry.

Better cars

With 39k$, we can buy an Audi A4 or a standard range model 3 with 1.5 horsepower plus autopilot feature and protect your family with its 5 stars rating in safety.

New experience

Buying a Tesla is like buying a phone. You don’t have to go through dealers to buy a car anymore. Just purchase it on their website, and they will deliver it the way Apple delivers an iPhone.

Once a year, Tesla will update their software, and it comes with HUGE improvements. With version 10 this year, you don’t have to go to the parking lot by its automatic parking feature and summon it out of parking lot when you need it.

It means Tesla's car becomes better over time. No car company has ever bring this experience to their customers before.

Financially effective

Typically when we buy a car, it degrades over time, but by design Tesla(or electric cars in general) need less maintenance by not having big engines and complex transmissions.

Again, electricity beat the odds, 2/3 less CO2 emission, and 3/10 the cost.

Also, when Tesla’s autopilot is capable of full self-driving, Tesla will open its own car-sharing services. Tesla’s owner then can have the car making money during the time it’s unused.

Without a driver, the cost of Tesla sharing services will be significantly lower, plus a significant number of cars were already available. Tesla will beat Uber, Lyft or DiDi ChuXing easily.

How brilliant is this?

Conclusion

Wearing a mask every day is NOT normal.

This is not all our fault, but if we don’t take action, we are the ones who bear the consequences. And we should take it seriously, the myth of “every little helps” not exists. If everyone does a little, we’ll only achieve a little.

“If everyone donates just 1$ for me, I’m going to be a billionaire” that billionaire deflected our attention, what we should focus on is the “I”. 7 billions people just able to give 1 person becoming a billionaire.

We all need to do a lot to change the situation. Climate change is just one of global issues, and it’s hard, it’s really hard. But I’ll try my best to contribute my knowledge, my youth to solve these problems.

Technical notes

Why electric cars is more efficient

When comparing the energy efficiency of vehicles, we care about how many percentage of our input (gas or electric) are being converted to force that push our vehicles - We call it energy conversion rate. Or in business, it’s the question of how many percentage of our investment go into making the company grow?

Turns out, 75% of the gas in gas-powered vehicles being wasted in heating the engine and radiator. Just 25% is used to push the vehicle. Or energy conversion rate = 25%.

Electric vehicles are much more efficient with an energy conversion rate = 90%, just 10% is being wasted in heating the motor.

In urban travel, we use a lot of pedal to accelerate and brakes. Brakes throw all the kinetic energy generated by acceleration away, this is wasted energy.

But in electric-powered car it has regenerative braking technology which mean we brake, it puts the motor in reverse mode cause it run backward. When running backward, the motor acts as a generator producing electricity that charges the battery itself.

Or in short, when you use the brake, you are charging the battery, thus making it more energy-efficient.

How I calculate the CO2 emission and cost of vehicles

Refer to this spreedsheet