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The Tesla Model S is an all electric, high performance luxury car, but is it better for the environment?

In recent months, I’ve seen a distinct uptick in the number of electric cars driving around the streets of Fargo, and, for a gearhead such as myself, it’s an exciting and awesome time. To be able to experience all the new innovations in not only electric cars but in autopilot and car safety, I truly feel like we’re once again living in the Golden Age of cars.

When comparing an electric car and a petrol car, we can see that this belief that electric cars are better for the environment is simply not true.

In recent weeks, there have been a series of photos going around the internet about the environmental impact of electric cars. And everyone is angry. But who’s correct: your grandmother’s weird friend or a bunch of grammatically ambiguous angry internet people?

To find out, I decided to see what produced more pollution in Fargo: the Tesla Model X or the closest competitor, the Infiniti QX60 SUV. Due to the different propulsion systems on the two cars, you can’t just look at which has the better miles per gallon (mpg).

To understand the environmental impact of driving these two vehicles, we have to look at the pollution that is produced under the same circumstances for both vehicles. This meant looking at the number of pollutants, more specifically carbon dioxide (CO2), produced in a mile of driving the Infinity, while burning gasoline and how much CO2 was produced in the generation of the electricity used to power the the Tesla.

To understand this comparison, you have to look at how energy is generated here in Fargo. According to the Energy Institute of America, 94 percent of the electricity generated in Fargo comes from fossil fuel sources.

With the vast majority of this being coal, I decided to base my emission standards for the Tesla off how much coal is burned to produce the amount of electricity that it takes to drive per mile. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), one pound of coal, when burned in a standard power plant, produces about one kilowatt-hour of electrical power. In this burning, it also generates 2.74 pounds of CO2.

For those confused about how more CO2 can be generated than the initial amount of fuel burned, I direct you to the Energy Information Administration who states,

“Each carbon atom in the fuel combines with two oxygen atoms in the air to make CO2.”

This means that every time you set something on fire, you’re actually producing far more pollution than what was in the original item that was destroyed.

Gasoline, however, is slightly different. Due to the high octane gasoline that is common nowadays, for every gallon of gasoline that is burned you produce about 19.6 pounds of CO2.

Which, when divided into a per pound basis, means that each pound of gasoline that you use in your car produces about 3.117 pounds of pollution.

At face value, it looks like the electric car is better for the environment. However, we need to look at it on a per mile driven basis.

According to Tesla, the Model X has an average fuel economy of 34-kilowatt hours per 100 miles. Whereas according to Infiniti, the QX60 has an average fuel economy of 22 mpg. This means that the Tesla will use about 0.34 kilowatt-hours per mile while the Infinity uses about 0.268 gallons per mile.

When you apply the pollution conversion that we did the math on earlier, it ends up meaning that the Tesla produces about 2.6 pounds of CO2 for every mile you drive while the Infinity produces only 0.9 pounds.

Now don’t get Eco-depressed. This isn’t some sort of death sentence for the environmental movement, or for the electric car industry. If you look at where the electric car industry was even 5 years ago, these numbers have almost tripled. And it’s on track to do it again in the next five years.

But it means that right now if you really want to save the environment, don’t buy an electric car. Rather, focus on making changes in your driving habits and your daily life to reduce your carbon footprint. Driving a Tesla looks pretty cool, but if you ask some climate scientists, the Earth doesn’t seem to think the same thing.