Not Green, Smug

The other day, a study came out that showed that electric cars weren’t as green as their owners thought they were.  They also are not as green as the media or uninformed public think they are.  What they are are virtue signalers.  They are smug.

A number of years ago, I got a ride from my friend who is an economics professor.  We saw a Prius and laughed because it was plastered with stickers saying how “green” it was.   At the time, we were living in apartments that were 2500 sq feet or less.  No Al Gore mansions for us.  Our apartments used hot water heat, which is incredibly efficient.

The professor remarked, “They don’t realize where the power comes from when they plug it in to charge.  They also don’t realize the amount of environmental damage mining for battery components is, nor do they realize how toxic disposal of those batteries are to the environment.

Here it is in black and white.

Diesel is greener than Tesla or any other electric car including combination electric/fuel cars.  Maybe I should pin the study to my window so I get the good parking at Whole Foods.

The other day, Tesla reported another huge loss.  $700MM.  They aren’t selling as many cars as they thought and demand for them is dropping.  The subsidy for electronic cars has ended as well.  If the company wasn’t heavily subsidized by the government already it would be gone.

My other friend Professor Craig Pirrong has a great take on Tesla here.  Again, he is an economics professor.  He understands that pesky math and how subsidies work, creating markets that aren’t really there.

This is just the Musk MO–always try to keep the suckers focused on a brilliant future. The next big thing is around the corner. The problem is, it is always around the corner, and the autonomous vehicles–and Tesla the company–haven’t learned how to turn the corner.

Elon also claimed (based on highly dubious assertions that NVIDIA hotly disputes) that Tesla would create a better chip than one of the world’s leading, and most innovative, chipmakers. Sure! And the problem with production is with the world’s leading battery manufacturer, not the car manufacturing tyro. Sure!

It appears, however, that Elon’s con is less convincing than it used to be. People are figuring it out. Finally. The Autonomy Day was widely panned, and his claims regarding chips widely mocked.

Then, I saw that NYC is banning hot dogs all in the name of carbon.  If new Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot does the same, I could argue that the first shots of Civil War 2 are being shot.

Julian Simon famously made a bet with Paul Erlich on the price of commodities in the future.  Simon said they’d be cheaper than they were today.  Erlich was a fanatical follower of overpopulation theory.  Fanatical.  So fanatical that he was sure he was right.  Simon of course was correct and typical of a person of Erlich’s character he didn’t pay.  This is the way it is with fanatics.  It’s always someone else’s fault.

I’d make the same bet on the end of the world.  De Blasio and other fanatics who are in the global warming cult say they world is going to end in 12 years. I’d take the other side of that.  It won’t end in twelve years and Miami will still be above water.

This doesn’t mean we ought to abuse the environment.  We shouldn’t.  But, we should be very mindful about regulations that strangle innovation and progress in the name of theories that are not necessarily proven.  We need to look very closely at the marginal costs of improving the environment.  We need to agree on what the opportunity costs are.

We also need to look at economic theories like Coase Theorem.  It works.  It’s counter intuitive and makes people uncomfortable.  That’s because of internal confirmation biases and because they think they know better.  Interestingly, capitalist societies that rely on markets to allocate resources have cleaner environments, more abundance, and better standards of living than centrally planned countries.  Not by a little.  By a lot.

If we truly were in an emergency, we’d be building nuclear plants worldwide to generate electrical power like it was going out of style.

For the record, I drive a SUV diesel and have since 2009.  My current apartment is 1250 sq feet, and it is steam heated.    I have a second home, 625 sq. feet with no a/c, no heat, and no running water.  It does have electric and fibre internet.

I will stack up my environmental footprint with anyone that owns two homes and one car.