Sociable pollution? The world is still not cleaner or safer to live in as CO2 is still being produced somewhere. This whole 'out of sight, out of mind' outlook on green issues isn't a solution. Until we move away from burning stuff to make energy, Telsa can create millions of car, it still doesn't help anything.
What happens when you shift the energy requirements from transportation to residential? What happens when you shift from high yield energy (gasoline) to low yield energy (coal)?
> Until we move away from burning stuff to make energy, Telsa can create millions of car, it still doesn't help anything.
Actually, it still helps a lot, because burning fuel at power plants is much, much more energy efficient than in internal combustion engines (I think I saw a factor of 3 or 4 in some analysis). So by going all electric, you get 3 times less pollution for the same number of cars (actually, you'd get even less, because power plants are better at filtering pollutants).
Also another added benefit is that the moment you go green by e.g. switching to nuclear power, suddenly all your cars get their carbon footprint cut down by two orders of magnitude.
Electric cars (and buses, etc) is not the solution, but it's part of it. Lots of countries are moving to cleaner electricity production, and electric cars allow transportation to benefit from that pollution-wise.
I would love to see this chart and the projection of how it would be shaped if 50% / 75% / 100% of cars on the road were electric: http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=16511&src=Tot...
What happens when you shift the energy requirements from transportation to residential? What happens when you shift from high yield energy (gasoline) to low yield energy (coal)?