How Do I Help The Tesla Cause with no Money?

[Jonnydark]

I'm very concerned about climate change and I believe that Tesla is a great company to rally around and get the world on the right path. But I am a starving artist and I can't afford to keep any sort of car on the road. What can I do to help the Tesla movement?

I don't live near any Tesla dealerships (The nearest one is 2 hours away from me by car) otherwise I would work there doing anything. Cleaning, detailing... whatever.

Did Elon Musk ever mention how people at the poverty line can contribute? I think that would be a cool resource to tap.

 

[FreeOfPge]

You are doing something to help just by posting. We hear you!

If you want to go the extra mile, a simple thumbs up to anyone driving an electric vehicle goes a long way. It shows us that you support us mortally, even if unable to financially help.

Thank you for caring

 

[azred]

I'm very concerned about climate change and I believe that Tesla is a great company to rally around and get the world on the right path. But I am a starving artist and I can't afford to keep any sort of car on the road. What can I do to help the Tesla movement?

I don't live near any Tesla dealerships (The nearest one is 2 hours away from me by car) otherwise I would work there doing anything. Cleaning, detailing... whatever.

Did Elon Musk ever mention how people at the poverty line can contribute? I think that would be a cool resource to tap.

Very funny, Donald. I know you are bored with your golf vacation and your new Chief of Staff has restricted your tweeting. But spoofing us is going too far. We are very busy debating the important issues of the day such as whether current Model S owners should be able to jump the Model 3 waiting line -- or whether the waiting line should jump them.

 

[KarenRei]

I'm very concerned about climate change and I believe that Tesla is a great company to rally around and get the world on the right path. But I am a starving artist and I can't afford to keep any sort of car on the road. What can I do to help the Tesla movement?

I don't live near any Tesla dealerships (The nearest one is 2 hours away from me by car) otherwise I would work there doing anything. Cleaning, detailing... whatever.

Did Elon Musk ever mention how people at the poverty line can contribute? I think that would be a cool resource to tap.

That's awesome of you Be encouraged that every new vehicle that goes on the market will some day be 5-10 years old and greatly depreciated in price, so eventually there will be one in your price range on the used market. And the batteries rarely ever just "die", they just lose some range - and the rate of range loss generally declines with age. Unlike Nissan, Tesla babies their packs for longevity.

As for what you can do... just learn all you can, and talk to people. Lots of people have misconceptions about EVs (often deliberately spread by people who know better, sadly). There are lots of myths about EVs flatly contradicted by research - "EVs take more energy to make than they save" (not even close), "EVs use rare materials" (nope), "the grid can't support them" (not even close), "EVs cause more pollution than gasoline cars when run off of grid power" (nope), "There's no chargers" (glances at Plugshare, looks at exponential scaleup figures), "EVs charge slowly" (ahem, superchargers), "EVs only survive on incentives, Tesla sold way fewer vehicles in X location after tax credits expired" (what sort of idiot buys an EV the month after tax credits expire rather than the month before?), idiots comparing prices on a Model 3 (with more features, better performance and better crash safety than a BWM) to a Yaris or a used Yugo held together by duct tape, etc.

You'll never convince an anti-EV crusader, but most people are neither EV fans nor anti-EV crusaders. Make sure they get the facts If you need examples of studies or other data on anything you want to discuss with people, just ask! There's lots of nuance on everything, of course - for example, if every vehicle overnight was switched out for an EV, local grids would have trouble, and while generation would be sufficient in most of the US, it wouldn't in the Pacific Northwest. But of course no magic fairy is going to switch out every vehicle overnight, it's going to take decades, a timeperiod over which grid expansions and upgrades are perfectly normal.

 

[kort677]

I'm very concerned about climate change and I believe that Tesla is a great company to rally around and get the world on the right path. But I am a starving artist and I can't afford to keep any sort of car on the road. What can I do to help the Tesla movement?

I don't live near any Tesla dealerships (The nearest one is 2 hours away from me by car) otherwise I would work there doing anything. Cleaning, detailing... whatever.

Did Elon Musk ever mention how people at the poverty line can contribute? I think that would be a cool resource to tap.

the easiest thing that you could do if you think this way is to completely disconnect yourself from the energy grid. you'll have to return to a completely self sustaining agrarian lifestyle.

 

[Jonnydark]

Thanks FreeOfPge! I do love when I see electric cars driving around. It happens more and more now... which is REALLY encouraging!

Azred - you know I'm not Donald because I didn't make any spelling mistakes.

KarenRei - Thank you for all of your great information! I hadn't thought about what ways Tesla's could possibly be viewed as negative. I recently saw a Top Gear where he derided a Toyota Prius for being wasteful. He's like "Oh that nickle is mined in Canada that's gotta be a dirty business." and he says a BMW is better. It's maddening! You think the metal in the BMW wasn't extracted somewhere??? Ugh... It makes me so upset.

kort677 - I'm trying to do things that save energy. I don't eat meat and I drive as little as possible. (Who else feels immensely guilty in a gasoline vehicle now?) I live with family instead of heating two houses. I buy used all the time, and I buy things less and less. Living off the grid isn't really possible for me.... But I'm always encouraging family to consider solar panels and wind turbines and to replace our aging car with an electric one. We also replaced our old appliances with new ones last year and our electricity bill was more than halved.

 

[3s-a-charm]

Another idea is to join your local Tesla Owners Club if you can (some clubs allow non-owners to participate). Posting educational bits on public forums is helpful when done right... I know there is a lot of misinformation and uneducated responses out there.

Elon's mission (with Tesla anyways) is to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy... so with that in mind, anything you can do to accelerate the transition would be helpful in a small way. Hopefully someone buys your artwork for a lot of $$$ and you can enjoy a Tesla one day.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Kitchener, ON, I presume?

There's a Waterloo, ON Driver Electric Week event coming: National Drive Electric Week Event - Waterloo

You can volunteer.

 

[kort677]

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kort677 - I'm trying to do things that save energy. I don't eat meat and I drive as little as possible. (Who else feels immensely guilty in a gasoline vehicle now?) I live with family instead of heating two houses. I buy used all the time, and I buy things less and less. Living off the grid isn't really possible for me.... But I'm always encouraging family to consider solar panels and wind turbines and to replace our aging car with an electric one. We also replaced our old appliances with new ones last year and our electricity bill was more than halved.

I hate to sound trollish but you're really not very committed to your cause! if you were you would stop eating any store bought food, aside from all the energy wasted to produce and process your store bought food think of all the energy that is used to get it to the store, the energy used by the employees to get to the store and all the energy consumed by the store. you really need to have your own plot of land in order to grow and raise the things that you eat. living with mum and dad you are still consuming energy despite the fact that you're not paying for it. your cabin should be completely off the grid, being supplied by wind, solar or hydro will lessen the amounts of energy consumed to get the power to your domicile. get rid of the cars! walking or a bicycle is the way to consume as little energy as possible. I could go on and on, there is so much more that you should be doing to alleviate the impact of your being on the planet.

 

[KarenRei]

KarenRei - Thank you for all of your great information! I hadn't thought about what ways Tesla's could possibly be viewed as negative. I recently saw a Top Gear where he derided a Toyota Prius for being wasteful. He's like "Oh that nickle is mined in Canada that's gotta be a dirty business." and he says a BMW is better. It's maddening! You think the metal in the BMW wasn't extracted somewhere??? Ugh... It makes me so upset.

Yep - read about, for example, how the precious metals used in catalytic converters, spark plugs, etc are produced. They don't use a lot in cars, but they're mined in parts per billion quantities, so you have to move a lot of rock to get them. It's really environmentally destructive. Lithium from salar brines is one of the most environmentally harmless mining operations on Earth - it's literally just pumping brine out to the surface and letting it dry in ponds (made of salt) on the surface. On a lot of the salars, they flood annually and wipe out the drying ponds, causing them to have to be rebuilt each year. Here's what the process looks like:

salar lithium - Google Search

Concerning energy to make different vehicles versus how much they use during their lifespan:

J. B. Dunn *a, L. Gaines a, J. C. Kelly a, C. James b and K. G. Gallagher (2015) "The significance of Li-ion batteries in electric vehicle life-cycle energy and emissions and recycling's role in its reduction" DOI: 10.1039/C4EE03029J (Analysis) Energy Environ. Sci., 2015, 8, 158-168 (The significance of Li-ion batteries in electric vehicle life-cycle energy and emissions and recycling's role in its reduction - Energy & Environmental Science (RSC Publishing) DOI:10.1039/C4EE03029J

Scroll up and look at (a), energy usage. The blue and red bars at the bottom are energy usage while in operation. Green + purple + light blue is energy use in vehicle production if batteries are not mass produced (aka, no gigafactory), while green + purple (no light blue) is if batteries are mass produced (aka, gigafactory). Note the key takeaway: there's very little difference, with mass-produced batteries, between the energy to produce an EV vs. the energy to produce a gasoline car. But there's vastly more energy used in operating the gasoline car than the EV. And in both cases, operations energy makes up by far the majority of total energy consumption. Which should be obvious to anyone who takes a second to think about it - a typical gasoline car burns its entire weight in fuel every year - up in smoke! Energy used to produce a vehicle is a one-time expense, and part of it is recovered in recycling at the end of life.

Also from the study: when batteries aren't mass produced, it's more difficult to justify the expense of recycling, since the material costs are only a small portion of the total cost; most of the cost is manufacturing cost, and it pays to keep it as simple as possible. But with mass produced batteries (aka, Gigafactory), material costs become the limiting factor, and recycling becomes quite profitable.

 

[Bet TSLA]

What can I do to help the Tesla movement?

Find a volunteer position. What I do is volunteer at EV Week and other electric vehicle evangelism event. In my case I give lots of people rides in my Model S, and some get to drive it. But there are lots of other things that people volunteer to do.

If they don't have this where you are, I'm sure there must be something similar.

 

[KarenRei]

Also, let's just pretend that rather than being recycled, that the electrolytes are drained and then the batteries are incinerated without pollution controls and their contents spread to the far corners of the world, so everyone is exposed to them in low levels. Of course, that's not what actually happens, but let's adopt the anti-EV crusader attitude for a moment. What would be the consequence? Unlike gasoline vapours (a known carcinogen), the inorganic chemicals that make up the cathodes and anodes in lithium-ion batteries all appear - at low levels - likely to be more beneficial to human health than harmful.

* Nickel: While some people have allergies to (bulk) nickel, and significant workplace exposure to nickel compounds can be carcinogenic or to aid in infection, in low levels it appears to act as a probiotic (because human intestinal bacteria require it) and likely essential human nutrient. Humans are furthermore already exposed to significant amounts of dietary nickel from stainless steel cookware - far more than humans would conceivably ever be exposed to from the mythical "incinerated batteries"

* Cobalt: Pasturelands are frequently deficient in cobalt. Cobalt is required for bacteria to produce B12, which is a cobalt compound.

* Lithium: Lithium occurs naturally in groundwater, generally at 0 to 170ppm. Increasingly research is indicating that low levels of lithium in water are associated with a wide range of mental disorders, including depression, suicide, and violent behavior. Which can make sense, as lithium in high doses is used to treat those conditions. There's increasing argument that water for human consumption should contain a minimum level of lithium.

(Some batteries also have silica in the anodes, but burned silica is just... silica clay. Graphite or amorphous carbon is also used in anodes, and some aluminum in the cathodes, but again, nothing particular special about them)

So while it's certainly possible to have too much nickel, cobalt and lithium and have negative effects from that, in general most places could use more of them, not less.

(It is, of course, a moot point because li-ion battery packs aren't actually incinerated).

 

[azred]

kort677 - I'm trying to do things that save energy. I don't eat meat and I drive as little as possible. (Who else feels immensely guilty in a gasoline vehicle now?) I live with family instead of heating two houses.

You just made my day and here I previously thought you were just messing with us. I'm sharing this post with my good friend Carol who grumbles about her 40+ year old brother who is still living in the corner bedroom at their mother's home. She loves him but believes he is a lazy freeloader who needs to grow up and support himself. I'm going to suggest that he is just staying with his mom to help save the environment. I can hardly wait to get her reaction.

 

[tander]

I'm very concerned about climate change and I believe that Tesla is a great company to rally around and get the world on the right path. But I am a starving artist and I can't afford to keep any sort of car on the road. What can I do to help the Tesla movement?

I don't live near any Tesla dealerships (The nearest one is 2 hours away from me by car) otherwise I would work there doing anything. Cleaning, detailing... whatever.

Did Elon Musk ever mention how people at the poverty line can contribute? I think that would be a cool resource to tap.

If you want to stick with zero cars, you're already doing a pretty great thing compared to most people! Using public transport, walking, biking, and talking is a pretty great way to do things. If you're an artist maybe you could do some "green" themed pieces? It doesn't even have to be Tesla related, the idea is much bigger than the company or Musk. Back to the car ideas, you can get some pretty cheap used Nissan Leafs now, and some of the plugin hybrids are basically fill up once a year type things so that might be worth considering.

 

[kort677]

You just made my day and here I previously thought you were just messing with us. I'm sharing this post with my good friend Carol who grumbles about her 40+ year old brother who is still living in the corner bedroom at their mother's home. She loves him but believes he is a lazy freeloader who needs to grow up and support himself. I'm going to suggest that he is just staying with his mom to help save the environment. I can hardly wait to get her reaction.

it is a creative concept to avoid joining in on independent life.

 

[Jonnydark]

3s-a-charm - Haha.... Thank you! I hope someone buys my art sometime too! Tesla is hiring a Technical Illustrator which is what I went to school for... But I'd have to move to California. I'll see if a local Tesla club would have me.

Kitchener, ON, I presume?

There's a Waterloo, ON Driver Electric Week event coming: National Drive Electric Week Event - Waterloo

You can volunteer.

THANK YOU! I'm totally going to this. Signed up!!!

KaronRei - This is SOOO fascinating! Thank you for posting it. Oh man... I could really see myself getting deep into this. Do you have any more interesting information like this???

Kort677 - Thank you for your advice. I am aware I should do more... That's why I made this thread.

Bet-TZLA - I'm going to see if I can volunteer at an upcoming local electric vehicle event. Great idea!

Azred - According to the 2016 Canadian Census 42% of young adults live with parents in Ontario. Housing, Jobs, Debt and other factors are making it very hard to move away. I don't see what harm it does for me to rationalize it by focusing on the ecological benefits. Also, I've lived alone in Toronto before and I got very very lonely.

Tander - You know, this is a very wise perspective. Maybe having no car at all is the better route? I would still like to contribute... so I think I'll volunteer and do what I can. Thank you for this perspective Tander because It made me think. I also think I'd like to make art about the environment.. But it's so important to my soul... I'll have to work up to that. Most art I do is light. This would be very heavy for me.

 

[Jonnydark]

I'm sorry I don't know how to edit my post. I meant KarenRei.

 

[Skotty]

I'm very concerned about climate change and I believe that Tesla is a great company to rally around and get the world on the right path. But I am a starving artist and I can't afford to keep any sort of car on the road. What can I do to help the Tesla movement?

I don't live near any Tesla dealerships (The nearest one is 2 hours away from me by car) otherwise I would work there doing anything. Cleaning, detailing... whatever.

Did Elon Musk ever mention how people at the poverty line can contribute? I think that would be a cool resource to tap.

Stay positive, stay informed, share enthusiasm for the cause with others when it comes up, and vote for people who share the general vision of a sustainable clean energy future. Buy a T-shirt or something from the Tesla store to wear every once and awhile.

Nice to meet you.

- Scott

 

[LosAltosChuck]

I'm very concerned about climate change and I believe that Tesla is a great company to rally around and get the world on the right path. But I am a starving artist and I can't afford to keep any sort of car on the road. What can I do to help the Tesla movement?

I don't live near any Tesla dealerships (The nearest one is 2 hours away from me by car) otherwise I would work there doing anything. Cleaning, detailing... whatever.

Did Elon Musk ever mention how people at the poverty line can contribute? I think that would be a cool resource to tap.

Practical suggestion: I know you can't afford to buy one, but you can send me a little cash every month to help me with my loan payment. I don't mind if you share in my helping to save the planet! I'm happy to give you credit here on the board. (But don't ask me if you can drive it - my insurance won't allow that, sorry.)

 

[Bet TSLA]

But don't ask me if you can drive it - my insurance won't allow that, sorry.

Of course it does. You need a better excuse.