Pollution factors

[iisjsmith]

I was re-re-reading some of the blog posts over at TM and a thought hit me: when we are calculating emission and pollution factors do we need to include those which come from the manufacture of the batteries?

I have been trying to find out information online about the manufacturing of li-ion batteries and there isn't much to find. If we are going to include the pollution, costs, and emissions from gasoline production, oil development and drilling, and fossil fuel distribution then we should probably include those from the battery factories, right?

Anyone have any thoughts?

 

[asdar]

I think it's fair to include the pollution and energy cost from making the batteries if all of the pollution that's put into the competing technologies is also included.

Internal combustion engines have alot of manufacturing and every step has wastes that aren't included in their pollution numbers either.

 

[Tesla2Go]

On top of that, why not take into consideration of the pollution produced for making all the air and oil filters, sparkplugs, drivebelts..... and also all oil changes for ICE vehicles? Considered over the lifetime of the vehicle I think the differences will be enormous compared to an all electric vehicle.

 

[vfx]

Yeah if you include all the manufacturing of each any every part of the ICE engine, with plastics, rubber, ceramics, aluminum, steel, iron, paper and foam filters, more plastics and the various lubricating fluids grease, oils, coolant - it's mind boggling. You can even add in the manufacturing of all those special widgets and do-hickeys that only the dealer mechanics have to replace engine parts and the building of the smog check machines and the DMV costs of tracking those checks and the ICE dynamo. What have I missed? What about accidents and the spilled fluid cleanup?

Someone would have to compare the dirty manufacturing of the Tesla Inverter and Induction motor and battery pack the mini transmission compared the a full ICE with it's attachments like generator, starter and alternator -with gearbox.

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[Michael]

I'm sure that not building the vehicle in the country it's targeted for, and using materials that have to be shipped to the country where the vehicle is assembled adds somewhat to the energy used to get the vehicle to market.

 

[Tesla2Go]

The same happens with current vehicles. Granted perhaps not the building, but parts are shipped from all over the world. It would be great to see an average of how many oil/air filters a car goes through during its lifetime, and how many liters of oil changes are required.