Climate Protestors Storm Tesla's Gigafactory in Europe
Climate Protestors Storm Tesla's Gigafactory in Europe
The carmaker’s only European gigafactory has become the target of increasingly radical protests since announcing expansion plans.
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Tesla’s German factory, which produces electric cars and batteries, has for months been the target of protests by climate activists, who call the company’s green credentials a sham.
“Companies like Tesla are there to save the car industry, they're not there to save the climate,” Esther Kamm, spokesperson for Turn Off the Tap on Tesla (known by its German initialism TDHA) told WIRED last week.
I really don't understand this... Sure Elon is a horrendous person. But electric cars are needed to help lower emissions...
And yes, ideally cars would no longer be a thing, but that is a very very long term goal.
The factory is threatening the water supply of the area, and the planned expansion will decimate the forest. Not to mention that the only reason Tesla is even there is because the politicians did everything short of sucking elons dick to get it. It is only about the prestige of having the hip new car maker (as usual, politicians are years behind the public perception) produce in car country Germany.
To be fair the biggest reason the region has a water problem is that the lignite mines upstream pump less water downstream and they are even starting to fill some of them up after the mining is stopped.
Who gives a fuck about a tiny patch of forest when compared to reducing climate emissions?
I fucking hate Cars. I want them out of our cities and out of our lives. They're shackles and chains around our social fabric.
But they're never going entirely away and every gas car we replace with an electric car is a categorical success. We should make building massive battery plants cheaper.
Because you can't drink water if you're dead and no forest will compare in carbon impact per square foot when weighed against the reductions that electric vehicles bring us.
We can replant forests once this catastrophe is handled but we're in red fucking alert and any progress against gas cars is good progress. Damn the short term consequences.
People hating on you, but you're right.
Tesla the company has gotten progressively undermined by Musk in his time leading it, to the point that the cars are now kind of crappy... but it's still a hell of a lot better than driving a gasoline car. "How dare you expand into our forest and make more electric cars" is a fairly non sensible stance for pro-climate people to take.
Also, the car industry hates Tesla and actively works to make life as difficult as possible for them, at least in the US (e.g. making Tesla dealerships de facto illegal in a lot of states). Saying Tesla is just an arm of the auto industry is very weird.
Electric cars are way worse for the environment by the time they hit the road, especially the Tesla kind. And when the extra efficiency of said EV technology is being used to make bigger, heavier, and more expensive cars that 90% of people don't need, the issue compounds itself.
Tesla is no climate hero.
They are not worse for the environment than ICE vehicles. This is total FUD nonsense that is significantly fueled by right wing and auto astroturf campaigns. Their lifecycle emissions are vastly lower. It's so mundanely bad a talking point that even low-level sources like factcheck.org publish informers on it. Don't spread misinformation.
EVs aren't good for the environment. They're less bad. Auto-dominant culture remains a non-starter for longterm sustainability, both fiscal and environmental, for most communities around the world.
There are some situations where BEVs are maybe worse overall than ICE counterparts. Rail and busses, for example, where the BEV just makes no sense (put up a pantograph or third rail for a huge LCCA discount and massively lower emissions). Cargo trucking may also fall in this camp; trucks simply cannot be that heavy on modern asphalt design. But for regular passenger vehicles there is no question.
False