Using leather in 'leccy cars is 'unTesla', rages vegan shareholder Electric car maker Tesla needs to turn vegan by dropping leather upholstered interiors or play its part in the destruction of the Earth, according to some of its shareholders. Talking at yesterday’s AGM, Mark Peters and his vegan wife Elizabeth Farrell Peters – both Tesla fans who took a financial punt on the government- …
Not just plakkie coming from oil but what about the impact the oil industry and plastic manufacuring on wildlife? Birds fried in flares, habitat destruction, plastic waste, estrogen mimics, and on and on. Nope, gimme good ol' sustainable leather (and the odd burger) any time.
As plastic is made from oil which is made of the decomposed bodies of marine invertebrates. Therefore its an animal product.
And while we're at it you could also argue that most organic foods aren't vegan either as they are generally fertilised with dung and blood & bone mix.
I'd tell them to get down from their high horses, but they would point out they don't believe in the subjugation of animals.
But no doubt we can have a hemp fiber car with woven bamboo upholstery soon.
She does realise that, until they clean up their electricity grid, the whole car is pretty pointless anyway?
Sure, EVs can reduce "local" emissions, but that depends where you live. If you live next to a coal power station, EVs are only going to make your air dirtier.
Yes, I know, superchargers, solar panels etc...but these in no way offset the total electricity consumption of the nation. The target has to be for total green electricity generation to exceed total electricity usage. EVs only add to electricity usage so take us further away from that goal.
I'm not sure where you get that claim from, it's a bit myopic.
Electricity grids are based on supply and demand. Each day, the renewable sources (wind/solar/hydro) produce as much electricity as they can. It's pretty much free to produce so they sell as much of it as they can - although it can still oddly make financial sense to put the brake on a wind turbine at times.
Any remaining electricity requirements have to be filled from nuclear, gas and coal. These are more "on-demand" producers and can turn up and down as required, especially in the case of gas.
If you plug in your electric car, more electricity is needed on the grid. The _only_ way to fill this gap is to burn more fossil fuel. No exceptions.
As the grid improves, as does the carbon footprint of everything. Oddly, even IC powered cars get greener with the grid.
EVs will have their moment, but we're still decades away. All the current generation of EVs will be in the recycling bin long before it arrives and we'll wish we'd saved all those heavy metal batteries for when they were actually useful.
All that is irrelevant blither unless your power supply infrastructure can guarantee to keep the power on and at full demand capacity 100% of the time.
Mine can't even keep the power on during a hot summer without sudden blackouts. What good is making everyone get electric cars if the sodding power capacity isn't even up to snuff before you start adding their load to the sums?
"...more electricity is needed on the grid. The _only_ way to fill this gap is to burn more fossil fuel. No exceptions."
Well, except for hydro. They can open and close the gates to make more or less power on-demand. Not exactly instantaneous, but certainly within minutes. Obviously faster reaction time than coal.
By way of example, Canada's grid is 65% hydro.
Disclaimer: I still think Tesla's cars are green-hogwash.
Nuclear is the only one with long-term viability.
That's because the next-generation MSR designs are highly throttleable, so they can be used to provide backing capacity to the other three OR provide baseload and throttle up to handle peaks.
As they'll only make money when run in the latter mode, expect enercos to start refusing to allow uncontrolled installations to interconnect.
An electric car is still more efficient than one with an engine, essentially because a power station's turbine generators are about twice as efficient as internal combustion engines.
So even if the grid was entirely coal, electric cars would represent a CO2 emissions reduction.
And on average, the power grid is much less than 100% coal.
Why? Because power stations capture and use much more of their heat. Engines only really use the mechanical power of the exhaust gases from combustion and discard the heat.
The power losses don't actually balance up. They come out ahead. Google it.
Transmission power losses are surprisingly small, even if you're charging and discharging a battery. And electric motors are really astonishingly efficient (something like 80-90% - way more than is even theoretically possible from a combustion engine).
Why do people assume that these things balance? They don't.
You said nothing wrong.
A car that runs *entirely* on coal has an MPGghg of 30, which is better than the average petrol car.
See http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/clean_vehicles/electric-car-global-warming-emissions-report.pdf for more info...
I didn't down vote, but I will point out that coal != coal. And coal power generator != coal power generator. There are huge differences between black and brown coal and newer plants are much cleaner than older designs.
For example, your Nissan leaf plugged into a wall in Victoria (Australia) emits more than a Land Cruiser.
That is not to argue against progress as the balance can easily change once a few plants are decommissioned.
No, a Leaf doesn't emit more than a Landcruiser. Even in Victoria. Unless Australia is using wilfully poor power plant designs.
It *may* be dirtier, in terms of non-CO2 emissions. I don't have data on that and coal is nasty stuff. But in terms of CO2 emissions, it will be significantly better, even powered from coal.
I know I'm banging a drum here. It's not that I'm pro-electric cars - I am the former owner of a Mazda RX-8 - it's just that it upsets me to see people misunderstanding basic physics, and then using that misunderstanding as the basis for an argument.
The physics say that brown coal is about 3x more emissions intensive than black coal, and 25% of their power comes from a station that was ranked worst in the industrialised world (1.74 short ton/MWHr).
Transmission, charging and operating efficiencies of electric cars leave ICE efficiency for dead though.
People just assume this shit without checking it.
Generating electricity and using it to power a motor is more efficient than internal combustion.
The electric transmission losses, the losses when charging and discharging the battery, and the losses in the electric motor are really pretty small and don't cancel out the massive gain from using what is basically a heat engine to generate the electricity in the first place.
Combustion engines can only use the mechanical component of the power produced from burning oil, but have to throw away the heat. Generators use the heat, and there's far more of that produced.
It's not a question of car engines being badly designed (they're not - modern combustion engines are marvels of efficiency and design). It's a question of fundamental physics. A generator is always going to be much, much more efficient.
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"An electric car is still more efficient than one with an [petrol/diesel] engine..."
Except where it matters: cost, and the embodied resources that the cost represents.
The Nissan Leaf e-car is MORE THAN TWICE the cost of the petrol engine car upon which it is based. $32k vice about $14k Cdn. This 2x cost is either profiteering (no), or a reflection of the resources embodied at manufacture (yes).
The Leaf will *never* dig itself out of the environmental hole it finds itself in at birth.
Do mean it's not? When I bought this (white box even though it's brown) machine many years ago the saving was NZ$169 through not having any MS ware on it. The software has been upgraded many times, including going from 32 bit to 64 bit for a total outlay of ummm nothing.
Long live free software ot to quote Charles "it is a far, far better thing I do ".
"$32k vice about $14k Cdn. This 2x cost is either profiteering (no), or a reflection of the resources embodied at manufacture (yes).
The Leaf will *never* dig itself out of the environmental hole it finds itself in at birth."
...I think you described an economic hole (i.e. new technology generally costs more for a bit), rather than an environmental hole.
There are many studies available on the whole-life-energy-consumption of a car, and it's use far outweighs it's production and transportation during manufacturing.
It's fine to have an opinion, but don't try to dress it up with made-up "facts".
"...and it's use far outweighs it's production..."
1) It's 'its'.
2) If the Leaf earned back its cost, nobody would buy a Versa.
The 2nd clear example is the evil planet-killing Prius. Documented to be worse than almost any other car.
PS: There are marketing "studies" emitted by those selling these things. You need to be a bit more skeptical.
Hi James, I downvoted. I explain why.
Firstly, as Graham pointed out, you failed to take into account transmission losses etc. Even charging losses local to the vehicle are quite significant.
Secondly, it's not all about efficiency. Sure, ICE engines aren't massively efficient, we know that, that's why we'd like to replace them all with EV's - WHEN THE GRID IS CLEAN.
At the moment, ICE engines are wasting petrol and diesel. Recent fuel prices confirm we have plenty of that for a while. However, inefficiencies in an EV waste electricity...wasting that means burning more coal than you need as I outlined above.
The biggest inefficiency in an EV, as supporters always try and gloss over, is the heater. The irony is, all that waste heat in an ICE car isn't waste...it can be used. It heats the cold, it defrosts the windscreen and saves you having to sit there in an anorak on a cold day.
Simply using the heater in the same way you would on an ICE car can reduce EV range from ~100 miles in Summer to ~60 miles in winter. That's a 40% reduction.
EV manufacturers combat this by allowing pre-heating when connected to the charging cable. Your car gets heated by using electricity directly from the grid, not the battery. This isn't taken into account on any efficiency figures and would totally void figures like the 30mpg equivalent quoted by somebody above. In cars like the leaf they are trying heat pumps, seat heaters and other techniques to help the situation but, ultimately, it uses a shed load of electricity to keep the car comfortable for its occupants whereas an ICE car is effectively heated at no additional cost.
OK, so EV stinks in polar latitudes. But what about tropical latitudes and arid areas where the heat from the IC engine works AGAINST the air conditioner, which has to route air intakes from outside the HOT engine (thus reducing airflow efficiencies)?
Here's another thought. If IC engines were so bad in terms of efficiency, why haven't more cars gone the IC/electric route, using the engine as an electric generator and powering electric motors and so on like that (removing the transmission losses and enabling you to use the IC as a heat engine to improve efficiency)?
Leather: renewable byproduct of providing the world's population with the protein it needs to survive.
Leather knock-off: plastic from the petrochemicals industry and indirectly a byproduct of fossil fuel production.
I think I know where I would put the green money.
Are they (the vegans) advocating that the world actually *wastes* the leather that comes off the back of our food supplies? Now that *would* be a crime.
If we raise and slaughter an animal for food, we at least owe it the respect to make use of every piece of it and not just dump it.
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I'm not so sure about the Welsh hillsides, I don't know them quite as well, But if you take sheep farming off the Lakeland hills you will totally destroy the environment we all love so much. It ain't natural. They look like because of the sheep. Oh the hills would still be there, but the flora would change for ever. It was for this reason that the Cumbrian hill sheep were saved from the foot and mouth cull.
> If we raise and slaughter an animal for food, we at least owe it the respect to make use of every piece of it and not just dump it.
They're probably part of PETA who have the aim of converting the world to (at least) vegetarianism and (preferably) veganism.
One of their methods is to try to stop people using or wearing leather which is intended to make the beef industry less cost effective, pushing the price up and thereby forcing people to switch to veggie alternatives...
I didn't realise all these other car manufacturers had so many problems with their products basically disintegrating immediately after they are sold. Ha! I expect they'll soon be out of business.
Also, you may not be aware but all vehicles have to go through some pretty rigorous recycling processes at "end-of-life" these days. Pretty sure it doesn't end up in the sea, though obviously lots of plastic does (this is mainly plastic waste from consumable goods, not durable goods).
Meat isn't the most efficient way of utilising land to produce protein for humans. Even given the need to eat multiple vegetable protein sources in one meal to get a balance doesn't make meat more efficient.
There's no real reason a car needs leather as any part of it, other than the fact people like it.
Vegans aren't all mental. The production of cows milk is arguably much crueller than meat production.
Must be nightmare deciding who to deride the most, the freaky vegans or the mental e-car drivers...
"Meat isn't the most efficient way of utilising land to produce protein for humans. "
Actually in some places it is. You'll get something from a mountain top from goats and sheep. And ditto for a lot of land that is marginal. The broads used to produce more food as 'foetid marshes' in the form of eels (Ely cathedral was paid for with them), ducks and water reed roots than any modern farming method can.
Nature has a remarkably efficient way of filling areas of land with a combination of plants and animals - and insects which should be eaten too - and, while it currently wont make a flavourless, nutrition-less white loaf for the market as cheaply as modern farming methods as food prices rise we will be ditching the tractor for slightly more man-power hungry methods of growing more food than monocultures can.
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"It would certainly be nice to have the choice as a vegetarian of a high-end car without leather seats being obligatory."
Because obviously, as a vegetarian, you're appalled at utilising an animal (yourself, walking) as a mode of transportation. eh?
Modern dairy farms work on the principle that once cows are producing milk they want to be milked. They don't need to be rounded up and forced to go to the parlour. They'll just walk their of their own volition when they're ready and they'll go and stand on the platform for the robot to pop the milking machine on. Then they'll walk back to where the food is. This isn't like turkeys voting for Christmas.
Others have pointed it out, but it's worth repeating: most meat animals are kept on marginal lands that wouldn't be suitable for crop farming. Cows and sheep are the most efficient way of turning otherwise inedible grasses into food and they turn it into a form that is most easily processed by our bodies, as it's pretty much in the form we need it to be in already - proteins, fats, vitamins. Got to get that lovely offal down your throat too. You barely need to do anything to digest it.
Now you could argue the point on factory-farmed piggies, which don't live particularly nice lives at the best of times, but free-range piggies raised on the crap we throw out are particularly delicious, and given they consume a great deal of waste food that would otherwise be dumped (and the occasional farmer) they're good for the environment as well.
For the record I was raised out in rural derbyshire and lived close enough to farms to know what a mess an animal makes when you cut it open. That sort of visceral knowledge either turns you veggie or completely inures you to the whole thing. Fortunately for my tastebuds I soon came to the conclusion that piggies are at their best when they're sliced and smoked.
Yum.
"For the record I was raised out in rural derbyshire and lived close enough to farms to know what a mess an animal makes when you cut it open. That sort of visceral knowledge either turns you veggie or completely inures you to the whole thing. Fortunately for my tastebuds I soon came to the conclusion that piggies are at their best when they're sliced and smoked."
Have you ever noticed that most vegans and vegetarians tend to be city dwellers? It must be the disconnect from nature that produces such an aseptic mind set.
"Meat isn't the most efficient way of utilising land to produce protein for humans. Even given the need to eat multiple vegetable protein sources in one meal to get a balance doesn't make meat more efficient."
Depends on the meat and available resources.
In poor areas, it's much more efficient to raise chickens, that thrive on insects, food scraps and plants we find inedible, than it is to try to maintain numerous crops to provide equivalent protein, along with the subsistence crops needed for bare survival.
Plus chickens are durable than crops during droughts, floods, and other disasters.
Similar arguments can be made for sheep, goats, and swine, depending on the area, and its resources.
It's when massive factory farming comes in that the efficiency gets skewed.
OK, just to freak out the Vegans (or is it Vogons):
Can they guarantee that all the fossil bits in fossil fuel needed to make plastic is purely plant derived. I bet there are quite some hydrocarbons of animal origin in there; animals who quite likely (given the nature of natural death) suffered a horrible death, were crushed under tonnes and tonnes of rock for eons, their bodies slowly liquifying, only to be recycled as toys for a bunch of arrogant bipedal semi-hairless apes! The horrror, the HORROR!!!!!!
Tesla can continue to fill cars with the skins of sentient beings that suffer unspeakable horror while adding massive amounts of greenhouse gas into the air.
“Or, Tesla can adopt one of the many faux leather materials used by Mercedes Benz, Lexus, BMW, Infiniti and others that are cruelty free, have wonderful reviews, last a long time, come in multiple colours and involve far less greenhouse gases”.
I'm so glad that Mr Peters didn't resort to using over-emotive language to make his point...
If cows can be claimed to be sentient, what's to stop some cleverdick/smartypants from making the claim that PLANTS are sentient, too, putting the vegans in a bit of a bind since it's going to be tough to disprove this without doing the same to prey animals. Imagine if someone creates something like PETPV (People for the Ethical Treatment of Plants and Vegetation--but say the acryonym and you'll see just how catchy it can be) and starts opposite, say, furrier protests with signs that say "Plants Bleed, Too!"
There used to be the most awesome deli in my neighborhood, but the shopping center got taken over by a vegan widow that had inherited her wealth, and she proceeded to make the shopping center her personal project to save the planet - she drove the deli out of business (been there 30 years) because they refused to stop selling meat (because they were a deli). The irony was they also made the best vegetarian sandwiches in the city.
Then, a shoe repair place was next because leather, so they got run off too. A friend that worked in a pest control company said she refused to allow 'lethal methods' against rats, so they had a continuous rat infestation - eventually the shopping center became a blight on the neighborhood, people used to move there because of the deli, then they started moving out because the shopping center filled with pawn shops, cell phone stores, and rats.
Also, never forget that Hitler was vegan.
I've met one or two numpties like that. I'm surprised she got away with allowing a rat infestation though - on this side of the pond, that would earn you a visit from Environmental Health, who will ask order you to get rid of them pronto and forget your whine about non-lethal methods. Unless, of course, you want your shopping centre shut down immediately and public access barred.
How does it work in the US - is there something similar, or are property rights stronger? Just asking, because I'm genuinely interested.
"How does it work in the US - is there something similar, or are property rights stronger? Just asking, because I'm genuinely interested."
There's no uniform policy on the matter. It depends usually on state and local Health Codes. Generally, though, pest creatures like ants, roaches, and rodents need to be controlled, particularly in eateries, and places can be subject to inspection, especially if complaints are lodged against the place. As to the owner's complaints about non-lethal methods, she's up against the rest of the neighborhood; her rights can be trumped by everyone else's right to a clean, disease-controlled environment. He/she would have to take that up with the City Council/State Legislature if she wants his/her way. At the extreme, they DO have the power to condemn places they deem uninhabitable due to filth or pestilence.
"Tesla can continue to fill cars with the skins of sentient beings that suffer unspeakable horror while adding massive amounts of greenhouse gas into the air.
That's the best description of a rush-hour commuter I ever saw.
Vegans demonstrate daily the ill effects of their dietary restrictions when they spout ideological BS like this. Don't let it happen to you.
So what about the tyres that ALL cars use and use animal products in them? Which most tyres do i beleive. Don't hear him kicking up a stink about those.
I hope that when he goes to his farmers market for his monthly imported bat guano run that he always takes his own Hemp, reclaimed and recycled bag, because if he has ever used plastic bags... that uses animal products.
I hope that if he has ever marveled at a fireworks display in his entire life that he feels shame as they use stearic acid (which can come from animals).
In theory he should boycott Andy Worhol as he used to use casein (milk byproduct) based paint in his earlier work.
I hope Mrs Peters does not paint her fingernails and looks down on all woman who use nail polish... because guess what. That uses fish scales!! Won't someone think of the poor defenseless fish!!!
I could go on, but I am sure some vegan will come and give me "good" reasons why all of those are not nearly as bad as me using a animal product like leather that will greatly outlive it's plastic counterpart, instead of putting the welfare of those poor, enslaved, brutalized........ tender...... tasty.....succulent... delicious.. *errr. sorry, drifted off there* animals above mine.
I'll go get me coat... the leather one 'natch!
A car, by its very existence is not eco friendly. It's made from materials mined out of the ground, it consumes power, it runs over land which has been converted to road, it runs through areas of natural beauty, it kills animals and insects, it encourages globalization and waste.
Yes the Tesla is pushing things in the right direction by not burning fossil fuels and recharging through charge stations which are mostly solar operated. This is an important advance but in most respects it's just a car.
So what the hell does it matter if it has leather seats or not?
What is it these vegans have against beings that aren't sentient? What did they do to deserve their indifference?
A lettuce may not have feelings, but that doesn't give them the right to munch on their crunchy flesh does it? Live and let live I say!
And what about all those animals that they smash into on the freeway in their leather-free Tesla. Hundreds an hour, mostly arthropods with the occasional small mammal thrown in. What did they do to deserve being mown down by zealous Vegans?
God forbid one of these people takes a walk on the grass. If nematodes could scream, they'd soon know how much death and destruction they cause. Every animal is precious. Even an amoeba. Etc. Ad nauseum.
At least us carnivores [usually] have the compassion to actually kill our meat before eating it.
Vegans should remember that the raw apple, lettuce, banana, nuts, grass, mushrooms or whatever they're tucking into is - at a cellular level - STILL ALIVE - as they chow down on it.
Please, vegans - kill your vegetation before eating it.
Well... apples shouldn't be dropped into that pan. They should be mercifully peeled and sliced and then put into a crust with butter and sugar and baked.... The only problem is listening to them scream while being peeled alive, but playing AC/DC at full volume will drown those out.
"The only problem is listening to them scream while being peeled alive, but playing AC/DC at full volume will drown those out."
I remember an old clip show, "Turkey Television," and one of their regular clips was called "A Day in the Life of a Food," where someone would take something like a fruit and go through the normal motions of eating it while someone in the background made sounds of agony as if the food was alive and so on.
only if it was cheap, designed for the peons, designed to profit from volume instead of boutique status, and performed to a third of the benchmarks it promised.
In other words, something from ZAP or any of the other overhyped electric golf cart makers that were all the rage barely 5 years ago.
Tesla earns the "hate" it gets because its products are exclusive, expensive, and effective for what they're designed for.
and they're designed for people who want leather seats.
Why yes, they are called drivers and passengers... They however sit on treated skins of non-sentient cows, that hopefully also served a few healthy meals...
Unless Tesla is in league with aliens and are harvesting humans for their leather? now that would be cruel...
Unless Tesla is in league with aliens and are harvesting humans for their leather? now that would be cruel
That would depend on the human... there's some I can think of that should be harvested. Unfortunately most the harvest would have be tossed in the bin as it is asshole.
"Unfortunately most the harvest would have be tossed in the bin as it is asshole."
You know when you look at dog food ingredients and it says 'moisture' - I believe that is produced by pressing waste products, such as asshole, to extract the moisture content.
Sounds worse than my still-suit -->>
The vegan loons are right about one thing: cows are sentient. Those of you claiming otherwise, I think perhaps you mean sapient? Cows are not sapient.
All vertebrates are sentient, as far as I know. Only us and maybe the dolphins and mice are sapient.
Sentient does not mean what you think it means.
Most cows alive wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for them being bred to produce meat and leather. I claim their right to life trumps these morons right to some sense of arrogant, misplaced self-righteousness.
Anyway, since when did Tesla's mission statement have anything to do with saving animals?
Also how does wastefully throwing away the skins of cows bred/killed for meat as opposed to reusing them to make useful, durable leather goods make any logical sense in any argument about caring for the planet?
Anyone who owned a cheap car from the 1970's and 80's can remember the horror of plastic upholstery. On even a moderately warm day, a short drive resulted in your bum sticking to the seat. Getting out could even be painful as you left a layer of your upper dermis welded to the seat. They also stank.
Leather is tough (lasts longer than even the toughest cloth) and is porous. Which means no self adhering buttocks. Hey, but let the vegans have their way, it will mean the end of Tesla. Electric cars are a technological dead end anyway.
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