Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login




This analysis is off by orders of magnitude. Tesla shipped 1.3 million vehicles in 2022, each of which contained a battery pack [1]. 3 million barrels of oil contains 6.1 * 10^15 joules of primary energy [2]. World primary energy production in 2021 was 5.95 * 10^20 joules [3].

Combining these numbers, Tesla's 1.3 * 10^6 battery packs shipped in 2022 would have taken 7.93 * 10^21 joules to manufacture. This is more than 10 times annual global energy production and is clearly in error.

Another way to spot-check and reject this number is to note that 3 million barrels of oil would cost in the neighborhood of $240 million. Getting that much energy from coal might cost only $75 million per vehicle but it's still a proposition that would see Tesla losing approximately $100 trillion dollars per year on sales of 1.3 million vehicles.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/02/investing/tesla-deliveries-pr...

[2] https://www.ocean.washington.edu/courses/envir215/energynumb...

[3] https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/c...




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: