View Single Post
Old 08-10-2008, 08:38 AM   #28 (permalink)
smicker
Registered User
 
smicker's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Alameda, CA
Posts: 292
Images: 2
Quote:
Originally Posted by rob13572468 View Post
Yep, its crazy the expense that goes into the battery packs considering their short life.. but thats not the worst part. Tesla is spposed to be the green car right? anyne care to guess how resource intensive it is to produce the battery packs... and when the packs are used up what do you do with them? li-on batterys are considered hazardous waste and require special cleanup, all of which is *not* considered in the overall cost of ownership (both economic and environmental).

SO you have a battery pack that pollutes an uses *alot* of energy to both create and recycle but you dont see tesla talking about that aspect because its the ugly side of electrics cars.

Honestly if we really want to reduce pollutiona and save energy we are better off using standard grid power to run a plant to produce synthetic gasoline.
The energy used to create and recycle a battery pack is a drop in the bucket compared to the energy used by an ICE vehicle over the same lifetime.

Regarding toxicity, please see this recent Tesla blog:

Mythbusters Part 3: Recycling our Non-Toxic Battery Packs
smicker is online now   Reply With Quote