Tesla says a sustainable economy will save 16 billion tonnes of fossil fuels a year

Tesla has released some big numbers in its 2023 Impact Report, including its estimates of what a fully sustainable global economy will look like.

The report says that every Tesla on the road saves almost 50 tonnes of emissions, and pays back the added emissions from the manufacturing process within three years.  It notes that if the world completely transitioned to clean technology, it would avoid over 16 billion metric tonnes of fossil fuel extraction each year.

The report says that of the 68 billion tons of materials extracted from the earth each year, fossil fuel extraction makes up 18 billion tons. Factoring in an additional 3 billion tons of “sustainable economy materials”, the complete transition away from fossil fuels would therefore reduce total global extraction by about 22%, according to the company.

“After 17 years of driving, a Tesla vehicle will avoid approximately 51 metric tons of C02e. Charging EVs becomes greener over time as electricity generation becomes cleaner. By comparison, the carbon impact of ICE vehicles remains the same every year of use,” the report says.

“Once transitioned – accounting for a maximum need for battery metals such as lithium, nickel and others – an extra 3 gigatons of mining per year would be required.

“On net, we can reduce raw material extraction by 15 gigatons per year in a fossil fuel-free economy.”

The world is already getting a taste of what such a sustainable economy looks like. In April Redwood materials, founded by Tesla co-founder JB Straubel, provided an update into its rapid development of EV battery recycling technology.

At its main processing site in Nevada, Redwood is now recycling the equivalent of 250,000 end-of-life EV batteries per year. In a joint study with researchers from Stanford University, Redwood says its EV battery recycling process uses just a fraction of the energy needed to extract battery materials through traditional mining processes.

The researchers also found that Redwood’s recycling and refining operations cut CO2 emissions by 70% compared with traditional recycling methods and 40% compared with other recycling processes.

Contrary to misinformation around EV batteries, recent research also suggests battery recycling capacity will outstrip supply of end-of-life EV batteries by as much as 4 to 1 by 2030.

“There are concerns about a lack of capacity for EV battery recycling, but the opposite is true,” says Dylan Khoo, Electric Vehicles Industry Analyst at ABI Research which released the report.

“Current plans for recycling plants see capacity greatly outstripping the supplies of waste batteries. This will lead to uneconomic utilization rates or, more likely, a delay or scaling down in recycling projects.”

This flips the anti-EV propaganda about end-of-life EV batteries on its head suggesting that used batteries will be highly sort after by battery recyclers.

Tesla Supercharger uptime hits record high

In addition to new figures on avoided emissions and what a sustainable economy means for reducing global extractive industry, the 2023 Impact Report also shows the uptime rate of Tesla’s Supercharger network has hit a new record high of 99.97% improving on already world leading reliability rates.

On safety, the company says with “driver-assist technologies” (Autopilot) engaged, Tesla vehicles only had an accident on average once every 5.64 million miles in 2023.

This compares to an average of one accident every 670,000 miles for the US passenger vehicle fleet as a whole. This means that with Autopilot engaged, Tesla vehicles now have on average 8.4 times fewer accidents per mile driven than the US average.