More seriously, it's very important to consider that centralization of electricity production, even from coal or oil, allows a lot more pollution control than a hundred million vehicles each carrying a mini-combustion engine on the roads. Cars get lighter, and the factory can get efficient re-burners, soot filters, emit pollution outside cities, and benefit from future tech like CO2 burial. Heck, the country can even decide to shut down coal plants, go nuclear, hydroelectric or 100% renewable. Which is impossible if it's a matter of replacing 50 million cars.
So, yes, an electric car in a country that produces 100% of its energy from coal is still much more ecologic than a combustion engine. The keyword is: centralization of energy production.
Elon Musk is no fool. He beat 9 competitors with a total of $461bn market cap, because he got that before we did.
> He beat 9 competitors with a total of $461bn market cap
At what? Internet points?
Tesla has still a negligible total market share, because even first-world countries don't yet have the necessary infrastructure for an all-electric car fleet.
How's that supposed to work in third-world countries, where you can count yourself lucky to have dirt roads? For a utility truck, where weight efficiency matters?
And what about longevity? Reliability? Reparability? Tesla's batteries aren't even designed to survive five years, and if they're punctured, impossible to repair. Gas tanks can be fixed with duct tape and swearing, and diesel engines in minimally equipped workshops with spare parts that are lightweight enough you can ship them on a bicycle.
To agree- there's many places even in India where if you attempted to run a handful of charging bays you'd cause a brownout or blow a transformer. Countries with worse infrastructure than that aren't going to cope very well. Electricity-delivered-to-an-endpoint isn't anywhere close to an unlimited resource.
Centralization is no panacea. Photovoltaic can deliver decentralized clean power. Utility-scale power plants are slightly more efficient than portable engines, but it's less than a factor of 2; whether a coal plant produces more or less pollution than a gasoline or diesel engine depends on ① how well-maintained and well-equipped each is, ② how clean the fuel for each is, and ③ whether you're counting CO₂ as pollution, in which case the coal plant will always lose.
Here in Buenos Aires, diesel is terribly polluting. In California, diesel is super clean. The difference is mostly that in California you have to fix your car if it starts emitting smoke, and the diesel fuel is centrifuged to remove sulfur. Diesel unavoidably emits a lot of soot until the engine warms up, but lots of diesel vehicles are equipped with soot filters which periodically burn the soot off.
I don't know that it's accurate to say that centralization allows pollution control. It can just as easily prevent pollution control — even though there are less sources of pollution, they're each controlled by a more politically powerful entity. In many countries, this means energy companies can get away with murder. Literally.
> an electric car ... is still much more ecologic than a combustion engine.
I agree on this point, but don't forget the other critical points for energy: storage-ability and transportability.
If you think about a centralized transport network (ex: train), then a dam and some wire will do the job. But, if you consider small, independent vehicles (ex: cars), unfortunately for humanity, up to now oil is unbeatable.
I think that we don't need any more remainder that pollution sucks. We need more research to find alternatives that pollute less while providing the same comfort.
The Bolt appears to be staged to reach market prior to the Model 3, probably at a lower price point. The speculative ranges for each are similar enough.
It doesn't have the Tesla mystique though, that's for sure.
Oil is a form _and_ a source of energy. Electricity is a just a form of energy. Which alternative source do you propose?