Tesla Sustainability Project by Theodore Greiner

tg44775 — 2024-04-19 13:48:20 UTC

Frightening Factories

tg44775 — 2024-04-19 13:49:12 UTC

Tesla factories have been considered unsafe after many workers complained or were injured. This has been a huge problem for Tesla but Elon Musk is yet to address this problem to the public. One of the many complaints stated, “ The molding machine was not sealed correctly”. This is a small complaint from one person but shows that Tesla has had unsafe machines that are not working properly or are not safe, and because of these unsafe conditions, workers often get hurt. In 2022, 1 and every 16 workers in the Fremont Tesla factory were injured during their work, also, that's around 6.25% percent of workers getting hurt in the Fremont factory. This once again shows dangerous environments for the workers and shows getting injured is not an unusual occurrence in the factories. Tesla factory workers make from anywhere as low as $18.11 an hour, to as high as $38.21 an hour. This shows, that workers can work in dangerous conditions for as low as around $18 an hour. Tesla factory workers have said the work is ultra-hardcore, meaning long and hard-working hours. Tesla factory machines have been considered as many, as not up to standard and dangerous. These are just a few of the hundreds of complaints and dangers of the Tesla working conditions.

Tesla’s Environmental Effects

tg44775 — 2024-04-19 13:49:52 UTC

Tesla’s huge push and reason to buy is that it is electric and “better for the environment”. Though, Tesla has proven to be much better than a gasoline-powered car it still has many flaws in helping the environment. Tesla is also pushing for more wind and solar energy for factories and other production machines. Something it does better than gasoline cars is it produces half the amount of greenhouse gases as a gas-powered car does. Its first flaw is that in its starting years of selling cars, it produced 2.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. When Tesla grew it sold more and more cars, as a result, in the last couple of years, each year it produced around 30.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. Each car that is produced releases 16 metric tons of carbon dioxide, because of this as Tesla grows unless they find a better way to manufacture their cars the amount of carbon dioxide it will produce will keep getting higher and higher over the years. Another huge part of their carbon footprint is their lithium batteries. Mining lithium causes a lot of air pollution and water pollution. This means obtaining lithium is very unsustainable in itself. So, if they don’t change the way of mining lithium or better, find a different way to make batteries, as a result, they will just keep polluting more and more over the years of Tesla’s growth. These are many of Tesla's flaws in being sustainable but this is still a step in the right direction for sustainable cars.

Tesla’s Economy

tg44775 — 2024-04-19 13:54:08 UTC

Though Tesla has many flaws in most of what they are doing their economic impacts are surprisingly positive with very few flaws. Over the many years since Tesla started as a small company and has grown to be a massive success in the world of electric vehicles, consequently, it has produced over 127,000 jobs for people around the world. Creating this many jobs is a massive success for Tesla because it shows how it can help the US economy and the millions of people who live by it. Over these 127,000 jobs that have been created, Tesla has paid over 16.6 billion dollars over the years to its employees. As a result of all these positive effects, Tesla has injected 44.4 million dollars a day into the California economy alone. One of its few flaws or downsides is that Elon Musk stated he “wants to cut 10%” of his workers. Due to, this statement, it would be a bad look for Tesla after providing so many jobs to people who may need that job, to just cut thousands of workers off. This is how Tesla affects the daily economy of the US for the better and only has a few flaws here and there but overall something they do surprisingly well.

Tesla’s Bad Batteries

tg44775 — 2024-04-19 13:55:33 UTC

Tesla has one huge problem that has caused environmental problems and is just in general a bad thing for this massive company to be doing. Tesla’s batteries are made out of lithium, so, they have to mine this lithium which sounds fine. Lithium is very unsustainable to mine, so, Elon Musk and the rest of Tesla have to find a more sustainable way to mine all the lithium for the batteries. Elon Musk has heard these issues and said “Lithium is common and abundant” because of this shows that he thinks this isn’t a huge problem but it is. Still after showing that he doesn't care too much he has been striving to use solar and wind energy instead of the unsustainable mining that has been done lately. To make this problem more heard individuals can talk publicly about this or bring this to more and more people’s attention. This is a huge problem for Tesla and they are just starting to make a solution.

Reflection

tg44775 — 2024-04-19 13:57:50 UTC

After all this writing and facts about Tesla and how Sustainable it is, Tesla still needs to fix many of its flaws. Almost every paragraph that I wrote showed multiple flaws that Tesla had. Tesla is moving to fix some of these problems which is respectful but sometimes Tesla is ignoring these huge issues. One thing Tesla is doing great is their economic impact. This is the only thing Tesla has addressed and fixed. I think Tesla is making a great push for electric cars which is a lot more sustainable than gasoline-powered cars. So even though they have all these flaws this is still a huge step for the US’s sustainability project. All in all, I think Tesla has a lot of flaws but this is still a huge success for America they just need to fix a couple of their problems.

Citations

tg44775 — 2024-04-19 14:00:06 UTC

Works Cited
Reed, Eric. "History of Tesla: Timeline and Facts." The Street, 5 Oct. 2022, www.thestreet.com/technology/history-of-tesla-15088992. Accessed 3 Apr. 2024.
Shakir, Umar. "Tesla workers report explosions, concussions, and grisly robot injuries at Texas factory." The Verge, www.theverge.com/2023/11/21/23971138/tesla-gigafactory-austin-texas-injury-reports-robot-claw-explosion. Accessed 3 Apr. 2024.
"Tesla." Department of Energy, www.energy.gov/lpo/tesla#:~:text=ECONOMIC%20IMPACT,global%20market%20for%20advanced%20vehicles. Accessed 5 Apr. 2024.
Zheng, Mark. "The Environmental Impacts of Lithium and Cobalt Mining." Earth Org, 31 Mar. 2023, earth.org/lithium-and-cobalt-mining/#:~:text=Though%20emissions%20deriving%20from%20mining,and%20potential%20for%20groundwater%20contamination. Accessed 5 Apr. 2024.
Simms, Dan. "How Sustainable Is Tesla?" Leaf Score, 19 Mar. 2024, www.leafscore.com/blog/just-how-sustainable-is-tesla/ #:~:text=Additionally%2C%20by%20its%20own%20report,helps%20cut%20down%20on%20emissions. Accessed 9 Apr. 2024.

tg44775 — 2024-04-19 14:06:53 UTC

tg44775 — 2024-04-19 14:08:10 UTC