Infographic: Tesla owners have curtailed 340,000,000 lbs of greenhouse gas emissions

We all know that electric vehicles are indisputably cleaner than their gasoline counterparts. And, the leader in electric vehicles is Tesla Motors [NASDAQ: TSLA]. That said, we've always wondered how much impact Tesla owners have made on the environment by driving their sleek, clean zero-emissions vehicles? It appears we have an answer courtesy of CleanTechnica via Plugless*. It's reported that, "To date, Tesla Model S and Model X vehicle owners have curtailed at least 340,000,000 lbs of greenhouse gas emissions."

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How did they arrive at this number? The assumption is that, "since the launch of the Tesla Model S in 2012, the decision by relevant buyers to go with a Tesla rather than one of its gasmobile competitors has resulted in average annual greenhouse gas emission 'savings' of around 650 lbs per owner. ['Greenhouse gas emissions' refers to carbon dioxide equivalent, or CO2e.]"

Source: CleanTechnica via Plugless*

Okay, so what about Tesla owners who rely on a dirty grid? "The average annual greenhouse gas emissions curtailment per owner rises as high as 3,400 lbs per year in California, though, [that's] where the electricity grid generally relies more on renewables than in most other regions... [but] the use of Tesla vehicles seems to nearly always result in emissions per mile considerably lower than those of gasmobiles... This is the case even when grid electricity isn’t as 'clean' as it is in most of California." That said, nearly half of new Tesla Model S owners, according to InsideEVs via Edmunds, are Californians: "Some 45% of all new Tesla Model S sales comes from California."

Source: CleanTechnica via Plugless*

And, even better, these benefits will continue: "Even if nary another Tesla were ever sold after today, the existing fleet will save over 350,000,000 pounds of CO2e every year into the future. That’s hundreds of millions of climate disrupting gasses that would have been emitted by the alternative: new gas cars getting an average of 36 mpg." And the future looks even brighter with the introduction of the new Tesla Model 3: "If Tesla reaches its target volumes of 500,000 cars per year, emissions savings of the US Tesla fleet will be over 1.3 billion pounds annually."

Image: InsideEVs via Datcode on Imgur

To that end, Tesla forecasted that precise target volume for 2018, "given the demand for Model 3, we have decided to advance our 500,000 total unit build plan (combined for Model S, Model X, and Model 3) to 2018." In any event, in order to get a better idea of what today's 340,000,000 lbs of curtailed emissions relates to, check out the infographic below...

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*Source: CleanTechnica via Plugless