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Sustainability is what drives Tesla, and it’s not just about the company's products — it drives the values, manufacturing, and mission of the business. Sustainability is at the core of everything the company does. Tesla is a company comprised of sustainability ambassadors looking for ways to continue to set concrete sustainability goals and the paths they intend to take to achieve them.
Mission & Tesla Ecosystem
Tesla is focused on creating a complete energy and transportation ecosystem from solar generation to address increasingly dangerous levels of global CO2 emissions.
Environmental Impact
Tesla strives to reduce lifecycle emissions by creating the most efficient EVs available, whilst developing a single use, million-mile battery. Alongside this stands a firm commitment to source renewable energy for manufacturing, with the ultimate goal being 100% renewable energy for all operations.
The energy produced by Tesla solar deployments far exceeds the energy used in the company's factories.
Product Impact
Tesla’s mission is to build the world’s best and safest cars, period, and to achieve price equivalency to ICE alternatives across the entire range.
Electric cars produce much less CO2 than fossil fuel cars, taking both electricity emission & vehicle production into account.
Tesla batteries are lasting much longer than 200,000 miles/320,000 kilometers. Data from Tesla's fleet of over 1 million Tesla vehicles on the road, shows that the company's vehicles that have been driven between 150,000 and 200,000 miles had battery packs that degraded by less than 15% on average.
An important distinction between fossil fuels and lithium-ion batteries as an energy source is that while fossil fuels are extracted and used once, the materials in a lithium-ion battery are recyclable. Battery materials are refined and put into a cell, and will still remain in the cell at the end of their life when they can be recycled to recover valuable materials for reuse over and over again.
Extending the life of a battery pack is a superior option to recycling for both environmental and business reasons. For those reasons, before decommissioning a consumer battery pack and sending it for recycling, Tesla does everything it can to extend the useful life of each battery pack.
Supply Chain
Tesla is committed to only sourcing materials where safe and humane working conditions are guaranteed and where suppliers must evidence that workers are treated with respect and dignity.
Tesla suppliers are required to provide evidence of management systems that ensure social, environmental, and sustainability best practices in their own operations, as well as to demonstrate a commitment to responsible sourcing into their supply chains.
People and Culture
It is incredibly important to Tesla that everyone looks forward to coming to work every day in an environment that is safe, fair, and inclusive for all employees.
Most importantly, for the three years ending 2019, Tesla employees had zero fatal injuries. Total Recordable Injury Rate (TRIR) for 2019 at the Fremont Factory of 5.98 is 5% better than Bureau of Labor Statistics industry average for auto manufacturers with >1000 employees. Tesla cares deeply about safety - both for their customers who enjoy the company's products and its employees who build them.
About the Author
Eva Fox
Eva Fox joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover breaking news as an automotive journalist. The main topics that she covers are clean energy and electric vehicles. As a journalist, Eva is specialized in Tesla and topics related to the work and development of the company.
