What does this mean, if anything? How would it be possible for a car company to be carbon neutral? Is this just nonsense/posturing since it’s so long from now?

  • DerisionConsulting@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    104
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    There will for sure be some “Creativity” with their numbers.

    “Carbon Neutral” will only apply to the manufacturing of the product, not the life of the product.
    It will probably also only apply to the assembly that is done in-house. It might not apply to things like the tires.

    It will also probably be done through some bulllshit “carbon credits”, which are about as honest and reliable as those “no, our $2 chocolate definitely didn’t use any child labour, and the farmers definitely aren’t paid slave-wages.” badges you find on foods.

    • kersploosh@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      39
      ·
      1 year ago

      Similar to how Subaru brags about their “zero landfill” production. Manufacturing a car absolutely generates waste. They just juggle the supply chain to have all the waste happen at their suppliers.

        • bassomitron@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          "But their comment is still likely true and they’re offloading anything not recyclable onto their suppliers, heh.

          • galloog1@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            But what waste do they have that they wouldn’t want to eliminate for production reasons? They assemble cars from parts they buy. A lot of times these parts come from smaller machine shops. A pallet of parts comes in, it gets out on the car, pallet returns to the supplier for the next load. I’m not sure why people are confused here. It’s not like they want the parts to be individually packaged.

            Caveat: I’m not a manufacturing expert but I have met some of these machine shop people.

    • Klanky@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      21
      ·
      1 year ago

      As someone who has a client who is an automotive OEM (I work with Customs and Imports), most of the parts are made by suppliers, who use parts from other suppliers, and barely anything is done in-house except maybe final assembly, so your comment totally tracks.

      It’s suppliers all the way down LOL.

    • mysoulishome@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      1 year ago

      Ah this makes sense. Seems like they are trying to say Honda’s impact on the planet will be carbon neutral, which seems impossible.

        • jonne@infosec.pub
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Presumably by 2050 any new cars they sell will be electric. I don’t see anyone selling a ton of ICE cars at that stage except for niche applications (and they can easily spin that off into a different company if needed for carbon accounting purposes).

      • Dmian@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Seeing at how bad Japanese car manufacturers are at producing good electric cars, and how they may be replaced by Chinese companies, maybe they mean they’ll be bankrupt by 2050… :P

        • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          1 year ago

          I wouldn’t say they’re bad at it, just playing catch-up after they bet on the wrong technologies.

          Toyota was the first to sell a usable hybrid back when BEV battery tech wasn’t there yet; Honda bet on hydrogen fuel cell tech.

          When it turned out everyone was going with the Tesla BEV concept, Honda and Toyota were already mid-development lifecycle with investments in technologies that didn’t make the cut.

          Now that those lifecycles are starting to wind down, we’ll see of they can leapfrog the current designs for BEVs to come up with the next big thing before China or Korea beats them to it.

          • bassomitron@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            Honestly, I think hybrids are the least environmentally damaging of the 3 main car types. Mining lithium is extemely environmentally destructive, and we’re going to see the consequences of that in the coming years as full EVs continue to explode in popularity. Hybrids use a fraction of the lithium if EVs and produce a fraction of the emissions of full ICEs. I really don’t understand why hybrids aren’t being pushed more until better, sustainable and scalable battery tech is discovered.

    • nous@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 year ago

      You assume they are even going to justify the bare minimum… it is so far in the future they are just hoping everyone will forget about it.

  • bartolomeo@suppo.fi
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    46
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Sorry, not an answer here, but a good analogy. It has a lot to do with creative accounting and making up definitions.

  • reddig33@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    38
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Delta airlines is running similar ads. It all sounds like they are kicking the can down the road. “Oh in thirty years everything will magically be better!”

    • jonne@infosec.pub
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      It’s not like these pledges are legally binding. You just say you’re working on it and that means governments can point at that and say they don’t need to implement any regulation as ‘the industry is self regulating’. Then 30 years later nobody will think to check, or the corporation will be acquired by someone else, or, best case scenario we have magical technology that makes it actually possible.

  • TheInsane42@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    32
    ·
    1 year ago

    They can, when they limit CO2 emissions as much as possible and compensatw for the remaining emissions by planting trees and other tricks.

    Also, ‘being carbon neutral’ can mean several things:

    • ensure the company doesn’t produce CO2 (net)
    • ensure the company and the commute of the employees doesn’t produce CO2 (net)
    • … plus suppliers
    • … plus transport of the goods produced

    And so on,… it all is just how you define it.

    My house is the greenest in the neighbourhood and probably in the country. That it has nothing to do with being eco friendly but more with the paint on it is just a minor detail. ;)

    • ISometimesAdmin@the.coolest.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      Thank you for actually attempting to answer the question instead of just spouting the knee-jerk reaction of “it’s bullshit”.

      And yes, maybe it is bullshit. Maybe they’ll never end up actually offsetting their carbon footprint. Maybe they’ll think they are, but end up getting scammed out themselves. Last Week Tonight did a great piece on Carbon Offsets on that whole subject.

  • DrownedRats@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    1 year ago

    It means they’re either holding out of a sudden breakthrough that will let them become carbon neutral overnight for free or they’re hoping no one will be around to call them out on their bullshit by then

  • Hegar@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    15
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Roche pharma also has a goal to reduce their cost to society by half by 2030.

    What does that mean? What metric measures cost to society? What will they actually do? Nothing, nothing, nothing.

  • madcaesar@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    1 year ago

    It’s like Micheal Scott yelling “AND WE’RE GOING CARBON NEUTRAL!!!” at the stock holders meeting.

  • Kalash@feddit.ch
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    1 year ago

    How would it be possible for a car company to be carbon neutral?

    By only using carbon neutral energy in their manufacturing? Car companies are really not special in that regard.

    I’m not saying that’s going to happen and that they aren’t posturing. But like there is no fundamental mystery to the “how”.

    • jonne@infosec.pub
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      And the carbon credits are basically some scammer that promises to plant some trees somewhere remote where nobody can actually check.

  • peastea@feddit.de
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    While it’s a different company I think Bosch as an automotive supplier can serve as an example on how this can be calculated as they are already “carbon neutral”.

    https://www.bosch.com/sustainability/environment/

    At present, we use carbon credits to offset residual CO₂ emissions, such as from combustion processes (heating, process heat). In addition, we refer to carbon credits to offset electricity sourced in countries with only limited availability of green electricity. As we make progress with levers 1 to 3, we want to gradually reduce the share that we offset to achieve carbon neutrality to no more than 15 percent by 2030.

  • DebatableRaccoon@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Same way phone manufacturers are aiming to be 100% green by passing off all the blame to the client. “We may have made it impossible for you to change the battery once it’s fucked but it was your choice to throw the phone in the bin”