There’s a small debate going on about the true environmental load of the Tesla Model S, between David Noland of Popular Science and Nathan Weiss of Seeking Alpha. You can wade through the particulars if you like, though it’s probably something like 10,000 words. The short version is that Weiss says that Teslas aren’t really the most environmentally-conscious vehicles and that once you count the true environmental costs, it’s basically the equivalent of a Toyota Highlander. Noland disagrees and claims that when he does the math, the environmental impact of the Tesla Model S is closer to a Toyota Scion.

I’m not in any position to referee the math on this, but I’d make two observations:

1) I suspect that if most Tesla admirers were confronted with the proposition “Buy a Tesla and be almost as good to the environment as you would be if you bought a Toyota Scion,” their response would be something like, Ummm . . . that’s not what I signed up for.

Further, any smart environmentalist who really is out to save the world would immediately understand that the much better proposition would be to buy a Scion and use the saved money to move other vehicle owners out of high-consumption models (Suburbans, Yukons, etc.) and into car-platform cross-overs. Environmentalist (and car enthusiast) Jamie Lendino made this case back in February:

Take a thirsty SUV like a now-discontinued Hummer H2, which averaged 10 mpg on a good day, and replace it with a large crossover SUV that averages 20 mpg. Then take a midsize sedan that averages 25 mpg, and replace it with a Prius that averages 50 mpg. Which is the bigger improvement?

The results may surprise you: It’s the crossover SUV, and by a long shot. The Hummer, averaging 10 mpg and driving 100,000 miles over the course of its life, will burn through 10,000 gallons of gas. The crossover SUV will burn through 5,000 while driving the same number of miles, for a savings of 5,000 gallons. Meanwhile, the midsize sedan would burn through 4,000, while the Prius would burn through just 2,000, for a savings of 2,000 gallons. The person in the first scenario is making a much larger improvement. The Prius is still the best for the environment, but the difference in gas consumed per mile driven is smaller.

As far as environmental concerns go, the Model S is more a badge than a solution.

2) The real problem with Tesla’s Model S, though, is that if you spend $16,000 on an environmentally-conscious Scion, that’s your own dough. If you plunk down $94,000 for the Tesla, you get help from the rest of us.

Noland concludes his defense of the Model S with this:

After all of this, the conclusion seemed clear: I drive a kick-ass, high-performance, five-seat all-electric luxury sport sedan that has the same wells-to-wheels carbon emissions as a tiny Scion minicar with two real seats.

Anybody got a problem with that?

Actually, I do. Because Noland didn’t pay for his “kick-ass, high-performance, five-seat all-electric luxury sport sedan” himself. The federal government kicked in hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in assistance to Tesla corporate and then subsidized the actual purchase price of his Model S with $7,500 of our money. Why in the world are we subsidizing luxury sports-car purchases? I don’t want to get all OWS, but it would be one thing for the government to subsidize the purchase of Scions, because those vehicles exist in a price-zone where they’re accessible to a large swath of the population. I wouldn’t particularly like it, and I don’t think it would be helpful, but such a subsidy wouldn’t be morally offensive.

On the other hand, I suspect that most of the people who can afford a $94,000 car with a $7,500 taxpayer subsidy could probably afford it without the taxpayer subsidy, too.

And if the environmental impacts of the Tesla and the Scion are substantially similar, then it’s not clear why the rest of America should be coerced into subsidizing the farfegnugen of the rich and famous.