In Journal 7 I talked about the enviornmental impact of gas emissons within the city of Boston. There are a couple of ways in which to resolve this problem and become more green and eco- friendly, however it can be hard to force people to not use certain modes of transpirtation over what is convienitent for them. Within my journal 7 I mentioned how the use of electrical cars could greately decrease the amount of emissions from cars within the city. While it is not possible to force people to go out and buy eletric cars it can still be helpful to look at the economic impact of actually making these cars to ultimatley determine the overall impact of the electric cars. For the purpose of reserach I am going to look specifically at Tesla Model S cars, mainly their raw materials consist of rare earth metals. While Tesla is able to re-use 10% of its battery packs, whatever parts are not used are recycled but everything else that is not able to be recylced is put into a landfill. The aluminum and nickle extraction for the car itself is also very dangerous for humans and can lead to many serious comlications (http://www.designlife-cycle.com/tesla-model-s).

In reference to Boston if everyone per say would have an eletric car like the tesla, while they dont need gas it still may be getting its energy by burning carbon (https://www.wired.com/2016/03/teslas-electric-cars-might-not-green-think/). The amount of resources, transport emissions and spare/ broken parts used to make a Tesla would ultimately most likely end up being about the same emissions on the earth itself as just driving regualar cars.

On average people in boston tend to commute driving alone to work. When it comes to Teslas you are only able to buy one from select loacations, from there you have to take into account the emmissions that are being used to transport the vehicles to the showrooms, as well as the transportation needed to gather materials.

So this begs the question ultimately is it worth changing everything over to eletric cars, are they our future? while over time they will help to reduce the use of gas used they also produce just as much emissions between its creation and its final destination. After further research I have come to the conclucion that it may be more benifical to the planet if more people were able to drive eletric cars. Even though it takes more emissions to make the eletric cars ultimately through out its lifetime it is more beneficial than a car that runs on gas (https://blog.ucsusa.org/rachael-nealer/gasoline-vs-electric-global-warming-emissions-953). Eletric cars are also easier to reuse than gas cars as well, because of the batteries there is a better chance of being able to reuse them. Overtime if everyone were to switch to eletric cars I think the emmisions could possibly go down a little more than they are already at. They would not go down fully because the amount of emissions it takes to make them but overall it would be less through out its life time.

Recources:

http://www.designlife-cycle.com/tesla-model-s 

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/052815/who-are-teslas-tsla-main-suppliers.asp

https://www.wired.com/2016/03/teslas-electric-cars-might-not-green-think/

https://sites.google.com/a/cornell.edu/transportation-in-boston/social-impact

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