That's what one analyst has claimed.
In an exhaustive 6,500-word article on the financial website Seeking Alpha, analyst Nathan Weiss lays out a case that the Model S actually has higher effective emissions than most large SUVs of both the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and smog-producing pollutants like sulfur dioxide.
As a 2013 Tesla Model S owner, I was shocked and concerned by his claims.
Although carbon emissions were not a big factor in my decision to buy a plug-in car--I was more interested in performance, style, and low operating cost--the car's green cred was a nice bonus.
Now here's this Weiss guy, calling me a global-warming villain.
But I couldn't help but notice that in his role as financial analyst, Weiss had been advising his clients to "short" the stock of Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA]--to bet against it. (Tesla stock price down = happy clients; Tesla stock up = very unhappy clients.)