Weekly-ish News - Episode 30 (October 12, 2021)

If you have any feedback or suggestions, please feel free to find me on Twitter @archduketyler

 

Electric Vehicles:

Tesla has accused Rivian of stealing trade secrets related to battery technology.

Tesla has increased the prices of the Model 3 and Y by $2,000, which means the cheapest Tesla is now over $40k.

Tesla is releasing a CCS adapter in Korea, with people suspecting this will come to the U.S. at some point. They've also removed the CHAdeMO adapter from their website.

National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) says there is no need to investigate Tesla fires.

Mazda has a fully electric vehicle now, and it leaves a *lot* to be desired. MX-30, 100 miles of range, ~$35k starting.

The review is rather scathing. 

Ford is deploying a task force of "charge angels" out to test the U.S.'s charging infrastructure to ensure that chargers meet Ford's standards.

As goofy as the title "charge angel" is, the idea is pretty cool.They have dedicated employees that have specially outfitted Mach-E's and drive around the country testing chargers for reliability. They then report the results back to Ford so that the company can have a more targeted approach to filling charging gaps.

LG Chem is covering the cost of the Chevy Bolt recall, which amounts to $1.9b!

GM is building a battery development facility in Michigan for testing and production improvement, to be completed in mid-2022.

The goal of this facility is to allow them to test new batteries as well as manufacturing processes.

GM also announced plans to have 1 million EVs on the road by 2025, all-electric by 2035, spend $35b on electrification and autonomous driving, and have a $30k EV come out soon.

GM says that its Ultra Cruise driver assist will provide "hands-free driving in 95% of scenarios" in 2023.

hahaIn the U.S. and Canada.They will add LIDAR to achieve this.

Rivian is apparently going to begin producing its own batteries at some point. We have next to no information apart from that.

The battery manufacturer Northvolt is investing $750m in a new expansion to their battery manufacturing and research.

There isn't much news on how much battery production this will result in, but it's a big investment.The facility being upgraded is in Västerås, Sweden, and the investment will over double the number of employees working there (at that facility, not in the whole city).

Plymouth, Minnesota is going to have 100 level 2 charging stations installed through a partnership with Carbon Solutions Group.

Most of these chargers would be a paid service to people charging at them, but the price will at least be lower than comparable gasoline prices.

Columbus, Ohio just put two electric buses into service. Eight more will arrive next year.

They intend to get rid of diesel altogether by 2025, relying on compressed natural gas (CNG) and electric buses.They have 321 buses in total.

Port Arthur, Texas is receiving its 11th electric bus, partially through an Entergy grant that covered a quarter of the cost.

Austin, Texas has purchased 197 electric transit buses, which will increase its total to 203.

They plan to convert its entire fleet of over 400 buses to electric.This is a mix of Proterra and New Flyer buses.The original press release.This is the largest electric vehicle procurement in the nation.

Hyundai and Shell are partnering to build 48 new hydrogen fueling stations in California as part of Project Neptune.

 

Energy:

Shell is getting into the Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) game with some dairy projects.

There's not much in the way of specifics about the projects, but there are three in the works.The total output of the projects mentioned is equal to around 8 million gallons of gasoline (a GHG reduction of very roughly 100k tons; assuming the gas is used in transit buses and replacing diesel).

A pilot offshore wind project by GE in the Netherlands produced significantly more electricity than hoped, which is good news.

The project planned on hitting 12MW of electricity from the single turbine, instead reaching 14MW!This is the same type of turbine that may see use in Vineyard, Massachusetts.

Ørsted is building a $20m operations and maintenance facility in Maryland to support offshore wind development.

 

Energy-ish:

Google is adding a suite of efficiency options to its offerings, including in Google Maps.

For Maps in particular, Google will now offer routes based on whether they're more carbon-efficient than other routes.They will also specify which flights are lowest in carbon impact when searching for flights in Google.Google Nest will also have options for pairing the thermostat with when the grid is cleanest.

Transportation Network Companies such as Lyft and Uber increase fuel usage and greenhouse gas emissions by 20-40%, according to a report from Uber and Lyft as well as a study by Carnegie Mellon University.

This increase in fuel usage and greenhouse gas emissions comes from "deadheading", which is driving without a passenger (between pickups, for example).The study by Carnegie Mellon also found that congestion significantly increases as a result of ride-hailing services.

 

Policy:

Google and YouTube are removing monetization from climate change denial content.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is phasing out the usage/production of Hydrofluorocarbons.

Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are incredibly potent greenhouse gases.They're commonly used in refrigeration.Under this rule, production and consumption in the U.S. must reduce by 85% over the next 15 years.Some plants that emit HFCs as by-products of other processes must reduce emissions by 99.9% by October 2022.This article is very long, fair warning.