Weekly-ish News - Episode 39 (February 7, 2022)

What's the Alternative?

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Vehicles:

Global EV sales doubled in volume from 2019 to 2020, but nearly quadrupled in their share of light-duty vehicle sales (to 8.6%).

• This is a massive increase in EV penetration!

Some Teslas were literally programmed to do rolling stops at stop signs when using Full Self Driving (beta).

• This is illegal, and Tesla will need to issue a software update to fix this.

Tesla is definitely not working on a $25k EV right now, Elon says it's not necessary to have cheap EVs if full autonomy happens.

GM is targeting 1m EVs sold annually by 2025, including 600k electric trucks.

• That's uhh, a big number.

GM and LG Chem are building a $2.1b battery plant, which will be their third joint plant.

• This is likely going to be built in Michigan, since GM also just announced a $7b investment in EV production in Michigan.

Ford expects to build 150k E-Transit vans annually starting in 2023.

• They believe the Ford E-Transit will generate $45b by 2025.

Foxconn claims that they are still on track to deliver Lordstown Motors trucks in the second half of 2022.

• I'm doubtful.

Proterra will provide batteries to yet another bus manufacturer, Vicinity Motor Company.

• Vicinity will also roll out Class 3 and 5 trucks that will be powered by these batteries.
• This agreement covers a minimum of 600 vehicles (not very many).

Firestone (auto care chain) will begin rolling out EV services, starting in Austin, Texas and San Francisco, California.

• This will also include charging stations at new locations, in partnership with Blink Charging.

Boeing is investing $450m in an autonomous, electric air taxi company called Wisk.

Deployment:

Proterra and Scale Microgrid Solutions are partnering to install a solar + storage + charging station for the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority.

• The project will come online in late 2023.
• It will have 1.5MW of solar power and 4MWh of battery storage.
• They will also install two 1.5MW chargers for their buses, though it's not clear if this is 1.5MW to a single bus, or in total.
• This will support their 34 electric transit buses.

The electric bus manufacturer, Gemilang, will deliver 140 electric school buses to districts in California.

Iowa City has deployed 4 new electric transit buses.

• They cost $4.5m in total, including charging equipment.
• The city has 23 diesel buses in total.

Union Pacific Railroad has purchased 20 battery-electric trains, to be deployed by 2024.

• They claim 8k tons of GHG reductions annually as a result.

A fully electric paving machine is now in service in the Netherlands.

• It has a 270kWh battery pack and can operate 10hr on a charge.
• It will save 150L (~40gal) of diesel per day.

Energy:

A wind farm company, Vattenfall, is painting one blade on seven of its turbines black to attempt to reduce bird strikes.

• A Norwegian study found that painting a single blade on a turbine black reduced bird strikes by 70%.
• This Dutch location will hopefully recreate these results.

Florida Power and Light started operations of a 75MW solar farm in McDavid.

LPL Solar is building a 345MW solar farm in Louisiana.

Searcy, Arkansas now has 100MW of solar generation, along with a 30MW battery storage facility.

Policy:

Buy-America requirements pose a pretty big issue for the Infrastructure Bill's EV infrastructure buildout.

• Very few EV charger brands meet these "Buy-America" requirements.
• Buy-America requires that some percent of a product is produced in America.

Louisiana has officially agreed upon its Climate Action Plan.

• Executive Summary
• Full Plan
• The plan calls for 5GW of offshore wind power for Louisiana!