Category: News

December 17 2024

Robotaxis, BYD and Tariffs: 10 EV Stories That Defined the Year

It’s been a big year for electric vehicles. Sales are rising, battery prices are dropping, and BloombergNEF has pushed up its sales forecast thanks to huge sales in China, South Korea and North America. As the year draws to a close, here are 10 key trends that helped shape the EV world in 2024 – and could pave the industry’s way going forward.

August 23 2021

Connecting the Dots on Diversity

The evolution in how the world generates, distributes and consume energy offers a multi-trillion dollar opportunity in coming decades. But will that opportunity be inclusive?

March 25 2019

Forget Tesla, It’s China’s E-Buses That Are Denting Oil Demand

The oil industry needn’t be too concerned, for now, about how Tesla Inc.’s electric cars are denting demand. China's bus fleet could be more of a worry.

February 9 2018

After Two Clean-Power Deals This Week, Funds Hunt for More

Infrastructure funds agreed to snap up two clean-energy companies in the past week, both with billion-dollar deals. And they’re hungry for more. Funds are raising billions of dollars from institutional investors for assets including renewables. As the economics of building and owning power plants get better, in part because of U.S. tax incentives, these power […]

February 5 2018

Tesla Tapped by Australia Anew in Virtual Power Plant Plan

South Australia plans to roll out solar panels and Tesla Inc. batteries to at least 50,000 homes to form what its government says will be the world’s largest virtual power plant. Beginning with a trial of 1,100 public housing properties, 5 kilowatt solar panels and 13.5 kilowatt-hour Tesla Powerwall 2 batteries will be installed free […]

February 5 2018

The Cost of Crypto Is Turning Miners Towards Green Power

Vakhtang Gogokhia’s plan to extract cryptocurrencies from the netherworld of cyberspace relies on a strategy familiar to many old-school manufacturers who use a lot of energy — the cheaper the fuel, the better. That’s why Gogokhia, who heads a startup called Golden Fleece, put a cargo container with Chinese-built computers inside a dilapidated Soviet-era tractor […]

February 1 2018

The Breakneck Rise of China’s Colossus of Electric-Car Batteries

The next global powerhouse in the auto industry comes from a small city in a tea-growing province of southeast China, where an unheralded maker of electric-vehicle batteries is planning a $1.3 billion factory with enough capacity to surpass the output of Tesla and dwarf the suppliers for battery-powered cars by GM, Nissan and Audi. Contemporary Amperex Technology […]

February 1 2018

How to Wreck the World’s Fastest-Growing Renewables Program

Soon after it began in 2011, South Africa’s renewable power program became the world’s fastest-growing. Almost $15 billion poured into clean energy in seven years, financing everything from wind farms to solar towers. New independent power producers mushroomed, signing electricity-purchase agreements with national utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd that were guaranteed by the government. Brian Molefe. […]

January 31 2018

Can France Mix Nuclear and Renewable Power?

France’s nuclear giant has a plan to survive the wave of renewable energy that’s sweeping aside old-fashioned utilities across Europe. First it needs to disprove the conventional wisdom about how reactors work. Electricite de France SA says its fleet of nuclear reactors aren’t just able to provide a steady stream of power, they’re flexible enough […]

January 25 2018

Aramco Targets Thriftier Engines to Defuse Electric-Car Threat

While Saudi Arabia tries to wean its economy off crude, the nation’s flagship company is devising new ways to make money from the fuel. Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil exporter, is investing in developing more efficient gasoline-powered engines and testing new methods of turning a barrel of crude directly into petrochemicals. The goal: To […]