In this week’s news roundup, we discuss an important update to solar incentives in Illinois, and a new solar powered electric vehicle (EV) charging facility in California.
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When most people think of electric vehicles (EVs), there’s one prominent name that’s top of mind: Tesla. It’s not all that surprising, considering that the electric car company owns roughly 80 percent of the electric car market share in the U.S.
Tesla’s constantly innovating and releasing new electric car tech to the market, and today can boast of four commercially available car models, each with its own unique set of perks: the Tesla Model S, Tesla Model X, the Tesla Model 3, and the Tesla Model Y. In this article, we’ll break down the car prices for each of the different Tesla EV models, and explain how you should compare them.
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Electric vehicles (EVs) are all the rage – and might just be the centerpiece to the clean energy revolution. There’s a catch, however. Along with all of those electric cars comes an equal amount of lithium-ion batteries to power them, and recycling those batteries is a complicated, but necessary, problem to solve. What’s more, home batteries like the Tesla Powerwall are usually made of very similar materials to EV batteries, so there’s even more to recycle.
Similar to solar panel recycling, it’s expensive and difficult to separate out the components of a lithium-ion battery to the point where they can be recycled and reused. Nowadays, lithium-ion battery recycling exists, but not nearly on the scale and at the efficiency we need it to as batteries become more and more popular.
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In this week’s news round-up, we discuss a new startup company looking to innovate electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure, as well as an updated projection on the country’s energy future from the federal government.
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On Earth Day 2021, the Biden Administration announced its goal “to reach 100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035”– but, until recently, no legislation had been passed to actually meet this target. This all started to shift in August 2021, when the Senate passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill and then immediately advanced a $3.5 trillion budget resolution that will lay the framework for a reconciliation bill. So, what’s the status of these bills? And how will they advance the U.S.’s clean energy transition?
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In 2020, Tesla announced that they would be manufacturing their Model 3 cars in China using lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, moving away from their traditional nickel-based chemistries they use in US-based car manufacturing. Tesla doubled down on their bet on iron batteries in the spring of 2021, announcing intent to use LFP batteries in their grid-scale energy storage solution: the Megapack.
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From new electric vehicles (EVs) to solar roofs to storage systems,Tesla keeps adding to its growing list of product offerings. While the company is well known for its car lineup of the Model S, Model X, and Model 3, in 2020, they added a new vehicle to the production line: the Tesla Model Y.
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Electric vehicles (EVs) are becoming increasingly popular around the world. However, some places are more EV-friendly than others because of financial or convenience reasons. In this article, we’ll break down what factors make a place more or less suitable to own an EV, as well as call out some of the best states in the U.S. for electric car ownership.
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Lithium, the lightest element of all the metals, is a crucial resource for the United States’ clean energy future: it’s key in the production of lithium ion rechargeable batteries, which are used to power electric vehicles and serve as home storage systems. While the U.S. is the largest consumer of lithium and will only increase its future consumption as it strives to meet the Biden Administration’s ambitious greenhouse gas emission targets, America’ domestic mining of lithium is limited to just one percent of annual global production.
Currently, only one lithium mine operates in the United States, the Silver Peak mine in Clayton Valley, Nevada; most of the global lithium supply is extracted in Chile and Australia. While some politicians are calling for increased domestic mining of the metal, at the end of May 2021, Reuters reported that the Biden Administration would supply the majority of lithium from ally countries, including Canada, Australia, and Brazil. Though this strategy may seem antithetical to the Administration’s clean energy jobs goals, it comes on the heels of many environmentalists’ concerns over two potential lithium mines in Nevada that could become operational in a few years. In this article, we’ll break down lithium mining and why these two mines are so controversial.
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For the past 39 years, the iconic Ford F-Series, which primarily includes the F-150, has been the best selling vehicle in the United States, selling just shy of a million vehicles in 2020. As automakers across the U.S. race to electrify their fleets, there’s been one major gap in announcements of new electric vehicles: what would happen with America’s best selling car? In May 2021, Ford put an end to that speculation, launching the new Ford F-150 Lightning.
While the Lightning won’t be the first electric pick-up truck in the U.S., it may be the most important one. It’s not only a stronger, faster version of the trusted F-150, but by being completely electric, the F-150 Lighting comes with additional features that could attract both new and former F-150 customers. In its first 48 hours of accepting reservations, Ford had almost 45,000 reservations; after a week, this number increased to 70,000. The truck officially goes on sale in 2022.
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