Tesla Is Delaying the Robotaxi Reveal

Current conditions: Heavy rains triggered a deadly landslide in Nepal that swept away 60 people • More than a million residents are still without power in and around Houston • It will be about 80 degrees Fahrenheit in Berlin on Sunday for the Euro 2024 final, where England will take on Spain.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Biden administration announces $1.7 billion to convert auto plants into EV factories

The Biden administration announced yesterday that the Energy Department will pour $1.7 billion into helping U.S. automakers convert shuttered or struggling manufacturing facilities into EV factories. The money will go to factories in eight states (including swing states Michigan and Pennsylvania) and recipients include Stellantis, Volvo, GM, and Harley-Davidson. Most of the funding comes from the Inflation Reduction Act and it could create nearly 3,000 new jobs and save 15,000 union positions at risk of elimination, the Energy Department said. “Agencies across the federal government are rushing to award the rest of their climate cash before the end of Biden’s first term,” The Washington Post reported.

DOE

2. Tesla delays robotaxi unveiling

Tesla is delaying the much-anticipated unveiling of its robotaxi by about two months until the prototype design can be improved and finalized, Bloomberg reported. The initial date for the autonomous taxi to make its first public appearance was August 8 but it’s looking more like October now. Tesla shares fell about 8% on the news, bringing an end to an 11-day streak of gains.

3. Study: Climate change shortening Northwest Passage shipping season

There’s a convenient theory that climate change will make Arctic shipping routes more accessible as sea ice melts. But new research published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment suggests the opposite is true. The authors found that between 2007 and 2021, the ice-free shipping seasons in the Northwest Passage – which runs through northern Canada and connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans – actually shortened significantly because warmer temperatures are causing some of the thickest, oldest Arctic sea ice to flow south into the passage’s “choke points,” posing a high risk to ships. “The variability of shipping season and, in particular, the shortening of the season will impact not only international shipping but also resupply and the cost of food in many Arctic communities, which require a prompt policy response,” the authors wrote.

Broken sea ice in Baffin Bay, in the Northwest Passage. Alison Cook

4. Natural disasters cost China $13 billion already this year

Natural disasters have caused $13 billion in direct economic losses in China just in the first six months of 2024, according to the Chinese government. That’s up from about $5 billion in losses in the same period last year. The disasters run the gamut from floods to drought to heavy snow to landslides, plus a 7.1 magnitude earthquake. The country’s weather bureau warned recently that climate change could raise maximum temperatures across the country by 5 degrees Fahrenheit in the next 30 years. Rainfall is also increasing. Earlier this month China evacuated a quarter of a million people from the eastern provinces as torrential rain caused flooding. The extreme weather is threatening production of food crops including rice, wheat, soybeans, and corn.

5. Marathon and EPA reach record settlement over Clean Air Act violations

Oil giant Marathon must pay a $64.5 million fine for violating the Clean Air Act at its oil and gas operations in North Dakota as part of a settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Justice Department announced. The company also has to invest $177 million in cleaning up those operations, which could result in the equivalent of 2.3 million tons of reduced pollution over the next five years. The EPA accused Marathon of violating the Clean Air Act at 90 facilities in the state, resulting in huge amounts of methane emissions, as well as illegal pollution linked to respiratory disease. The case is “the largest of 12 similar efforts by the Biden administration to target emissions from the oil and gas industry,” according to The Associated Press.

THE KICKER

“We want to give future generations as much glaciological knowledge as possible in case they need it.” –Douglas MacAyeal, a professor of geophysical sciences with the University of Chicago, who is part of a group of scientists calling for more research into whether glacial geoengineering could help prevent catastrophic ice melt caused by climate change.