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Do you want a light tailwind or a full-on hurricane?
“The only thing better for the climate than buying an EV over a gasoline-powered car is buying no car at all,” the climate scientist
Rob Jackson has written. But for many Americans, not having a car at all is the stuff of logistical and cultural nightmares. The average person living in the U.S. covers more than 1,000 miles per month in their vehicle, and nearly 45% of people don’t even have the option of opting for public transportation. Ditching your car? You might as well ask people to give up their cell phones.
But across the country, transportation advocates and e-bike warriors are looking for solutions to go, if not entirely car-less, then at least car-light. Heatmap has put together a comprehensive guide to help you make a decision that best fits your lifestyle, whether that’s becoming a superpedestrian, a committed e-bike user, or just trying to replace a couple of short-haul drives a week.
Doug Gordon is the cohost of “The War on Cars,” a podcast about the fight against car culture. He is also a writer, TV producer, and safe streets advocate, and he advises nonprofits and mobility companies on communications strategies to promote better streets and public infrastructure through his Brooklyn Spoke Media consulting business.
Alexa Sledge is the director of communications at Transportation Alternatives, a nonprofit organization that has worked to promote non-polluting, safe, and quiet travel in New York City since 1973.
Bryan Dean is the sales manager at The eBike Store in Portland, Oregon, which opened in 2008 as the city’s first e-bike-only retailer. He’s spent over six years helping customers pick out their perfect bikes and is also the creator of the #eBikeAnywhere hashtag.
Kevin Lau is a product specialist at REI with more than 20 years of experience. He is based out of Marlton, New Jersey.
Only 8% of U.S. households currently get by without owning a car, and less than 1% of Americans commute to work by bike. The U.S. is so driving-centric that we’re home to one-fifth of all the cars on the planet despite having less than 5% of the global population. Eleven states have more registered vehicles than people.
But just because driving has always been your default doesn’t mean it makes the most sense for the kind of travel you do — even if you live somewhere without great public transportation. Over half of all trips Americans make in a car are for a distance of less than three miles — perfect to convert into a bike ride.
“I think of mobility like a Swiss army knife: You have to use the right tool for the job,” Gordon told me. “If I just need to pick up a carton of milk, does it make sense to do that in a 6,000-pound metal box on wheels that is powered by dinosaur juice? Not so much.”
On average, commuting by bike in the U.S. saves an estimated $2,500 per year, and it has been found to have massive benefits for one’s mental health, cardiovascular health, and even productivity at work. Yes, even e-bikes!
“If you go to places like Copenhagen or Amsterdam — places where there are huge numbers of cyclists — and you poll those people, concern for the environment barely cracks the top five reasons why they cycle,” Gordon said. “The reasons why people cycle in Denmark and the Netherlands are because it’s safe and convenient, and it’s often the fastest and cheapest way to get where they’re going.”
Transportation is the most significant contributor to climate change in the United States, with nearly 60% of the sector’s greenhouse gas emissions coming from cars alone (another 23% comes from trucks). Replacing a quarter of your total driving with walking, biking, or e-biking could save 1.3 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year, according to our friends at WattTime — about the same as forgoing burning 1,433 pounds of coal or three barrels of oil. If every American drove even a mere 10% less per year, it’d be like taking 28 coal-fired power plants offline.
You can still make a significant impact without ditching your car, in other words: You simply have to drive less. And the upsides are enormous. More Americans die of car pollution than in car accidents every year. Additionally, commuting by bike or by foot makes us healthier and happier.
It also helps us realize what our community priorities should be. “Individual action is not always what we need to focus on,” Gordon said. “We need to focus on institutional change. But my philosophy is that lots of individual action actually adds up to the political will to get the institutional change you need.”
A survey of studies from five countries (including the U.S.) found that the main barriers to cycling were low perceived safety, bad weather, lack of cycling infrastructure (including “shower facilities” at one’s destination), and distance and perceived effort.
Safety is a valid concern. Riding a bike is about 500 times more likely to be fatal than riding a bus, according to a 2007 study; even with the success of programs like New York’s Vision Zero, collisions with cars remain a real danger for people on bikes. The car-related pollution inhaled while cycling can also shorten a cyclist’s life by an estimated one to 40 days. But the benefits of cycling on average far outweigh the risks: Riding a bike adds an estimated three to 14 months to your life, even when the possibilities of collisions and air pollution are considered. The health benefits are so significant that a separate study by Swedish researchers found that cyclists had a 47% lower risk of early death and a 10% lower risk of hospitalization compared to car and train commuters.
What about concerns about shower availability and the “distance and perceived effort” of riding a bike? That’s where the advantages of an e-bike’s pedal assist come into play. “E-bikes are great at blasting through any concerns you have about sweat,” Gordon told me. Even in hot weather or on difficult terrain, pedal assist can keep you looking fresh when you arrive at the office.
The first step to driving less is thinking about when and where you can replace specific trips with walking, cycling, or public transportation instead. Lau told me his general rule of thumb is that if a trip is less than a mile and he can safely walk (i.e. if there are sidewalks or safe paths), then he’ll walk. “If it’s more than that, I’ll take the bike if I have a place to lock it or can bring it into my workplace or store,” he said. For trips where he might need some extra assistance — that are farther, longer, hillier, or will require carrying “more cargo without working as hard,” he’ll opt for an e-bike instead.
You can do a lot of this reconnaissance from your couch. Apple Maps and Google Maps can take a lot of the guesswork out of finding the best bike paths to and from your house and the other places you frequent, including informing you ahead of time if the route will require riding on major or minor roads or ones with protected bike lanes. Google and Apple Maps can also give you real-time information about public transportation options in your area (as well as allow you to plan for trips when service might be reduced, like late nights or weekends), and many transit systems now have their own apps to make tracking delays or alternative service simpler.
It’s funny how you don’t realize where the long, slow inclines are in your neighborhood until you’re huffing up them on a bike. Google Maps and Apple Maps can show you what elevation to expect on a walking or cycling route. If you live in a hillier area, an e-bike might be better than a traditional bike since it can take some of the ouch out of the ups.
“Something really, really important that people don’t always think about is gear,” Sledge told me. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive, but if you can only ride your bike when it’s 80 degrees and sunny, that’s not the best scenario.”
If you live somewhere where it gets hot, rainy, snowy, windy, or the weather can change unexpectedly, think ahead of time about the sort of gear you’d need to make cycling or walking more comfortable. (We have a checklist of ideas below.)
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, and Vermont all have statewide tax credits or rebates to encourage e-bike adoption.
Live somewhere that isn’t on that list? Here is a super handy tracker from the Transportation Research and Education Center at Portland State University of more than 100 counties, cities, and municipalities that offer e-bike incentive programs. Also, look for e-bike lending libraries that might be in your area.
If you’re having trouble learning about the programs available to you, head into a brick-and-mortar e-bike shop in your area or connect with your local transportation advocacy group — they’ll know what programs you can take advantage of and be happy to point you in the right direction.
Do you know what bike enthusiasts love more than anything? Creating new bike enthusiasts. If you’re still feeling intimidated by the idea of getting on a bike — or even if you’re not — “find a friend who’s already doing it,” Gordon suggested. Bike people are “an evangelical bunch, and if you tell a friend who you know is into biking or bike commutes regularly that ‘Hey, I’m thinking of doing it,’ I can guarantee that person will be more than happy to hold your hand and help you through your first ride.”
There are dozens of emissions-free or emissions-light transportation options, from using your own two feet to digging the old beater bicycle out of your garage to going full Steve Wozniak with a Segway. The most important thing is to something you’ll actually use.
That said — “What’s really going to be the best option for most Americans is an e-bike,” Sledge told me. “That’s a true car replacement when so often a [traditional] bike can’t be a true, true, true car replacement.” E-bikes are simply more practical and comfortable for longer rides or daily commutes, and if you need to haul things like groceries or children, they can’t be beaten.
I’ve looked at all my options and don’t think I can drive any less than I already do. What can I do instead?
There’s no way around it: E-bikes are pricy. “An e-bike is going to be a big purchase — nowhere near as much as a car, but still, it’s a major purchase,” Sledge said. Even with incentive programs (more on that below), you’re likely to spend more than $1,000 out of pocket.
It is tempting to look for a bargain. But Dean stressed that manufacturers and bulk retailers are “sacrificing a lot” in terms of quality and service to make a profit at lower price points. As a rule, “If you’re spending less than $1,000 on any bike, it’s landfill,” he said. “And that waste is toxic — odds are, it isn’t going to be recycled properly.”
Gordon suggested that if you’re concerned about how often you’ll use an e-bike, it makes sense to get “a cheap regular bike” initially. “Then you can figure out if this is something you want to do in the long term, and after a few weeks, or a month, or a year, you can go, ‘Okay, I’m ready for the $1,000, $2,000, $5,000 bicycle.’”
Perspective is important, too. Yes, e-bikes are expensive — if you compare them to regular bikes. “If you compare them to cars, they’re a bargain,” Gordon said. “E-bikes are a replacement tool; they’re not an upgrade from other bikes. So if you’re a family with two cars and are going down to one, getting a $2,500 or even $5,000 e-bike is a relative bargain.” Additionally, many retailers — including The eBike Store in Portland, Oregon, where Dean works — offer installment plans to help make the purchase more manageable.
Conversion kits are a popular way to convert an analog bike you already own into an e-bike by attaching a motor to the front hub, rear hub, or mid-drive. Many of these kits can be found cheaply on websites like Amazon, though The Washington Post warns that it is still a “very Wild West market” and to only buy batteries from reputable e-bike battery brands (low-quality batteries are more likely to start fires). While converting to an e-bike might be a good option for you if you want to dip a toe in the e-bike water, you’ll still need to spend several hundred dollars to get a kit that gives you the same oomph as an actual e-bike. That said, whatever option gets you on a bike is the best one, and if you’re converter-kit curious, here’s a good guide for learning where to start.
“Buying a bike at a brick-and-mortar store from competent, kind people who love their job — customers are going to have a fantastic experience,” Dean told me. “They’re going to get a great taste for the bike, which means they’ll be riding it a lot. We’re not in the business of selling bikes that sit and rot in someone’s garage.”
It is especially important to go to a store with e-bike specialists on staff (rather than a bulk retailer like Costco — or worse, anything online) because the mechanics will have checked the bike over and adjusted the safety points so it’s ready to go. “You’re going to get educated and get a strong appreciation of the beautiful tool that you are buying, and learn how to operate it and make it last,” Dean added.
Most importantly, though, ensure you take the bike for a test ride before handing over your credit card. Any retailer worth its salt will offer this as an option; the best retailers will take you on a guided test ride, where they’ll teach you how to use the e-bike you’re trying out. But the bottom line is, “Don’t buy a bike that you haven’t ridden,” Dean said. “Ride the bike before you buy it; that’s in all-caps with smiley faces and exclamation points. Don't buy the bike if you can’t ride it first.”
“Buy the bike that’s going to put the biggest, dumbest smile on your face.”
Dean said he points riders looking to log miles to the Specialized Como. “When you’re commuting long miles, you want something comfortable, something that’s reliable, something that has a strong enough motor that will get you where you’re going and a big-enough battery that you’re not going to sweat it,” he said. The Specialized Como is also an excellent choice for people who want to “show up to work not sweaty” but maybe get a little bit more of a workout on the way home.
If you prefer commuting on a traditional bike, Lau suggested REI’s ADV 1.1, a road touring bike, or the CTY 1.1 bike, a less-expensive hybrid built for logging longer distances and enduring the daily wear-and-tear of a commute. His e-bike pick for commuters is the CTY e2.2, a popular, well-reviewed, and accessible commuter bike specifically marketed to “replace car trips.”
Dean loves to recommend Tern bikes to people who want to make trips with their kids. “They’ve been doing this for a long time, they have tons of great accessories, and they use Bosch power systems,” he said — all points in the bike’s favor. That customizability and reliability make it a good fit for families who want to be able to tailor the bike to their needs and price point while also not having to worry about it breaking down in the middle of a toddler’s meltdown.
But there is one other primary reason why Dean points parents to Tern. “All of their bikes are rider first, cargo behind” — versus bucket bikes that put the cargo in front of the rider. While the latter design is also popular, it also means that if you’re trying to squeak out into traffic, you’re nosing your most precious cargo ahead of you, into potential harm’s way.
Lau offered three options for e-bikes that won’t make you miss the trunk of your car, starting with the Cannondale Cargowagen, which can lug up to 440 pounds — that is a lot of Chili & Lime Flavored Rolled Corn Tortilla Chips. Its range isn’t quite as good as some other bikes on the market — the battery is 545 watt-hours — so it’s probably a better fit for people who live in higher-density areas or near their preferred market. (You can always buy a second battery if you want a little more range.) The Cargowagen is also a class 3 bike, meaning you won’t have to worry about the ice cream melting before you can get home.
Like Dean, Lau loves to recommend Tern bikes for handling heavy loads, especially the Tern GSD S00, which conveniently folds up so it can even be stored in an apartment or transported in an elevator while still being compatible with Tern’s line of cargo-carrying products — but at almost $6,000 before add-ons, it’ll likely be out of many first-time e-bikers’ budgets. Tern’s Vektron S10 is a less expensive option and still has the power to handle hilly roads with six Trader Joe’s bags in tow. (Note that both Terns are class 1 bikes, meaning the pedal assist tops out at 20 miles per hour.)
“Lightweight e-bikes are out there,” Dean said, and can be had — for the right amount of money. “They’re usually going to start around $3,500 to $4,000 and then go up from there,” he told me, pointing to Specialized as one of his favorite lightweight brands.
Keep in mind that you may not need a lightweight e-bike. “No one has ever come in and said, ‘I want a heavy bike,’” Dean pointed out. Electric motors are, by necessity, heavy, so getting a lighter bike can mean sacrificing half the motor and battery. There are workarounds: “If you have stairs to go up, almost all of these bikes have a walk assist mode,” which gently turns the tires so you’re not fighting gravity on your own, Dean told me. Likewise, if you’re trying to load your bike onto a car rack, “you don’t have to Hulk it up there; you can be a little smarter about your efforts by picking up the front wheel and putting it in the rack behind your car. Then pick up the back wheel.” If you’re really struggling with your bike, you can always pop off the battery — one of the heavier components — and carry it separately.
The best new commuter bike you can get away with is the CTY 1.1, the analog bike Lau recommended above, but for an e-bike option, he points customers to the Co-op CTY e2.1, an easy, accessible, no-frills class 1 bike that won’t run you more than $2,000. It might be a little light on features for a serious urban commuter, though.
Dean told me that the Gazelle Medeo and some of the bikes from Electra Country will have price points that could be more acceptable to customers on a budget. Gazelle uses the reliable Bosch power system, and the Medeo is “really good” and comes in “multiple versions.” (I found one for less than $2,000). Electra Country is a subsidiary of Trek and is a “one-size-fits-all, beach cruiser-looking bike” that comes in super fun colors.
Congratulations! You’re the proud owner of a bike or an e-bike (or skateboard or e-scooter or a really good pair of walking shoes). What happens now?
While the benefits of riding a bike (or any other form of active transportation) still outweigh the risks, cars are getting bigger, their blindspots are getting larger, and pedestrian and cyclist deaths nationwide are at a 40-year high. Even electric vehicles might be a small part of the problem since they’re so much heavier than regular cars — and that much more dangerous if you get hit.
I asked Sledge how newly carless commuters could become better pedestrians, and she quickly corrected me. “There is no such thing as being a good pedestrian,” she said. “So often, in the United States, when we have groups of people that are consistently harmed by other groups of people, we’re like, ‘How can the victims be better?’ And the real answer is, ‘How can we create systems and designs that protect those people?’”
We’ll get into that. But the bottom line is: be safe when you’re out on the road. Learn how to navigate intersections safely, and don’t take unnecessary risks. Especially if you’re on an e-bike, “You’re traveling faster than most cars are expecting you to,” Dean said. “To remember that, imagine you are not only invisible, but they’re all trying to kill you.”
“Riding a bike is a really good entry for a lot of people into larger political conversations about climate, the design of their cities or towns, and a host of other issues,” Gordon told me. It might only be a short amount of time before you start to wonder why there aren’t more protected bike lanes in your town or city, or why mass transit isn’t reaching your neighborhood or destination, or why lousy road design is making your commute more dangerous than it should be.
There’s some good news, though: There has never been a better time to become a transit advocate. “It could be as small as your block, or your neighborhood, or your city, but there are tons of groups all over the country that focus on working to make them safer and better for the people in them,” Sledge said.
One of the best places to start is by making your voice and your values heard. As Sledge reminded me, car companies already have — and continue to spend money and time lobbying policies that are better for drivers (and their bottom lines) than others on the road. But where to begin? “First, I would look for any kind of organization in your community, your neighborhood, or your city that focuses on safe streets or fighting climate change, and see if you can get involved with them,” Sledge said. “And if you don’t have that kind of organization, start to go to your city council meetings, making your voice heard with your local representatives — those kinds of things really make a difference.”
Another great resource is Transportation for America’s Transit Advocate Guide, which takes you step-by-step through building a movement in your community. Transportation Alternatives also hosts occasional activist trainings to help you learn how to organize successful campaigns in your neighborhood.
Maybe you bought an e-bike or a monthly metro pass … but you’ve been unable to quit your car the way you thought you would. That’s okay! This is not an all-or-nothing activity. “Don’t feel guilty if you’re still driving,” Gordon stressed. Remember that “you’re operating within a system that is built for you to drive, so starting small is really good.” Every fit and start of progress helps.
Remember also that better, low- and zero-emissions-friendly infrastructure and a pedestrian-first culture aren’t going to be built overnight. Even the most hard-core among us still need to use cars occasionally. Just “reimagining how we’re going to truly allocate our public resources — our public dollars, our public services — to serve everyone, and radically rethinking how to do that, is so important,” Sledge said.
I will leave you with one last instruction for ditching your car. When you discover the bike that lets you “follow your joy, follow your bliss,” and puts a “smile on your face” — as Dean likes to say — don’t keep it to yourself.
Someone else in your community is beginning to think about ditching their car, too. It’s your turn now. Go forth. Become someone else’s enthusiastic bike geek.
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With the federal electric vehicle tax credit now gone, automakers like Ford and Hyundai have to find other ways to make their electric cars affordable.
We finally know what Tesla means by an “affordable” electric vehicle. On Tuesday, the electric automaker revealed the stripped-down, less-fancy “Standard” version of its best-selling Model Y crossover and Model 3 sedan. These EVs will sell for several thousand dollars less than the existing versions, which are now rebranded as “Premium.”
These slightly cheaper Ys and 3s aren’t exactly the $25,000 baby Tesla that many fans and investors have anticipated for years. But the announcement is an indication of where the electric vehicle market in the United States may be headed now that the $7,500 federal tax credit for purchasing an EV is dead and gone. Automakers have spent the past few months rejiggering their lineups and slashing prices as much as they can to make sure sales don’t crater without the federal incentive.
The impending end of the tax credit on September 30 helped propel Tesla to record sales numbers in the third quarter of 2025. It was a stark reversal from months of disappointing sales stemming from factors like increased competition and Elon Musk’s political antics that alienated potential buyers. Money talks, of course; Tesla sent me a blitz of emails to make sure I didn’t forget what a good deal I could get before September’s end. But now, with the deadline passed, Musk’s company needed a new shot in the arm to stop sales from falling off a cliff.
The budget Teslas are, indeed, lesser vehicles. They have simpler headlights, less power, and less range than the now-Premium versions. They even come in fewer colors. But the prices — $40,000 for a Model Y Standard and $37,000 for a Model 3 Standard — effectively mirror what those cars would have cost if the tax credit were still in place. In other words, you can still buy a Tesla in the $35,000 to $40,000 range. It just won’t be as good a Tesla as you used to be able to get for the money.
The tax credit deadline had looked like one that would demarcate two distinct EV eras, with October 1 acting as the beginning of new, less-affordable time. But it turns out things aren’t quite so black and white. Lots of automakers are experimenting with ways to soften the financial blow for those who still want to get into an EV. After all, there’s always a loophole.
For example, as the September tax credit deadline approached, Reuters reported on a scheme orchestrated by Ford and General Motors to allow the American car giants to keep the good times going by buying their own cars. It goes like this: Before the September 30 deadline, the financing arms of these big corporations began the process of purchasing a host of their own vehicles from their dealerships. By making the down payment before the end of September, Ford and GM qualified these vehicles for the federal tax benefit. (They even checked with the IRS to make sure this plot was legitimate, Reuters said.) They plan to pass on the savings by leasing those vehicles back to everyday Americans.
According to Car and Driver, a number of citizens did something similar to what the corporations devised — that is, some buyers made their first payments on EVs that won’t be delivered to them for weeks or months in order to qualify for the tax break. These shenanigans are for the short term, though. Ford and GM could pre-purchase only so many of their own vehicles, and Ford said this deal effectively extends the tax credit only another quarter, through the end of December.
The bigger question is whether the automakers can — or will — simply cut prices on their EVs to make the loss of federal incentives sting a little less.
That’s the plan at Hyundai. The Korean giant has announced an enormous price cut on its successful Ioniq 5, one that more than makes up for the vanishing federal incentive. The most basic version of that car will fall from $42,600 to $35,000, putting it on par with the Chevy Equinox EV that’s been a hit at that price. Fancier versions of the Ioniq 5 will fall by more than $9,000 for the 2026 model year. Hyundai and its partner Kia are offering some of the best October lease deals, too.
Other car companies have begun to follow suit. BMW will simply offer a $7,500 discount on its electric models for those who take delivery by the end of October. Stellantis, the parent company of Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge, Ram, and others, will do the same for electric sales through the end of the year. No word yet on what happens after these deals expire.
Incentives like the federal tax credit for EVs aren’t meant to last forever, of course. In theory, their purpose is to lift up a new technology until it can compete at scale with the tech that has been around forever.
Whether electric cars have reached that point is a contentious question. Ford has only just announced a roadmap to overhaul its entire EV production system in order to stop losing billions on electric vehicles. Hyundai’s EVs are profitable — or, at least they were before the Trump administration began monkeying with tax incentives and tariffs. A batch of more affordable EVs are on the way, though the ever-changing map of tariffs makes it unclear exactly how much they’ll cost when they finally arrive.
The short-term picture may well be that electric cars continue to be a loss leader for some automakers still trying to find their footing in the space. Whether their shareholders will tolerate this long enough for the margins to become sustainable — well, that’s the real question.
Current conditions: In the Atlantic, the tropical storm that could, as it develops, take the name Jerry is making its way westward toward the U.S. • In the Pacific, Hurricane Priscilla strengthened into a Category 2 storm en route to Arizona and the Southwest • China broke an October temperature record with thermometers surging near 104 degrees Fahrenheit in the southeastern province of Fujian.
The Department of Energy appears poised to revoke awards to two major Direct Air Capture Hubs funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in Louisiana and Texas, Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo reported Tuesday. She got her hands on an internal agency project list that designated nearly $24 billion worth of grants as “terminated,” including Occidental Petroleum’s South Texas DAC Hub and Louisiana's Project Cypress, a joint venture between the DAC startups Heirloom and Climeworks. An Energy Department spokesperson told Emily that he was “unable to verify” the list of canceled grants and said that “no further determinations have been made at this time other than those previously announced,”referring to the canceled grants the department announced last week. Christoph Gebald, the CEO of Climeworks, acknowledged “market rumors” in an email, but said that the company is “prepared for all scenarios.” Heirloom’s head of policy, Vikrum Aiyer, said the company wasn’t aware of any decision the Energy Department had yet made.
While the list floated last week showed the Trump administration’s plans to cancel the two regional hydrogen hubs on the West Coast, the new list indicated that the Energy Department planned to rescind grants for all seven hubs, Emily reported. “If the program is dismantled, it could undermine the development of the domestic hydrogen industry,” Rachel Starr, the senior U.S. policy manager for hydrogen and transportation at Clean Air Task Force told her. “The U.S. will risk its leadership position on the global stage, both in terms of exporting a variety of transportation fuels that rely on hydrogen as a feedstock and in terms of technological development as other countries continue to fund and make progress on a variety of hydrogen production pathways and end uses.”
Remember the Tesla announcement I teased in yesterday’s newsletter? The predictions proved half right: The electric automaker did, indeed, release a cheaper version of its midsize SUV, the Model Y, with a starting price just $10 shy of $40,000. Rather than a new Roadster or potential vacuum cleaner, as the cryptic videos the company posted on CEO Elon Musk’s social media site hinted, the second announcement was a cheaper version of the Model 3, already the lower-end sedan offering. Starting at $36,990, InsideEVs called it “one of the most affordable cars Tesla has ever sold, and the cheapest in 2025.” But it’s still a far cry from Musk’s erstwhile promise to roll out a Tesla for less than $30,000.
That may be part of why the company is losing market share. As Heatmap’s Matthew Zeitlin reported, Tesla’s slice of the U.S. electric vehicle sales sank to its lowest-ever level in August despite Americans’ record scramble to use the federal tax credits before the September 30 deadline President Donald Trump’s new tax law set. General Motors, which sold more electric vehicles in the third quarter of this year than in all of 2024, offers the cheapest battery-powered passenger vehicle on the market today, the Chevrolet Equinox, which starts at $35,100.
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Trump’s pledge to revive the United States’ declining coal industry was always a gamble — even though, as Matthew reported in July, global coal demand is rising. Three separate stories published Tuesday show just how stacked the odds are against a major resurgence:
As you may recall from two consecutive newsletters last month, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said “permitting reform” was “the biggest remaining thing” in the administration’s agenda. Yet Republican leaders in Congress expressed skepticism about tacking energy policy into the next reconciliation bill. This week, however, Utah Senator Mike Lee, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, called for a legislative overhaul of the National Environmental Policy Act. On Monday, the pro-development social media account Yimbyland — short for Yes In My Back Yard — posted on X: “Reminder that we built the Golden Gate Bridge in 4.5 years. Today, we wouldn’t even be able to finish the environmental review in 4.5 years.” In response, Lee said: “It’s time for NEPA reform. And permitting reform more broadly.”
Last month, a bipartisan permitting reform bill got a hearing in the House of Representatives. But that was before the government shutdown. And sources familiar with Democrats’ thinking have in recent months suggested to me that the administration’s gutting of so many clean energy policies has left Republicans with little to bargain with ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
Soon-to-be Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi.Yuichi Yamazaki - Pool/Getty Images
On Saturday, Japan’s long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party elected its former economic minister, Sanae Takaichi, as its new leader, putting her one step away from becoming the country’s first woman prime minister. Under previous administrations, Japan was already on track to restart the reactors idled after the 2011 Fukushima disaster. But Takaichi, a hardline conservative and nationalist who also vowed to re-militarize the nation, has pushed to speed up deployment of new reactors and technologies such as fusion in hopes of making the country 100% self-sufficient on energy.
“She wants energy security over climate ambition, nuclear over renewables, and national industry over global corporations,” Mika Ohbayashi, director at the pro-clean-energy Renewable Energy Institute, told Bloomberg. Shares of nuclear reactor operators surged by nearly 7% on Monday on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, while renewable energy developers’ stock prices dropped by as much as 15%
Researchers at the United Arab Emirates’ University of Sharjah just outlined a new method to transform spent coffee grounds and a commonly used type of plastic used in packaging into a form of activated carbon that can be used for chemical engineering, food processing, and water and air treatments. By repurposing the waste, it avoids carbon emitting from landfills into the atmosphere and reduces the need for new sources of carbon for industrial processes. “What begins with a Starbucks coffee cup and a discarded plastic water bottle can become a powerful tool in the fight against climate change through the production of activated carbon,” Dr. Haif Aljomard, lead inventor of the newly patented technology, said in a press release.
Last week’s Energy Department grant cancellations included funding for a backup energy system at Valley Children’s Hospital in Madera, California
When the Department of Energy canceled more than 321 grants in an act of apparent retribution against Democrats over the government shutdown, Russ Vought, President Trump’s budget czar, declared that the money represented “Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left's climate agenda.”
At least one of the grants zeroed out last week, however, was supposed to help keep the lights on at a children’s hospital.
The $29 million grant was intended to build a 3.3-megawatt long-duration energy storage system at Valley Children’s Hospital, a large pediatric hospital in Madera, California. The system would “power critical hospital operations during outage events,” such as when the California grid shuts down to avoid starting wildfires, according to project documents.
“The U.S. Department of Energy’s cancellation of funding for [the] long-duration energy storage demonstration grant is disappointing,” Zara Arboleda, a spokesperson for the hospital, told me.
Valley Children’s Hospital is a 358-bed hospital that says it serves more than 1.3 million children across California’s Central Valley. It has 116 neonatal intensive care unit beds and nationally ranked specialties in pediatric neurology, orthopedics, and lung surgery, among others.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright has characterized the more than $7.5 billion in grants canceled last week as part of an ongoing review of financial awards made by the Biden administration. But the timing of the cancellations — and Vought’s gleeful tweets about them — suggests a more vindictive purpose. Republican lawmakers and President Trump himself threatened to unleash Vought as a kind of rogue budget cutter before the federal government shut down last week.
“We don’t control what he’s going to do,” Senator John Thune told Politico last week. “I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut,” Trump posted on the same day.
Up until this year, canceling funding that is already under contract with a private party would have been thought to be straightforwardly illegal under federal law. But the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has allowed the Trump administration to act with previously unimaginable freedom while it considers ruling on similar cases.
Faraday Microgrids, the contractor that was due to receive the funding, is already building a microgrid for the hospital. The proposed backup power system — which the grant stipulated should be “non-lithium-ion” — was supposed to be funded by the Energy Department’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, with the goal of finding new ways of storing electricity without using lithium-ion batteries, and was meant to work in concert with that new microgrid and snap on in times of high stress.
That microgrid project is still moving forward, Arboleda, the hospital’s spokesperson, told me. “Valley Children’s Hospital continues to build and soon will operate its microgrid announced in 2023 to ensure our facilities have access to reliable and sustainable energy every minute of every day for our patients and our care providers,” she added. That grid will contain some storage, but not the long-term storage system discussed in the official plan.
Faraday Microgrids, formerly known as Charge Bliss, didn’t respond to a request for comment, but its website touts its ability to secure grants and other government funding for energy projects.
In a statement, a spokesman for the Energy Department said that the grant was canceled because the project wasn’t feasible. “Following an in-depth review of the financial award, it was determined, among other reasons, that the viability of the project was not adequate to warrant further disbursements,” Ben Dietderich, a spokesman for the Energy Department, told me.
The children’s hospital, at least, is in good company. On Tuesday, a Trump administration document obtained by Heatmap News suggested the Energy Department is moving to kill bipartisan-backed funding for two direct air capture hubs in Texas and Louisiana. And although California has lost the most grants of any state, the Energy Department has also sought to terminate funding for new factories and industrial facilities across Republican-governed states.
Editor’s note: This story initially misstated the number of neonatal intensive care unit beds at Valley Children’s Hospital. It has been corrected.