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Electric Vehicles

A BYD car.
Podcast

How BYD Got So Big

Rob and Jesse talk with Chinese auto market expert Michael Dunne.

Climate

AM Briefing: Musk Is ‘Ready to Exit’ Washington

On Musk’s next move, earnings calls, and Earth Day EOs

Yellow
Climate

AM Briefing: NOAA Climate Hubs, Databases Go Dark

On NOAA’s disappearing websites, Penn Station plans, and PJM reforms

Yellow
Electric Vehicles

Subaru Is Finally Getting Its EV Act Together

The car brand with a crunchy reputation has started to earn it, at last.

Green
IEA to Oil Markets: ‘Buckle Up’

AM Briefing: IEA Slashes Oil Outlook

On oil forecasts, DOE cuts, and the cost of coal

Yellow
The EPA Wants to Drastically Scale Back America’s Emissions Reporting

AM Briefing: EPA Gives a Pass to Polluters

On greenhouse gas data, the GOP’s budget plan, and tariffs

Yellow
Electric Vehicles

There Has Never Been a Better Time for EV Battery Swapping

With cars about to get more expensive, it might be time to start tinkering.

A battery with wheels.
<p>Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images</p>

More than a decade ago, when I was a young editor at Popular Mechanics, we got a Nissan Leaf. It was a big deal. The magazine had always kept long-term test cars to give readers a full report of how they drove over weeks and months. A true test of the first true production electric vehicle from a major car company felt like a watershed moment: The future was finally beginning. They even installed a destination charger in the basement of the Hearst Corporation’s Manhattan skyscraper.

That Leaf was a bit of a lump, aesthetically and mechanically. It looked like a potato, got about 100 miles of range, and delivered only 110 horsepower or so via its electric motors. This made the O.G. Leaf a scapegoat for Top Gear-style car enthusiasts eager to slander EVs as low-testosterone automobiles of the meek, forced upon an unwilling population of drivers. Once the rise of Tesla in the 2010s had smashed that paradigm and led lots of people to see electric vehicles as sexy and powerful, the original Leaf faded from the public imagination, a relic of the earliest days of the new EV revolution.

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Energy

AM Briefing: Record Renewables Growth

On the shifting energy mix, tariff impacts, and carbon capture

Low-Carbon Sources Provided 41% of the World’s Power Last Year
<p>Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images</p>

Current conditions: Europe just experienced its warmest March since record-keeping began 47 years ago • It’s 105 degrees Fahrenheit in India’s capital Delhi where heat warnings are in effect • The risk of severe flooding remains high across much of the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Estimated losses from recent severe U.S. storms top $80 billion

The severe weather outbreak that has brought tornadoes, extreme rainfall, hail, and flash flooding to states across the central U.S. over the past week has already caused between $80 billion and $90 billion in damages and economic losses, according to a preliminary estimate from AccuWeather. The true toll is likely to be costlier because some areas have yet to report their damages, and the flooding is ongoing. “A rare atmospheric river continually resupplying a firehose of deep tropical moisture into the central U.S., combined with a series of storms traversing the same area in rapid succession, created a ‘perfect storm’ for catastrophic flooding and devastating tornadoes,” said AccuWeather’s chief meteorologist Jonathan Porter. The estimate takes into account damages to buildings and infrastructure, as well as secondary effects like supply chain and shipping disruptions, extended power outages, and travel delays. So far 23 people are known to have died in the storms. “This is the third preliminary estimate for total damage and economic loss that AccuWeather experts have issued so far this year,” the outlet noted in a release, “outpacing the frequency of major, costly weather disasters since AccuWeather began issuing estimates in 2017.”

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