Electric Vehicles
A Dumbphone on Wheels
Simpler electric vehicles would not only be cheaper — they’d last longer too.
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Simpler electric vehicles would not only be cheaper — they’d last longer too.
On the new auction schedule, Tesla earnings, and the Mercedes G-Class EV
And four more things we learned from Tesla’s Q1 earnings call.
On low expectations, global EV demand, and heat domes
Tesla has dealt with quality control issues before — but never with a robotaxi on the horizon.
On CEO compensation, Climework’s next move, and Dubai floods
Current conditions: It was 103.5 degrees Fahrenheit in Mumbai yesterday, the warmest April day recorded in a decade • Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology declared El Niño over • It will be rainy today in Washington, D.C., where negotiators will be pushing for more climate investment at the IMF and World Bank spring meetings.
Tesla shareholders will get a second chance to approve CEO Elon Musk’s pay package at the company’s upcoming June 13 annual meeting. In January, a Delaware court voided Musk’s 2018 pay deal, which was originally approved by 73% of shareholders and could have seen Musk’s stock award soar to $55 billion based on meeting financial targets (which he subsequently met). The judge said the approval process for that package had been “deeply flawed” and rife with conflicts of interests. “The company’s board is effectively asking shareholders, now armed with all of the information that was revealed about the negotiations in court, to make the court’s ruling moot,” The New York Timesexplained, adding that the vote will no doubt raise tensions between investors and governance experts. The company also said it will let shareholders vote on the plan to move the incorporation from Delaware to Texas.
Climeworks, the Swiss startup that became the first company to launch a commercial-scale facility that sucks carbon out of the air and buries it deep underground, is getting into carbon trading with the launch of an offshoot called Climeworks Solutions, reported Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo. Under the new banner, Climeworks will purchase carbon removal credits from other providers, package them into portfolios that include its own direct air capture credits, and sell the bundles to buyers looking for “high quality” carbon removal. Adrian Siegrist, the company’s vice president of climate solutions, said the credits will have “the stamp of Climeworks quality.”
There are already more than half a dozen companies promising to source only the highest quality carbon removal credits for buyers, and Climeworks is relying on its name as a trusted brand to set itself apart. Siegrist said Climeworks is already in talks with more than 50 other companies interested in working with them. “But it’s unclear where all of this carbon removal is going to come from,” Pontecorvo wrote. “The company’s direct air capture credits are already sold out through 2027.”
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The White House yesterday announced the creation of a new Climate and Trade Task Force aimed at reining in emissions from global trade. Speaking at the Columbia Global Energy Summit in New York, White House climate adviser John Podesta said the lack of widespread standards for tracking embodied emissions from traded goods – aka the emissions that come from their production – has led to a global “race to the bottom” to set up supply chains in countries with low emissions standards. “If the global trade of goods was its own country, it would be the second-largest carbon polluter in the world after [China],” Podesta said. The new task force will focus on developing a policy toolkit on climate and trade, measuring emissions to help inform and enforce climate-smart trade policies, and supporting producers to clean up their manufacturing processes.
A massive storm this week dropped unprecedented amounts of rain on the United Arab Emirates, turning streets into rivers and causing widespread chaos. The government described the event as the largest amount of rainfall seen in the last 75 years. In Dubai, at least 6 inches fell over 24 hours on Tuesday, which is about two years worth of rain. Flash floods inundated highways and halted flights. In neighboring Oman, flooding has killed at least 18 people. There’s some debate over how big of a role the UAE’s cloud seeding practices (which are an attempt to induce rain by dispersing tiny particles into clouds) played in worsening the storm. Bloombergreported that the state’s National Center of Meteorology dispatched seeding planes on Monday and Tuesday.
Christopher Pike/Getty Images
Team Japan unveiled its official uniforms for the upcoming Paris Olympics today, and said the clothing items would include a stamp that shows their carbon footprint. “By figuring out the carbon footprint of each item and labeling it on the products, we hope to boost transparency as well as raise awareness among athletes towards the environment,” said Makoto Ohori, manager of Asics’ apparel and equipment development. The company said it had cut the overall emissions needed to produce the uniforms by 34% since the Tokyo Games by switching to renewable energy and working with recycled and lighter material. The Paris Games aim to have half the carbon footprint of the typical Summer Olympics.
“Finance is the golden thread through all climate action.” –Rachel Kyte, professor in practice of climate policy at Oxford University
It isn’t just bad vibes: Electric vehicle sales are slumping in the United States. Fewer than 300,000 EVs were sold nationwide during the first three months of 2024 — although it could be more than 350,000, depending on how you count and whose data you trust. That’s a slight decline from last quarter at a time when EV sales need to be accelerating.
What caused the slump, and what can be done about it? And could hybrids or plug-in hybrids help solve the problem? In this week’s episode, Rob and Jesse chat with Corey Cantor, an EV analyst at BloombergNEF. They talk about Tesla’s spiraling problems, whether Detroit can pull its EV strategy together, and whether plug-in hybrids can co-exist with a climate strategy. Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a Princeton professor of energy systems engineering.
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Here is an excerpt from our conversation:
Robinson Meyer: The PHEV story is really interesting here, and the hybrid story is interesting here, because three years ago, four years ago, Toyota was talking about how hybrids and plug-in hybrids were going to be the bridge for consumers. And what we have seen is that plug-in hybrid and hybrid sales have increased.
Now, what’s funny is that Toyota has actually not really been selling those plug-in hybrids. It’s like a Stellantis story, right? It’s Jeep. Ford sells a very expensive plug-in hybrid. Toyota actually doesn’t sell plug-in hybrids. In fact, if Toyota made more plug-in hybrids, if they made more Prius Primes, this amazing-looking recent car for them — it’s a plug-in hybrid — then they would sell them. But they don’t make enough. So Toyota has kind of won this discursive cycle, but not actually made the plug-in hybrids that they were advocating for, you know, two or three years ago.
Jesse Jenkins: Yeah. I mean, if you look at the numbers, about half of all the plug-in hybrids sold are Stellantis vehicles, right? Across the Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge, and Alfa Romeo brands, they don’t sell hybrids. They only sell plug-in hybrids. And they also don’t sell any, BEVs yet, either. They’re coming, later than the end of this year, probably, their first U.S. battery electric vehicle.
So, you know, Stellantis’ only offerings right now are a set of plug-in hybrids, and they’ve been selling them very effectively, partly because I think the tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act make them very competitively priced relative to the conventional Jeep or, Chrysler Pacifica minivan, or whatever else you’re looking at in the market. Why not get the plug-in hybrid, even if you don’t plug it in?
But if you look at it, so they’ve sold about 46,000 plug-in hybrids in the first quarter of the year. Toyota, who talks about it more than anybody, only sold 11,600. So they sold like a quarter as many as Stellantis did —
Meyer: Which is so crazy because also, the Toyota plug-in hybrids are great. They’re awesome cars. They should be making more of them!
Jenkins: Yes, they should be selling 50,000 of them a quarter.
Meyer: Yeah, exactly. But they treat them — it’s so funny. The Toyota plug-in hybrids are central to the Toyota argument, and then they treat them like compliance cars. They don't make enough, even though they’re like, this is what consumers want.
And it’s funny: They were right. That is seemingly what consumers want. And it does seem like the availability of BEVs has like defanged plug-in hybrids and hybrids for consumers in a way that maybe we didn’t expect. Toyota’s not making them. It’s like they won the discourse cycle, but they’re not actually selling vehicles.
Jenkins: Yeah. I mean, Toyota Group and Honda are really the undisputed kings or queens of hybrid electric vehicles. They sell far more than anybody else. But on the plug-in side, Stellantis is the No. 1 by far. They’re like half of the market, just themselves.
Corey Cantor: I was just going to say, to Rob’s point on just how much better the Toyota plug-in hybrids are, they’re getting 40-mile electric range between the Prius Prime and the RAV4 Prime — which by the way: RAV4, Model Y, you could have a RAV4 Prime-Model Y-off every quarter if Toyota was selling enough of those.
For those Stellantis PHEVs, the other one that’s big is the Chrysler Pacifica minivan, which, I know how much you guys love your minivans, here. Those are in the low 20-mileage. So what you’ve seen policymakers in California advocate for is really going towards a 50-mile minimum to begin to count PHEVs in what's called Advanced Clean Cars II. Which, in the kind of conventional popular media is often referred to as California’s ban of gas cars, which actually isn’t a ban of gas cars because even in 2035, you could sell 20% PHEVs if they meet a 50-mile electric range minimum.
My hope, from a climate standpoint, is if PHEVs are going to be a part of the story — and again, data-wise, they’re just not in the U.S. In some European countries ... or BYD, for example, you see 50-50 split between BEV and PHEV. Here, it’s remained 80-20.
Just better PHEVs — just automakers delivering better PHEVs with 40[-mile] all-electric range, or 50[-mile]. I do think Hyundai and Kia might move in that direction, where they’re delivering those better PHEVs over time. But not to just take the, kind of, spin on them, and just say, wow, because Toyota or whatever automaker says PHEVs are great, that consumers should buy them. The PHEVs now just aren’t as good as they should be, and they can be better, and automakers can still make a profit off of it.
It’s one of those big myths, where it’s like, you see so many people say, “Have you considered a PHEV?” And it’s like, which PHEV? Because it’s really just the Jeep Wrangler and the Pacifica.
This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by…
KORE Power provides the commercial, industrial, and utility markets with functional solutions that advance the clean energy transition worldwide. KORE Power's technology and manufacturing capabilities provide direct access to next generation battery cells, energy storage systems that scale to grid+, EV power & infrastructure, and intuitive asset management to unlock energy strategies across a myriad of applications. Explore more at korepower.com.
Watershed’s climate data engine helps companies measure and reduce their emissions, turning the data they already have into an audit-ready carbon footprint backed by the latest climate science. Get the sustainability data you need in weeks, not months. Learn more at watershed.com.
Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.
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