You’re out of free articles.
Log in
To continue reading, log in to your account.
Create a Free Account
To unlock more free articles, please create a free account.
Sign In or Create an Account.
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Welcome to Heatmap
Thank you for registering with Heatmap. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our lives, a force reshaping our economy, our politics, and our culture. We hope to be your trusted, friendly, and insightful guide to that transformation. Please enjoy your free articles. You can check your profile here .
subscribe to get Unlimited access
Offer for a Heatmap News Unlimited Access subscription; please note that your subscription will renew automatically unless you cancel prior to renewal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. We will let you know in advance of any price changes. Taxes may apply. Offer terms are subject to change.
Subscribe to get unlimited Access
Hey, you are out of free articles but you are only a few clicks away from full access. Subscribe below and take advantage of our introductory offer.
subscribe to get Unlimited access
Offer for a Heatmap News Unlimited Access subscription; please note that your subscription will renew automatically unless you cancel prior to renewal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. We will let you know in advance of any price changes. Taxes may apply. Offer terms are subject to change.
Create Your Account
Please Enter Your Password
Forgot your password?
Please enter the email address you use for your account so we can send you a link to reset your password:
If not, it has a big problem — because that’s still how it makes money.
We may never get a super affordable Tesla.
The electric-car maker has canceled its longstanding plan to build a $25,000 vehicle, usually called the Model 2, Reuters reported on Friday, killing a product that was — until today — thought to be central to the company’s growth.
Heatmap was unable to independently confirm Reuters’ reporting. Tesla does not have a traditional communications office, and an email to a generic press address went unanswered. Tesla’s stock was down more than 3% when markets closed.
But the cancellation, if true, is an earthquake. For years, Tesla has told investors that its path to becoming a mass-market auto brand ran through building ever-cheaper cars. At the center of that story was Tesla’s forthcoming $25,000 car, an accessible vehicle that would allow electric vehicles to compete with the cheapest gas-powered new cars on price.
But with the $25,000 car canceled, Tesla’s future as a car company is now a question mark.
Tesla has denied the reporting. In a post on the social network X, Elon Musk said: “Reuters is lying (again).” He later added: “Reuters is dying.”
Musk is not nearly as trustworthy as a normal CEO might be: He has a long history of posting evasions and untruths. The Reuters story cites internal emails and memos from Tesla substantiating the cancellation. According to the report, Tesla’s managers told employees and outside suppliers to stop all work on the project in early March. The company is still planning to build a self-driving “robotaxi,” the story said, an electric car with no steering wheel that will work entirely on the carmaker’s Full Self Driving technology and which was supposed to be built on the same platform as the Model 2. Several hours after the story’s release, Musk claimed on X that the robotaxi would debut on August 8.
But with the robotaxi lies Tesla’s first big problem. The Full Self Driving software is plagued with problems and is generally not thought to be safe for full-time operation; after a recall last year, Tesla now counsels owners that the driving software should be “supervised.” Earlier this year, The Washington Post reported that a Tesla recruiter was using the Full Self Driving feature when his car ran off the road and struck a tree, killing him, in Colorado in 2022.
Teslas, in other words, are not fully self-driving, and it’s not clear that with their current autonomous technology — which relies entirely on cameras and computer vision — they ever will be. (Alphabet’s successfully self-driving Waymos, which are already on the road in California and Arizona, use a more expensive setup that requires Lidar sensors and GPS maps.) Those technological shortcomings raise fairly obvious questions about how viable a robotaxi without a steering wheel might actually be.
For years, observers could talk themselves into ignoring those problems because the mass-market Model 2 was on its way. Tesla seemed to have struck some kind of internal bargain whereby it would try to build a hyper-affordable electric car (the project that seemed to motivate many non-Musk employees) on the same chassis and platform that it would use for the robotaxi (the project that clearly motivates Musk). With the cheap car canceled, however, only the problematic robotaxi remains. One way to read the canceled Model 2, in other words, is that Musk has taken total control over the company’s strategic planning and no longer cares to hedge any of his bets.
That’s a critical problem for Tesla, because Musk holds lots of jobs. He is the CEO and product architect at Tesla; the CEO and chief engineer at SpaceX; the owner, CTO, and executive chairman at X; and the founder or cofounder of the Boring Company, xAI, and Neuralink. At best, Musk has been distracted. The mainstays of Tesla’s line-up — the Model 3, Model Y, and Model X — have gone years without a major update. The Cybertruck went on sale last year, but Tesla has struggled to scale up its production; Musk has gone so far as to say that “we dug our own grave” with the Cybertruck. On top of that, the stainless steel behemoth isn’t exactly new: It debuted in 2019, just a few months after Tesla announced the Model Y crossover.
That aging line-up has started to hit Tesla’s financials. From January to March, it sold only 386,810 vehicles, many fewer than analysts expected and 9% below what it sold during the same period a year earlier. It also produced 47,000 more cars than it sold, suggesting that it is beginning to hit the limits of consumer demand for its current menu of cars. Now, it has seemingly canceled the cheapest product in its pipeline, suggesting that it will need to survive for several more years with no new toys to speak of.
“For four to five years, they haven’t worked on anything that they plan to put out. For a car company, you don’t see that,” Corey Cantor, an EV analyst at the market research firm BNEF, told me.
That failure will reverberate around the world. For now, it means that the entry-level electric vehicle market remains securely in the hands of Chinese companies. The vertically integrated automaker BYD has grabbed headlines and terrified Detroit with its $9,000 electric Seagull hatchback, but it is only one of many potential firms vying in the space. The Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi says that it has received more than 100,000 orders for its $29,000 SU7 sedan, which debuted last week. The Chinese automakers Nio, Geely, and Great Wall have their own electric models. Without a sub-$30,000 Tesla, these electric models will compete — for now — primarily with gas-burning sedans like the Toyota Camry or Honda Civic.
In the American car market, where almost no Chinese brands operate, the consequences will be different. According to BNEF’s analysis, a big share of the new car market will be won by whatever company can sell an EV for $30,000 to $37,000, Cantor told me. “There’s basically 36% of the market that [Tesla] is unable to reach today,” because it doesn’t sell a Model 3 for much less than $38,000, Cantor said. (Going below $30,000 unlocks only a final 13% of the market, he said.)
Hyundai and Kia, which when taken together make up the country’s No. 2 best-selling EV brand, will be able to grab even more market share from Tesla. (Why treat them as one entity? Hyundai owns 40% of Kia, and the companies collaborate closely on vehicle design and engineering.) Hyundai already sells the market’s cheapest electric SUV, the Kona Electric, which starts at $34,050. Tesla’s Model Y crossover, by comparison, is $37,490 after a federal tax credit is applied. When Kia opens a factory in Georgia later this year, it should qualify for more tax credits, potentially letting it sell a car approaching the $30,000 mark.
Tesla may still be planning to drive down the cost of its Model 3 sedan, which today starts at $38,990. But the fact that Hyundai and Kia exist, frankly, somewhat blunts what Tesla’s failure means for decarbonization. Although it would of course be good for more companies to sell uber-accessible EVs, the marketplace should have options even if Tesla stumbles.
So perhaps the biggest question is what lies ahead for Tesla as a company. With a market cap of half a trillion dollars, even after multiple substantial sell-offs, Tesla remains the world’s most valuable car company; it is priced like a tech company, with its shares selling for 38 times its earnings. (Ford’s stock, by comparison, is a mere 12 times the size of its earnings.)
Adam Jonas, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, has argued that Tesla will evolve away from being a car company; its energy storage and charging businesses seem to be going decently. For his sake, Musk has described the company as between “two waves” of growth, with the next big swell coming next year as new cars go on sale.
But far more concerning, Cantor said, is the possibility that Tesla finds itself stranded between two business strategies. Tesla no longer has the prestige of a luxury brand like Mercedes or BMW, and its purportedly high-end Model S can’t match the specs of a Lucid Air or Porsche Taycan sedan. If it can’t compete with a low-margin, more volume-oriented carmaker like Toyota, Volkswagen, or BYD, either, it might soon be stuck in the middle of the EV market, defending an eye-watering share price with no new arrows in its quiver. Anyone in that position might be expected to have some range anxiety.
Log in
To continue reading, log in to your account.
Create a Free Account
To unlock more free articles, please create a free account.
Can Musk pull another market miracle out of his MAGA hat?
It’s long been clear that Elon Musk’s primary talent is not dreaming up electric cars, reusable rockets, or tunnel-boring machines. It is reshaping reality in a way that always seems to keep Tesla’s stock price high, which made him the world’s richest man.
That stock price has been taking a beating of late. A groundswell of Tesla resentment has arisen since Musk hitched his wagon to Donald Trump and began dismantling the American government. Public rage has taken the form of protests, vandalized Superchargers, and, most importantly to the man himself, sliding sales of Tesla vehicles. All of this has combined to send the company’s market value tumbling this year, to the delight of Musk-haters everywhere eager to see his net worth implode. Its share price has fallen more than 5% today alone.
Even so, Musk carries on as Trump’s right-hand man as if his fortunes are immune from Tesla’s ups and downs. Could this time be different?
Tesla saw plenty of dark times during its march to EV dominance, such as the notorious “manufacturing hell” needed to bring the Model 3 to fruition. Likewise, there have been plenty of times when Tesla’s soaring stock valuation appeared to be untethered from its business reality — it became the world’s most valuable automaker while building only a tiny fraction as many cars as Toyota or General Motors.
The difference in those days was that Tesla — current profits and losses aside — was clearly on the rise. Overcoming that manufacturing problem, for example, allowed the EV-maker to build lots and lots of Model 3s and Model Y and put it on the path to worldwide electric car dominance. Today that upward trajectory is not so clear. Tesla sales in the U.S. plateaued last year even before Elon’s misadventures with MAGA. This year, sales in Europe and Australia are in freefall, seemingly in response to Musk’s embrace of the far right. Tesla is down 71% this quarter in Germany and Australia.
It would be easier for Tesla to cast this dip as a blip if something new and exciting were waiting right over the horizon. But the only new vehicle to arrive since 2020 is the Cybertruck, the metallic embodiment of Musk’s conversion on the road to Mar-a-Lago. The brand’s biggest hope for improving sales is the recently revealed redesign of the Model Y, code-named “Juniper,” which follows a similar update to the Model 3.
The company’s future is pegged not to any new EV with widespread appeal, but rather to the notion that Tesla will solve autonomous driving and dominate the next automotive era with its Cybercab and similar self-driving vehicles. Whether Musk will actually win the future is beside the point. What it achieves in the present is freeing Musk from being judged on hard sales numbers like an ordinary car company CEO and keeping him in the character of visionary innovator, able to keep his stock price afloat through his own genius.
That doesn’t mean Musk can dismiss the power of dollars and cents with a wave of his hand. Investors are once again furious with the CEO for taking a ketamine-powered journey into the abyss rather than trying to build Tesla’s business in a practical way. And even if he can keep their anger at bay, a sales tumble really is a multi-pronged problem for Tesla.
For one thing, Musk’s political machinations have cost him all the market gains he earned via Trump’s electoral victory. Tesla’s valuation soared from around $800 billion to $1.5 trillion in December, when it became clear the CEO would become the president-elect’s right hand man. Since that moment, the company’s value has fallen by more than $600 million, effectively erasing the bump in Tesla’s market cap.
Still, Tesla — and Musk by extension — remains incredibly valuable. The carmaker’s true concern is that a big drop in sales could be a double-whammy for Tesla revenue. Recall that the company’s most reliable revenue stream is not really its sales of electric cars, but rather the carbon credits generated by those EVs under California’s auto emissions regulatory scheme, which it can sell to other automakers who’ve yet to meet their emissions targets. Even as Tesla’s reputation foundered in 2024, its revenue stream from selling credits reached $2.76 billion, up 50% from 2023.
That stream of free money helps to stabilize Tesla’s balance sheet in times of trouble. It is not inevitable. If automakers like Stellantis got their act together and started to sell a high volume of low-emissions vehicles, they’d need to buy fewer credits from Tesla. Tesla’s tumbling sales in the wake of Musk’s antics could reduce the amount of credits it could sell to others, since the credits are tied to sales of low-emissions vehicles. And it’s not out of the question that Musk’s political ally, President Trump, could attack the carbon market as part of his offensive against EVs, which could eliminate this revenue stream for Tesla. (If this seems unlikely, consider that Musk pursued this alliance knowing full well that Trump campaigned on eliminating federal tax credits for EVs that benefit Tesla buyers.)
Even with this dire financial picture, it’d be foolish to bet against Musk. The man has overcome more harrowing market conditions — and that was before America’s unelected chief consultant managed to entrench himself as Hand of the King. But seeing his supply of easy money wither because of his political stances might be just the thing to hit the man where it hurts.
On exemptions, lots of new EVs, and Cyclone Alfred
Current conditions: A smattering of rainfall did little to contain a massive wildfire raging in Japan • Indonesia is using cloud seeding to try to stop torrential rains that have displaced thousands • At least 22 tornadoes have been confirmed this week across southern states.
The Trump administration said yesterday that automakers will be exempt from the new 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada – but just for a month. The announcement followed a meeting between administration officials and the heads of Stellantis, GM, and Ford – oh, to be a fly on the wall. As Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer explained, the tariffs are expected to spike new car prices by $4,000 to $10,000, and could hit internal combustion cars even worse than EVs, and prompt layoffs at Ford and GM. “At the request of the companies associated with [the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement], the president is giving them an exemption for one month so they are not at an economic disadvantage,” Trump said in a statement. Stellantis thanked Trump for the reprieve and said the company “share[s] the president’s objective to build more American cars and create lasting American jobs.” Around 40% of Stellantis cars currently sold in the U.S. are imported from Canada and Mexico.
The Supreme Court has rejected President Trump’s request to withhold roughly $2 billion in congressionally-approved payments to the U.S. Agency for International Development for foreign aid work that has already been completed. On his first day back in office, Trump ordered a 90-day pause on all foreign aid so programs could be reviewed to ensure they align with his agenda. The administration then eliminated funding for the majority of USAID’s contracts, including at least 130 that related to climate and/or clean energy. This week’s SCOTUS decision was “a welcome but confusing development for humanitarian and development organizations around the world,” The New York Timesreported, “as they waited to see if thousands of canceled contracts would be restarted.”
Speaking of cars, there has been a lot of EV news in the last few days:
Rivian announced plans to expand internationally. CFO Claire McDonough also said the company is working “around the clock” to roll out the new R2, R3, and R3X models, with production for the R2 set to start early next year. She said international expansion plans would kick off after the R2 production ramps up.
Volkswagen unveiled the ID. EVERY1. The concept-car version of its ultra-affordable EV “will be the first to roll out with software and architecture from Rivian,” TechCrunchreported. Production is slated for 2027, and the car will start at around 20,000 euros (or $21,500). No word on a U.S. release, though.
The ID. EVERY1Volkswagen
Volvo showed off the ES90. What is it? Good question. “Some might say it is a sedan,” the company said in its press release. “Others will see a fastback, or even hints of an SUV. We’ll let you be the final judge – all we know is that the new, fully electric Volvo ES90 carves out a new space for itself by eliminating the compromises between those three segments, which puts it in a class of its own.” InsideEVscalled it the company’s “most advanced EV to date,” because it can charge for 186 miles of range in 10 minutes on a fast charger.
Cadillac introduced a very long electric SUV. The electric Escalade IQL will go into production this year. With an overall length of 228.5 inches, it will be the longest SUV, uh, ever. It’ll start at $132,695.
On a related note, Tesla sales continue to plummet worldwide. They were down 76% last month in Germany, with sharp declines across other European countries, too. In Australia, sales were down 72%.
Global sea ice levels were at an all-time low last month, according to researchers at the Copernicus Climate Change Service. Arctic sea ice cover was 8% below average in February, the lowest since records began in 1979, and “the third consecutive month in which the sea ice extent has set a record for the corresponding month.” Antarctic sea ice cover was 26% below average. “One of the consequences of a warmer world is melting sea ice, and the record or near-record low sea ice cover at both poles has pushed global sea ice cover to an all-time minimum,” said Samantha Burgess at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. Melting sea ice contributes to sea level rise and ocean acidification, harms polar ecosystems, and creates a global-warming feedback loop by reducing albedo, which is the Earth’s ability to reflect sunlight back to space.
C3S
Forecasters are growing increasingly concerned about Cyclone Alfred, which is swirling off the coast of eastern Australia and is expected to arrive Friday or Saturday as a category 2 storm, or perhaps even a category 3. Alfred will be the first cyclone in 50 years to make landfall in this part of Australia. The storm has slowed as it approaches land, which means it will spend more time over very warm waters, soaking up even more moisture to dump on land. “The northeastern Coral Sea, where Cyclone Alfred formed, experienced the fourth-hottest temperatures on record for February and the hottest on record for January,” a group of climate change researchers wrote at The Conversation. Residents in and around Brisbane have been told to prepare to evacuate.
American drivers spent more time on the road last year than ever before, logging a record 3.28 trillion miles.
On boasts and brags, clean power installations, and dirty air
Current conditions: Strong winds helped spark dozens of fires across parched Texas • India’s Himalayan state of Uttarakhand experienced a 600% rise in precipitation over 24 hours, which triggered a deadly avalanche • The world’s biggest iceberg, which has been drifting across the Southern Ocean for 5 years, has run aground.
President Trump addressed Congress last night in a wide-ranging speech boasting about the actions taken during his first five weeks in office. There were some familiar themes: He claimed to have “ended all of [former President] Biden’s environmental restrictions” (false) and the “insane electric vehicle mandate” (also false — no such thing has ever existed), and bragged about withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement (true). He also doubled down on his plan to boost U.S. fossil fuel production while spouting false statements about the Biden administration’s energy policies, and suggested that Japan and South Korea want to team up with the U.S. to build a “gigantic” natural gas pipeline in Alaska.
On the same day as the speech, new tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China came into effect, triggering retaliatory duties and causing stock markets to plunge. Experts are busy trying to figure out what it all means for American businesses and consumers. As Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer explained, the tariffs are likely to make electricity prices go up, raise construction costs, make gas more expensive at the pump, and make new cars costlier. Fossil fuel firms aren’t thrilled. The American Gas Association said the 10% tariff on Canadian natural gas “indicates potential impacts totaling at least $1.1 billion in additional costs to American consumers per year.” Chet Thompson, CEO of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, said that “imposing tariffs on energy, refined products, and petrochemical imports will not make us more energy secure or lower costs for consumers.”
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has implied Trump might lift these tariffs as soon as today, but TBD.
The Trump administration has ended a program that monitored the air quality at more than 80 U.S. embassies and consulates around the world, citing “budget constraints.” The program started in 2008 with the U.S. embassy in Beijing and expanded from there. The data collected, which was posted on the AirNow website, has been used in academic studies and credited with helping reduce pollution levels in the host countries, leading to better health outcomes. This move “puts the health of foreign service officers at risk” and could hinder research and policy, Dan Westervelt, a research professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, toldThe New York Times.
Clean power installations soared in the fourth quarter of 2024, sending total operational capacity above and beyond the 300 gigawatt mark, according to a new report from the American Clean Power Association. “It took more than 20 years for the U.S. to install the first 100 GW of clean power, five years to install the next 100 GW, and three years to install the most recent 100 GW,” the report says. Here are some takeaways:
ACPA
China plans to ramp up its efforts to rein in emissions, expanding its emissions trading system beyond power plants to to include industries such as steel, aluminum, and cement, Premier Li Qiang said in a report this week. “Li also confirmed China intends to continue to play a key role in diplomacy on emissions reduction, as the U.S. retreats from international cooperation,” Bloombergreported. The country plans to roll out major climate projects such as offshore wind farms, “new energy bases” across its deserts, with a goal of reaching peak emissions before 2030. China is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and while it has been rapidly expanding renewable power generation, it also struggles to wean itself off coal.
The Supreme Court yesterday watered down the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate water pollution, siding with the city of San Francisco in an unusual lawsuit pitting the liberal hub against the environmental authority. In a 5-4 decision, the justices said the agency had overstepped its authority under the Clean Water Act when it issued permitting for a San Francisco wastewater treatment plant that empties into the Pacific. The permit included provisions that would have made San Francisco authorities responsible for ensuring the water quality in the Pacific met EPA standards. Justice Samuel Alito essentially wrote that the permitting rules were too vague. “When a permit contains such requirements, a permittee that punctiliously follows every specific requirement in its permit may nevertheless face crushing penalties if the quality of the water in its receiving waters falls below the applicable standards,” Alito wrote. The ruling will make it harder for the EPA to limit water pollution. Next up on the SCOTUS docket: nuclear waste!
Bernard Looney, the former CEO of oil giant BP, is the new boss of an AI startup that tells businesses how to cut their emissions.