Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Culture

I Regret to Inform You the Electrification of ‘Fast X’ Was Overblown

Still, wind turbines at least make an appearance.

Vin Diesel holding a charger.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images, IMP Awards

There is nothing like the release of a new Fast & Furious movie to remind you of the unforgiving and relentless march of time. Summer movie season officially kicks off this weekend with the chaotically titled Fast X hitting theaters, the first of a two-part finale that is intended to bring home the series that first started way back in the comparatively guilt-free gas-guzzling days of 2001 (admittedly, nothing is ever really over; at the very least, Fast & Furious spinoffs are reportedly on their way).

A lot has changed in the past two-plus decades of the franchise, much of it for the better. These days, tough action heroes say “sorry” more and apparently care about their carbon footprint. While it might be a stretch to call Dom Toretto a climate dad, fans staked out on the film set in Echo Park, Los Angeles, last fall leaked photos of a Dodge Daytona SRT EV concept car parked outside his house. A DeLorean Alpha5 prototype was also photographed at the scene; together, the cars marked the first EVs to be featured in the high-octane franchise. Car blogs breathlessly reported the news: “From V8 to EV: Vin Diesel Goes Green in Fast X,” reported GT Junkies. “Vin Diesel Shocks Fans with Electric Choice for Fast and Furious 10,” added Tesla Reporter. “The Electric and the Engineless?” wondered MotorTrend.

Despite these rumors, I can confirm the cars in Fast X still most certainly go vroom. The aforementioned EVs did make it into the final cut of the film — Dom keeps his Dodge inexplicably parked on the street and Cipher drives the DeLorean — but the extent of the cars’ purpose in the film is as gearhead Easter eggs. They’re not otherwise commented on by the characters nor do they get to enjoy any action scenes. For the film’s big chase sequence — which involves a round, rolling Indiana Jones-reminiscent bomb that chases after the heroes like it has a mind of its own — Dom opts instead to drive a Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Redeye widebody that runs on traditional dinosaur juice.

The Dodge Daytona SRT EV, in the lower righthand corner of the frame, is about as much of an EV as you’ll get to enjoy in Fast X.YouTube/The Fast Saga

Supposedly the Fast X production team wanted to have done more with the EVs. Dennis McCarthy, the car supervisor, told The Independent that the electric Dodge is “incredible” and “I wished we’d had a bit more time to put it into an action sequence,” while the film’s director geeked out over getting his hands on the DeLorean to Collider.

While some scolds have chided the film as furthering “car propaganda” (when in fact Fast & Furious is a fun, dumb symptom and not the disease), there’s a strange and subtle acknowledgment in Fast X that things are changing. Sure, the film starts with Dom teaching his son how to drive and musing that “each generation” ought to be “better than the last” (he means fatherhood, not eco-consciousness) — a bit of torch-passing that is befitting of the penultimate installment of a long-running franchise. But it seems like no mistake either that the film culminates with the gang’s cars weaving between wind turbines and climaxes with two gasoline tank trucks colliding against each other atop a hydroelectric dam.

Vin Diesel — a man who, we must remember, literally named himself after a fossil fuel — has fantasized about the 11th film’s big bad being a driverless-car-pushing technocrat. “The days where one man behind the wheel can make a difference are over,” one character even intones in Fast X, adding that maybe “the days of any man behind the wheel are over.” This is, of course, the great fear of the Fasterverse; the threat of losing the freedom of the open road, an end to the sacred bond between man and his (and occasionally her) machine.

But while Fast X is an absolutely absurd movie with no grounding whatsoever in any kind of human reason or physical logic — a film in which “I took the bus” is a gasp line, in which the final scene feels like it was choreographed by a kid playing with Hot Wheels (because it was), and in which Jason Momoa takes inspiration from both the Joker and Captain Jack Sparrow and somehow makes it work — it is also aware.

It knows the future is coming. It just might take a few more sequels to get there.

Green

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Energy

Data Centers Have Solved Their Speed-to-Power Problem — With Natural Gas

“Old economy” companies like Caterpillar and Williams are cashing in by selling smaller, less-efficient turbines to impatient developers.

Pipelines and a turbine.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

From the perspective of the stock market, you’re either in the AI business or you’re not. If you build the large language models pushing out the frontiers of artificial intelligence, investors love it. If you rent out the chips the large language models train on, investors love it. If you supply the servers that go in the data centers that power the large language models, investors love it. And, of course, if you design the chips themselves, investors love it.

But companies far from the software and semiconductor industry are profiting from this boom as well. One example that’s caught the market’s fancy is Caterpillar, better known for its scale-defying mining and construction equipment, which has become a “secular winner” in the AI boom, writes Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
AM Briefing

Geothermal Chill

On billions for clean energy, Orsted layoffs, and public housing heat pumps

Gavin Newsom.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: A tropical rainstorm is forming in the Atlantic that’s forecast to barrel along the East Coast through early next week, threatening major coastal flooding and power outages • Hurricane Priscilla is weakening as it tracks northward toward California • The Caucasus region is sweltering in summer-like heat, with the nation of Georgia enduring temperatures of up to 93 degrees Fahrenheit in October.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Two deals worth billions highlight a bright spot for clean energy

Base Power, the Texas power company that leases batteries to homeowners and taps the energy for the grid, on Tuesday announced a $1 billion financing round. The Series C funding is set to supercharge the Austin-based company’s meteoric growth. Since starting just two years ago, Base has deployed more than 100 megawatts of residential battery capacity, making it one of the fastest growing distributed energy companies in the nation. The company now plans to build a factory in the old headquarters of the Austin American-Statesman, the leading daily newspaper in the Texan capital. The funding round included major investors who are increasing their stakes, including Valor Equity Partners, Thrive Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz, and at least nine new venture capital investors, including Lowercarbon, Avenir, and Positive Sum. “The chance to reinvent our power system comes once in a generation,” Zach Dell, chief executive and co-founder of Base Power, said in a statement. “The challenge ahead requires the best engineers and operators to solve it and we’re scaling the team to make our abundant energy future a reality.”

Keep reading...Show less
Green
Ideas

China Can’t Decide if It Wants to Be the World’s First “Electrostate”

The country’s underwhelming new climate pledge is more than just bad news for the world — it reveals a serious governing mistake.

Xi Jinping.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Five years ago, China’s longtime leader Xi Jinping shocked and delighted the world by declaring in a video presentation to the United Nations that his country would peak its carbon emissions this decade and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. He tried to rekindle that magic late last month in another virtual address to the UN, announcing China’s updated pledge under the Paris Agreement.

This time, the reaction was far more tepid. Given the disastrous state of American climate policy under President Donald Trump, some observers declared — as the longtime expert Li Shuo did in The New York Timesthat China is “the adult in the room on climate now.” Most others were disappointed, arguing that China had merely “played it safe” and pointing out the new pledge “falls well short” of what’s needed to hit the Paris Agreement’s targets.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow