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Sparks

EV Sales Just Hit Their Highest Level Ever in the U.S.

Jacob Lambert •
11/27/2023
A Tesla dealership.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

In case you needed more convincing that buyers still like EVs just fine, sales of electric and hybrid light-duty vehicles in the U.S. rose to their highest-ever level in the third quarter of 2023, according to data released Monday by Wards Intelligence. Electric-powered vehicles (including those that are hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and purely battery-powered) made up 17.7% of all light-duty vehicle sales during that time period, while sales of gas-powered light duty vehicles fell to an all-time low of 82%.

The diverging trends were driven in part by falling prices for cleaner cars. The average cost of a battery-powered light-duty vehicle was just a hair over $50,000 in the quarter, well below their peak of $66,390 from the second quarter of 2022. That said, the numbers show that for most people, cleaner driving is still a luxurious experience — thanks in part to brands like Tesla and Rivian, battery-electric vehicles now make up 34% of the total luxury vehicle market, but are still just 2% of non-luxury sales.

For EVs to gain true mainstream adoption, those numbers will have to change. As Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo recently pointed out, most of the top EV-purchasing counties in America are among the country’s wealthiest, and existing research points to a correlation between income and EV early adopter status.

Regardless of who’s buying, though, the overall numbers are good. So far in 2023, 15.8% of light-duty vehicles sold were hybrids or EVs, up from 12.3% in 2022, and 8.5% in 2021. Numbers like these point to real momentum in the clean-driving space. As Jesse Jenkins wrote recently for Heatmap, all-electric vehicle sales have grown by roughly a 60% annualized rate for the past six quarters — that’s “fast enough to double EV sales every 14 months!”

I’m not saying EVs don’t face real obstacles in the consumer marketplace, from a lack of charging stations to partisan rancor to comically bad design. But if these numbers aren’t enough to make you feel at least a little bit of excitement, that’s on you.

Jacob Lambert profile image

Jacob Lambert

Jacob is Heatmap's founding multimedia editor. Before joining Heatmap, he was The Week's digital art director and an associate editor at MAD magazine.

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Sparks

Koloma Strikes New Hydrogen Exploration Deal in the Philippines

The deal, shared exclusively with Heatmap, is the startup’s third in the oil-importing country.

Ameya Hadap •
07/23/2026
A Koloma worker.
Heatmap Illustration/Koloma, Getty Images

Hydrogen fuel comes in myriad forms. There’s green hydrogen, which is extracted from water molecules using zero-carbon electricity. There’s blue hydrogen, derived from methane and scrubbed clean by carbon capture. And then there’s white hydrogen. Otherwise known as natural or geologic hydrogen, this type of hydrogen comes directly from naturally occurring deposits in the earth, can accumulate in considerable quantities and concentrations, and is highly energy-efficient to extract compared to manufacturing pathways such as electrolyzers and steam methane reforming.

It’s a seductive promise, but finding deposits with enough hydrogen to make the economics of exploration work is difficult. That’s where Koloma comes in. The startup uses a bespoke subsurface data set, which its founders developed over 20-plus years, to flag the areas most likely to hold sufficient hydrogen, after which they can extract it for power and derivative fuels.

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Yellow
Sparks

Data Centers Will Use Enough Electricity to Power Every U.S. Household by 2035

The latest forecast from BloombergNEF raises its estimate for AI electricity demand by 83%.

Trisha Gupta •
07/21/2026
A data center and power lines.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Energy analysts at BloombergNEF predicted last year that U.S. data center electricity demand would reach 106 gigawatts within the next decade. In its latest outlook, released Tuesday, the group increased its forecast by 83%, to 194 gigawatts — enough to light up 150 million homes, or roughly every single household in the country today.

Even that may be a conservative estimate. If data center developers were to max out the total number of the high-powered chips used to train and operate AI models forecast to be delivered by 2035, electricity demand would reach 229 gigawatts.

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Green
Sparks

Microsoft Sustainability Chief Hounded by Protestors at Seattle Climate Week

“Microsoft, you can’t hide, we can see your dirty side!”

Katie Brigham •
07/17/2026
Melanie Nakagawa.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images, Katie Brigham

Protestors interrupted one of the final sessions of PNW Climate Week — a conference that brings together climate leaders across Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia — objecting to Microsoft’s rising carbon emissions from data centers and partnerships with oil and gas companies. The company’s Chief Sustainability Officer Melanie Nakagawa was having a one on one conversation with GeekWire climate reporter Lisa Stiffler at Seattle’s City Hall when protestors carrying signs reading “Microsoft’s AI pollutes” and other slogans began shouting from the audience.

I was there, having just moderated the prior panel on how to finance Washington’s clean energy ambitions. Early on there were some rumblings in the crowd from up front. “Climate leaders don’t build gas pipelines in Moses Lake,” was the first objection I heard clearly. It came shortly after Nakagawa kicked off the conversation by highlighting Microsoft’s partnership with sustainable aviation fuel startup Twelve, which recently opened its first commercial-scale SAF plant in Moses Lake, Washington. The tech giant has supported the project through a strategic investment from its Climate Innovation Fund, as well as an offtake agreement for the fuel that will help offset its emissions from employee travel.

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