Sign In or Create an Account.

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

Electric Vehicles

Did Elon Musk Just Sack Tesla’s Entire Supercharger Team?

On the latest layoff reports, permitting reform, and coal plants

Did Elon Musk Just Sack Tesla’s Entire Supercharger Team?
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Floods in Saudi Arabia forced some schools to close • Nearly 50 fires were reported in Greece over 24 hours • Tornado alley could see more severe storms this afternoon.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Biden finalizes permitting reform rule

The Biden administration today finalized changes to an old environmental law, a move that could speed up the arduous permitting process for new clean energy projects. The 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires that all major federal infrastructure projects undergo an environmental review, but these reviews can run thousands of pages long and take years to finish, explained Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer, adding that “it takes 4.5 years on average to finish an environmental-impact statement.” Through the new Bipartisan Permitting Reform Implementation Rule, Biden seeks to make the process more efficient by:

  • setting one- and two-year deadlines by which agencies must complete environmental reviews
  • introducing page limits for the reviews
  • creating a unified federal review process
  • establishing one lead agency for handling reviews

The new rule says federal agencies must consider a project’s impacts on climate change, as well as environmental justice. It also reverses a 2020 overhaul carried out by former President Trump that the Biden administration called “legally questionable.” Brenda Mallory, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the changes “will help speed infrastructure and permitting, but without losing sight of the environmental and health benefits we need to protect.”

2. Report: Tesla eliminates entire Supercharger team

Two weeks after announcing it would slash 10% of its global workforce, Tesla appears to be making more cuts. According toThe Information, CEO Elon Musk sent an email to senior staffers last night with the news that several high-level employees would be departing. Among them is Rebecca Tinucci, senior director of EV charging, along with her 500-person Supercharger team. Tinucci led the rollout effort of Tesla’s Supercharger network, positioning it as the predominant charging infrastructure in North America. Daniel Ho, director of vehicle programs and new product initiatives, is also out, and the public policy team is no more.

“Hopefully these actions are making it clear that we need to be absolutely hard core about headcount and cost reduction,” Musk reportedly wrote in the email. “While some on exec staff are taking this seriously, most are not yet doing so.”

“It makes absolutely no sense to lay off the Supercharger team,” said Jameson Dow at Electrek. “Supercharging is an incredible opportunity for Tesla, especially now that everyone else has adopted NACS. … This move, alone, would erode any confidence I had left in Tesla’s CEO – if I still had any.”

3. Major UK mortgage lender will deny home loans over flooding

A prominent mortgage lender in the United Kingdom will no longer offer loans on homes that are at risk of flooding, Bloombergreported. Nationwide Building Society is UK’s the second-biggest mortgage provider, and is worried that flood-prone homes will become uninsurable and therefore unsellable. Weather-related insurance claims have been on the rise in the UK as climate change brings more frequent storms and severe flooding. The last 18 months have been the UK’s wettest on record. A new report finds that harvests of crops like wheat, barley, and oats in the country could drop by a fifth this year due to excessive rainfall.

4. Plastic treaty talks end with no production cap in sight

The latest meeting on a global plastics treaty has come to an end in Canada. While there was some meaningful progress on the draft text of an agreement (which must be finalized by the end of the year), deep divisions remain over whether the final text should include a cap on how much plastic can be manufactured. Environmental groups point out that plastic production has doubled in just 20 years and is set to triple in coming decades. Fossil fuel companies and oil-producing nations, naturally, prefer to promote plastic recycling instead of plastic reduction. As AFPexplained, “plastic production is a significant driver of global warming because most plastic is made from fossil fuels.”

5. G7 nations tentatively agree to phase out coal plants by 2035

Energy and climate ministers from the Group of Seven wealthy nations have agreed to shut down their coal-fired power plants by 2035. The deal is expected to be finalized in Turin, Italy, today. It could afford some wiggle room to countries that remain heavily reliant on coal, allowing them to propose a timeline that is “consistent with keeping a limit of 1.5 Celsius temperature rise within reach.” Still, the move is seen as historic. “To have the G7 nations come around the table and send that signal to the world, that we, the advanced economies of the world, are committing to phasing out coal by the early 2030s is quite incredible,” said the UK’s Minister for Nuclear and Renewables Andrew Bowie. As CNN noted, G7 decisions often “trickle down or influence the wider G20, which includes other big emitters, like China and India, as well as major fossil fuel producers, such as Saudi Arabia and Russia.”

THE KICKER

The land that makes up the Permian Basin, America’s biggest oil field, has subsided by as much as 11 inches since 2015 due to extraction operations.

Yellow

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
Q&A

You, Too, Can Protect Solar Panels Against Hail

A conversation with VDE Americas CEO Brian Grenko.

This week's interview subject.
Heatmap Illustration

This week’s Q&A is about hail. Last week, we explained how and why hail storm damage in Texas may have helped galvanize opposition to renewable energy there. So I decided to reach out to Brian Grenko, CEO of renewables engineering advisory firm VDE Americas, to talk about how developers can make sure their projects are not only resistant to hail but also prevent that sort of pushback.

The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Hotspots

The Pro-Renewables Crowd Gets Riled Up

And more of the week’s big fights around renewable energy.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Long Island, New York – We saw the face of the resistance to the war on renewable energy in the Big Apple this week, as protestors rallied in support of offshore wind for a change.

  • Activists came together on Earth Day to protest the Trump administration’s decision to issue a stop work order on Equinor’s Empire Wind project. It’s the most notable rally for offshore wind I’ve seen since September, when wind advocates protested offshore opponents at the Preservation Society of Newport County, Rhode Island.
  • Esther Rosario, executive director of Climate Jobs New York, told me the rally was intended to focus on the jobs that will be impacted by halting construction and that about a hundred people were at the rally – “a good half of them” union members or representing their unions.
  • “I think it’s important that the elected officials that are in both the area and at the federal level understand the humans behind what it means to issue a stop-work order,” she said.

2. Elsewhere on Long Island – The city of Glen Cove is on the verge of being the next New York City-area community with a battery storage ban, discussing this week whether to ban BESS for at least one year amid fire fears.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Spotlight

How a Carbon Pipeline Is Turning Iowa Against Wind

Long Islanders, meanwhile, are showing up in support of offshore wind, and more in this week’s edition of The Fight.

Iowa.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images, Library of Congress

Local renewables restrictions are on the rise in the Hawkeye State – and it might have something to do with carbon pipelines.

Iowa’s known as a renewables growth area, producing more wind energy than any other state and offering ample acreage for utility-scale solar development. This has happened despite the fact that Iowa, like Ohio, is home to many large agricultural facilities – a trait that has often fomented conflict over specific projects. Iowa has defied this logic in part because the state was very early to renewables, enacting a state portfolio standard in 1983, signed into law by a Republican governor.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow