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:
Electric vehicles are the future. But what if you can’t buy one now?

As unpredictable as world events have been recently, very few people would’ve put money on the humble Toyota Prius getting a stunning makeover for 2023. Somehow, that’s exactly what happened. Now the all-new, fifth-generation Prius hybrid boasts sleek, almost sports-car-like looks to go with its impressive 57 miles per gallon.
The Prius will need every advantage it can muster. Its sales have been down for years, and hybrid cars also feel almost anachronistic compared to the new crop of high-range, high-performance electric vehicles hitting the market. Why go hybrid when you’re about to have more options than ever when it comes to breaking up with gasoline entirely?
Even the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act seems to be reinforcing this idea. While the act modernized how EV and plug-in hybrid tax credits work, regular hybrids without plugs have been left out in the cold. In other words, if you want an American-made EV like a Ford F-150 Lightning, you now qualify for a $7,500 tax break; but if you want a hybrid F-150 or Maverick pickup truck, you’re out of luck because those don’t have plugs.
Furthermore, the hybrid — long the standard-bearer for eco-friendly driving — seems to have a target on its back. “Hybrid cars are still incredibly popular, but are they good for the environment?,” NPR wondered in February, probably much to the chagrin of listeners, many of whom have enjoyed “All Things Considered" while commuting in their own hybrids.
This is all deeply unfortunate, especially given how quickly we need to reduce emissions to avoid the worst outcomes of climate change. Whether there's a plug or not is also the wrong way to think about hybrids.
There’s still a strong case to be made for hybrids today. But let’s be clear about what that case isn’t: an argument for extending the internal combustion era or to slow-walk EV adoption. Rather, hybrids can and should be seen as an essential tool for reducing vehicle emissions right now, and as cars that still have tremendous advantages EVs don’t have yet.
The auto industry’s move toward zero-emission vehicles is now basically inevitable. But there’s still a long way to go. In the interim, cars that pair electricity and gasoline can play a vital role in making the air cleaner and serving as a gateway drug for widespread EV adoption.
For a long time, the primary appeal of a hybrid car was that it would help you save money on gas. But they do much more than that. The science is clear: Hybrid vehicles generate fewer tailpipe emissions than their all-gasoline counterparts, and obviously none when running only on electricity. In fact, 2021 data from the U.S. Department of Energy indicates hybrids produce about half the carbon dioxide on average that fully internal-combustion cars do. The numbers are even better for plug-in hybrids.
Of course, battery EVs fare the best; the only emissions they’re tied to are related to vehicle and battery production and charging. If your goal with your next car purchase is to cut down on CO2, this is a superb way to do so.
As for plug-in hybrids, those have gotten a bad rap in recent years with various studies (especially out of Europe) claiming they pollute much more than automakers advertise. Certainly, that wouldn’t be the car industry’s first rodeo when it comes to greasing emissions — remember Dieselgate?
One thing that hasn’t made headlines is the fact that in Europe, many corporations took advantage of government subsidies to buy PHEVs for their corporate fleets, but company car owners often didn’t charge them. The result is a heavier car, thanks to its additional batteries, that isn’t being used as intended.
The moral of this story: If you drive a PHEV, make sure to plug it in so that it can be driven in all-electric mode properly. The average PHEV gets between 20 and 40 miles of electric range, and given that most Americans drive around 40 miles a day on average, you may be surprised how much gasoline you don’t end up using.
You have more options than ever before when it comes to EVs, and things will get even better in the years to come. Just about every automaker is planning an aggressive EV rollout across multiple categories — trucks, vans, even convertibles — and multiple price points. Electric range is getting better, and thanks to the IRA, EVs built in North America will come with enticing tax credits. Starting next year, those credits will even be applied at the point of sale at the dealership, so you won’t even need to wait on a tax return to reap the benefits.
But there’s still a lot of daylight between where the EV market is now and where it will go next. America’s public charging network is woefully inadequate and many providers offer an infamously subpar experience. Few good charging solutions exist for city dwellers and those who live in apartments. (In fact, I’ve been seeing more and more EVs here in New York charged by 100-foot extension cords running out of windows, which is suboptimal for countless reasons.) Whether you’re into road trips or not, long distances remain a challenge for many EVs too, thanks to these network issues.
Tesla still has objectively the best charging network and it’s opening up to other EVs, but that’s a ways off. So is the network expansion that will be driven by the IRA’s incentives.
Then there's the fact the best EVs are comparatively hard to buy. Many of the really in-demand new EVs — the Mustang Mach-E, the Hyundai Ioniq 5, and the Kia EV6 — are tough to find and still impacted by supply chain issues. If you want a car with great range, a beautiful interior, and excellent range, get in line. Now, to be fair, supply remains super weird across the whole automotive industry, but the most desirable electric cars still seem to have among the longest lines.
EVs remain expensive as well, even by modern standards; by late last year, the average EV was priced around $65,000, around $20,000 more than a typical new vehicle's price tag. That too should change as batteries get cheaper and more options come to market, but for now, going electric could mean sticker shock, too — especially if your EV does not qualify for the new tax breaks.
In other words, it should get much easier to be an EV owner in the next few years. Until then, if these barriers to entry are too onerous, consider a hybrid instead.
There’s also the unfortunate matter of how “green” our electricity really is. Recently, Polestar and Rivian — two companies with every incentive to get you to buy their EVs — jointly commissioned a study that urged a dramatic increase in renewable energy powering both the automotive supply chain and electricity sources in order for these vehicles to be maximally effective at deterring climate change.
EVs alone will not be enough to reduce the harmful effects of the transportation sector. While it’s hard to say “be patient” when we directly experience climate change, we must realize that making changes that should’ve happened decades ago will be a process.
Until then, there’s great value in doing whatever can be done to reduce CO2 emissions, and driving hybrids — to say nothing of walking, biking, and taking public transit — can be crucial to that too.
Are hybrid cars essentially a stopgap to full EV adoption? At this point, it feels like the definitive answer is yes. Car companies like General Motors, Ford, Volvo, and Volkswagen all say they plan to phase out internal combustion entirely by the middle of the next decade, and even if they try to renege on their promises, governments from Brussels to California are banning the sale of new gasoline cars around the same time.
Between regulations and market forces — especially China’s aggressive EV push — the writing is on the wall for gasoline cars. Reducing emissions will be the single most crucial guiding force for the auto industry over the next few decades. In the meantime, and for that very reason, more and more hybrid options are coming to market.
Sure, the Prius’ sales figures don’t look great, but the venerable Toyota Tacoma truck is heavily expected to offer a hybrid option soon. The Toyota Sienna minivan is now only offered as a hybrid, as is the quirky new Toyota Crown sedan. Honda brought back the Accord Hybrid for 2023 and the all-new CR-V Hybrid looks promising as well. Mazda is finally dipping its toes into that market with the new CX-90 plug-in hybrid. Even the beloved Mazda Miata, the gold standard for affordable sports cars, is heavily rumored to have some kind of electrification when an all-new one arrives in the next few years. And as of this year, every new Volvo you can buy is a hybrid if it’s not a full EV.
The point is, while EVs are getting the splashy headlines, car companies aren’t yet done with hybrids. Not by a long shot. In fact, electrification is likely to become even more common as we start to approach the end of the internal combustion era, particularly as battery costs start to go down.
Think of it this way: If the Chevy Corvette can go hybrid, so can you.
Log in
To continue reading, log in to your account.
Create a Free Account
To unlock more free articles, please create a free account.
Amarillo-area residents successfully beat back a $600 million project from Xcel Energy that would have provided useful tax revenue.
Power giant Xcel Energy just suffered a major public relations flap in the Texas Panhandle, scrubbing plans for a solar project amidst harsh backlash from local residents.
On Friday, Xcel Energy withdrew plans to build a $600 million solar project right outside of Rolling Hills, a small, relatively isolated residential neighborhood just north of the city of Amarillo, Texas. The project was part of several solar farms it had proposed to the Texas Public Utilities Commission to meet the load growth created by the state’s AI data center boom. As we’ve covered in The Fight, Texas should’ve been an easier place to do this, and there were few if any legal obstacles standing in the way of the project, dubbed Oneida 2. It was sited on private lands, and Texas counties lack the sort of authority to veto projects you’re used to seeing in, say, Ohio or California.
But a full-on revolt from homeowners and realtors apparently created a public relations crisis.
Mere weeks ago, shortly after word of the project made its way through the small community that is Rolling Hills, more than 60 complaints were filed to the Texas Public Utilities Commission in protest. When Xcel organized a public forum to try and educate the public about the project’s potential benefits, at least 150 residents turned out, overwhelmingly to oppose its construction. This led the Minnesota-based power company to say it would scrap the project entirely.
Xcel has tried to put a happy face on the situation. “We are grateful that so many people from the Rolling Hills neighborhood shared their concerns about this project because it gives us an opportunity to better serve our communities,” the company said in a statement to me. “Moving forward, we will ask for regulatory approval to build more generation sources to meet the needs of our growing economy, but we are taking the lessons from this project seriously.”
But what lessons, exactly, could Xcel have learned? What seems to have happened is that it simply tried to put a solar project in the wrong place, prizing convenience and proximity to an existing electrical grid over the risk of backlash in an area with a conservative, older population that is resistant to change.
Just ask John Coffee, one of the commissioners for Potter County, which includes Amarillo, Rolling Hills, and a lot of characteristically barren Texas landscape. As he told me over the phone this week, this solar farm would’ve been the first utility-scale project in the county. For years, he said, renewable energy developers have explored potentially building a project in the area. He’s entertained those conversations for two big reasons – the potential tax revenue benefits he’s seen elsewhere in Texas; and because ordinarily, a project like Oneida 2 would’ve been welcomed in any of the pockets of brush and plain where people don’t actually live.
“We’re struggling with tax rates and increases and stuff. In the proper location, it would be well-received,” he told me. “The issue is, it’s right next to a residential area.”
Indeed, Oneida 2 would’ve been smack dab up against Rolling Hills, occupying what project maps show would be the land surrounding the neighborhood’s southeast perimeter – truly the sort of encompassing adjacency that anti-solar advocates like to describe as a bogeyman.
Cotton also told me he wasn’t notified about the project’s existence until a few weeks ago, at the same time resident complaints began to reach a fever pitch. He recalled hearing from homeowners who were worried that they’d no longer be able to sell their properties. When I asked him if there was any data backing up the solar farm’s potential damage to home prices, he said he didn’t have hard numbers, but that the concerns he heard directly from the head of Amarillo’s Realtors Association should be evidence enough.
Many of the complaints against Oneida 2 were the sort of stuff we’re used to at The Fight, including fears of fires and stormwater runoff. But Cotton said it really boiled down to property values – and the likelihood that the solar farm would change the cultural fabric in Rolling Hills.
“This is a rural area. There are about 300 homes out there. Everybody sitting out there has half an acre, an acre, two acres, and they like to enjoy the quiet, look out their windows and doors, and see some distance,” he said.
Ironically, Cotton opposed the project on the urging of his constituents, but is now publicly asking Xcel to continue to develop solar in the county. “Hopefully they’ll look at other areas in Potter County,” he told me, adding that at least one resident has already come to him with potential properties the company could acquire. “We could really use the tax money from it. But you just can’t harm a community for tax dollars. That’s not what I’m about.”
I asked Xcel how all this happened and what their plans are next. A spokesperson repeatedly denied my requests to discuss Oneida 2 in any capacity. In a statement, the company told me it “will provide updates if the project is moved to another site,” and that “the company will continue to evaluate whether there is another location within Potter County, or elsewhere, to locate the solar project.”
Meanwhile, Amarillo may be about to welcome data center development because of course, and there’s speculation the first AI Stargate facility may be sited near Amarillo, as well.
City officials will decide in the coming weeks on whether to finalize a key water agreement with a 5,600-acre private “hypergrid” project from Fermi America, a new company cofounded by former Texas governor Rick Perry, says will provide upwards of 11 gigawatts to help fuel artificial intelligence services. Fermi claims that at least 1 gigawatt of power will be available by the end of next year – a lot of power.
The company promises that its “hypergrid” AI campus will use on-site gas and nuclear generation, as well as contracted gas and solar capacity. One thing’s for sure – it definitely won’t be benefiting from a large solar farm nearby anytime soon.
And more of the most important news about renewable projects fighting it out this week.
1. Racine County, Wisconsin – Microsoft is scrapping plans for a data center after fierce opposition from a host community in Wisconsin.
2. Rockingham County, Virginia – Another day, another chokepoint in Dominion Energy’s effort to build more solar energy to power surging load growth in the state, this time in the quaint town of Timberville.
3. Clark County, Ohio – This county is one step closer to its first utility-scale solar project, despite the local government restricting development of new projects.
4. Coles County, Illinois – Speaking of good news, this county reaffirmed the special use permit for Earthrise Energy’s Glacier Moraine solar project, rebuffing loud criticisms from surrounding households.
5. Lee County, Mississippi – It’s full steam ahead for the Jugfork solar project in Mississippi, a Competitive Power Ventures proposal that is expected to feed electricity to the Tennessee Valley Authority.
A conversation with Enchanted Rock’s Joel Yu.
This week’s chat was with Joel Yu, senior vice president for policy and external affairs at the data center micro-grid services company Enchanted Rock. Now, Enchanted Rock does work I usually don’t elevate in The Fight – gas-power tracking – but I wanted to talk to him about how conflicts over renewable energy are affecting his business, too. You see, when you talk to solar or wind developers about the potential downsides in this difficult economic environment, they’re willing to be candid … but only to a certain extent. As I expected, someone like Yu who is separated enough from the heartburn that is the Trump administration’s anti-renewables agenda was able to give me a sober truth: Land use and conflicts over siting are going to advantage fossil fuels in at least some cases.
The following conversation was lightly edited for clarity.
Help me understand where, from your perspective, the generation for new data centers is going to come from. I know there are gas turbine shortages, but also that solar and wind are dealing with headwinds in the United States given cuts to the Inflation Reduction Act.
There are a lot of stories out there about certain technologies coming out to the forefront to solve the problem, whether it’s gas generation or something else. But the scale and the scope of this stuff … I don’t think there is a silver bullet where it’s all going to come from one place.
The Energy Department put out a request for information looking for ways to get to 3 gigawatts quickly, but I don’t think there is any way to do that quickly in the United States. It’s going to take work from generation developers, batteries, thermal generation, emerging storage technologies, and transmission. Reality is, whether it is supply chain issues or technology readiness or the grid’s readiness to accept that load generation profile, none of it is ready. We need investment and innovation on all fronts.
How do conflicts over siting play into solving the data center power problem? Like, how much of the generation that we need for data center development is being held back by those fights?
I do have an intuitive sense that the local siting and permitting concerns around data centers are expanding in scope from the normal noise and water considerations to include impacts to energy affordability and reliability, as well as the selection of certain generation technologies. We’ve seen diesel generation, for example, come into the spotlight. It’s had to do with data center permitting in certain jurisdictions, in places like Maryland and Minnesota. Folks are realizing that a data center comes with a big power plant – their diesel generation. When other power sources fall short, they’ll rely on their diesel more frequently, so folks are raising red flags there. Then, with respect to gas turbines or large cycle units, there’s concerns about viewsheds, noise and cooling requirements, on top of water usage.
How many data center projects are getting their generation on-site versus through the grid today?
Very few are using on-site generation today. There’s a lot of talk about it and interest, but in order to serve our traditional cloud services data center or AI-type loads, they’re looking for really high availability rates. That’s really costly and really difficult to do if you’re off the grid and being serviced by on-site generation.
In the context of policy discussions, co-location has primarily meant baseload resources on sites that are serving the data centers 24/7 – the big stories behind Three Mile Island and the Susquehanna nuclear plant. But to be fair, most data centers operational today have on-site generation. That’s their diesel backup, what backstops the grid reliability.
I think where you’re seeing innovation is modular gas storage technologies and battery storage technologies that try to come in and take the space of the diesel generation that is the standard today, increasing the capability of data centers in terms of on-site power relative to status quo. Renewable power for data centers at scale – talking about hundreds of megawatts at a time – I think land is constraining.
If a data center is looking to scale up and play a balancing act of competing capacity versus land for energy production, the competing capacity is extremely valuable. They’re going to prioritize that first and pack as much as they can into whatever land they have to develop. Data centers trying to procure zero-carbon energy are primarily focused on getting that energy over wires. Grid connection, transmission service for large-scale renewables that can match the scale of natural gas, there’s still very strong demand to stay connected to the grid for reliability and sustainability.
Have you seen the state of conflict around renewable energy development impact data center development?
Not necessarily. There is an opportunity for data center development to coincide with renewable project development from a siting perspective, if they’re going to be co-located or near to each other in remote areas. For some of these multi-gigawatt data centers, the reason they’re out in the middle of nowhere is a combination of favorable permitting and siting conditions for thousands of acres of data center building, substations and transmission –
Sorry, but even for projects not siting generation, if megawatts – if not gigawatts – are held up from coming to the grid over local conflicts, do you think that’s going to impact data center development at all? The affordability conversions? The environmental ones?
Oh yeah, I think so. In the big picture, the concern is if you can integrate large loads reliably and affordably. Governors, state lawmakers are thinking about this, and it’s bubbling up to the federal level. You need a broad set of resources on the grid to provide that adequacy. To the extent you hold up any grid resources, renewable or otherwise, you’re going to be staring down some serious challenges in serving the load. Virginia’s a good example, where local groups have held up large-scale renewable projects in the state, and Dominion’s trying to build a gas peaker plant that’s being debated, too. But in the meantime, it is Data Center Alley, and there are gigawatts of data centers that continue to want to get in and get online as quickly as possible. But the resources to serve that load are not coming online in time.
The push toward co-location probably does favor thermal generation and battery storage technologies over straight renewable energy resources. But a battery can’t cover 24/7 use cases for a data center, and neither will our unit. We’re positioned to be a bridge resource for 24/7 use for a few years until they can get more power to the market, and then we can be a flexible backup resource – not a replacement for the large-scale and transmission-connected baseload power resources, like solar and wind. Texas has benefited from huge deployments of solar and wind. That has trickled down to lower electricity costs. Those resources can’t do it alone, and there’s thermal to balance the system, but you need it all to meet the load growth.