Weekly-ish News - Episode 43 (April 10, 2022)

What's the Alternative?

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Vehicles:

Tesla had record sales in Q1 2022, selling over 300k vehicles, a 70% increase over Q1 2021.

Tesla has officially sold its first Model Ys from Gigafactory Berlin.

Rivian says that they're on track to sell their targeted 25k vehicles in 2022.

Maserati plans to offer all-electric versions of all of their vehicles by 2025 and be all-electric by 2030.

Porsche expects over 80% of their sales to be all-electric by 2030.

• For reference, they sold around 300k vehicles worldwide in 2021.

GM and Honda are partnering to produce EVs, an increase in scope of their existing partnership to develop hydrogen vehicles and EV batteries.

• This partnership will result in a line of "affordable" EVs by 2027.
• GM's press release.

The Ford F-150 Lightning has official EPA range estimates now.

• The range will be between 230 and 320 miles (368 to 512 km, respectively).

Toyota and ChargePoint have formed a partnership to provide ChargePoint charging to buyers of Toyota's upcoming bZ4X.

• This includes an option to buy a ChargePoint Level 2 charger for the home.
• Toyota will also have a feature in the Toyota app to help drivers find public ChargePoint chargers.

EVGo and Chase Bank are partnering to add fast charging at 50 Chase Bank locations in the U.S..

• Buildout should begin in Summer of 2022, all sites operational in 2023.
• All sites will be powered by 100% renewables, some with solar on-site.

The City of Boulder saved around $270/mo during an 11-month vehicle-to-grid project in partnership with Fermata Energy.

Both GM and Ford are partnering with Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) on vehicle-to-grid pilots.

Proterra will provide batteries for Blue Arc electric delivery vans (made by Shyft Group), with production expected to start in 2023.

• These are class 3 vans.

The autonomous and electric delivery company, Gatik, is partnering with ChargePoint to charge their vehicles as they roll them out.

• Gatik is currently partnered with Walmart to test autonomous, electric delivery across their fleet.

LG Energy Solutions is partnering with Stellantis to create a $4.1b (USD) battery plant to begin operations in 2024.

• They plan to produce 45GWh of batteries annually.
• The plant will be in Windsor, Ontario.
• Stellantis is the company that owns Chrysler, Dodge, and others.

LG Energy Solutions is investing $1.7b in its battery facility in Holland, Michigan.

• This is expected to create 1,200 jobs.

Ford is hoping to open a 30-45GWh battery manufacturing plant in Turkey.

bp pulse is investing £1 billion over 10 years to build out a charging network in the UK.

Chick-fil-A is partnering with Darling, a renewable diesel, to produce renewable diesel from their used cooking oil in 47 states.

Deployment:

USPS has increased their initial order of electric mail carriers from 5,000 to 10,019.

• This is out of a total of 50,000 vehicles in this initial order.
• These vehicles will hit the road in 2023 (hopefully).

Madison, Wisconsin is getting 27 electric transit buses from New Flyer through a federal grant of $41.6m.

• Their contract with New Flyer has the option of buying 19 more electric transit buses in the future.

St. Louis, Missouri is deploying 18 New Flyer electric transit buses.

• For some God-forsaken reason, none of the press releases I read gave a deployment date.

Akron, Ohio's METRA RTA has deployed 2 new electric transit buses into its fleet.

• The majority of its existing fleet is currently compressed natural gas (CNG).
• They were able to purchase these buses through a grant that covered the cost.
• They expect to save $500/mo per bus in fuel costs.
• The buses cost $924,000 each.

Moreno Valley in California is getting 42 electric school buses from InCharge Energy.

Prague is deploying 20 bi-articulated Trollino electric trolleybuses.

Danish concrete company, Unicon, is ordering 11 Volvo FM Electric trucks to test as cement mixers.

Energy:

Texas now has 200MWh of additional battery storage on the grid, operated by Jupiter Power at their Flower Valley II site.

• The battery system can provide up to 100MW of electricity to the grid.
• This system is expected to be upgraded to 650MWh of capacity by summer of 2022.

The Traverse Wind Energy Center has official begun operations of its 998MW wind farm in Oklahoma.

• It's expected to generate 3.8 *million* MWh of electricity annually.

298MW of new wind power has gone online in at the Haystack wind park in Nebraska.

4MW of solar just went online in Sioux City, Iowa.

Shiawassee County, Michigan now has 200MW of new solar power online.

U.S. Department of Energy funding is bringing 3.3MW of solar power to 13 tribal communities.

Several GW of coal power is likely to retire in PJM's network over the next few years.

University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh will expand the use of renewable natural gas from food waste.

• They are adding a significant amount of heat capture to their current RNG electrical production to more effectively use their RNG.

Policy:

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has finalized its new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards.

• The standards will require a corporate average fuel economy of 49mpg by 2025 across new light duty cars and trucks.
• This effectively requires automakers to begin producing electric vehicles or incredibly efficient hybrids.

NHTSA has also increased the penalty for automakers who fail to meet the standards.

• The penalty has increased from $5.5 to $14 per 0.1mpg they fail to meet the standards by.
• This increased penalty undoes the penalty reduction from the previous administration.