With Millions Still Out of Work, We Need Biden’s American Jobs Plan
Originally published on the NRDC Expert Blog.
By Mitchell Bernard
Today’s unemployment numbers out of Washington affirm what the country’s experiencing on Main Street: a grinding climb from a devastating pandemic that’s taking a continuing toll on the economic security of our people. It’s great news that unemployment is falling. But 9.3 million Americans remain out of work.
President Biden has proposed the right remedy — the American Jobs Plan, a comprehensive package of strategic public investment that weds climate action to equitable recovery and puts people back to work in every community.
This is a bold vision for strong, lasting, and broad-based recovery. It sets the table for a generation of prosperity and progress. It means cleaner, healthier communities, both urban and rural. As the plan makes its way through Congress, it’s time for all of us to rally around it.
The American Jobs Plan is a stirring vote of confidence in the nation’s future. It’s built on the belief that U.S. workers can out-compete anyone in the world when given a fighting chance. That’s what this plan does.
It sets us on the path to 100 percent clean electricity by 2035 — wiping out nearly a third of the dangerous carbon pollution that’s driving the climate crisis — by helping to clean up the nation’s power sector.
It speeds the transition to electric cars and trucks with zero tailpipe emissions, expands sustainable transit options for those who need them most, and reconnects urban neighborhoods divided for decades by misguided highway routes.
It protects our communities from the risks and toxic pollution from more than 3.1 million abandoned oil and gas wells and coal mines, by capping and cleaning up these idled fossil fuel sites as we shift to cleaner, smarter ways to power our future.
And it ends the ongoing and unacceptable exposure to hazardous drinking water in as many as 10 million American homes, by replacing lead pipes and service lines with safe and modern alternatives, while upgrading wastewater, drinking water, and stormwater systems nationwide.
These are essential national priorities. Cleaning up our dirty cars, trucks, and power plants. Capping abandoned wells and mines. Getting the lead out of our drinking water.
Combined with other vital work, such as rebuilding aging bridges, roads, and ports, this investment will create or sustain 15 million jobs over the coming decade, a Georgetown University analysis shows, including 8 million for workers that require only a high school education or less.
These are good-paying jobs for welders, carpenters, truck drivers, electricians, steelworkers, and others, including those who want the collective bargaining opportunities that come from belonging to a union.
The clean energy sector offers multiple advantages: It pays 25 percent more than the average job for some 3 million workers who help to make our homes, cars, and workplaces more efficient; it builds electric and low-emission cars, trucks, and parts; it gets more clean power from the wind and sun; and it modernizes the grid and storage system we depend on for reliable power.
That’s core work in the American Jobs Plan. It’s how we roll up our sleeves and make good on Biden’s pledge to cut the U.S. carbon footprint in half by 2030, so we can stop adding carbon pollution to the atmosphere altogether by 2050.
That’s what the science tells us must happen — at home and abroad — if we’re to avert the worst of a climate crisis that last year alone inflicted more than $95 billion in damage nationwide, while combining with fossil fuel pollution to impose another $820 billion in health-care costs on our people.
Confronting this costly crisis will be the economic play of our lifetime, with clean energy investments set to attract more than $11 trillion in global capital in the space of this generation alone.
The American Jobs Plan will help make the United States a clean energy superpower — and make U.S. companies and workers the winners in the global clean energy sweepstakes.
The plan includes investments to plus-up research and investment in critical new technologies; support innovation to make U.S. factories more efficient; strengthen the domestic supply chain for the next generation of wind, solar, and battery technology; and expand training for workers looking to transition out of fading industries like fossil fuels and into more promising opportunities elsewhere.
Strengthening our economy. Putting our people back to work. Cleaning up toxic pollution that threatens our health. Standing up to the mounting costs and growing dangers of climate change.
These are the pillars of the American Jobs Plan — strategic investment that’s paid for by asking fossil fuel companies, other corporations, and those earning more than $400,000 a year to pay their fair share to support the kind of progress that’s enabled them to thrive. Investing in efficiency, meanwhile, will enable us to do more with less waste in our homes, workplaces and cars, cutting energy costs for our families and businesses.
Small wonder, then, that the plan is supported by nearly two-thirds of the country.
The American Jobs Plan accomplishes one thing more: It addresses what the pandemic has made all the more urgent.
A modern plague that has killed 600,000 people across the United States alone, the coronavirus pandemic has upended the lives of us all. No one is surprised to learn who’s suffered most: primarily the same low-income communities and people of color for whom the pandemic has only worsened long-festering inequities in education and employment opportunities, housing, and health care.
The American Jobs Plan is designed to address those inequities head-on. It’s tailored to deliver 40 percent of the economic, environmental, and health benefits of this strategic climate and clean energy investment to the same historically disadvantaged communities that bear a disproportionate share of the burden of environmental hazard and harm.
The American Jobs Plan is the grand strategy the country needs — and we need it now. The 2022 federal budget Biden proposed last week includes a down payment on this eight-year investment plan, with early investment to jump-start the progress it’s meant to ensure.
Now, it’s our turn to rally around this hopeful vision of a cleaner, healthier, more prosperous future for a nation united behind the climate action that can power a strong, just, and equitable recovery for every family, in every community, across this land.
Porsche’s long-awaited Macan EV will finally hit US dealers on September 30th, and we’ve also just learned that it will have an EPA-certified range of 308 miles, or 288 for the “Turbo” version.
We’ve been waiting what seems like forever for the Porsche Macan to come out – Seth even got to go see it in Germany last October – and now the car is finally (almost) here, arriving later this month in US dealers.
Porsche told us that the ships carrying the cars are en route, and depending on which coast you’re on, they should arrive in the last week or two of this month. But Porsche and its dealers have been communicating the Sept 30th date for Macan availability – so if you’re looking forward to this car, you’ve only got a couple weeks to get your affairs in order (you can use our affiliate link to contact local dealers and get in line).
And today we’ve learned one of the final steps before getting these cars on the road has been submitted, as the Macan EV has been officially rated at 308 miles EPA range, or 288 miles for the Turbo. These numbers are lower than the European 381-mile WLTP range, but WLTP ranges are always higher due to different testing protocols.
So we expected a range of around 300 miles for the Macan EV, and that’s what we got. Though Porsche also told us that range will be “10-15% higher in real world.”
These range numbers translate to an MPGe rating of 98, or 91 MPGe for the Turbo version. Both of these numbers are higher than any Taycan efficiency numbers, which is somewhat incongruous given the Macan is a larger vehicle.
When the Taycan came out, it had pretty low EPA-rated range/efficiency numbers, but it turned out those estimates were highly conservative and that Porsche voluntarily lowered its numbers in order to “underpromise and overdeliver.” So it looks like Porsche is looking to do the same thing again here.
However, other preliminary US reviews we’ve seen showed the Macan having high-200s mile range. We haven’t had a chance to do a range test on the Macan ourselves, yet, so we can’t confirm those numbers.
So, as usual, “your mileage may vary,” but it looks like the car will have more than enough range for buyers.
It’s also capable of 270kW charging, which Porsche says will allow it to charge from 10-80% in 21 minutes. This is plenty quick enough to fill up at a lunch stop, long bathroom + stretch break, or whatever else, and get you back on the road without significant delay.
In this day and age, quick charging speeds is really the more important thing to focus on anyway, and there are big changes on the horizon in that respect, with Porsche committing to NACS connectors in 2025.
However, despite the Macan EV being a 2025 model, it will retain the previous SAE CCS port, and will not use the NACS part for the foreseeable future. So you’ll have to stay tuned for more updates in that respect, including potential adapter availability (Porsche is currently not on Tesla’s NACS “coming soon” page, and the NACS rollout has been slowed by Supercharging chaos caused by Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s impromptu firing of the entire Supercharger team).
If our coverage of EVs has been helpful to you, you can use our affiliate link to contact your local dealers about the 2025 Porsche Macan, and ask them to put you in line for the Macan EV when it shows up at the end of this month.
Hydrogen-electric plane developer ZeroAvia has completed another successful financing round, led by some of its previous investors and some new ones. The sustainable aviation specialist plans to use the fresh funds to expedite the certification of its first powertrain and support selling its in-house components to other electrified aviation OEMs.
ZeroAvia has tasked itself with delivering 40—to 80-seat aircraft with up to 700 miles of range by 2027. So far, its sustainable technology has amassed some heavy hitters’ interest (and funding) in the segment to help push development forward.
In 2022, ZeroAvia secured over $30 million in funding, including investments from American Airlines, which joined Alaska Airlines and United in the hydrogen-electric plane venture.
2023 included several new partnerships and a fresh round of funding led by Airbus, Barclays, and Saudi Arabia’s “living laboratory,” NEOM. In late November, ZeroAvia announced a deal to provide up to 70 zero-emission planes to sustainable startup airline EcoJet, which looks to become the world’s first all-electric airline.
This past July, American Airlines committed to a large purchase of zero-emissions engines alongside a fresh investment in the aviation startup’s technology as part of a Series C fundraising round. Today, ZeroAvia announced it has extended upon that Series C round, which has now been completed for a total of $150 million.
ZeroAvia adds more names to its investment rolodex
The sustainable aviation company shared details of its extended financing round today. This included a 20 million euro £20m (23.7M euros) investment from the Scottish National Investment Bank, aka “The Bank,” which joins other investors like American Airlines, International Airlines Group (IAG), and ITOCHU Corporation.
ZeroAvia shared that the round was co-led by Airbus, Barclays Sustainable Impact Capital, and the NEOM Investment Fund (NIF). UK Infrastructure Bank joined as a cornerstone-level investor, and existing shareholders like Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Horizons Ventures, Ecosystem Integrity Fund, Summa Equity, Alaska Airlines, Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, and AP Ventures also participated.
The funding will enable the aviation startup to accelerate its progress toward certifying its first hydrogen-electric plane powertrain for commercial operations. Per ZeroAvia founder and CEO, Val Miftakhov:
We have closed an exceptionally strong financing round to help us deliver the clean future of flight for the entirety of aviation. As a purpose–driven impact investor, the Bank is an ideal partner for ZeroAvia. Scotland’s ambitious net zero targets, its strategic focus on hydrogen and its strong existing aerospace skills base make it an attractive place for ZeroAvia’s UK production operations as we scale into a major aerospace manufacturer.
In addition to locking in flight certification, ZeroAvia says the $150M in funding will help it begin sales of its in-house aviation technology, including electric motors and fuel cell power generation systems, to other companies.
ZeroAvia has already flight-tested a prototype of its first ZA600 engine, implemented aboard a Dornier 228 aircraft at its UK base, and its application for certification with the CAA is already underway. Additionally, the company has completed advanced ground tests in the US and UK of its ZA2000 system, which can someday help sustainably propel 80-seat regional turboprop aircraft.
That larger and more advanced propulsion system includes cryogenic tanks for LH2 and proprietary high-temperature PEM fuel cell and electric systems.
Tesla’s rollout of Full Self-Driving v12.5 has failed so far, and owners want to know what happens next?
In 2016, Elon Musk announced that all future Tesla vehicles would come equipped with the necessary hardware for self-driving capabilities, even specifying “level 5 self-driving,” which implies the ability to operate autonomously under any conditions. However, shortly after, Musk acknowledged that Tesla might require more onboard computing power than initially thought, leading to the introduction of Hardware 3 (HW3).
Musk assured that HW3 would enable full self-driving (FSD) capabilities, promising retrofits for earlier models that had purchased the FSD package. Following this, Tesla introduced Hardware 4 (HW4), a more advanced onboard computer system, but did not offer retrofits for older models with HW3, maintaining that HW3 was sufficient for achieving self-driving through software updates.
Initially, Musk claimed that FSD improvements would first be optimized for HW3, suggesting that HW4 might lag behind by at least six months. However, Tesla reversed this approach with the release of FSD version 12.5, which was first deployed to HW4 vehicles. Musk explained that optimizing the software for the less powerful HW3 would take additional time, hinting at the limitations of HW3 in handling the latest software advancements towards unsupervised self-driving, a capability Tesla promised to HW3 owners since 2016.
This rewrite aims to streamline the narrative, focusing on the evolution of Tesla’s self-driving hardware and software, and the strategic shifts in deployment and optimization of FSD capabilities between HW3 and HW4.
Musk said that it would take ten days to adapt v12.5 to HW3.
In late August, about two weeks after Musk’s “10 days” had passed, we reported that Tesla started to push v12.5 to HW3 vehicles.
Not only was the update to HW3 late, but Tesla also confirmed that it was running a smaller model than on HW4.
On top of all that, now three weeks later, Tesla has yet to push v12.5 to the vast majority of FSD vehicles with HW3. Tesla appears to only have pushed v12.5.1.5 to some Tesla HW3 owners and it is now moving HW4 cars to v12.5.2.
Social media and Tesla forums are full of Tesla HW3 owners asking why they haven’t released a new update since v12.3.6 earlier this year despite Musk’s comments.
In its “AI roadmap” released last week, Tesla now claims that HW3 will get the same release as HW4 starting with v12.5.2 this month.
However, v12.5.2 is already in the consumer fleet for HW4 cars and v12.5.3 is already being tested in the beta fleet.
Electrek’s Take
This article is mainly to correct our article from last month that claimed Tesla was pushing v12.5 to HW3 since it turned out to be a very limited release.
Earlier this year, Elon said that Tesla was not compute-constrained for training FSD anymore. He also claimed that the training compute combined with v12’s full end-to-end neural nets would enable much faster software improvements.
And yet, the vast majority of HW3 owners have only received v12.3.6 this year.
That, combined with the fact that Tesla’s AI roadmap makes no mention of unsupervised self-driving whatsoever, and Tesla seemingly stopped promising it on new cars, has completely killed my hopes of Tesla delivering on its self-driving promises on HW3 cars and it has greatly limited by hopes of the same for HW4 cars.
I wouldn’t be shocked if Tesla fully shifts its self-driving strategy to the dedicated robotaxi, but I have no idea how they plan to make HW3 and possibly HW4 owners whole.
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