A Land Rover Defender sits on display on the opening day of the IAA Frankfurt Motor Show in Frankfurt, Germany, on September 10, 2019.
Krisztian Bocsi | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Jaguar Land Rover said Tuesday it was working on the prototype of a hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle, with testing of the concept slated to start later this year.
The vehicle will be based on the new version of the company’s Land Rover Defender, and is part of JLR’s broader attempt to meet a target of zero tailpipe emissions by the year 2036. Testing of the vehicle will focus on areas such as fuel consumption and off-road capabilities.
In an announcement, the company — which is owned by Tata Motors — described fuel cell electric vehicles as being “complimentary to battery electric vehicles … on the journey to net zero vehicle emissions.”
“Hydrogen-powered FCEVs provide high energy density and rapid refuelling, and minimal loss of range in low temperatures, making the technology ideal for larger, longer-range vehicles, or those operated in hot or cold environments,” the company added.
As governments attempt to reduce emissions and boost urban air quality, the vehicles people use do look set to change.
The U.K., for instance, plans to stop the sale of new diesel and gasoline vehicles from 2030. From the year 2035, all new cars and vans will need to have zero tailpipe emissions.
Companies such as JLR are, slowly but surely, attempting to adapt to this new reality. Earlier this year, the firm announced its Jaguar brand would go all-electric from the year 2025. The business also said its Land Rover segment would roll out six “pure electric variants” over the next five years.
Hydrogen’s ‘role to play’
Described by the International Energy Agency as a “versatile energy carrier,” hydrogen has a diverse range of applications and can be deployed in sectors such as industry and transport.
“We know hydrogen has a role to play in the future powertrain mix across the whole transport industry, and alongside battery electric vehicles,” Ralph Clague, head of hydrogen and fuel cells for Jaguar Land Rover, said in a statement.
Clague went on to add that it offered “another zero tailpipe emission solution for the specific capabilities and requirements” of JLR’s vehicle line-up.
Jaguar Land Rover is not the only automotive company to look at hydrogen-powered vehicles. Other manufacturers that have dipped into the hydrogen fuel cell market include Toyota and Honda, while smaller firms such as Riversimple are also working on hydrogen powered cars.
Tesla’s India plans won’t include electric vehicle manufacturing, according to the local minister of industries, and the reason is quite simple.
Tesla has been trying to enter the Indian automotive market for years, but it has been unable to circumvent the country’s protectionist efforts, which include high import duties on foreign vehicles.
There have been several false starts in the country. CEO Elon Musk has stated on several occasions that Tesla is actively trying to enter the market.
For the last five years, it seemed that the American automaker was on the verge of entering the Indian market with local hires and even vehicle validation, but it never materialized.
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Over the past few months, a new initiative has been underway, and it has shown promise.
The deal involves significantly reducing import duties for a limited number of electric vehicles, provided the automaker makes a substantial investment and commitment to establish an electric vehicle factory in India within the coming years.
Since then, Tesla has started hiring service and sales staff, and there have been several reports that the automaker is closing in on some retail and service locations.
However, we now learn that Tesla doesn’t plan to take advantage of the deal, which includes establishing local vehicle manufacturing.
HD Kumaraswamy, India’s Ministry of Heavy Industries, announced that Tesla won’t be one of the automakers planning to build EV factories in the country (via BBC):
“Mercedes Benz, Skoda-Volkswagen, Hyundai and Kia have shown interest [in manufacturing electric cars in India]. Tesla – we are not expecting from them.”
Another Indian government official added that while Tesla participated in the first round of discussions with stakeholders, it stopped participating in the process after, while the previously mentioned automakers continued.
Kumaraswamy still said that he believes Tesla plans to open “two showrooms” in the country, but it’s not clear how it plans to handle the situation with the import duties.
I said it several times in the last few months amid Tesla’s latest effort to enter India, but I’ll repeat it: I’ll believe it when I see it.
We have been burned too many times on this.
Showrooms are one thing, but Tesla also needs to deploy service and charging stations. If its vehicles are still subject to steep import duties without the benefits of the promise of a manufacturing investment, it’s going to be a tough market for Tesla.
It makes no sense to invest in more manufacturing capacity if you are not already utilizing your current fully deployed capacity. That’s also why Tesla halted its Gigafactory Mexico project, along with the US tariffs.
Tesla currently has a demand problem. Not a production capacity demand.
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A year later, it looks like these are ongoing and Tesla is trying to address them.
Last week, Tesla had a week-long production shutdown at Gigafactory Texas and employees were offered to come in for some training during that time.
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One of the training sessions was related to “company culture,” and Business Insider obtained a recording, releasing some quotes from it.
The instructor asked Tesla employees attending the training if they’d ever felt “I can’t work under these conditions”or had felt set back by constant change at the company.” “I know I have,” the instructor told the employees.
The recording made it clear that Tesla is having some turnover issues due to morale. The instructor said:
“A lot of people leave this company, and they have kind of a negative taste in their mouth. They think: ‘Man, it was terrible. It was bad. I got burnt out. I feel like I didn’t get anything done, nobody listened to me.’”
The company culture training reportedly used to be for Tesla management, but the instructor said that the company decided to expand it to all employees.
They added:
“Leadership has kind of another level of responsibility for trying to guide and direct that culture. But at the end of the day, it’s us as the people on the ground that are the reflection of the culture.”
The instructor highlighted the need for employees to focus on Tesla’s “higher purpose.”
Tesla greatly benefited from being a mission-driven company with the aim. of accelerating the transition to electric transport and sustainable energy.
It helped with hiring and in pushing Tesla’s well-known aggressive work rate.
However, Tesla’s mission shifted in the last few years as CEO Elon Musk had Tesla focus on autonomous driving, and many people feel that the original mission has taken a step back with the CEO backing Donald Trump and the Republican party, who have historically campaigned against electric vehicles and renewable energy.
Electrek’s Take
Company culture begins at the top and flows down. Musk has historically asked a lot out of Tesla employees, but he has barely been working at Tesla for the past year.
That’s not outstanding leadership.
Furthermore, he alienated most of Tesla’s customer base, and while he still has loyalists at Tesla, I think that his massive drop in favorability is also reflected among Tesla employees.
I think talent retention should be one of the biggest concerns at Tesla right now.
I track employee comings and goings closely and I see a continued exodus of talent right now that doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Employee morale is part of it.
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President Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform moved a step closer to having a bitcoin exchange-traded fund available to everyday investors.
NYSE Arca, the all-electronic arm of the New York Stock Exchange that handles most ETF trading, filed on Tuesday to list a bitcoin fund linked to the president’s media company, the latest sign of Trump’s expanding push into the crypto world. Known as a 19b-4 form, the filing is required before regulators can decide whether to allow the fund to launch and trade on a U.S. exchange.
Called the Truth Social Bitcoin ETF, the fund is designed to track the price of bitcoin and offer a simpler way for investors to gain exposure without holding the asset directly. The filing follows an announced partnership between Trump Media and Crypto.com in March to bring a suite of digital asset products to market later this year, pending regulatory approval.
Those planned offerings include baskets of cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin and Crypto.com’s native Cronos token, combined with traditional securities. The products will be branded under Trump Media and made available to global investors through major brokerage platforms and the Crypto.com app, which serves more than 140 million users worldwide.
Since the January 2024 launch of spot bitcoin ETFs, the market has swelled to more than $130 billion in total assets. BlackRock‘s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) accounts for the lion’s share, with nearly $69 billion in assets, making it the largest digital asset manager in the world.
Trump is the majority owner of Truth Social’s parent company, Trump Media & Technology Group, which has made a series of crypto-aligned moves in recent months — from trademarking digital asset products to unveiling a $2.5 billion bitcoin treasury plan last week in Las Vegas. If approved, the ETF would represent one of the most politically connected entries into the booming market for bitcoin funds.