Environment

Op-ed: The day the climate crisis came home

Published

4 years ago

September 10, 2021

admin

Streetlights, headlights, and apartments with lights on around noon on Sept. 9, 2020, in Russian Hill, San Francisco.

Christina Farr | CNBC

One year ago today was the most terrifying day of my life.

I’ve faced personal tragedies and professional setbacks, but there are templates to deal with those. You rely on friends and family, you nurse your grief and anger, you seek counseling. With any luck and a lot of hard work, you heal and you move on.

But the day the sky turned orange in San Francisco from widespread wildfire smoke was a different kind of tragedy, precisely because it wasn’t personal — it was communal. It affected all of us. Nobody could help. Everybody was equally freaked out. We had been breathing wildfire smoke for about three weeks, and all I could think about was how long this new phase, this deep-orange darkness, would last. A day? A week? Three weeks? We were already locked down at home from the Covid pandemic, with the kids out of school and most businesses closed. The added feeling of isolation from this new phase was almost too much to bear.

Those of us who are old enough might remember a brief window in the 1990s when it seemed like the environmental movement was ascendant. Politicians and corporations were paying attention. The entire world banned chlorofluorocarbons in less than a couple years after it became clear they were depleting the ozone layer, exposing us to more solar radiation. The ozone layer is now recovering.

But that moment faded, replaced by the urgency of the War on Terror and the gridlock of hardcore partisan politics, along with a global economic expansion that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and into the middle class.

That global economic expansion has been fueled by cheap fossil fuels and accompanied by a dramatic rise in greenhouse gas emissions. This year’s report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released in August, shows the picture very starkly. We are currently averaging 410 parts-per-million of CO2 in the atmosphere — well above the 382ppm figure that Al Gore used in his famous chart of CO2 concentrations in the 2006 movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

The wildfires in the west aren’t caused entirely by climate change — fires have always been part of the landscape, and forest management practices have definitely played a part. But so did two decades of record heat and a drought that has killed millions of trees. Today’s fires burn hotter and spread faster than any in recent memory, according to scientists and firefighters.

Climate change has been hard for most of us to see and feel. That’s beginning to change. This year’s continuous parade of extreme weather events — floods, hurricanes and wildfires — is a foretelling of what the world faces. If you haven’t faced your orange day yet, chances are you will.

The positive side of all this: More people than ever before are committed to finding solutions. Personally, the orange day in San Francisco inspired me to shift some of my attention from the tech industry, which I’ve been covering for more than 25 years, to focus on what I believe will be the most important news story of the next few decades.

Similar events are inspiring people to take action all over the world.

Many are advocating for major political changes, and the upcoming COP26 conference in Glasgow will almost certainly be a lightning rod for protests.

But while political solutions are a necessary part of the puzzle, those changes can be reversed or their impact blunted by the next election cycle.

More excitingly, the business world is finally, belatedly climbing aboard. Venture capitalists and billionaires like Bill Gates and Tom Steyer are racing to fund start-ups dealing with everything from clean energy to agriculture to transportation. Companies are boasting about their plans for reaching net-zero carbon emissions. Banks and insurance companies are quietly acknowledging the risks associated with climate change and adjusting their practices accordingly. ESG funds with a strong emphasis on green solutions are immensely popular — although not always effective. Tesla, the biggest auto company in the world by market cap, pioneered making zero-emission electric vehicles at scale, sending the auto giants and dozens of scrappy start-ups to follow as fast as they can.

At CNBC, we intend to cover the climate crisis from a business news perspective. We know what the predictions say could happen 20, 50 and 100 years into the future — but what’s happening today? How is climate change affecting businesses and individuals right now? Who’s proposing ambitious new solutions to reduce carbon emissions and suck carbon out of the atmosphere, who’s funding those solutions, and what are their chances of success? How are companies preparing for an uncertain future? What can you do to prepare yourself and your family — financially, physically, and mentally?

Pledges are less important than action. Rather than focusing on what companies say they intend to do, we’ll focus on what they are actually doing, where they are actually spending money and whether that money is doing any good — or is simply a half-hearted attempt to garner some positive press. Greenwashing is rampant, and ripe for exposure. We’ll look closely at trends like ESG investing and carbon offsets to explain how they work — or don’t work — and talk to policy experts about alternative financial solutions that could be more effective. We’ll treat every start-ups claims with the same kind of cautious “show-me” skepticism we’ve learned to adopt through collective decades of experience covering the tech industry.

There are no magic bullets. The carbon we’ve already pumped into the atmosphere is not going away any time soon, and the effects will probably get worse before they get better. The political, cultural and psychological barriers to change are a huge challenge — nobody likes being told to consume less. Nobody likes being told they must suddenly revamp their business at great expense with no guarantee of higher future profits. Investors will continue to seek returns, as they always have.

But as the world wakes up to the reality of climate change, there’s more money flowing toward the problem than ever before. Collective human ambition and the desire to improve our condition got us into this mess. They’re necessary to get us out.

Environment

Tesla (TSLA) begins to shy away from growth guidance after terrible quarter

Published

43 mins ago

April 22, 2025

admin

Tesla (TSLA) begins to shy away from growth guidance after terrible quarter

Tesla (TSLA) is no longer confidently stating growth in its automotive business for 2025, and it has delayed updating its guidance until the next quarter after a disappointing performance in the first three months of the year.

2024 was Tesla’s first year in a decade where its vehicle deliveries went down year-over-year.

Just a few months ago, in January, Tesla was confident in predicting that it would return to growth in 2025:

“With the advancements in vehicle autonomy and the introduction of new products, we expect the vehicle business to return to growth in 2025.”

Today, Tesla released its Q1 2025 financial results, confirming that it had its worst quarter in years to start 2025.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

The automaker is now clearly not as confident about returning to growth in its automotive business this year.

Tesla updated its “outlook” section this quarter to highlight the potential impact of trade policies and now no longer discusses automotive growth in isolation. Instead, it bundled automotive and energy businesses together and said that it will “revisit its 2025 guidance” next quarter:

It is difficult to measure the impacts of shifting global trade policy on the automotive and energy supply chains, our cost structure and demand for durable goods and related services. While we are making prudent investments that will set up both our vehicle and energy businesses for growth, the rate of growth this year will depend on a variety of factors, including the rate of acceleration of our autonomy efforts, production ramp at our factories and the broader macroeconomic environment. We will revisit our 2025 guidance in our Q2 update.

Tesla’s vehicle deliveries are already down about 50,000 units so far this year compared to last year.

It will be challenging to catch up in the current macroeconomic situation.

Tesla again guided the start of production of “new affordable models” in the first half of 2025, which could help the automaker to deliver more cars.

However, as we have previously reported, these new vehicles are expected to be stripped-down Model Y and Model 3, which will cannibalize Tesla’s current sales and limit its growth to those products.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Environment

US DC fast charging network surges past 55K ports – and it’s getting more reliable

Published

54 mins ago

April 22, 2025

admin

US DC fast charging network surges past 55K ports – and it's getting more reliable

US DC fast charging is becoming more reliable, and charging stations are getting bigger and busier, according to a new Q1 2025 report from the EV data analysts at Paren.

DC fast charging station reliability is on the rise

Paren’s latest US Reliability Index – “Can I successfully charge at this charger?” – increased from 81.2 points in Q4 2024 to 82.6 points in Q1 2025, a notable jump of 1.7%. According to Bill Ferro, CTO at Paren, “This continues a quarterly trend across the US non-Tesla fast charging infrastructure, which suggests that the ongoing efforts to replace or sunset older hardware are having a positive impact on station uptime. In addition, newer entrants into the field are bringing time-tested hardware along with enhanced driver experiences.”

Utah, Alaska, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Nevada were the top-ranked states for DC fast charging reliability in Q1 2025.

Growth slows, but charging stations are getting larger

New DC fast charging ports grew to 55,580 at the end of Q1 2025, up 3,667 from last quarter, with total stations reaching 10,839, an increase of 794. This is fewer new additions compared to the surge seen at the end of 2024, reflecting typical seasonal slowdowns due to winter weather. However, there’s a bright spot: the average number of ports per station among non-Tesla networks rose to 3.9, compared to 2.7 year-over-year. The Tesla Supercharger network now averages 13 ports per station.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

Utilization rates reflect the urban-rural divide

Average utilization – that’s the minutes of a charging session as a percentage of time a station is open each day – dropped slightly from 16.6% in Q4 2024 to 16.2% in Q1 2025, following typical holiday travel patterns. But overall, charging use is climbing, especially in dense urban areas with significant rideshare and apartment communities that rely heavily on public chargers.

Early days for NACS transition

The Combined Charging System (CCS) remains dominant, with 59% of new ports, and the shift toward Tesla’s NACS (J3400) standard is still in its very early stages. Only 104 non-Tesla NACS ports were added this quarter at non-Tesla networks, so drivers of new non-Tesla vehicles need to use their adapters if they want to use Superchargers.

Fixed pricing prevails

Charging operators primarily use fixed pricing (80%), with Time of Use (TOU) pricing making up 16%. Pay-by-time options are rare, used only 4.2% of the time.

California is the only major state where TOU pricing surpasses fixed pricing, while many states, such as Oklahoma, Vermont, and Arkansas, almost exclusively utilize fixed pricing models.

As for the most expensive places to fast charge your EV? The top four metropolitan statistical areas are all in California, with average rates at $0.60 or $0.61 per kWh.

Rural and low-income areas at risk

The Trump administration’s cancellation of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program poses a significant threat to rural and low-income communities. Loren McDonald, chief analyst at Paren, cautioned, “Our data is a harbinger of less expansion in rural and lower-income markets as CPOs will increasingly focus on urban markets, seeing high utilization, often north of 30%, versus markets with less than 5% utilization.”

‘Charging 2.0’ – a new industry phase

McDonald summed up the report by marking 2024 as a pivotal year, stating, “2024 was a year of mixed news in the US DC fast charging industry, but it will be remembered as a pivotal turn to a new era we are calling ‘Charging 2.0’. Charge-point operators and new players in the industry are increasingly focused on creating a great customer experience, improving reliability of chargers, and reaching profitability – a shift from chasing the availability of incentives, racing to get chargers in the ground, and then crossing your fingers that utilization will grow over time.”

If you’re an electric vehicle owner, charge up your car at home with rooftop solar panels. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing on solar, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. They have hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.

Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisers to help you every step of the way. Get started here. –ad*

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Environment

Tesla (TSLA) Q1 2025 financial results: missed big on already terrible expectations

Published

2 hours ago

April 22, 2025

admin

Tesla (TSLA) Q1 2025 financial results: missed big on already terrible expectations

Tesla (TSLA) released its financial results and shareholders’ letter for the first quarter (Q1) and full-year 2025 after market close today.

We are updating this post with all the details from the financial results, shareholders’ letter, and the conference call later tonight. Refresh for the latest information.

Tesla Q1 2025 earnings expectations

As we reported in our Tesla Q1 2025 earnings preview yesterday, the Wall Street consensus for this quarter was $21.345 billion in revenue and earnings of $0.41 per share.

The expectations had been significantly downgraded over the last month, as analysts were surprised by Tesla’s announcement of much lower deliveries than expected in the first quarter.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

Did Tesla meet them?`

Tesla Q1 2025 financial results

After the market closed today, Tesla released its financial results for the first quarter and confirmed that it missed expectations with earnings of $0.27 per share (non-GAAP), and it also missed revenue expectations with $19.335 billion during the last quarter.

This is a big miss for Tesla despite the company admitting to selling a lot more regulatory credits this quarter.

At $595 million in credit sales, Tesla would have lost money without it in Q1 2025:

In short, Tesla is on the verge of being a money-losing company.

We will be posting our follow-up posts here about the earnings and conference call to expand on the most important points (refresh the page to see the most recent posts):

Here’s Tesla’s Q1 2025 shareholder presentation in full:

Here’s Tesla’s conference call for the Q1 2025 results:

[embedded content]