Biden Brings World Leaders Together At Climate Summit
What a difference an administration makes! Almost 200 countries ratified the Paris climate accord at COP21 in 2015, agreeing to limit the planet’s temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C. Afterward, President Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris agreement. On Friday, US President Joe Biden hosted a virtual climate summit titled the “Virtual Meeting of the Major Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate.”
Biden spoke about the “urgency of this moment” and the need for a collective “plan to contribute to the climate ambition the world so urgently needs.”
The Power of Story to Make the Climate Crisis Relevant
Former President Donald Trump denied that the climate crisis was a reality, attacked the value of clean energy, and fired scientists in federal departments in favor of installing political friends. Taking a completely different approach, President Biden has acknowledged scientific consensus that the climate crisis poses an existential threat and implored leaders during Friday’s climate summit to take action.
During opening remarks, the President affirmed his promise that the US “would return immediately to the world stage and address the climate crisis.” With some of the most powerful economic forces in the world surrounding him, Biden expressed hope in a “silver lining” — one that would restrict global temperatures from rising to catastrophic levels through “real and incredible economic opportunities to create jobs and lift up the standard of living of people around the world.” The public opening to the Forum was a counterpoint to the otherwise private talks.
Always forthright, Biden told his audience that countries representing the Major Economies Forum account for 80% of global emissions.
The backdrop stage set was specially designed with virtual solar panel arrays as the global leaders were visible on thumbnail screens. Biden called upon the power of story and described the “damage and destruction” in the US and the destructive flooding in Europe. He zoomed in on the experience of seeing California firefighters battling powerful, widespread, and deadly wildfires more than ever before due to rising temperatures and unrelenting drought. He spoke how natural disasters like numerous hurricanes have wreaked havoc on US regions from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast.
Pledges to Do More to Mitigate the Effects of the Climate Crisis
The Biden administration has pledged to cut emissions 50% to 52% below 2005 levels by 2030 and is working to pass historic investments — to modernize what can become a more climate-resilient infrastructure and to build a clean energy future. In doing so, the administration hopes to create millions of jobs and usher in new industries of the future.
To reach such levels, Biden said the US would:
- have a power sector free of carbon by 2035;
- sell 50% of total cars as electric by 2050;
- align efforts with the work of forums like Clean Energy Ministerial and Mission Innovation (which the US will chair next year);
- focus on ocean initiatives in advance of the Our Ocean Conference in February;
- convene a leaders-level gathering to take stock of the collective progress the countries in attendance make; and,
- work with the European Union and other partners to launch a Global Methane Pledge to reduce global methane emissions by at least 30% below 2020 levels by 2030.
Specifically, Biden’s prodding at the Forum for participants to join a global pledge of cutting methane (aka “natural gas”) was deconstructed recently by CleanTechnica‘s Joe Wachunas. “Burning methane is currently responsible for nearly 25% of all carbon emissions in the US, and its use is growing,” Wachunas began. “Methane is also deeply embedded in many of our homes, and this will make it a challenge to extricate. We aren’t anywhere near hitting peak natural gas usage on our current trajectory.”
Methane is one of the most potent agents of climate damage, bursting by the ton from countless uncapped oil and gas rigs, leaky natural gas pipelines, and other oil and gas facilities. Although methane has a shorter lifetime in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, it is, per unit, more than 20× as potent at warming the planet. During the Forum, Biden pointed to US efforts to plug leaks and cap abandoned wells as “big steps domestically to tackle these emissions.”
“Swift & Bold Action” Necessary beyond the Collegiality of the Climate Summit
It will take substantive effort to push through legislation to put into place the types of emissions levels that Biden outlined. China and India aren’t any better than the US, either, having yet to announce their new targets.
An area of contention at the Forum was pressure for the largest economies to assist less wealthy countries to transition to cleaner energy and to make sense of the changes to their countries that the climate crisis has created. In April, the Biden administration pledged to deliver $5.7 billion annually to these countries by 2024. During today’s Forum, Biden increased that amount by pointing to a “collective goal of mobilizing $100 billion a year.”
During a letter sent earlier this month to the climate summit’s invited guests, Biden offered the opportunity for “a focused, private discussion” to address the “profound generational challenge” posed by the climate crisis. Not to be deterred by the enormous task, Biden affirmed that the world’s largest economies possessed an “extraordinary opportunity to create a more prosperous and sustainable economy benefitting all.” Ever the negotiator and compromiser, Biden used the imperative of strengthening climate efforts so that action might be “swift and bold enough” to make a lasting impact that would “benefit […] both present and future generations.”
The invitation to Argentinian President Fernandez was posted on that country’s website.
Final Thoughts about the Climate Summit & What’s Ahead
From October 31 to November 1, the United Nations conference in Glasgow — the COP26 summit — will bring parties together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Nearly 200 nations are expected to announce more ambitious emissions-cutting targets than they had previously set in order to keep the world from overheating.
“Glasgow,” President Biden told his audience at the Forum, “is not our final destination.” Instead, countries around the world must “continue strengthening our ambition and our actions next year and throughout the decisive decade to keep us at one point — below 1.5 degrees and to keep that within reach.”
Participants at Friday’s climate summit included:
President Alberto Fernandez, Argentine Republic
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Commonwealth of Australia
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, People’s Republic of Bangladesh
President Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission
President Charles Michel, European Council
President Joko Widodo, Republic of Indonesia
Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Italian Republic
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, Japan
President Moon Jae-in, Republic of Korea
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, United Mexican States
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Secretary-General António Guterres, United Nations
Special Envoy of the President and China Special Envoy for Climate Change Xie Zhenhua, People’s Republic of China
Parliamentary State Secretary at the Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety Rita Schwarzelühr-Sutter, Federal Republic of Germany
Union Cabinet Minister of Labour and Employment, Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav, India
Special Presidential Envoy for Climate Change Ruslan Edelgeriyev, Russian Federation
Image screenshot taken from YouTube during Presidential welcome remarks
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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.
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.
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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.
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.”
Read more: Trump just canceled the federal NEVI EV charger program
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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.
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:
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