Many people expect electric vehicles to be fixtures in a future world that relies on renewable energy. But not many EV companies started out as renewable energy companies.
One company trying to pull off that feat is Bangkok-based Energy Absolute. The biodiesel producer and renewable energy company branched into the commercial EV business in 2019.
In March of this year, Thailand set a goal of 1 million electric vehicles on its roads by 2025 — and it hopes that figure will grow to 15 million a decade later. That would include not just private automobiles but commercial vehicles — delivery vans, trucks, buses and the like.
A former securities trader, Somphote Ahunai, started Energy Absolute in 2006. He took the company public in Thailand in 2013 and began expanding into energy storage in 2016, when the company acquired shares in Taiwan-based Amita Technologies, an energy storage manufacturer. It’s now in the final stages of building a $3 billion battery gigafactory project to make lithium-ion batteries.
Ahunai told CNBC’s “Managing Asia” that the government’s efforts to promote EV adoption in Thailand have helped him to start the project, and now he says he’s urging the government “to open up the market and create a favorable policy for the EV market.”
However, the pandemic has affected the company’s foray into EVs. An order for 3,500 five-seater hatchbacks was canceled by a local taxi company as tourism dried up. Ahunai made a quick pivot to focus on commercial vehicles and battery storage instead.
“Many manufacturers, they are focusing on the passenger car. Not many people are focusing on the commercial vehicle yet, because they cannot overcome how to make the vehicle charge faster and make the battery last longer,” Ahunai said.
Ahunai’s plan is to install 1,000 charging stations nationwide in the next few years.
A charging sign sits at an Energy Absolute Anywhere charging station in Bangkok, Thailand, 2019.
Nicolas Axelrod | Bloomberg | Getty Images
“We have rolled out almost 500 charging stations nationwide, mainly in Bangkok and vicinity,” Ahunai said, adding that the company holds almost 80% market share for charging stations in Thailand.
His focus on commercial vehicles is in line with Thailand’s policy to put some 70,000 commercial electric vehicles on the road annually.
“If we successfully secure [the commercial electric vehicle] segment … then we create economies of scale for us to go into the other segments,” such as passenger cars, Ahunai said.
Japanese, American and German automakers all have manufactured vehicles in Thailand, but despite the country’s auto-making expertise, it doesn’t have an internationally recognized vehicle brand of its own. Ahunai said he believes EVs could change that. He wants Energy Absolute to be front and center on that effort.
“We believe that by using [our] technology and Thailand’s [auto-making] infrastructure, we can use that to be the springboard to the global market,” Ahunai said. “At least, we can go into the ASEAN market, which has almost 600 million population. So, that is a good market for us at the beginning, to start with.”
Right now, the bulk of the company’s revenue still comes from renewable energy such as wind and solar, but Ahunai said his foray into commercial EVs will be an important source of future revenue.
“If you look at what we are investing [in] now,” he said, “it will totally change the revenue structure of the company in a few years’ time.”
Germany’s largest offshore wind farm under construction, EnBW’s He Dreiht, just hit a big milestone: The first enormous turbine is now up in the North Sea.
He Dreiht – which means “it spins” in Low German – is using Vestas’s massive 15 megawatt (MW) turbines, the first project in the world to install them. Just one spin of one of the rotors can generate enough electricity to power four households for an entire day.
When it’s finished, He Dreiht will have 64 mega turbines cranking out 960 megawatts (MW) of clean power – enough to supply around 1.1 million homes. And it’s being built without any government subsidies.
EnBW, one of Germany’s major energy companies, has been working in offshore wind for more than 15 years, but He Dreiht is their biggest project yet. “It will play a key role in helping us to significantly grow our renewable energy output from 6.6 GW to over 10 GW by 2030,” said Michael Class, who heads up EnBW’s generation portfolio development.
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The project is a win for Vestas, too. “With the installation of the first V236-15.0 MW, we have reached an important milestone for both the He Dreiht project and our offshore ramp-up, which helps Germany build a more secure, affordable, and sustainable energy system,” said Nils de Baar, president of Vestas Northern & Central Europe.
He Dreiht is located about 85 kilometers (53 miles) northwest of Borkum and 110 kilometers (68 miles) west of Helgoland. At peak times, more than 500 workers will be out at sea building the farm, using a fleet of more than 60 ships. EnBW’s offshore team in Hamburg is running the show.
The installation process is a major operation. The 64 foundations were already set in the seabed last year. Parts for the turbines are loaded onto the installation vessel Wind Orca in Esbjerg, Denmark, and shipped out in a 12-hour journey to the construction site. From there, the turbines are lifted into place. Meanwhile, crews are also working on internal wind farm cabling.
A partner consortium made up of Allianz Capital Partners, AIP, and Norges Bank Investment Management owns 49.9% of the shares in He Dreiht.
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Tesla has released a quick update about its Tesla Semi factory in Nevada. It says that it is on track for volume production of the electric semi truck in 2026.
The Tesla Semi was first scheduled to go into production in 2019, but it has faced numerous delays.
Now, it appears that there is finally some momentum to bring it to volume production.
For the last two years, Tesla has been working to build a new factory next to Gigafactory Nevada, where it builds the battery packs and drive units for most of its electric vehicles built in North America.
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Today, Tesla released a “progress update on the factory, confirming that it finished building and it’s now working on deploying the production lines:
Tesla had previously mentioned aiming for volume production by 2025, but it is now only talking about starting production toward the end of the year and ramping up next year.
The automaker reiterated its planned production capacity of 50,000 units.
They now expect to take deliveries of their first trucks later in 2026 and said that the price has increased “dramatically,” leading them to scale back their pilot program from 42 to 18 Tesla Semi trucks.
When originally unveiling the Tesla Semi in 2017, the automaker mentioned prices of $150,000 for a 300-mile range truck and $180,000 for the 500-mile version. Tesla also took orders for a “Founder’s Series Semi” at $200,000.
However, Tesla didn’t update the prices when launching the “production version” of the truck in late 2022. Price increases have been speculated, but the company has never confirmed them.
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Vietnamese solar panel maker Boviet Solar just opened the doors to its first US factory — a huge new PV module plant in Greenville, North Carolina.
The company dropped $294 million into the state-of-the-art facility, which will pump out Boviet’s Gamma Series monofacial and Vega Series bifacial solar panels. They’re using advanced PERC and N-Type solar cell tech, which basically means these panels are built to deliver higher efficiency and better performance across residential, commercial, industrial, and utility-scale projects.
The Greenville factory’s first phase is now online with an annual PV module output capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW). For Phase 2, which is scheduled to come online in the second half of 2026, Boviet will invest another $100 million to add 600,000 square feet and ramp up to another 2 GW. It will make high-efficiency solar cells.
Once both phases are complete, Boviet’s campus will cover more than 1 million square feet of manufacturing and R&D space. It’s one of the biggest clean energy manufacturing projects North Carolina has ever seen.
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The jobs impact is significant, too. The first phase will create 460 skilled local jobs. Phase 2 is expected to add another 908, bringing the total to over 1,300 direct jobs, plus nearly 2,000 more indirect jobs across the region. That’s good news for Pitt County’s economy, real estate market, and workforce training programs.
“This facility is not just creating jobs, but creating opportunity, innovation, and a stronger foundation for eastern North Carolina,” said Senator Kandie Smith. Governor Josh Stein added that Boviet Solar’s move shows how North Carolina is leading the way in clean energy growth.
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