BLUETTI raises nearly $9.5M on Indiegogo to deliver its AC500 and B300S Backup Power Station
BLUETTI POWER Inc. is a global leader in portable and solar energy solutions and is showing no signs of slowing down its innovation. After launching a funding campaign for the AC500 power station and B300S expansion battery pack combo system this past September, BLUETTI has already garnered close to $9.5 million across nearly 4,000 backers – and the funding round isn’t even over yet. As BLUETTI completes milestone after milestone, there’s no better time to purchase an AC500 power station of your own and receive a complimentary gift pack for backers only.
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BLUETTI continues to soar on wings of AC500 campaign
BLUETTI POWER Inc. has always been a top-three player among clean energy solution providers, and its ability to consistently innovate and outperform everyone else has helped set the brand apart. A recent example is BLLUETTI’s recent launch of the new AC500 portable power station, once again pushing the limits of mobile energy. Combined with several B300S expansion batteries, this modular system can deliver over 18,000Wh of energy, perfect for outages, off-grid trips, and RV living.
Following the launch of its sales campaign for the AC500 and B300S on Indiegogo in early September, BLUETTI found an early audience of interested buyers. That statement is backed by $5 million raised in the first 15 days of the campaign and a milestone of $8 million after 40 days.
Since it has soared through all three of its stretch goals so far, the BLUETTI team is adding massive perks to say thanks to its backers. The company recently added a a free gift pack for every AC500 backer, including a 100W type-c cable, a mug, and a t-shirt. That’s not all either. BLUETTI has already set additional milestones for the remaining days of its campaign – the more it sells, the more you as customers benefit.
We will get into those pledged bonuses later, but first, let’s learn a bit more about the features of this potentially industry-leading portable power storage technology.
What is the BLUETTI AC500 plus B300S Power Station?
As a combined system, the BLUETTI AC500 and B300S can delivery a holistic, all-in-one energy solution to meet nearly any energy need. Whether it’s back up power during an emergency or blackout, limiting dependency on your local electricity, or the dream of living completely off the grid, the AC500 plus B300S system can help.
A key feature of the BLUETTI AC500 plus B300S system is that it is 100% modular, offering anything from 3 to 36 kWh of battery capacity by adding more B300S external expansion batteries. A single AC500 power station is compatible with up to six B300S batteries, totaling 18 kWh in capacity. Add a second AC500 unit and more batteries and you’re looking at a whopping 36 kWh of stored energy – more than enough power to support your home or life off the grid.
As a standalone energy storage device, BLUETTI’s B300S expansion battery gains advantages over competition that requires a separate power station. The B300S is equipped with a 100W USB-C, a 12V/10A car outlet, and an 18W USB-A port as its power source.
The BLUETTI AC500’s 5,000 watts of continuous power means it’s well-equipped to keep your household appliances going, whether its a window A/C unit, a washing machine, or any other larger device.
Need higher power than 5,000 watts during an outage? No problem. Tie two AC500 systems directly to your home’s main panel using a transfer switch to bolster your home’s supply up to 10,000-watts – enough juice to safely power all your home’s circuits, including 240V outlets. BLUETTI recently introduced a brand new transfer switch, which costs just $639 to connect a single AC500 system and $679 for the AC500 split phase system (two AC500 units).
Charging versatility, no matter where you are
If and when your BLUETTI AC500 system runs out of power, you can recoup in a relatively short amount of time. With a single B300S battery pack, you can recharge in just 80 minutes – 3.5 times faster than BLUETTI’s competitors. How you recharge your system is nearly as versatile as the station itself. Whether it’s a wall outlet, car, generator, roof solar or portable panels, you will be able to replenish your AC500 plus B300S system no matter where you are.
Additional, the system’s dual charging capabilities allow for quicker speeds and higher power inputs, wether its AC and solar or AC + AC. A BLUETTI AC500 with one B300S battery can receive up to 4,500W input, while an AC500 with two B300S batteries can achieve a maximum of 8,000W.
Especially if you’re looking to utilize your AC500 plus B300S system off the grid, BLUETTI solar panels could prove quite fruitful in providing clean, unlimited energy to keep your batteries full. Luckily, BLUETTI’s PV40 portable solar panels are available in its crowdfunding campaign.
These 420W monocrystalline solar panels are more durable and can better withstand high temperatures compared to polycrystalline panels, making them ideal for both indoor and outdoor use. You can combine up to six BLUETTI PV400 solar panels to charge the AC500 plus B300S system, pushing it back to full capacity in just two hours.
Pricing and shipping times
To begin, the AC500 plus B300S system starts at a price of $1,699 (CONFIRM THIS). A single B300S battery pack is currently available at a discounted price of $1,899. Better yet, get yourself the AC500 combo that comes with not one, but two B300S batteries, currently on sale for $4,999 and will come with the aforementioned gift pack (and hopefully additional perks).
The PV400 solar panels is currently on sale for $799 (27% off), but there are fewer than 200 left at that price. After those panels are sold, the price will go up to $899.
According to BLUETTI sources, 50% of US orders have already been shipped while orders for the EU and the UK are still on the way. All that said, BLUETTI expects 95% of backers to receive their product(s) before year’s end.
Remember those additional milestone bonuses we teased earlier? Well here they are. If BLUETTI reaches $10 million in pledged backing, it will offer backers a four-year warranty on their AC500 plus B300S system. $12 million? That warranty gets bumped up to five years.
BLUETTI’s special campaign combos are in limited quantity and available on a strictly first-come-first-served basis. You’d better hurry too, because BLUETTI’s Indiegogo campaign will close by the end of October and with it will end the perks and exclusive pricing mentioned above.
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China set a new record for clean tech exports in August 2025, hitting $20 billion, according to new data analyzed using Ember’s China Cleantech Exports Data Explorer. The country remains the world’s largest exporter of electrotech, with surging demand for EVs and batteries leading the charge.
EV exports jumped 26% from January through August compared to the same period in 2024, while battery exports rose 23%. Other sectors saw more modest growth – grid technology up 22%, wind up 16%, and heating and cooling systems up 4% – but those gains were offset by a 19% drop in solar PV export value. EVs and batteries are now worth more than double the value of China’s solar PV exports.
This milestone is remarkable because it comes even as technology prices have fallen sharply. Solar panel prices, for example, have plunged more than 80% over the past decade, making them more affordable and driving up global demand. In August alone, China exported 46 gigawatts (GW) of solar PV – more than Australia’s entire installed solar capacity – setting a record in capacity terms. However, their dollar value remains 47% below their March 2023 peak.
Falling prices have fueled growth in new regions. Over half of the increase in China’s EV exports this year came from outside the OECD, with the ASEAN region emerging as a major growth engine. EV exports to ASEAN surged 75% in the first eight months of 2025, mainly driven by Indonesia. The country saw the biggest rise in Chinese EV imports globally this year, becoming the world’s ninth-largest EV market. Battery electric vehicles made up 14% of new car sales in Indonesia in August 2025, up from 9% a year earlier.
Africa is also rapidly adopting Chinese clean tech. From January to August, EV exports to the continent nearly tripled year-over-year (+287%), albeit from a very low base, with Morocco leading growth and Nigeria’s imports soaring sixfold. Latin America and the Caribbean saw an 11% rise, while the Middle East climbed 72%.
Domestically, China’s own adoption of clean tech is accelerating even faster. EVs accounted for 52% of new car sales in August, and in the first half of 2025, China installed more than twice as many solar panels as the rest of the world combined. Ember’s recent China Energy Transition Review attributes this momentum to consistent policy support that’s reshaping the country’s economy and energy system around electrified technologies.
“Demand for clean technologies continues to skyrocket as more and more countries seek their benefits, from low-cost power to cheaper vehicles,” said Ember analyst Euan Graham. “China’s electrotech is becoming the basis of the new energy system, with continued cost reductions driving faster growth than ever, especially in emerging economies.”
Read more: The era of cheap Chinese solar + storage is ending – here’s why
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Environment
This Meta alum has spent 10 months leading OpenAI’s nationwide hunt for its Stargate data centers
Keith Heyde stands on site in Abilene, Texas, where OpenAI’s Stargate infrastructure buildout is underway. Heyde, a former head of AI compute at Meta, is now leading OpenAI’s physical expansion push.
OpenAI
It wasn’t how Keith Heyde envisioned celebrating the holidays. Rather than hanging out with his wife back home in Oregon, Heyde spent late December visiting potential data center sites across the U.S.
Two months earlier, Heyde left Meta to join OpenAI as the head of infrastructure. His job was to turn CEO Sam Altman’s ambitious compute dreams into reality, seeking out vast swaths of land suitable for expansive facilities that will eventually be packed with powerful graphics processing units for building large language models.
“My in-between Christmas and New Year’s last year was actually mostly spent looking at sites,” Heyde, 36, told CNBC in an interview. “So my family loved that, trust me.”
His life in 2025 has only gotten more intense.
Since January, OpenAI has been quietly soliciting and reviewing proposals from around 800 applicants hoping to host the next wave of its Stargate data centers, AI supercomputing hubs designed to train increasingly powerful models.
Roughly 20 sites are now in advanced stages of diligence, with massive tracts of land under review across the Southwest, Midwest and Southeast. Heyde said tax incentives are “a relatively small part of the decision matrix.”
The most important factors are access to power, ability to scale, and buy-in from local communities.
“Can we build quickly, is the power ramp there fast, and is this something where it makes sense from a community perspective?” he said.
Heyde leads site development within OpenAI’s industrial compute team, a division that’s swiftly become one of the most important groups inside the company. Infrastructure, once a supporting function, has now been elevated to a strategic pillar on par with product and model development.
With traditional data centers nearly at max capacity, OpenAI is betting that owning the next generation of physical infrastructure is central to controlling the future of AI.
The energy needs are hard to fathom. A gigawatt data center requires the amount of power needed for some entire cities. Late last month, OpenAI announced plans for a 17-gigawatt buildout in partnership with Oracle, Nvidia, and SoftBank.
New sites will have to include all sorts of energy options, including battery-backed solar installations, legacy gas turbine refurbishments and even small modular nuclear reactors, Heyde said. Each site looks different, but together they form the industrial backbone OpenAI needs to scale.
“We’ve done this wonderful piece of bottleneck analysis to see what types of energy sources actually allow us to unlock the journey that we want to be on,” Heyde said.
A good chunk of the capital is coming from Nvidia. The chipmaker agreed to invest up to $100 billion to fuel OpenAI’s expansion, which will involve purchasing millions of Nvidia’s GPUs.
‘Perfect wasn’t the goal’
Heyde, a former head of AI compute at Meta, helped oversee the buildout of Meta’s first 100,000 GPU cluster.
In addition to power, OpenAI is assessing how quickly it can build on a site, the availability of labor and proximity to supportive local governments, according to Stargate’s request for proposal.
Heyde said the team has made around 100 site visits and has a short list of sites in late-stage review. Some will be brand new builds, and others will require conversions and refurbishments of existing facilities. Flexibility will be key.
“The perfect parcels are largely taken,” Heyde said. “But we knew that perfect wasn’t the goal — the goal for us was, number one, a compelling power ramp.”
Competition is fierce.
Meta is building what may be the largest data center in the Western Hemisphere — a $10 billion project in Northeast Louisiana, fueled by billions in state incentives. CEO Mark Zuckerberg raised the top end of the company’s annual capital expenditure spending range to $72 billion in July.
The steel frame of data centers under construction during a tour of the OpenAI data center in Abilene, Texas, U.S., Sept. 23, 2025.
Shelby Tauber | Reuters
Amazon and Anthropic are teaming up on a 1,200-acre AI campus in Indiana. And across the country, states are rolling out tax breaks, power guarantees, and expedited zoning approvals to attract the next big AI cluster.
OpenAI is a relative upstart, having been around for just a decade and only known to the mainstream since launching ChatGPT less than three years ago. But it’s raised mounds of cash from the likes of Microsoft and SoftBank, in addition to Nvidia, on its way to a $500 billion valuation.
And OpenAI is showing it’s not afraid to lead the way in AI. A self-built solar campus in Abiliene, Texas, is already live.
While OpenAI still leans on partners like Oracle, OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar told CNBC last week in Abilene that owning first-party infrastructure provides a differentiated approach. It curbs vendor markups, safeguards key intellectual property, and follows the same strategic logic that once drove Amazon to build Amazon Web Services rather than rely on existing infrastructure.
However, Heyde indicated that there’s no real playbook when it comes to AI, particularly as companies pursue artificial general intelligence (AGI), or AI that can potentially meet or exceed human capabilities.
“It’s a very different order of magnitude when we think about the type of delivery that has to happen at those locations,” he said.
Some applicants, including former bitcoin mining operators, offered existing power infrastructure, like substations and modular buildouts, but Heyde said those don’t always fit.
“Sometimes we found that it’s almost nice to be the first interaction in a community,” he said. “It’s a very nice narrative that we’re bringing the data center and the infrastructure there on behalf of OpenAI.”
The 20 finalist sites represent phase one of a much larger buildout. OpenAI ultimately plans to scale from single-gigawatt projects to massive campuses.
“Any place or any site we’re moving forward with, we’ve really considered the viability and our own belief that we can deliver the power story and the infrastructure story associated with those sites,” Heyde said.
He understands why many people are skeptical.
“It’s hard. There’s no doubt about it,” Heyde said. “The numbers we’re talking about are very challenging, but it’s certainly possible.”
WATCH: OpenAI’s $850 billion buildout contends with grid limits
There’s a quiet revolution underway in Cadillac showrooms across America. The brand’s renewed “Standard of the World” ambitions are now matched by sleek, statement-making electric vehicles. And, thanks to a little help from Federal tax credit FOMO, more than 40% of new Cadillacs sold in Q3 were 100% electric.
GM’s overall EV sales numbers were up 110% last quarter, climbing to 66,501 units in the US alone on the back of the affordable, 300+ mile Chevy Equinox and 1,000-mile capable (sort of) Silverado EV – but it was Cadillac dealers that saw the biggest growth in EV sales.
As buyers poured into Cadillac dealerships in the last days of the $7,500 Federal EV tax credit, GM’s luxury arm was ready with stylish, new-for-2025 electric vehicles like the Optiq, Vistiq, and Escalade IQ* waiting for them alongside the Lyriq. The result wasn’t just Cadillac’s best third quarter in more than a decade – Cadillac (and GM) is having one of its best sales year, period.
Here’s what the quarter looked like, by the recently-released GM sales numbers.
| EV MODEL | Q3 25/Q3 24 | Q3 25 | Q3 24 | YTD 25/YTD 24 | YTD 25 | YTD 24 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chevrolet Equinox EV | +156.70% | 25,085 | 9,772 | +389.88% | 52,834 | 10,785 |
| Chevrolet Blazer EV | +1.14% | 8,089 | 7,998 | +36.72% | 20,825 | 15,232 |
| Chevrolet Silverado EV | +97.49% | 3,940 | 1,995 | +78.58% | 9,379 | 5,252 |
| Chevrolet BrightDrop | * | 2,384 | * | * | 3,976 | 0 |
| GMC Hummer EV Pickup | +21.86% | 5,246 | 4,305 | +48.65% | 13,233 | 8,902 |
| GMC Sierra EV | +771.84% | 3,374 | 387 | +1,488.37% | 6,147 | 387 |
| Cadillac Optiq | * | 4,886 | * | * | 9,826 | 0 |
| Cadillac Lyriq | +1.18% | 7,309 | 7,224 | -18.17% | 16,626 | 20,318 |
| Cadillac Vistiq | * | 3,924 | * | * | 5,669 | 0 |
| Cadillac Escalade IQ | * | 2,264 | * | * | 6,030 | 0 |
| Total | +109.91% | 66,501 | 31,681 | +137.44% | 144,545 | 60,876 |
Source: GM Authority / GM Q3 2025 sales report.
That asterisk up there next to the high-rolling Escalade IQ that sold more than 3,900 examples is because, at well over $80,000 even for the most basic model it never qualified for the $7,500 Federal EV tax credit to begin with (nor did the people destined to buy it, who almost certainly make too much to qualify).
It’ll be interesting to see if the loss of that tax credit will do much to negatively impact EV sales in Q4. And that’ll get doubly interesting thanks to the creative accounting team at GM that figured out how to extend that $7,500 tax credit for existing dealer inventory (for a few more months) and that its biggest EV rivals at Hyundai are slashing prices on popular IONIQ models.
You can check out our EIC Fred Lambert’s full review of the new electric Cadillac Escalade in the video, below, and use the following links to find great Cadillac deals near you while that cleverly extended tax credit is still a thing.
Cadillac Escalade IQ review
SOURCE | IMAGES: GM, via GM Authority.
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