What it feels like to visit a fusion company lab on a day when wildfire smoke cloaks the horizon
Cat Clifford, CNBC climate tech and innovation reporter, at Helion Energy on October 20.
Photo taken by Jessie Barton, communications for Helion Energy, with Cat Clifford’s camera.
On Thursday, October 20, I took a reporting trip to Everett, Wash., to visit Helion Energy, a fusion startup that has raised raised nearly $600 million from a slew of relatively well known Silicon Valley investors, including Peter Thiel and Sam Altman. It’s got another $1.7 billion in commitments if it hits certain performance targets.
Because nuclear fusion has the potential to make limitless quantities of clean energy without generating any long-lasting nuclear waste, it’s often called the “holy grail” of clean energy. The holy grail remains elusive, however, because recreating fusion on earth in a way that generates more energy that is required to ignite the reaction and can be sustained for an extended period of time has so far remained unattainable. If we could only manage to commercialize fusion here on earth and at scale, all our energy woes would be solved, fusion proponents say.
Fusion has also been on the horizon for decades, just out of reach, seemingly firmly entrenched in a techno-utopia that exists only in science fiction fantasy novels.
David Kirtley (left), a co-founder and the CEO at Helion, and Chris Pihl, a co-founder and the chief technology officer at Helion.
Photo courtesy Cat Clifford, CNBC.
But visiting Helion Energy’s enormous workspace and lab pulled the idea of fusion out of the completely fantastical and into the potentially real for me. Of course, “potentially real” doesn’t mean that fusion will be a commercially viable energy source powering your home and my computer next year. But it no longer feels like flying a spaceship to Pluto.
As I walked through the massive Helion Energy buildings in Everett, one fully operational and one still under construction, I was struck by how workaday everything looked. Construction equipment, machinery, power cords, workbenches, and countless spaceship-looking component parts are everywhere. Plans are being executed. Wildly foreign-looking machines are being constructed and tested.
The Helion Energy building under construction to house their next generation fusion machine. The smokey atmosphere is visible.
Photo courtesy Cat Clifford, CNBC.
For the employees of Helion Energy, building a fusion device is their job. Going to the office every day means putting part A into Part B and into part C, fiddling with those parts, testing them, and then putting them with more parts, testing those, taking those parts apart maybe when something doesn’t work right, and then putting it back together again until it does. And then moving to Part D and Part E.
The date of my visit is relevant to this story, too, because it added a second layer of strange-becomes-real to my reporting trip.
On October 20, the Seattle Everett region was blanketed in dangerous levels of wildfire smoke. The air quality index for Everett was 254, making it the worst air quality in the world at that time, according to IQAir.
Helion Energy’s building under construction to house the seventh generation fusion machine on a day when wildfire smoke was not restricting visibility.
Photo courtesy Helion Energy
“Several wildfires burning in the north Cascades were fueled by warm, dry, and windy weather conditions. Easterly winds flared the fires as well as drove the resulting smoke westwards towards Everett and the Seattle region,” Christi Chester Schroeder, the Air Quality Science Manager at IQAir North America, told me.
Global warming is helping to fuel those fires, Denise L. Mauzerall, a professor of environmental engineering and international affairs at Princeton, told me.
“Climate change has contributed to the high temperatures and dry conditions that have prevailed in the Pacific Northwest this year,” Mauzerall said. “These weather conditions, exacerbated by climate change, have increased the likelihood and severity of the fires which are responsible for the extremely poor air quality.”
It was so bad that Helion had told all of its employees to stay home for the first time ever. Management deemed it too dangerous to ask them to leave their houses.
The circumstances of my visit set up an uncomfortable battle. On the one hand, I had a newfound sense of hope about the possibility of fusion energy. At same time, I was wrestling internally with a deep sense of dread about the state of the world.
I wasn’t alone in feeling the weight of the moment. “It is very unusual,” Chris Pihl, a co-founder and the chief technology officer at Helion, said about the smoke.
Pihl has worked on fusion for nearly two decades now. He’s seen it evolve from the realm of physicist academics to a field followed closely by reporters and collecting billions in investments. People working on fusion have become the cool kids, the underdog heroes. As we collectively blow past any realistic hope of staying within the targeted 1.5 degrees of warming and as global energy demand continues to rise, fusion is the home run that sometimes feels like the only solution.
“It’s less of a academic pursuit, an altruistic pursuit, and it’s turning into more of a survival game at this point I think, with the way things are going,” Pihl told me, as we sat in the empty Helion offices looking out at a wall of gray smoke. “So it’s necessary. And I am glad it is getting attention.”
How Helion’s technology works
CEO and co-founder David Kirtley walked me around the vast lab space where Helion is working on constructing components for its seventh-generation system, Polaris. Each generation has proven out some combination of the physics and engineering that is needed to bring Helion’s specific approach to fusion to fruition. The sixth-generation prototype, Trenta, was completed in 2020 and proved able to reach 100 million degrees Celsius, a key milestone for proving out Helion’s approach.
Polaris is meant to prove, among other things, that it can achieve net electricity — that is, to generate more than it consumes — and it’s already begun designing its eighth generation system, which will be its first commercial grade system. The goal is to demonstrate Helion can make electricity from fusion by 2024 and to have power on the grid by the end of the decade, Kirtley told me.
Cat Clifford, CNBC climate tech and innovation reporter, at Helion Energy on October 20. Polaris, Helion’s seventh prototype, will be housed here.
Photo taken by Jessie Barton, communications for Helion Energy, with Cat Clifford’s camera.
Some of the feasibility of getting fusion energy to the electricity grid in the United States depends on factors Helion can’t control — establishing regulatory processes with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and licensing processes to get required grid interconnect approvals, a process which Kirtley has been told can range from a few years to as much as ten years. Because there are so many regulatory hurdles necessary to get fusion hooked into the grid, Kirtley said he expects their first paying customers are likely to be private customers, like technology companies that have power hungry data centers, for example. Working with utility companies will take longer.
One part of the Polaris system that looks perhaps the most otherworldly for a non fusion expert (like me) the Polaris Injector Test, which is how the fuel for the fusion reactor will get into the device.
Arguably the best-known fusion method involves a tokamak, a donut-shaped device that uses super powerful magnets to hold the plasma where the fusion reaction can occur. An international collaborative fusion project, called ITER (“the way” in Latin), is building a massive tokamak in Southern France to prove the viability of fusion.
Helion is not building a tokamak. It is building a long narrow device called a Field Reversed Configuration, or FRC, and the next version will be about 60 feet long.
The fuel is injected in short tiny bursts at both ends of the device and an electric current flowing in a loop confines the plasma. The magnets fire sequentially in pulses, sending the plasmas at both ends shooting towards each other at a velocity greater than one million miles per hour. The plasmas smash into each other in the central fusion chamber where they merge to become a superhot dense plasma that reaches 100 million degrees Celsius. This is where fusion occurs, generating new energy. The magnetic coils that facilitate the plasma compression also recover the energy that is generated. Some of that energy is recycled and used to recharge the capacitors that originally powered the reaction. The additional extra energy is electricity that can be used.
This is the Polaris Injector Test, where Helion Energy is building a component piece of the seventh generation fusion machine. There will be one of these on each side of the fusion device and this is where the fuel will get into the machine.
Photo courtesy Cat Clifford, CNBC.
Kirtley compares the pulsing of their fusion machine to a piston.
“You compress your fuel, it burns very hot and very intensely, but only for a little bit. And the amount of heat released in that little pulse is more than a large bonfire that’s on all the time,” he told me. “And because it’s a pulse, because it’s just one little high intensity pulse, you can make those engines much more compact, much smaller,” which is important for keeping costs down.
The idea is actually not new. It was theorized in the 1950s and 60s, Kirtley said. But it was not possible to execute until modern transistors and semiconductors were developed. Both Pihl and Kirtley looked at fusion earlier in their careers and weren’t convinced it was economically viable until they came to this FRC design.
Another moat to cross: This design does use a fuel that is very rare. The fuel for Helion’s approach is deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen that is fairly easy to find, and helium three, which is a very rare type of helium with one extra neutron.
“We used to have to say that you had to go into outer space to get helium three because it was so rare,” Kritley said. To enable their fusion machine to be scaled up, Helion is also developing a way to make helium three with fusion.
A dose of hope
There is no question that Helion has a lot of steps and processes and regulatory hurdles before it can bring unlimited clean energy to the world, as it aims to do. But the way it feels to walk around an enormous wide-open lab facility — with some of the largest ceiling fans I have ever seen — it seems possible in a way that I hadn’t ever felt before. Walking back out into the smoke that day, I was so grateful to have that dose of hope.
But most people were not touring the Helion Energy lab on that day. Most people were sitting stuck inside, or putting themselves at risk outside, unable to see the horizon, unable to see a future where building a fusion machine is a job that is being executed like a mechanic working in a garage. I asked Kirtley about the battling feeling I had of despair at the smoke and hope at the fusion parts being assembled.
“The cognitive dissonance of sometimes what we see out in the world, and what we get to build here is pretty extreme,” Kirtley said.
“Twenty years ago, we were less optimistic about fusion.” But now, his eyes glow as he walks me around the lab. “I get very excited. I get very — you can tell — I get very energized.”
Other young scientists are also excited about fusion too. At the beginning of the week when I visited, Kirtley was at the American Physics Society Department of Plasma Physics conference giving a talk.
“At the end of my talk, I walked out and there were 30 or 40 people that came with me, and in the hallway, we just talked for an hour and a half about the industry,” he said. “The excitement was huge. And a lot of it was with younger engineers and scientists that are either grad students or postdocs, or in the first 10 years of their career, that are really excited about what private industry is doing.”
E-Cells, an e-bike brand in the US known for its all-wheel-drive fat tire e-bikes with extremely high performance, has announced that it is terminating operations and closing its doors.
The announcement was posted to the company’s social media accounts by the brand’s founder David Cleveland.
The closure was due in part to the impact of new tariffs on imported goods, with tariffs on Chinese-produced electric bikes reaching a total of up to 170%.
“Effective immediately, we are announcing the closure of our business,” explained Cleveland. “Due to unforeseen circumstances — including extreme tariff increases and other market challenges — continuing operations is no longer sustainable.”
He thanked customers for their years of patronage, with E-Cells operating for around six years. “We are grateful for the trust and support we have received from our customers and community over the years.”
E-Cells was a leader in the extremely high-performance electric bicycle niche. The brand’s models were popular with hunters and outdoorsmen, often sporting massive tires with all-wheel-drive, dual batteries, and dual suspension. Many models featured well over 2,000W of power and speeds topping 30 mph (51 km/h).
Those features resulted in large, robust, and extremely capable e-bikes that could be ridden in off-road and overlanding scenarios. Many E-Cells owners used the powerful electric bikes to pull heavy trailers, especially hunting trailers.
Now the company is reaching out to existing customers who have open orders and plans to handle the distribution of remaining stock internally. “We are no longer accepting new orders. Customers with existing orders will be contacted individually. Remaining inventory will be handled internally and is not available for public sale.”
The closure of E-Cells may be just the beginning of a broader shakeout in the US electric bike industry. Larger e-bike makers are better able to weather the storm of economic uncertainty, but as tariffs rise and economic pressures mount, smaller and mid-sized companies could find it increasingly difficult to stay afloat. The combination of supply chain disruptions, higher import costs, and price-sensitive consumers creates a challenging environment, especially for brands that rely heavily on overseas manufacturing.
Unless there’s a meaningful shift in trade policy or targeted support for the micromobility industry, we could see more e-bike companies scaling back operations or exiting the market entirely. And with fewer players in the space, consumers may face reduced choices, higher prices, and slower innovation – just as e-bikes are gaining mainstream traction as a sustainable transportation solution.
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It’s not just electric vehicles. Toyota is warning, “We don’t have much time left,” with China poised to take the lead in another emerging technology following EVs.
Toyota is warning that China’s lead with EVs is just the start
It’s no secret by now that China is, by far, leading the transition to electric. Last year, over 17 million EVs were sold globally. According to Rho Motion, China accounted for 11 million, or over 60%.
Even as new models from leading OEMs like Volkswagen, Hyundai, and Kia are being introduced, China continues outpacing every other country. Through the first three months of 2025, over 2.4 million electric cars were sold in China, nearly 60% of the 4.1 million sold globally.
And it’s not just electric vehicles. Most batteries that power them also come from China, with companies like CATL and BYD dominating the market.
Data from SNE Research shows that CATL and BYD alone accounted for over 55% of the global EV battery market in 2024. With overseas sales surging in key markets like Southeast Asia, Europe, and Central and South America, BYD is not only selling more EVs but also the batteries needed to power them.
In March, BYD released its new Super e-platform with ultra-fast charging batteries that can add 250 miles range in just five minutes. The first model based on the platform, the Han L, starts at just 219,800 yuan ($30,000).
And then there’s the smart driving technology. Earlier this year, BYD confirmed that most of its vehicles, including its ultra-low-cost Seagull, will now include its new “Gods Eye” driver-assistance system. Others like Huawei and Momenta are racing ahead with newer, more advanced ADAS systems.
Now, Toyota is warning that China is about to take the lead in another emerging industry, following EVs. Misumasa Yamagata, president of Toyota’s hydrogen business, warned that hydrogen vehicles are headed for the same fate as EVs.
According to the Financial Times, Yamagata said, “We don’t have much time left — it’s important to accelerate quickly.”
Toyota has been developing hydrogen vehicles for over 30 years. However, like electric cars, China is quickly taking market share.
China already accounts for the majority of hydrogen commercial vehicle sales. Toyota’s hydrogen boss explained, “China is the most advanced in the world for hydrogen trucks.” Why? Yamagata states it’s “because the Chinese government ordered turning major logistics routes into hydrogen highways.”
China is rapidly expanding refuelling stations while driving down costs, which are now just a third of Japan’s. Hydrogen fuel cell bus and truck sales in China were higher than in every other market combined, at 7,069.
Electrek’s Take
We are already seeing it happen with electric vehicles. With a flood of new EVs entering China, BYD, XPeng, NIO, and most others are now looking overseas to drive growth.
BYD’s overseas sales hit another record in April, with nearly 80,000 vehicles sold overseas, which is its fifth straight month of growth. In total, BYD sold over 380,000 new energy vehicles (EVs and PHEVs), 195,740 of which were purely electric.
According to S&P Global Mobility, BYD’s sales are expected to double in Europe to around 186,000 in 2025. By 2029, that number could reach around 400,000.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is alienating trade partners with new tariffs on imports while threatening to end federal incentives, which will only put the US further behind.
It’s already becoming evident in global markets like Thailand, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, and several others, where Chinese brands are quickly gaining a presence.
The trend is only expected to accelerate with new tech quickly advancing. Will China continue reshaping the global auto and tech market? Let us know what you think in the comments.
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Lectric Ebikes appears to be preparing for a major new product launch, teasing what looks like the next evolution of its wildly popular folding fat tire electric bike. Based on the clues, it looks like a new Lectric XP 4 could be inbound.
In a social media post released over the weekend, the company shared a minimalist graphic reading “XP4” along with the message “Tune in 5.6.2025 9:30AM PT.” That date – this Tuesday – suggests we’re just hours away from the big reveal of the Lectric XP 4.
If true, this would mark the next generation of the most successful electric bike in the U.S. market. The current model, the Lectric XP 3.0, has become an icon of accessible, budget-friendly electric mobility. Starting at just $999, the XP 3.0 offers a foldable frame, fat tires, a 500W motor, a rear rack, lights, and hydraulic brakes – all packed into a highly shippable design that arrives fully assembled. It’s the kind of package that has helped Lectric claim the title of best-selling e-bike brand in the U.S. for several years in a row.
With the XP 3.0 still going strong, the teaser raises plenty of questions. Will the XP 4.0 be a modest update or a major leap forward? Could we see new features like torque-sensing pedal assist, a location tracking option, or upgraded performance? Or is Lectric preparing a more comfort-oriented variant, maybe even with upgraded suspension or even more accessories included standard?
The teaser image, which features stylized stripes in grey, blue, and black, may hold some clues. One theory is that the colors represent new trim options or component upgrades. Another possibility is that Lectric is preparing multiple variants of the XP 4.0 – perhaps targeting commuters, adventurers, and off-road riders with purpose-built versions. We took the liberty of a bit of rampant speculation late last year, so perhaps that’s now worth a revisit.
At the same time though, Lectric’s penchant for launching new models at unbelievably affordable prices has never run up against such strong pricing headwinds as those posed by uncertainty in the current US-global trade war fueled by rapidly changing tariffs for imported goods.
Whatever the case, Lectric’s knack for surprising the industry with high-value, customer-focused e-bikes means expectations will be high. The brand has built a loyal following by delivering reliable performance at a price point that few can match, and any major update to the XP lineup is likely to ripple across the market.
As a young and energetic e-bike company, Lectric is also known for throwing impressive parties around the launch of new models. It looks like I may need to hop on a red-eye to Phoenix so I can see for myself – and so I can bring you all along, of course.
Be sure to tune in Tuesday at 9:30AM PT to see what Lectric has in store – and you can bet we’ll have all the details and first impressions as soon as they drop.
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