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Despite sales of its sole electric sports car falling in the first half of the year, Porsche is standing by its EV sales target for 2023. The automaker is warning supply chain disruptions could remain an issue for EV growth.

Porsche is still aiming for 12%-14% EV sales share in 2023

Porsche released the Taycan in 2019, and it quickly rose to become one of the brand’s top-selling models.

However, the growth has been fading for nearly two years now. After Taycan sales fell 16% last year to 34,801 units, Porsche attributed it to “supply chain bottlenecks and limited component availability.”

The trend has continued this year, with Taycan EV sales slipping another 4.7% in the first half of 2023 to 17,991 (compared to 18,777 in H1 2022).

According to Porsche, the Taycan deliveries continue to feel the impact of “shortfalls in the availability of parts,” more so than in other models. The electric car requires up to 5,000 semiconductors, which is more than any other vehicle in its lineup.

Despite the shortcomings so far this year, Porsche confirmed it still expects to hit its EV sales target of 12% to 14% delivery share.

Porsche-EV-sales-target
Porsche Taycan Turbo (Source: Porsche)

Porsche’s EV share was at 10.8% through the first half of the year, down from 13% last year.

Meanwhile, Porsche continues relying on its ICE vehicles, with higher deliveries, operating profit, and revenue.

Several reports lately have indicated Porsche will continue to lean on ICE vehicles for the foreseeable future. For example, last month, Automotive News reported Porsche was reconsidering plans to phase out gas-powered Macan sales.

Porsche-EV-sales-target
Porsche Macan EV winter testing (Source: Porsche)

A new report from Reuters claims Porsche plans to make the gas-powered 911 its last gas-powered vehicle in its lineup. 911 deliveries grew by over 20% in the first half of the year.

The Macan EV is expected to be Porsche’s second all-electric vehicle, due out next year. After that, an electric 718 is planned for 2025, followed by the Cayenne EV in 2026.

Porsche-EV-sales-target
Porsche Macan EV is due out in 2024 (Source: Porsche)

Porsche is also developing a premium luxury electric SUV expected to launch in 2027. The company is aiming for 80% of its lineup to be electric by 2030.

Electrek’s Take

Despite CEO Oliver Blume’s claim that “Once again we have posted successful figures while investing extensively in our future at the same time,” Porsche doesn’t have much to show regarding EVs.

Its sole electric vehicle “continued to be particularly affected by the limited availability of parts” in the first half.

Porsche has been claiming that supply chain issues are a thing of the past, but are they? The automaker is sticking to its EV sales target this year, so we will continue to watch the situation as it unfolds.

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Tesla Autopilot less safe, Optimus freezes, electric Mustang goes 250,000 miles

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Tesla Autopilot less safe, Optimus freezes, electric Mustang goes 250,000 miles

On today’s road-ready episode of  Quick Charge, Tesla released data hinting that its Autopilot ADAS solution may be less safe to use than before. We’ve also got some news from inside the Tesla diner experience, plus a 250,000 mile Ford Mustang Mach-E that still has more than 90% of its battery capacity left!

We also cover Lucid’s plans to reinvigorate American EV manufacturing WITHOUT help from Washington by forging stronger bonds between automakers, mineral miners, and battery recyclers – plus: Optimus breaks down.

Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple PodcastsSpotifyTuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (most weeks, anyway). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.

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Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show.


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91% of renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels, but Trump just defunded a vital US grid upgrade

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91% of renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels, but Trump just defunded a vital US grid upgrade

Renewables continued to dominate fossil fuels on price in 2024, according to a new report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). The big takeaway: Clean energy is the cheapest power around – by a wide margin. So it’s pretty bad business that the biggest grid upgrade project in US history just got kneecapped by Trump’s Department of Energy to stop the “green scam.”

On average, solar power was 41% cheaper than the lowest-cost fossil fuel in 2024, and onshore wind was 53% cheaper. Onshore wind held its spot as the most affordable new source of electricity at $0.034 per kilowatt-hour, with solar close behind at $0.043/kWh.

IRENA’s report says global renewables added 582 gigawatts (GW) of capacity last year, which avoided about $57 billion in fossil fuel costs. That’s not a small dent. Even more impressive: 91% of all new renewable power projects built in 2024 were cheaper than any new fossil fuel option.

Technological innovation, strong supply chains, and economies of scale are driving the cost advantage. Battery prices are helping too: IRENA says utility-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) are now 93% cheaper than they were in 2010, with prices averaging $192/kWh in 2024.

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But it’s not all smooth sailing. The report flags short-term cost pressures from trade tensions, material bottlenecks, and rising costs in some regions. North America and Europe feel more squeezed than others due to permitting delays, limited grid capacity, and higher system costs.

Meanwhile, countries in Asia, Africa, and South America could see faster cost drops thanks to stronger learning rates and abundant solar and wind resources.

One big challenge is financing. In developing countries, high interest rates and perceived investor risk inflate the levelized cost of electricity of renewables. For example, wind power generation costs were about the same in Europe and Africa last year ($0.052/kWh), but financing made up a much larger share of project costs in Africa. IRENA estimates the cost of capital was just 3.8% in Europe but 12% in Africa.

And even if projects are affordable to build, many are getting stuck in grid connection queues or stalled by slow permitting. Those “integration costs” are now a major hurdle, especially in fast-growing G20 and emerging markets.

Tech is helping with some of that – hybrid solar-wind-storage setups and AI-powered tools are improving grid performance and project efficiency. But digital infrastructure and grid modernization still lag in many places, holding renewables back.

“Renewables are rising, the fossil fuel age is crumbling,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. “But leaders must unblock barriers, build confidence, and unleash finance and investment.”

IRENA’s bottom line is that the economics of renewables are stronger than ever, but to keep the momentum going, governments and markets need to reduce risks, streamline permitting, and invest in grids.

Electrek’s Take

Speaking of unblocking barriers and investment, the opposite just happened today in Trump World. The Department of Energy just canceled a $4.9 billion conditional loan commitment for the 800-mile Grain Belt Express Phase 1 transmission project, the biggest transmission line in US history.

It’s a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line connecting Kansas wind farms across four states. It will connect four grids, improving reliability. It will be able to power 50 data centers and create 5,500 jobs. Phase 1 is due to start next year.

The new grid will also connect all forms of energy, not just renewables, and it’s super pathetic that Invenergy had to stoop to put up a map on the project’s home page today showing how it will transmit fossil fuels, the “existing dispatchable generation source,” and felt it had to leave renewables off the map entirely. Sorry, Kansas wind farms, you get no mention because this administration doesn’t like you.

Chicago-based Invenergy plans to build the 5 GW Grain Belt Express in phases from Kansas to Illinois. The company says the project will save customers $52 billion in energy costs over 15 years. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) complained to Trump about the project, calling it a “green scam,” and got the government loan canceled based on a lie, claiming it would cost taxpayers “billions.” This was Invenergy’s response on X:

As usual, Trump was swayed by the last person in the room, and Hawley shot an entire region in the foot when an upgraded grid and more renewables are needed more than ever. Hopefully, this project can continue despite the ignorant shortsightedness coming from the Republicans (who ironically released an AI Action Plan today).

It beggars belief that this political party is this isolated from the rest of the world – well, besides our besties Iran, Libya, and Yemen, who aren’t part of the Paris Agreement either – and being that the US is the world’s No 2 polluter, the world will suffer for its arrogance.

Read more: FERC: Solar + wind made up 96% of new US power generating capacity in first third of 2025


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

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Elon Musk with a straight face: Tesla Robotaxi will cover half of US population by end of the year

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Elon Musk with a straight face: Tesla Robotaxi will cover half of US population by end of the year

Elon Musk claims that Tesla Robotaxi will cover half of the US population by the end of the year and we can’t stop laughing.

Today, Tesla released its Q2 2025 financial results.

Earnings are down 23% on falling electric vehicle sales and lower margins, but Tesla’s stock is not crashing because CEO Elon Musk is promising a return to earnings growth through autonomous driving and humanoid robots.

We previously reported on how Tesla’s Robotaxi effort is a major shift in strategy for Tesla, which has been promising unsupervised self-driving in its customer vehicles for years.

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Instead, the Robotaxi service consists of an internal fleet operating within a geo-fenced area, currently only in Austin, Texas, and powered by teleoperation and in-car supervisors with a finger on a kill switch at all times.

“I believe half of the population of the US will be covered by Tesla’s Robotaxi by the end of the year.”

He added that he believes that regulatory approval will be the biggest hurdle, even though Tesla’s current service requires a Tesla employee in each car, which is a major hurdle to scaling.

Musk and Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s head of self-driving, both claimed that the Bay Area will be the first market where Tesla plans to expand its Robotaxi service. However, Elluswamy added that the program will initially have a driver in the driver’s seat.

This makes sense considering we learned last week that Tesla has yet to apply for the proper permits to operate an autonomous ride-hailing service in California.

Electrek’s Take

This is laughable. Who believes that? How can Elon say that with a straight face when Tesla only has a joke of a system that requires supervision at all times?

For context, Tesla currently only operates in a little over half of Austin, Texas. Here’s the list of all the metro areas Tesla would need to launch Robotaxi by the end of the year to cover half of the US population:

Rank Metro Area Population Cumulative Total
1 New York 19.15 M 19.15 M
2 Los Angeles 12.68 M 31.83 M
3 Chicago 9.04 M 40.87 M
4 Houston 6.89 M 47.76 M
5 Dallas–Fort Worth 6.73 M 54.49 M
6 Miami 6.37 M 60.86 M
7 Atlanta 6.27 M 67.13 M
8 Philadelphia 5.86 M 72.99 M
9 Washington, DC 5.60 M 78.59 M
10 Phoenix 4.83 M 83.42 M
11 Boston 4.40 M 87.82 M
12 Seattle 3.58 M 91.40 M
13 Detroit 3.54 M 94.94 M
14 San Diego 3.37 M 98.31 M
15 San Francisco 3.36 M 101.67 M
16 Tampa 3.04 M 104.71 M
17 Minneapolis–St. Paul 2.62 M 107.33 M
18 St. Louis 2.80 M 110.13 M
19 Denver 2.99 M 113.12 M
20 Baltimore 2.83 M 115.95 M
21 Orlando 2.76 M 118.71 M
22 Charlotte 2.75 M 121.46 M
23 San Antonio 2.60 M 124.06 M
24 Austin 2.42 M 126.48 M
25 Pittsburgh 2.43 M 128.91 M
26 Sacramento 2.42 M 131.33 M
27 Las Vegas 2.32 M 133.65 M
28 Cincinnati 2.26 M 135.91 M
29 Kansas City 2.19 M 138.10 M
30 Columbus 2.14 M 140.24 M
31 Cleveland 2.16 M 142.40 M
32 Indianapolis 2.12 M 144.52 M
33 San José 1.99 M 146.51 M
34 Virginia Beach–Norfolk 1.76 M 148.27 M
35 Providence 1.68 M 149.95 M
36 Milwaukee 1.57 M 151.52 M
37 Jacksonville 1.60 M 153.12 M
38 Raleigh–Durham 1.45 M 154.57 M
39 Nashville 1.43 M 156.00 M
40 Oklahoma City 1.42 M 157.42 M
41 Richmond 1.30 M 158.72 M
42 Louisville 1.28 M 160.00 M
43 Salt Lake City 1.26 M 161.26 M
44 New Orleans 1.23 M 162.49 M
45 Hartford 1.20 M 163.69 M
46 Buffalo 1.11 M 164.80 M
47 Birmingham 1.10 M 165.90 M

This is ridiculous. The lies are becoming increasingly larger and more brazen. We know what that means.

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