Electric utilities face billions in wildfire liability with aging power lines risking another catastrophe

Published

2 years ago

August 28, 2023

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Electrical workers repair power lines leading into the fire ravaged town of Lahaina on the island of Maui in Hawaii, August 15, 2023.

Mike Blake | Reuters

Electric companies in the western U.S. are facing mounting lawsuits alleging that their failure to prepare for extreme weather has resulted in repeated, catastrophic wildfires that have taken scores of lives and caused billions of dollars in damages.

Hawaiian Electric is the latest utility to face allegations of negligence. Maui County sued the power company for damages on Thursday over its alleged role in the devastating wildfires on Maui this month that have killed more than 100 people and burned the historic town of Lahaina to the ground.

The Maui County complaint is the 12th lawsuit filed against Hawaiian Electric. The suits allege that downed power lines operated by the company contributed to the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century.

The suits accuse the utility of negligence for failing to shut off power even after the National Weather Service had issued a “red flag” warning of an increased fire risk due to high winds from Hurricane Dora and drought conditions on the island.

Hawaii Electric pushed back against some of those claims in a statement Sunday.

The credit agency Fitch has said the litigation could pose an existential threat to the company. Pacific Gas & Electric in California filed for bankruptcy in 2019 when facing billions of dollars in liability for wildfires.

The allegations leveled against Hawaiian Electric echo lawsuits brought against PG&E in California over the 2018 Camp Fire, Berkshire Hathaway’s PacifiCorp in Oregon over the 2020 Labor Day wildfires and Xcel Energy in Colorado over the 2021 Marshall Fire.

Before all these catastrophic wildfires, the companies did not shut the power off despite high winds that can knock down power lines and combine with dry or outright drought conditions to create a high fire risk.

The wildfire risk posed by aboveground power lines is well documented. More than 32,000 wildfires were ignited by transmission and distribution lines in the U.S. from 1992 to 2020, according to U.S. Forest Service data.

Paul Starita, an attorney who represents Lahaina residents in one of the suits against Hawaiian Electric, said utilities are not doing enough to harden their infrastructure against extreme weather and clear brush to prevent catastrophic fires.

“They’re just not doing it,” said Starita, senior counsel at Singleton Schreiber, a law firm that has represented 12,000 victims in fires caused by utilities. “And when you know the system has a problem — shut down the power,” he said.

The industry suffers from a culture that is slow to change and has historically had a financial incentive to not overspend on infrastructure because their performance has been judged on how much money they save their customers, said Alexandra von Meier, an electric grid expert.

“The industry just is changing more slowly than the climate is,” said von Meier, an independent consultant and former professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “The industry needs different standard practices today than they needed 10 years ago. They just haven’t adapted yet.”

The failure to adapt swiftly to climate change has had catastrophic consequences in lives lost, homes destroyed and increasingly for the utilities’ own business interests.

Lives lost, billions in damages

The Maui fires have killed at least 115 people with hundreds still missing. The town of Lahaina is destroyed. Moody’s estimates the wildfires have caused up to $6 billion in economic losses.

Fitch, Moody’s and S&P recently downgraded Hawaiian Electric’s credit rating to junk status, with Fitch warning that the company faces more than $3.8 billion in potential liability for the Maui wildfires.

Though the lawsuits point the finger at Hawaiian Electric, the authorities are still investigating the cause of the Maui wildfires. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has deployed a team with an electrical engineer to assist Maui County fire officials in determining the origins of the blazes.

Just two months before the Maui fires, Colorado law enforcement officials found that a power line operated by the Minnesota-based utility Xcel Energy likely caused one of the two initial fires that led to the 2021 Marshall Fire in Boulder County. The line had become unmoored from its pole during high winds.

The Marshall Fire killed two people, destroyed more than 1,000 homes and dozens of commercial buildings, and burned 6,000 acres of land. Colorado’s insurance commissioner has put the total property losses at more than $2 billion, making it the costliest wildfire in state history.

Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty said during a news conference in June that criminal charges were not brought against Xcel because there was no evidence of worn materials, shoddy construction and substandard conditions in its power line.

Xcel CEO Bob Frenzel said the company strongly disagrees with the investigation’s conclusion that the power line likely contributed to the blaze. He said Xcel will vigorously defend itself in court against mounting lawsuits.

The company said it is aware of eight lawsuits representing at least 586 plaintiffs and expects further complaints, according to its latest quarterly financial filing. If Xcel is found liable for the Marshall Fire, the total damages could exceed the company’s insurance coverage of $500 million, according to the filing.

Days after Boulder County released its Marshall Fire findings, a jury in Oregon found that Berkshire Hathaway‘s PacifiCorp was to blame for four of the 2020 Labor Day wildfires and ordered the company to pay $90 million in damages to 17 homeowners.

PacifiCorp said the damages sought in the various lawsuits, complaints and demands filed in Oregon over the wildfires total more than $7 billion, according to the company’s latest financial filing. The utility has already incurred probable losses from the fires of more than $1 billion, according to the filing.

The Labor Day wildfires in Oregon killed nine people, destroyed more than 5,000 homes and burned 1.2 million acres of land in the most destructive multiple-fire event in the state’s history.

Though the official cause of the fires is still under investigation, homeowners in the class-action lawsuit said downed power lines operated by PacifiCorp triggered the fires. They accused the company of acting negligently by failing to shut the power off. PacifiCorp has said it will appeal the June jury verdict, which could take years.

The company said in its latest financial filing that government agencies have informed the company that they are contemplating actions in connection with some of the 2020 wildfires.

These catastrophes came years after the devastating 2018 Camp Fire in California that should have served as an urgent, tragic warning to the industry.

The Camp Fire killed 85 people, destroyed more than 18,000 buildings and burned over 153,000 acres of land. The town of Paradise, like Lahaina in the Maui fires, was almost completely destroyed by the inferno.

The Camp Fire was ignited by a power line that PG&E failed to maintain with components dating back to 1921. The company was indicted and ultimately pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter.

PG&E filed for bankruptcy protection in 2019 in the face of $30 billion in wildfire liability. The company reached a $13.5 billion settlement with victims and emerged from bankruptcy in 2020.

Aging power lines

The century-old infrastructure that led to the 2018 Camp Fire, though particularly egregious, is not an isolated problem. Most of the transmission and distribution lines in the U.S. have reached or surpassed their 50-year intended lifespan, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.

And this aging infrastructure is running up against an accelerating number of disasters due to climate change, according to ASCE. Maui County has alleged Hawaiian Electric operated wood utility poles that were severely damaged by decay, putting them at increased risk of toppling during a high wind event.

And even if a utility perfectly maintains and operates its equipment, it is next to impossible to guarantee there will never be a spark with aboveground transmission and distribution infrastructure, von Meier said.

The smartest solution is to install the transmission lines, switchgear and transformers underground, she said. The problem is that this is expensive. It costs about 10 times as much to install electrical infrastructure underground compared with aboveground, von Meier said.

“To really reinforce the infrastructure, both to make it reliable in the face of extreme weather and to keep it from causing fires, is going to be very, very expensive,” von Meier said. The U.S. is facing an investment shortfall of $338 billion in electric infrastructure through to 2039, according to ASCE.

The Edison Electric Institute, the trade association that represents investor-owned electric companies, said the industry has invested $1 trillion over the past decade in upgrading and maintaining infrastructure and is on track to invest more than $167 billion in 2023.

“Substantial investments in adaptation, hardening, and resilience are being made to help mitigate risk,” said Scott Aaronson, EEI’s head of security and preparedness.

“Unfortunately, there is no such thing as zero risk, which is why we are working to drive down that risk and ensure we are prepared to respond safely and efficiently when incidents do occur,” Aaronson said.

Joseph Mitchell, a scientist who has served as an expert on wildfires for the California Public Utilities Commission, said electric companies in the Golden State are moving to install their lines below ground to mitigate the risk.

But Mitchell said insulating aboveground power lines with a protective covering is also an effective solution that is cheaper and can be rolled out more quickly. There is also technology coming to market that can de-energize power lines automatically when there’s a problem, he said.

Power shut-offs

The utilities all failed to shut the power off before these wildfires. Hawaiian Electric CEO Shelee Kimura said during a news conference earlier this month that cutting power would have jeopardized Lahaina’s water supply and people who rely on specialized medical equipment.

“The electricity powers the pumps that provide the water, and so that was also a critical need during that time,” Kimura said.

“There are choices that need to be made and all of those factors play into it,” Kimura said. “So every utility will look at that differently depending on the situation.”

Hawaiian Electric subsequently said downed power lines appear to have caused a morning brush fire in Lahaina, but the power was off when a second fire broke out that afternoon. The cause of the second fire is still under investigation.

Von Meier and Mitchell both said that a decision to shut off power is not an easy one. It comes with risks that can also potentially put lives in jeopardy, but Mitchell said it is the right decision when lines are going to be pushed to their limit during high winds in potential fire conditions.

“You’re talking about potential criminal liability here. The financial liability is going to be humungous for these fires,” said Mitchell, who founded a wildfire consulting firm called M-bar Technologies.

Von Meier said the risks of shutting power off underlines a deeper planning and resilience problem in U.S. infrastructure. Drinking water should not be in jeopardy if the grid goes out, she said, and people with specialized medical equipment should be provided with reliable solar-powered backup batteries.

“Nobody in an electric utility should be in a situation where their decision to shut the power off means that life-sustaining equipment will fail,” she said.

Kimura also said Hawaiian Electric had no program in place for a power shutdown. The utilities need to learn the lesson that clear guidelines need to be in place for when power should be cut, von Meier said.

“It’s sort of the same story every time — people don’t think it can happen there,” Mitchell said of wildfires ignited by power lines. “Everybody has to learn the hard way. Hopefully, this is the last time and people will come up with contingency plans.”

Environment

The Kandi 4P golf-cart is an NFL fan’s dream neighborhood cruiser

Published

11 hours ago

November 16, 2025

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The Kandi 4P golf-cart is an NFL fan's dream neighborhood cruiser

Kandi has become fairly well known in the US for its electric golf carts and work-focused UTVs, but the company has teamed up with Lowe’s and the NFL on something more playful: the Kandi 4P electric golf cart. Sold through Lowe’s with official NFL team liveries, this four-seat neighborhood cruiser is aimed less at the fairway and more at cul-de-sacs, grocery runs, and game-day tailgates. I spent time with a Miami Dolphins–themed 4P in South Florida to see what it can really do.

Kandi 4P NFL-edition golf cart video review

Want to see it in action? Or want to see my family decked out in head-to-toe Miami Dolphins gear?

Check out our family testing video below!

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Specs, power, and hardware

Despite the “golf cart” label, the Kandi 4P is built more like a small road-going NEV. Power comes from a 5 kW motor and a big 48V 150 Ah lithium iron phosphate battery (around 7.2 kWh), giving it plenty of grunt for neighborhood speeds of around 20 mph and a lot more range than you’d expect from something this size. In practical terms, it just sips energy; I did multiple days of errands and joyrides before even thinking about plugging it in.

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Charging is refreshingly straightforward. The cart uses a J1772 inlet, so you can plug into a normal 120V wall outlet with the included cord or use a typical home EV charger if you already have one. It’s overkill for a golf cart, but in a good way.

Underneath, you’ll find single wishbone suspension in the front, rack-and-pinion steering, and four-wheel hydraulic disc brakes. There’s even a 2-inch receiver tow-hitch rated for 500 pounds of trailer weight and a mounting spot up front if you really want to bolt on a winch.

Features and practicality

Inside, the Kandi 4P feels more like a small EV than a basic cart. There’s a very large touchscreen display with multiple info pages for speed, battery, and system status (and also displays the backup camera). An NFC fob handles “key” duties, and you get proper controls for forward, neutral, and reverse, plus hazards, lighting, and a tilt-adjustable steering column with stalk-mounted turn signals and horn.

The seats are nicely upholstered and genuinely comfortable, with DOT seat belts front and rear, cup holders everywhere, grab bars for passengers, and a built-in Bluetooth speaker for rolling playlists or tailgate anthems. A flip-up windshield can be cracked for a bit of breeze or propped fully open on gas struts, and the hard roof extends enough to keep you fairly dry in the rain. I should know – I had it out driving in multiple rain storms!

Storage is better than you’d expect: a small glove box, a rear trunk, and even a front “frunk.” Between those and the flat floor, we were able to pull off a full grocery run – though we probably should have planned our bag strategy a bit better. We ended up buckling a week’s worth of grocery bags into the back seats, but a tub in the back would make a better storage area for those types of large store runs.

Is it worth it?

At $9,999 through Lowe’s with whichever NFL team’s colors you prefer, the Kandi 4P isn’t cheap in absolute terms, but it’s very much in the mix for modern, nicely equipped neighborhood carts. High-end golf carts can easily run $14,000–$15,000 these days, and they don’t always bring a 7+ kWh LiFePO4 pack, disc brakes all around, J1772 charging, and all the street-legal bits in one package. Add in official NFL team colors and logos and you’ve basically got a rolling fan-mobile that doubles as a genuine second car replacement for many households.

No, it’s not as safe as a full-size car – there are no airbags or crumple zones here. But it does have real seat belts and lights, and it encourages a more aware, less “invincible” mindset behind the wheel. For people living in communities with 25–30 mph streets, these kinds of carts make a lot of sense: lower cost to buy, dramatically less energy use, no tailpipe emissions, less wear on roads and tires, and far more smiles per mile.

Compared to an e-bike, the Kandi 4P wins on weather protection and passenger capacity. Compared to a second car, it wins on cost, efficiency, and fun. And if you’re the type of person who wants to show up to the grocery store or the stadium in a full team-liveried electric cart, this thing absolutely nails the assignment.

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Environment

Rumor: Polestar ($PSNY) planning reverse stock split to stay on NASDAQ

Published

1 day ago

November 15, 2025

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Rumor: Polestar ($PSNY) planning reverse stock split to stay on NASDAQ

The automaker turned penny stock is doing a reverse stock split to stay listed on the Nasdaq

In a bid to get it above the $1.00/share NASDAQ-required minimum, fledgling EV brand Polestar ($PSNY) is rumored to be considering a 1:30 reverse stock split that could see the per-share price rocket up to nearly $16.

Geely-owned Volvo spinoff Polestar is working as hard as Tesla to prove that stock prices have little or nothing to do with traditional business fundamentals in 2025.

That’s because Polestar posted a 36.5% increase in retail sales and a heady 48.8% increase in revenue (to $2.17 billion) over the year before, Polestar’s share price has plummeted more than 35% in a matter of a few weeks – culminating in an unwelcome nastygram from NASDAQ threatening to delist the company’s shares from the NASDAQ if they didn’t climb back up above $1.

It looks bad

To goose the share price, CarScoops is reporting that Polestar aims to move forward with the reverse stock split before the end of 2025. The expected 1:30 reverse split would boost the PSNY price to an estimated $15.90 per share at current prices, keeping the brand well out of risk of a delisting.

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In a reverse stock split, each share of the company is converted into a fraction of a share – so, if a company announces a one for ten reverse stock split (1:10), every ten shares that you own will be converted into a single share. In a 1:30 reverse split like the one rumored here, every thirty shares in Polestar would become a single share.

The reverse split increases share price, but it’s not without risk:

A company may declare a reverse stock split in an effort to increase the trading price of its shares – for example, when it believes the trading price is too low to attract investors to purchase shares, or in an attempt to regain compliance with minimum bid price requirements of an exchange on which its shares trade … investors may lose money as a result of fluctuations in trading prices following reverse stock splits.

INVESTOR.ORG

That’s especially relevant because, despite the increased sales and revenue, the company is also posting increased losses. Through September, the brand posted a $1.56 billion net loss compared to an $867 million loss in the first nine months of 2024. The company is also getting hit hard by Trump-imposed tariffs in the US and increased downward pressure on pricing coming from aggressive post-tax credit discounts from rival brands like BMW and Kia.

If the split does happen, here’s hoping Polestar can make the most of their borrowed time and they don’t end up like Lordstown Motors or Faraday Future – two brands that have pulled similar reverse stock splits with dubious results.

Electrek’s Take

Make the switch to Polestar. Save up to $20,000 on a Polestar 3 lease as a Tesla owner. — Polestar showroom; via Polestar.

Product-wise, at least, Polestar’s future appears to be bright. The new 3 crossover is a viable competitor to the industry-leading Tesla Model Y, and the upcoming Polestar 4 and 5 models seem like winners, too. To drive that point home, Polestar is promoting up to $18,000 in lease incentives to lure Tesla buyers into their showrooms.

You can find out more about Polestar’s killer EV deals on the full range of Polestar models, from the 2 to the 4, below, then let us know what you think of the three-pointed star’s latest discount dash in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

SOURCE: CarScoops; images via Polestar.

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Maybe it really SHOULD have been the new Maxima: meet the Nissan N6 EREV

Published

1 day ago

November 15, 2025

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Maybe it really SHOULD have been the new Maxima: meet the Nissan N6 EREV

Nissan’s New Hybrid Sedan Is As Big An Altima For Thousands Less Than A Versa

With its sleek, uncluttered styling and more than 100 miles of battery-electric range before the extended range electric sedan’s gas engine kicks on, maybe the new Nissan N6 really should have been the next Maxima!

Struggling Japanese carmaker Nissan is dealing with an aging lineup and a brand identity driven more by subprime financing than any suggestion of reliability or sportiness here in the US – but overseas? The brand is rolling out hit after hit, and the latest Nissan N6 plug-in sedan promises exactly the sort of entry-level panache that could change its American fortunes.

“Under our Re:Nissan plan, we are redefining what Nissan delivers today and beyond,” explains Nissan President and CEO Ivan Espinosa. “It’s about strengthening our core, reigniting Nissan’s heartbeat, and creating products that inspire excitement and trust. It is about a sharper, more focused product strategy, a stronger brand, and a renewed commitment to our customers. Integral to this transformation is China — an essential market whose speed, technological leadership, and customer insights are setting the pace for the global auto industry.”

Developed by the Nissan Dongfeng JV in China, the new N6 is more compact that the well-received N7 BEV. In fact, the new Nissan N6, at 190.1″ long, compares nicely to the 192.8″ length of the most recent (and largest-ever) US Maxima, discontinued in 2023. Like the Maxima, the top-shelf version features modern, near-luxe features like soft, leather-like surfaces, LED mood lighting, multi-way adjustable seats, and mimosas or something.

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Mimosas or something

The four or five passengers inside the N6 are propelled down the road exclusively by the car’s 208 hp electric motor, which is efficient enough to take you 112 miles on a full charge of its 21.1 kWh LFP battery. Once that charge is depleted, a 1.5L gas engine kicks on as a high-efficiency generator to keep the good times rolling.

Nissan says the N6′ exterior design, “features a V-Motion signature grille and expressive LED lighting at the front and rear.” And says that the car’s crisp lines give it, “a confident, dynamic presence.”

All of which sounds good on its own, but sounds absolutely miraculous when you consider the car’s Chinese price: ¥106,900 – or about $15,000 US for the base Nissan N6 180 Pro, as I type this.

Even with a nearly 100% markup to give it a $29,990 price tag in the US, I think the N6 would be a huge hit in the North American market. And – good news! – thanks to Canada’s apparent willingness to give Chinese carmakers a shot, we might find out if I’m right somewhat sooner than later.

Check out the Nissan N6 image gallery, below, then let us know what you think of the car’s US and Canadian appeal in the comments.

Nissan N6 gallery

SOURCE | IMAGES: Nissan.

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