A new children’s science book about Tesla and EVs, Everything Tesla: From How They Work To How Fast They Go And All The Fun In Between!, launches today, written by twin 9th graders Aiden and Eliana Miao, and targeted at kids between the ages of 8 and 13.
Aiden and Eliana are from Palo Alto, California and spent the last 4 years assembling the impressive tome, which was originally going to be 20 pages long but swelled to over 200 pages as they researched and wanted to add more to the book.
The authors say that they wanted to inspire kids to learn about science and electric cars and to care about the environment. They say that their parents’ Model 3 inspired them to think about climate change, along with wildfires and smoke days that have increasingly become a feature of California summers and autumns as climate change continues to worsen.
For their research, they read and watched a number of EV news sites and Youtube channels, including us here at Electrek (hi kids!). They pitched us over email and frankly, it was one of the more professional pitches we’ve gotten, and the book really impressed us when they sent us a copy.
Eliana says they also held meetings with professors and engineers to fact-check their writing over the course of the 4 years of work they put into this book (more than a quarter of their lives working on one book? they’re veritable George R.R. Martins).
After years of writing the book and being met with a significant amount of rejection from adults, Aiden and Eliana found an editor, Alexander Cox, and a designer, Sadie Thomas of LS Design, who helped them turn their idea into a real book.
Image Courtesy of Lightning Strikes Twice
The book is exceedingly well-realized (way beyond what we expected when we read their initial pitch email – Stanford, keep an eye out for these kids’ college application when it comes in), with full-page graphics on every page and quite a lot of information.
Everything Tesla largely focuses on Tesla and Tesla-related topics, though a lot of these points are generalizable to other electric cars, like how electric motors work or dispelling battery-related myths, or to related topics, like sections on solar panels and climate change.
Image Courtesy of Lightning Strikes Twice
The book as a whole is written in language that is accessible to young audiences, but still has a wealth of information that could probably teach some adults the basics about electric cars. The authors think this might be the first kids’ science book written by kids and for kids. Or at least, they couldn’t find any others in their own search.
While the book is not endorsed by Tesla, it does adopt a very positive view of everything related to the company. We here at Electrek also appreciate Tesla’s leadership in the EV industry, but our praise for the company and particularly its leader might have been a little more moderated than what you’ll read in the book.
Image Courtesy of Lightning Strikes Twice
Nevertheless, this is a much more impressive effort than, uh, anything I’ve ever seen a 9th grader do. Kids these days, am I right?
Everything Tesla releases today, is self-published and is available on Amazon in Kindle or hardcover versions, and at Books Inc in Palo Alto. The authors will have a book launch event at Books Inc on March 23rd at 2pm, and are excited to give an author talk next week at their old elementary school, where they attended when they started writing the book. Find out more about the book on its website at https://everythingteslabook.com.
Photo by Max Rabbitt / Courtesy of Lightning Strikes Twice
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HOUSTON — Amazon, Alphabet’s Google and Meta Platforms on Wednesday said they support efforts to at least triple nuclear energy worldwide by 2050.
The tech companies signed a pledge first adopted in December 2023 by more than 20 countries, including the U.S., at the U.N. Climate Change Conference. Financial institutions including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley backed the pledge last year.
The pledge is nonbinding, but highlights the growing support for expanding nuclear power among leading industries, finance and governments.
Amazon, Google and Meta are increasingly important drivers of energy demand in the U.S. as they build out artificial intelligence centers. The tech sector is turning to nuclear power after concluding that renewables alone won’t provide enough reliable power for their energy needs.
Amazon and Google announced investments last October to help launch small nuclear reactors, technology still under development that the industry hopes will reduce the cost and timelines that have plagued new reactor builds in the U.S.
Meta issued a call in December for nuclear developers to submit proposals to help the tech company add up to four gigawatts of new nuclear in the U.S.
The pledge signed Wednesday was led by the World Nuclear Association on the sidelines of the CERAWeek by S&P Global energy conference in Houston.
China’s so-called “DeepSeek moment” is likely to be good news in the global race to develop artificial intelligence models that can carry out more complex tasks, according to Jean-Pascal Tricoire, chairman of French power-equipment maker Schneider Electric.
“I actually think its good news. We need AI at every level,” Tricoire told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick at CONVERGE LIVE in Singapore on Wednesday.
“We need AI to optimize your whole enterprise at all levels, so that you can buy better, consume better, decide better, source better. To do all of this, we need models to operate on a smaller scale,” he added.
Tricoire said the emergence of Chinese AI app DeepSeek showed that AI models can achieve the same results as some of its more established U.S. rivals, but with a much smaller model.
It “will actually spread AI at all levels of the architecture much faster,” Tricoire said. He added that DeepSeek’s blockbuster R1 model would be “fantastic” for improving safety and reliability when deploying AI on dangerous equipment.
“The spread of AI models at every level of what we need is actually very good news,” Tricoire said.
His comments come shortly after Schneider Electric reported record sales and profits in 2024.
The company, which has been a big beneficiary of the artificial intelligence trend, raised its 2025 profit margin following robust fourth-quarter demand for data centers.
Shares of Schneider Electric rose 33% in 2024, following a 39% upswing in 2023. The Paris-listed stock is down around 7% year to date, however, with China’s recent AI push sparking concerns about AI investment and tech sector returns.
Data centers, which consume an ever-increasing amount of energy, represent a key piece of infrastructure behind modern-day cloud computing and AI applications.
A Northvolt building in Sweden, photographed in February 2022.
Mikael Sjoberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Struggling electric vehicle battery manufacturer Northvolt on Wednesday said it has filed for bankruptcy in Sweden.
The firm said it that it submitted the insolvency filing after an “exhaustive effort to explore all available means to secure a viable financial and operational future for the company.”
“Like many companies in the battery sector, Northvolt has experienced a series of compounding challenges in recent months that eroded its financial position, including rising capital costs, geopolitical instability, subsequent supply chain disruptions, and shifts in market demand,” Northvolt noted.
“Further to this backdrop, the company has faced significant internal challenges in its ramp-up of production, both in ways that were expected by engagement in what is a highly complex industry, and others which were unforeseen.”
Northvolt’s collapse into insolvency deals a major blow to Europe’s ambition to become self-sufficient and build out its own EV battery supply chain to catch up to China, which leads as the world’s largest market for electric vehicles by a wide margin.
The Swedish battery firm had been seeking financial support to continue its operations amid an ongoing Chapter 11 restructuring process in the United States, which it kicked off in November.
“Despite liquidity support from our lenders and key counterparties, the company was unable to secure the necessary financial conditions to continue in its current form,” Northvolt said Wednesday.
Northvolt said a Swedish court-appointed trustee will oversee the company’s bankruptcy process, including the sale of the business and its assets and settlement of outstanding obligations.