It’s been a week since the most politically-charged Thanksgiving week in four years, and the results are in: people are buying more EVs, and they’re not afraid to hit the road in their new, battery-powered conveyances. The automotive and EV charging industry analysts report that DC fast charging sessions were up nearly 50% compared to the same week last year.
If you were to look across the Thanksgiving table ask your racist uncle (you know the one) what he thought of EVs, odds are he’d repeat some tired old trope about range, infrastructure, or the grid. As ever, some of his concerns probably were incredibly valid 2-3 years ago, but the real-world data is showing again and again that battery electric cars are ready and able to meet the vast majority of Americans’ everyday driving needs – and now, the data experts at Paren are showing that EVs are ready for road trips, too!
“It is a really positive story,” reports Loren McDonald, chief analyst at Paren. “Despite the narrative from some corners that we aren’t going to have enough chargers, our data shows that the charging infrastructure is keeping pace with the growth in demand and session activity. And reliability is making progress too.”
From the report:
Image via Paren; courtesy Loren McDonald.
We analyzed data across public fast charging “travel” stations (excluding locations such as dealerships and requiring four or more ports) for Thanksgiving week, Monday through Sunday. Black Friday 2024 saw a 54% increase in charging sessions compared to 2023, while Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving had the lowest year-over-year (YoY) increase in sessions at 39%. The overall average YoY increase for the week was 48%.
Paren’ analysis also seems to indicate that drivers’ concerns about whether or not they’ll be able to find open, working chargers when they need them — a condition the company calls, “charger anxiety” — may be overblown, if only just.
The Paren Reliability Index incorporates multiple factors, but is a measure of whether a driver was able to initiate and complete a successful charging session. While many charge point operators (CPOs) claim “uptime” rates meeting or exceeding the 97% National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) minimum requirement, that metric typically only captures whether the charging system was turned on, and not whether a driver was actually able to complete a charging session due to anything ranging from hardware and software issues to broken connectors, cut cables, or payment processing issues.
I’ve known Loren McDonald for a number of years, and he’s been good enough to work with me in several capacities and smart enough to find me a little annoying. More significantly, though, he is almost always right, and the first person to beat himself up when his projections are off by 1-2% while everyone else’s are off by 10-20.
Earlier this year, the data firm Loren founded, EV Adoption, was acquired by Paren – and both Loren and Paren’s co-founder, Bill Ferro, visited me on Quick Charge to talk about it. I’ve included the episode, above. Enjoy!
U.S. President Donald Trump walks as workers react at U.S. Steel Corporation–Irvin Works in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, U.S., May 30, 2025.
Leah Millis | Reuters
U.S. Steel shares jumped on Monday after President Donald Trump approved its controversial merger with Japan’s Nippon Steel.
U.S. Steel shares were last up about 5% in premarket trading.
Trump issued an executive order on Friday that allowed U.S. Steel and Nippon to finalize their merger so long as they signed a national security agreement with the U.S. government. The companies said they signed the agreement with the government, completing the final hurdle for the deal.
U.S. Steel said the national security agreement includes a golden share for the U.S .government, without specifying what powers the government would wield with its share. Trump said on Thursday that the golden share gives the U.S. president “total control.”
Typically, golden shares allow the holder veto power over important decisions the company makes. Pennsylvania Sen. Dave McCormick told CNBC in May that the golden share will give the U.S. government control of several board seats and ensure production levels aren’t cut.
Trump has avoided calling the transaction a merger, describing the deal instead as a “partnership.” U.S. Steel confirmed in a regulatory filing Monday that the company will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Nippon Steel North America.
“All regulatory approvals required for the completion of the Transaction have been received,” U.S. Steel said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. “The Transaction remains subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions, and is expected to be completed promptly.”
Trails of Iranian ballistic missiles light up the night sky as seen from Gaza City during renewed missile strikes launched by Iran in retaliation against Israel on June 15, 2025.
Anadolu | Anadolu | Getty Images
Tehran will “pay the price” for its fresh missile onslaught against Israel, the Jewish state’s defense minister warned Monday, as markets braced for a fourth day of ramped-up conflict between the regional powers.
Fire exchanges have continued since Israel’s Friday attack against Iran, with Iranian media reporting Tehran’s latest strikes hit Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, home to a major refinery. CNBC has reached out to operator Bazan for comment on the state of operations at the Haifa plant, amid reports of damage to Israel’s energy infrastructure.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said overnight it deployed “innovative methods” that “disrupted the enemy’s multi-layered defense systems, to the point that the Zionist air defense systems engaged in targeting each other,” according to a statement obtained by NBC News.
Israel has widely depended on its highly efficient Iron Dome missile defense system to fend off attacks throughout regional conflicts — but even it can be overwhelmed if a large number of projectiles are fired.
The fresh hostilities are front-of-mind for investors, who have been weighing the odds of further escalation in the conflict and spillover into the broader oil-rich Middle East, amid concerns over crude supplies and the key shipping lane through the Strait of Hormuz connecting the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
Oil prices retained the gains of recent days and at 09:19 a.m. London time, Ice Brent futures with August delivery were trading at $73.81 per barrel, down 0.57% from the previous trading session. The Nymex WTI contract with July expiry was at $72.7 per barrel, 0.38% lower.
Elsewhere, however, markets showed initial signs of shrugging off the latest hostilities early on Monday.
Spot prices for key safe-haven asset gold retreated early morning, down 0.42% to $3,417.83 per ounce after nearly notching a two-year-high earlier in the session, with U.S. gold futures also down 0.65% to $ 3,430.5
Tel Aviv share indices pointed higher, with the blue-chip TA-35 up 0.99% and the wider TA-125 up 1.33%.
Luis Costa, global head of EM sovereign credit at Citigroup Global Markets, signaled the muted reaction could be, in part, attributed to hopes of a brisk resolution to the conflict.
“So markets are obviously, you know, bearing in mind all potential scenarios. There are obviously potentially very bad scenarios in this story,” he told CNBC’s “Europe Early Edition” on Monday. “But there is still a way out in terms of, you know, a faster resolution and bringing Iran to the table, or a short continuation here, of a very surgical and intense strike by the Israeli army.”
U.S. response in focus
As of Monday morning, Israel’s national emergency service Magen David Adom reported four dead and 87 injured following rocket strikes at four sites in “central Israel,” reporting collapsed buildings, fire and people trapped under debris.
Accusing Tehran of targeting civilians in Israel to prevent the Israel Defense Forces from “continuing the attack that is collapsing its capabilities,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, a close longtime ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a Google-translated social media update that “the residents of Tehran will pay the price, and soon.”
The IDF on Sunday said it had in turn “completed a wide-scale wave of strikes on numerous weapon production sites belonging to the Quds Force, the IRGC and the Iranian military, in Tehran.”
CNBC could not independently verify developments on the ground.
The U.S.’ response is now in focus, given its close support and arms provision to Israel, the unexpected cancellation of Washington’s latest nuclear deal talks with Iran, and President Donald Trump’s historically hard-hitting stance against Tehran during his first term.
Trump, who has been pushing Iran for a deal over its nuclear program, has weighed in on the conflict, opposing an Israeli proposal to kill Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to NBC News.
Discussions about the conflict are expected to take place during the ongoing meeting of the G7, encapsulating Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S., along with the European Union.
— CNBC’s Katrina Bishop contributed to this report.
A Tesla Model 3 got stuck on a train track and was hit, albeit slightly, by a train in Sinking Spring, PA. The driver claimed it was in “self-driving mode.”
According to the fire alerts in Berks County, a Tesla Model 3 drove around a train track barrier near South Hull Street and Columbia Avenue and got stuck in the tracks.
The driver was able to exit the vehicle, but a train hit the car, reportedly snapping off the side mirror.
The fire commissioner ordered to stop all train traffic as the emergency services worked to get the Model 3 off the tracks using a crane.
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Spitlers Garage & Towing, performed the recovery and shared a few pictures on Facebook:
The Tesla driver reportedly claimed that the vehicle was in “self-driving mode” leading up to getting stuck on the train tracks.
Tesla claims that all its vehicles built since 2016 will be capable of unsupervised self-driving with software updates; however, this has yet to occur.
Instead, Tesla has been selling a “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) package for up to $15,000 that requires the driver to constantly supervise the vehicle, with the driver remaining responsible for the car at all times.
Electrek’s Take
There have been instances of Tesla drivers engaging in reckless behavior and then attributing it to the Full Self-Driving (FSD) features.
I’m not saying it’s the case here, but it’s a possibility.
On the other side, I’ve seen FSD try to navigate around construction barriers. It’s possible that it tried to do that in this case, here and then got caught on the tracks.
We would need more data.
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