Toyota sold a mere 18 EVs in its home market last month
Yes, just 18. Toyota sold 18 electric vehicles in its home market of Japan last month. And that includes its luxury Lexus brand.
Why did Toyota sell just 18 EVs in Japan in August?
Toyota, including Lexus, sold just over 17,000 electric vehicles globally in August. But, in Japan, Toyota’s home market, EV sales plummeted, with just 18 units sold.
The other 17,038 EVs were sold in overseas markets, like Europe, China, and North America. Through the first nine months of 2025, Toyota and Lexus have sold 117,031 battery electric vehicles (BEVs) worldwide and are on pace to top the roughly 140,000 sold throughout 2024.
In Japan, the story has been different so far this year. Toyota (including Lexus) sold 469 EVs through August, a far cry from the 2,038 it sold throughout the entire year of 2024.
To be fair, it’s not just Toyota that’s struggling to sell electric cars in Japan. The country has failed to keep pace with China and, in many respects, the rest of the industry, due to a lack of government support and limited options compared to gas-powered hybrids.
Even BYD, which has seen explosive growth in most markets, has struggled to gain traction in Japan. Since launching its first vehicle in January 2023, BYD has sold just 5,300 vehicles through June of this year.
According to a new Bloomberg report, BYD is now offering discounts of up to ¥1 million ($6,700) on its vehicles. Including government subsidies, the discounts cut vehicle prices by up to 50%.
Toyota’s hybrid sales, on the other hand, are up nearly 10% this year in Japan, with over 603,600 hybrids sold. Outside of Japan, Toyota’s hybrid sales are up 14% with over 2.3 million models sold through August.
Electric vehicles are expected to account for only about 3.4% of new car sales in Japan this year, according to BloombergNEF, but further growth is anticipated.
Several automakers, including Honda and BYD, are launching more affordable EVs. BYD plans to launch its first electric kei car that will compete with the Nissan Sakura, Japan’s top-selling EV. It will also go up against the Honda N-ONE e, which launched on September 12, starting at just ¥2.7 million ($18,300).
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More than half of the European Union’s (EU) electricity came from renewables in the second quarter of 2025, and solar is leading from the front.
According to new data from Eurostat, renewable energy sources generated 54% of the EU’s net electricity in Q2 2025, up from 52.7% year-over-year. The growth came mainly from solar, which produced 122,317 gigawatt-hours (GWh) – nearly 20% of the total electricity generation mix.
June 2025 was a milestone month: Solar became the EU’s single largest electricity source for the first time ever. It supplied 22% of all power that month, edging out nuclear (21.6%), wind (15.8%), hydro (14.1%), and natural gas (13.8%).
Some countries are already nearly 100% renewable. Denmark led with an impressive 94.7% share of renewables in net electricity generated, followed by Latvia (93.4%), Austria (91.8%), Croatia (89.5%), and Portugal (85.6%). At the other end of the spectrum, Slovakia (19.9%), Malta (21.2%), and the Czech Republic (22.1%) lagged behind.
In total, 15 EU countries saw their share of renewable generation rise year-over-year. Luxembourg (+13.5 percentage points) and Belgium (+9.1 pp) posted the most significant gains, driven largely by solar power growth.
Across the EU, solar made up 36.8% of renewable generation, followed by wind at 29.5%, hydro at 26%, biomass at 7.3%, and geothermal at 0.4%.
Read more: EIA: Solar and wind crush coal with 20% more power in 2025
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Environment
Rivian’s latest patents detail new headlamp and energy storage system with grid capabilities
Another week, another patent filing with the USPTO from Rivian. Filings from Rivian, published today, detail an ornamental headlamp design, as well as a home energy storage system similar to Tesla’s Powerwall. Could this be our first glimpse at Rivian’s version of home energy management technology, including vehicle-to-grid (V2G) capabilities?
Today’s patent news follows several exciting filings Rivian submitted to the United States Patent and Trademark Office last week. We covered those submissions in detail, including a new BEV architecture that no longer utilizes a 12V battery, an automated rear diffuser, and on-screen “gadgets” in the infotainment and navigation.
Less than a week later, Rivian has five additional patents published by the USPTO as of September 30, 2025. Of those filings, we see an obstacle detection system for the tonneau cover, a vehicle state estimation system, a battery thermal release layer, and an ornamental headlamp design, as shown below.
Lastly, Rivian also has a published patent filing for an energy storage system
Rivian files patent for headlamp, energy storage system
According to patent US D1,095,903 S published on September 30, 2025, Rivian IP Holdings submitted the filing for an ornamental headlamp back on October 20, 2023. There are a few details aside from several figure illustrations in the submitted document, which states that the 15-year patent covers “the ornamental design for an automobile headlamp as shown and described.”
In addition to the headlamp, Rivian also has a new patent number US 12,431,551 В2, which details an energy storage device. The abstract of the patent primarily details energy monitoring of connected devices as well as light indicators after detecting nearby motion.
However, further documentation published alongside the images seen above reveals a wealth of additional design plans, including electrical grid interface capabilities, which hint at Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) capabilities, or in reality, vehicle-to-everything (V2X). Per the patent (FIG.1 coincides with the featured image at the top of the page):
FIG. 1 depicts an energy storage system 100, in accordance with some aspects. The energy storage system 100 includes one or more energy storage devices 105. For example, the energy storage device 105 can store chemical, electrical, or mechanical energy. The energy storage device 105 can be associated with (e.g., can provide power to or from) a cabin, home, vehicle, or campsite. The energy storage device 105 can be fixed or portable (e.g., can be vehicle mounted, affixed to a permanent structure, or freely moved). For example, the energy storage device 105 can be intended for stationary operation, based on power received or delivered to the stationary location, or can be intended for movable operation (e.g., in response to a need for power at
a remote location, such as a campsite.) For example, the energy storage device 105 can be an electric vehicle battery pack 160 of an electric vehicle 155 configured to provide propulsion for the electric vehicle 155 or accessory power for a user associated with the electric vehicle 155 (e.g., for lighting, cooking, and music). The vehicle battery 160 can provide energy to or from the components of FIG. 1 such as the energy storage device 105 or the grid 150.
So essentially, Rivian has a patent on its own branded energy storage system, which can include battery cells to store excess energy from a vehicle, the grid, or solar panels, and power a home at a homeowner’s request, similar to technology already rolled out by competitors like Tesla, Ford, and GM Energy.
Could we soon see Rivian energy storage and V2X capabilities in the homes of R1 owners? Time will tell!
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The beaming of solar power from space back down to earth using lasers sounds like science fiction, and was even floated in an Isaac Asimov short story back in the 1940s.
But that is exactly what a California-based startup is testing: Mini solar farms in the form of low-orbit satellites.
California-based startup Aetherflux plans to send its satellite technology into orbit on a SpaceX rocket next year. Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt is the company’s CEO.
“We’re going to do a constellation of satellites where each one transmits power with infrared lasers,” said Bhatt. “And the benefits of this are, number one, you get to distribute the power generation across a lot of satellites, as opposed to one monolithic one, but also the spot that you’re able to project onto the ground — the actual thing that collects the power — you can make small.”
Solar power would be collected in space and then beamed down through lasers wirelessly to a network of small, ground power stations. Having several stations to collect energy makes the satellite system more efficient.
“You may have one satellite that’s projecting power to one location on the ground, and as it keeps moving around the earth, it’ll find another ground station and start projecting power there,” Bhatt explained.
Aetherflux is working first with the U.S. Department of Defense, which Bhatt said is an important market because it solves a real problem of getting power into the battlefield, where caravans of diesel generators become enemy targets.
This initial phase is attractive to investors, such as Bill Gates‘ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, who say working with the government initially will help scale the company quickly to the broader market.
“We think that the military customer is large enough — and for lack of better word, difficult enough — of a customer that if we can serve, we can build a constellation and we can be at scale. And at that point, we will have dropped the cost of the technology such that we can expand into other, into other customers,” said Christian Garcia, managing partner at Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
In addition to Breakthrough, Aetherflux is backed by Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and New Enterprise Associates. Its total funding so far is $60 million.
Bhatt said the technology is expensive now, and the challenge will be making it cost-competitive with other energy sources. He said he thinks advancements in launch technology and the maturation of the components will be important factors.
The more satellites with newer versions of the technology should bring costs down.
Aetherflux is not the only company exploring space-based solar farms.
Others include Cal-Tech, Virtus Solis and UK-based Space Solar. Early this year, China announced a plan to build a 1-kilometer-wide solar power station in space that will beam continuous energy back to Earth via microwaves.
— CNBC producer Lisa Rizzolo contributed to this piece.
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