Electric NASCAR set to debut at Busch Light Clash on Feb. 4
The first fully electric NASCAR will make its public debut during the Busch Light Clash at The Coliseum event in Los Angeles on February 4th. And, yes — we know that it’s not called “a NASCAR,” but just go with it.
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR, natch) confirmed that it was working on an electric version of its tube-frames silhouette racers last year, but precious little is actually known about the car, or what series the car will eventually race in.
In fact, the only things we really do know about NASCAR’s electric race car are that:
- it’s electric
- it’s not really a “car”
An image of the electric NASCAR project car leaked late last year on the r/NASCAR subreddit (below) with rear fenders and a window line that looked an awful lot to some commenters like the Ford Mustang Mach-E crossover.
The electric NASCAR prototype car was reportedly subjected to more than 340 laps of half-mile oval action at a over three days at the half-mile short track in Martinsville, Virginia, with Sportsnaut reporting that David Ragan drove it to “within a few tenths” of the current Cup Series racecar, which is believed to share the same base chassis and suspension beneath the composite body shell. Despite that similarity, however, it’s important to note that this isn’t a vehicle that’s likely to have much of an actual racing career.
“This car is to be prepared for the future. We’re not sitting here today and announcing a bunch of cars for a racing series,” explains NASCAR Vice President of Vehicle Design Brandon Thomas.. “Think of this as a concept car.”
We’ll all know more about the new electric NASCAR racer when it makes its formal debut a week from Sunday.
Electrek’s Take
The next-gen car shown, above, isn’t electric. That said, we can learn a lot about how NASCAR presents forward-looking concepts by looking at that car, and applying those lessons to the electric crossover concept we expect to see next week.
For starters, the next-gen NASCAR concept features generic markings that don’t immediately suggest a Ford, Chevy, or Toyota vehicle. That’s important to avoid accusations of favoritism, but also important from a marketing perspective, as it allows other manufacturers the opportunity to project their own styling cues (in the form of headlight stickers and window cutouts) onto a generic shape and making it easier for them to draw a “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” type of correlation between a NASCAR entry and the models on their showroom floors. As the American market moves away from coupes and sedans, though, a crossover body shape might be a more attractive marketing prospect … and that, more than the electric drivetrain, is likely to be the real “concept” on display at the Clash.
If the public responds well to a body shape that could be stickered up to look like Mustang Mach-E, Chevy Blazer SS, or Toyota bZ4X, maybe it could also be made to look like a Chrysler Airflow, Kia EV6, or VW ID.4, too. And that may be the point.
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Germany’s largest offshore wind farm under construction, EnBW’s He Dreiht, just hit a big milestone: The first enormous turbine is now up in the North Sea.
He Dreiht – which means “it spins” in Low German – is using Vestas’s massive 15 megawatt (MW) turbines, the first project in the world to install them. Just one spin of one of the rotors can generate enough electricity to power four households for an entire day.
When it’s finished, He Dreiht will have 64 mega turbines cranking out 960 megawatts (MW) of clean power – enough to supply around 1.1 million homes. And it’s being built without any government subsidies.
EnBW, one of Germany’s major energy companies, has been working in offshore wind for more than 15 years, but He Dreiht is their biggest project yet. “It will play a key role in helping us to significantly grow our renewable energy output from 6.6 GW to over 10 GW by 2030,” said Michael Class, who heads up EnBW’s generation portfolio development.
The project is a win for Vestas, too. “With the installation of the first V236-15.0 MW, we have reached an important milestone for both the He Dreiht project and our offshore ramp-up, which helps Germany build a more secure, affordable, and sustainable energy system,” said Nils de Baar, president of Vestas Northern & Central Europe.
He Dreiht is located about 85 kilometers (53 miles) northwest of Borkum and 110 kilometers (68 miles) west of Helgoland. At peak times, more than 500 workers will be out at sea building the farm, using a fleet of more than 60 ships. EnBW’s offshore team in Hamburg is running the show.
The installation process is a major operation. The 64 foundations were already set in the seabed last year. Parts for the turbines are loaded onto the installation vessel Wind Orca in Esbjerg, Denmark, and shipped out in a 12-hour journey to the construction site. From there, the turbines are lifted into place. Meanwhile, crews are also working on internal wind farm cabling.
A partner consortium made up of Allianz Capital Partners, AIP, and Norges Bank Investment Management owns 49.9% of the shares in He Dreiht.
Read more: Trump admin halts $5 billion NY offshore wind project mid-build
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Tesla has released a quick update about its Tesla Semi factory in Nevada. It says that it is on track for volume production of the electric semi truck in 2026.
The Tesla Semi was first scheduled to go into production in 2019, but it has faced numerous delays.
Now, it appears that there is finally some momentum to bring it to volume production.
For the last two years, Tesla has been working to build a new factory next to Gigafactory Nevada, where it builds the battery packs and drive units for most of its electric vehicles built in North America.
Today, Tesla released a “progress update on the factory, confirming that it finished building and it’s now working on deploying the production lines:
Tesla had previously mentioned aiming for volume production by 2025, but it is now only talking about starting production toward the end of the year and ramping up next year.
The automaker reiterated its planned production capacity of 50,000 units.
We recently reported that an early Tesla Semi customer, Ryder, stated that the electric truck program is experiencing more delays and a price increase described as “dramatic.”
They now expect to take deliveries of their first trucks later in 2026 and said that the price has increased “dramatically,” leading them to scale back their pilot program from 42 to 18 Tesla Semi trucks.
When originally unveiling the Tesla Semi in 2017, the automaker mentioned prices of $150,000 for a 300-mile range truck and $180,000 for the 500-mile version. Tesla also took orders for a “Founder’s Series Semi” at $200,000.
However, Tesla didn’t update the prices when launching the “production version” of the truck in late 2022. Price increases have been speculated, but the company has never confirmed them.
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Vietnamese solar panel maker Boviet Solar just opened the doors to its first US factory — a huge new PV module plant in Greenville, North Carolina.
The company dropped $294 million into the state-of-the-art facility, which will pump out Boviet’s Gamma Series monofacial and Vega Series bifacial solar panels. They’re using advanced PERC and N-Type solar cell tech, which basically means these panels are built to deliver higher efficiency and better performance across residential, commercial, industrial, and utility-scale projects.
The Greenville factory’s first phase is now online with an annual PV module output capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW). For Phase 2, which is scheduled to come online in the second half of 2026, Boviet will invest another $100 million to add 600,000 square feet and ramp up to another 2 GW. It will make high-efficiency solar cells.
Once both phases are complete, Boviet’s campus will cover more than 1 million square feet of manufacturing and R&D space. It’s one of the biggest clean energy manufacturing projects North Carolina has ever seen.
The jobs impact is significant, too. The first phase will create 460 skilled local jobs. Phase 2 is expected to add another 908, bringing the total to over 1,300 direct jobs, plus nearly 2,000 more indirect jobs across the region. That’s good news for Pitt County’s economy, real estate market, and workforce training programs.
“This facility is not just creating jobs, but creating opportunity, innovation, and a stronger foundation for eastern North Carolina,” said Senator Kandie Smith. Governor Josh Stein added that Boviet Solar’s move shows how North Carolina is leading the way in clean energy growth.
Read more: Thomas Built Buses debuts its next-gen electric school bus
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