Lennox Residential HVAC has launched an extreme cold climate heat pump that warms a house with low global warming potential (GWP) refrigerant in temperatures as low as -20F.

It’s called the Dave Lennox Signature® Collection SL22KLV Cold Climate Heat Pump, and Lennox claims its efficiency levels are 150% higher at colder temperatures than standard heat pumps.

In 2022, Lennox was the first company to complete the first phase of the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Residential Cold Climate Heat Pump (CCHP) Technology Challenge, and the SL22KLV is a souped up version of the unit developed for that challenge.

The heat pump, which pairs with a smart thermostat, uses a variable-speed compressor with Electronic Refrigerant Injection (ERI) to adjust the energy usage based on the outside temperature, which helps to lower energy costs. When the temperature drops, the ERI increases heating output efficiently.

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The SL22KLV has efficiency ratings of up to 21.10 for Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio 2 (SEER2), 13.2 for Energy Efficiency Ratio 2 (EER2), and 10.50 for Heating Seasonal Performance Factor 2 (HSPF2). It also features a precision-balanced, direct-drive fan and sound-dampening system for ultra-quiet operation as low as 58 decibels.

The heating capacity is between 21,600 Btuh and 60,000 Btuh, and the cooling capacity is between 22,000 Btuh and 56,000 Btuh.

Lennox’s new extreme cold heat pump uses the low global warming potential R-454B refrigerant, reducing environmental impact without compromising performance. It’s also eligible for the Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit, a federal IRA tax credit for homeowners (and it’s still in place). There may also be other local utility and state incentives for installing a heat pump, so it’s definitely worth checking. It’s now available for order through local Lennox dealers.

Read more: Seriously good cold-climate heat pumps are headed to the US market

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EV startup Lucid Motors (LCID) released its fourth-quarter earnings on Tuesday, beating estimates with big expectations for 2025. Lucid said it expects to produce about 20,000 EVs this year with the output of its first electric SUV, the Gravity, ramping up.

Q4 2024 earnings preview

After four straight record quarters, Lucid delivered 10,241 vehicles last year. That’s up 70% from the roughly 6,000 EVs Lucid delivered in 2023.

In the final three months of 2024, the company delivered 3,099 vehicles alone, nearly 80% more than the year prior. Lucid also hit its production target for the year with 9,029 EVs built at its Casa Grande, Arizona manufacturing plant.

After launching its first electric SUV, the Gravity, in December, the EV maker expects output to pick up this year.

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The higher volume helped Lucid generate $200 million in revenue in the third quarter, but its net loss also widened to $992.5 million compared to $630.9 million in Q3 2023.

Like most, Lucid has introduced significant discounts and incentives with up to $15,000 in savings on select Air models.

Wall St is estimating Lucid will post Q4 revenue of $214 million, up from $157.2 million in Q4 2023, with an eps loss of 0.25.

Lucid aims to double EV production in 2025

Lucid reported Q4 revenue of $234.5 million, up nearly 50% from the prior year and beating Wall St estimates. For the full year, the company generated $807.8 million, up from $595.2 million in 2023.

• Lucid Q4 2024 revenue: $234.5 million vs $214 million expected
• Lucid Q4 2024 EPS: (-$0.22) vs (-$0.25) expected

The company also improved gross margins by 72pts to (-89%). Despite the higher output, Lucid’s operating loss narrowed to $732.95 million in Q4, down from $736.87 million a year prior.

Lucid ended the quarter with about $6.13 billion in liquidity, which the EV maker said will be sufficient into the second half of 2026 when it plans to launch its midsize platform.

CEO Peter Rawlinson said earlier this month that the midsize platform is “finally when we compete directly with Tesla.” The first two models are expected to be an electric SUV and sedan starting at around $50,000, aimed at Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y.

Interim CFO Gagan Dhingra said, “We made substantial progress in improving our gross margins, managing our operating expenses while balancing strategic growth investments, and strengthening our balance sheet with the support of the Public Investment Fund (PIF).”

Lucid expects to produce around 20,000 vehicles in 2025, more than double the just over 9,000 EVs it built last year.

The company said it will “continue to prudently manage and adjust production to meet sales and delivery needs” this year.

Lucid’s upbeat guidance comes after Rivian (RIVN) announced during its Q4 earnings last week that it expected slightly fewer deliveries this year. Rivian said the lower guidance was due to “external factors,” including changes in government policies and regulations.

The company also announced several management changes. COO Mark Winterhoff will serve as interim CEO, while Peter Rawlinson will become a Strategic Technical Advisor on the board. Meanwhile, Taoufiq Boussaid has been appointed CFO.

Lucid’s stock climbed over 8% after beating fourth quarter estimates and raising EV output guidance for 2025. Check back for updates from Lucid’s earnings call. We will post updates from the call below.

Mercedes will use the designation “with EQ technology” rather than naming its EVs with separate “EQ” model names, to focus on treating them more like normal models – in what this author considers an overdue move.

For many years now, Mercedes has added “EQ” to the model name of its electric models, as in the Mercedes EQS, EQE and so on. It’s meant to stand for “electric intelligence,” a play on the concept of “IQ.”

The convention started with Mercedes’ EQ concept cars, first named as such in 2016 (special mention here for the awesome EQA hot hatch concept, which ended up turning into an SUV… sigh).

Since then, Mercedes has carried it over into all of its electric models, treating “EQ” as a separate sub-brand or a model line on its own, to distinguish it from the company’s staid fossil-powered offerings.

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But that has led to some confusion among buyers. With models named EQA, EQB, EQC, EQE, EQE SUV, EQS, EQS SUV, EQV, and EQT, it starts to look like alphabet soup.

Mercedes noticed this confusion and commented on it back in 2023, when it first announced its plan to drop EQ branding from its model names.

Mercedes buyers are used to the convention of naming vehicles with lettering based on body style and numbers based on engine displacement. But for the EV line, all vehicles share the letters “EQ,” which could lead customers to think that there is some similarity between them, and engine displacement doesn’t really make any sense to apply to an EV. So there is room for confusion there.

Instead, Mercedes now says it will follow the convention it established with the release of the electric G-Class, which it officially calls “G580 with EQ technology.” That “with EQ technology” portion will stick and be carried through other Mercedes EVs, like the upcoming electric CLA. Plug-in hybrids will use “with EQ hybrid technology” as their designation.

Mercedes is treating this as somewhat of a compromise between dropping “EQ” entirely and still maintaining continuity with its past electric models. In this way, there is still a way to tell that a model is electric, but they will be treated more like “normal” models within the model range, instead of as a separate sub-brand.

Alongside these changes, Mercedes has also signaled a return to more “traditional” designs for its EVs, such as a fake grille for the 2025 EQS and perhaps less streamlined exterior shapes for upcoming EVs.

Electrek’s Take

It’s a bit of a mouthful, especially on the first available model with such naming, the G580 with EQ Technology – but we expect that people will start calling it “the electric G-Class” or “G-Class EQ” (perhaps a similar treatment to how people use AMG) or thereabouts, and that as other models gain the same designation, they will get the same colloquial treatment until it eventually feels normal. (Although, we still don’t know what the “580” means in that name).

And, I have long thought that automakers should do something like this, and treat electric models as normal models rather than some foreign thing.

We’ve seen a lot of odd naming conventions from automakers as they try to figure out what to call their EVs – like Audi, which originally introduced the E-tron as a singular concept model and later ended up using it as a designation for anything with an electric motor, or BMW, which started a separate “Projekt i” sub-brand in the early days (with actually interesting designs for once), then killed it off, then brought back the “i” to make more conventional-looking vehicles.

My theory is that by treating models as something foreign, something different, you create an internal conflict within the organization, confusion among customers, and all-in-all make the EVs seem less like a “normal” choice that a buyer could make. It almost feels like you’d have to go to a separate dealership, talk to a separate specialist, in order to find an EV. It adds another layer of friction which could push customers away.

But EVs don’t need to be different and weird, especially here in 2025 where just about everyone at this point has seen them, taken rides in them, has a friend who has one, or something of the sort. And if the entire auto industry is going to electrify – which, I think it bears repeating, is happening and is inevitable, no matter who tries to stop it – at some point we need to drop this idea that EVs are “something else” and recognize that they’re just cars.

So, why not call EVs something normal? Every gas car gets its own name – Tucson, Elantra, Camry, Palisade – so why can’t EVs just be normal too? Let’s get more Taycans, more Dolphins, more Leafs.

And, this is one step along the way towards that for Mercedes, and that’s a good thing. Other automakers should consider the same.

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