I have to say that when Noah began pushing on this (Elec. Tech stack) some time back even as a Ren.Energy financing guy I was somewhat initially sceptical a few years ago. Now it is clear in the market that it is real.
It's long though been my personal observation from doing assets and having internationalt to US comparisons that the US is crippling itself throungh accumnulanted "cruft" of layered on red tape (and veto points for every little step on anything hard-asset builds), each step well-intended but accumulating to paralysis - early on in the Biden admin push I personally was climbing the walls as many things I liked but the grid and infra build out was not getting practical attention - as like, getting it done at speed and scale and not paralysed by 100 levels of Everything Bagel requirements ("nudges" argh).
In any case I think less EV talk and more "other electrification of industrial processes" is a path - and one less "greeny Lefty" coded that can be a path forward. Electrifiation for process and final energy efficiencies is really fundamental to an industrial future - although the US seems right now trapped in a backwards "we have to replicate an idealised nostalgia-not-real 1960s industrial network" rather than a future focus rennaissance.
I saw a comment also re Hybrids, I think in EV space for USA given the distances and cultural aspects that hybrid is indeed a neglected path that has much to merit reflection - particularly if in direction of the hybrid model that is EV in design tech rather than IC centered but without the purism to exclude onboard IC gen for recharge.
ETA: to expand clarify on this last given other comment thread here - Hybrid based on not dual power trains and slapping Elec in duplicate alongside IC, but rather full EV drivetrain and IC is a genset to elec, not a dual duplicative power train, kinda sorta vaguely analagous to how rail has evolved.... for heavy duty as in e.g. trucking etc. this strikes me as a path as well although I am not a vehicle engineer - financial economist so.....
Honda’s Insight transitioned in its third generation in 2019 to a series hybrid (with the engine mainly charging the battery, but still having a drive shaft connecting at highway cruising speed) but it was discontinued in 2022. I think the newer Nissan e-Power models are a series hybrid, but otherwise as you say this is used mainly for locomotives and large vehicles.
What stood out to me here isn’t really Musk so much as the coordination gap. Once core technologies get treated as culture-war symbols instead of basic infrastructure, you start losing compounding advantages that are hard to claw back.
On EVs specifically, it also feels like we’re skipping the bridge. Hybrids seem like a practical on-ramp to mass adoption, but we keep framing the transition as all-or-nothing. Capacity failures are quieter than ideological ones, but much harder to reverse.
Hybrids (I mean plug-ins, PHEVs) are an iffy compromise, more than a bridge. Having TWO drivetrains makes for the worst of both worlds in terms of upfront costs, complexity, mass and maintenance.
I am sure that PHEVs will have a niche... for folks with long haul needs, towing needs, or extreme cold climates. But pure EVs, BEVs, are more than ready for prime time for the majority of American drivers and their uses cases, today. No bridge required.
It really depends on the make and model. The Toyota RAV 4 Plug-in is rated as extremely reliable by Consumer Reports. Owners that I have talked to confirm this finding.
Other manufacturers do not have the same experience with designing and manufacturing hybrids, so they not surprisingly, have much lower reliability.
" Having TWO drivetrains makes for the worst of both worlds in terms of upfront costs, complexity, mass and maintenance."
This will become true eventually, but according to consumer reports, today's EVs are less reliable than ICE cars overall. This is mostly due to the high rate of technological change in EV designs.
On top of this, the most popular PHEVs from Toyota use a 25 year old hybrid drivetrain that's got billions of miles on it. The Rav4 PHEV uses the same eCVT part number as the non-PHEV Toyota Highlander. The eCVT is sort of like a transmission that blends power from the IC engine and the electric motors. So the Rav PHEV is a tried-and-true Toyota hybrid with a bigger battery and a charge port.
In terms of weight and cost, a PHEV uses a 15-20 kwh battery that is both cheap enough and light enough to much more than offset the mass and cost difference versus an EV that lugs around an extra 60-80 kwh of heavy and expensive battery.
"This will become true eventually, but according to consumer reports, today's EVs are less reliable than ICE cars overall. This is mostly due to the high rate of technological change in EV designs."
Sadly, consumer reports has become a bit addicted to clickbaity findings. If you dig into their recent EV findings, you will find that the 'issues' counted with EVs were largely small glitches in the user interface, many of which were repaired by OTA updates, while the ones with ICE were actually drivetrain or utility issues, which required physical repairs and mods. Not apples to apples.
PHEV batteries have worse longevity issues due to their proportionally higher cycle life, and current Prii are using Lithium battery tech that was only fielded in the last few years... not like the NMH batteries of older models. Their long term reliability is TBD.
Yeah, I get that there were problems like OTA update counting, but IMO the high level claim holds up. BTW - I say this from a household that drives a BEV along with a Toyota PHEV.
I'm sitting now basically biding my time before the ICCU on my Hyundai E-GMP car blows up. Hyundai is quiet about failure rates, but the best guess is about 5% or so of the units in the field need replacement each year. They still haven't addressed the root cause of the failure (multiple cases of cars needing multiple ICCU replacements). This is the cost a consumer has to pay for going with the latest and best tech (still love the car BTW).
As an interesting coincidence, the part that's equivalent to Hyundai's ICCU on our Rav4 already got replaced under a recall campaign. Between the two cars, we're up to 5 recall service visits so far in 3 years. Our last Rav4 ICE went for 10 years without a single unscheduled service visit before we replaced it.
I've driven 3 BEV models and 1 PHEV over the last 12 years, and never had a recall or drivetrain issue requiring a physical repair. Any little things, like a broken pump or heater core were fixed cheaply by a shade-tree mechanic.
It sounds like the Hyundai ICCU failures are related to the additional 12V batteries. I don’t know why the hybrids continue to use 12V lead acid legacy batteries, other than to keep common components with the non hybrid versions, but having two different electrical systems seems inefficient, adds complexity and is redundant. My Highlander Hybrid also has trouble if you leave a light on or something and the 12V battery goes dead, the whole car becomes useless, even though the main batteries are still holding a full charge.
The main issue is safety. Shorting a traction battery is much more dangerous than shorting a 12V, so it lives in an armored box with a fail safe contactor that only closes when an onboard computer passes a safety self-test. So there needs to be an auxilliary battery on the outside to power that electronics at least. Since large starting amps are not required, it is often smaller than in an ICE car. Mine uses a half-sized AGM.
I also carry a small 12V 'jump pack' which can be used to boot up the vehicle if the 12V battery gets drained. In 12 years, I have used it once.
It is entirely possible and probably long-term technologically preferable to have Hybrid as single drive train rather than Parallel hybrids.
Nothing in hybrid concept in itself = dual, it is car mfg being stuck in a conceptual model of their classic IC build and then adding elec. IC is in single drive train purely a generator to the elec system and no dual drive-train.
Nissan and Chinese mfg examples already. Building dual drivetrain hybrids is indeed almost certainly now dead-end, so going full elec tech onrientation with IC as generator (rather more conceptually like rail and usage of diesel elec [not direct comp to be sure])
I think at least for a while there's still a legitimate battle between the Toyota PHEV design, that uses their tried and true hybrid eCVT (Rav4 PHEV uses hybrid Highlander's eCVT) and EREV designs where all propulsion is electric with a separate generator that's not connected to the drivetrain. If it wasn't Toyota, I'd say the EREV definitely wins, but Toyota won't let their premier drivetrain tech just fade into the night without a fight.
Not sure what that would mean exactly. I've always heard the prius classified as HEV rather than an ERHEV.
For me, anything with "extended range" in its classification implies the IC engine isn't in any way connected to the wheels and can't provide propulsion at all.
The Prius design, as well as all Totoya's PHEVs use an eCVT that manages and blends power from electric motors and the engine to send power to the wheels.
As others have noted, not so iffy for Toyota's implementation.
In large countries with less population density, and therefore sparser charging networks, hybrids in some form are going to be preferred for a while before they become exclusive to rural and remote niches.
Agreed, far too much purity ponyism on a political basis and for US given multi-factors, hybrid, particulary if pushed towards elec-tech centric has much to recommend.
Although I think there is an over-focus on EV versus electrification of industrial processes.
4. general luddism / conservatism of the general public
Treating it as basic infrastructure only removes one of those obstacles, and based on the way we build non political basic infrastructure now you can see that won't be much better.
Odd you couldn’t find room for a sentence that perhaps Elon shouldn’t have put his fortune behind a political movement expressly dedicated to dismantling American investment in these technologies. But he obviously found something more important there.
He thought he could coexist with the strange MAGAs after Biden and the Democrats made it clear his mojo wasn’t wanted since they needed to make strange animal noises for their union voters or something.
don't forget that he was really backing DeSantis and had to do an awkward pivot toward Trump after the former imploded. rough situation all around though I'm sure the ketamine didn't help.
Like I said...if you don't want technology to be dominated by a single kooky right-wing guy, then focus on policies that make it easier for more people to succeed at the kind of things Elon has succeeded at. Shaming Elon himself will get us nowhere in terms of technology *or* politics.
I’m not saying you (or anyone else) can “shame” Musk; that’s obviously impossible. It’s just that in a piece effusively praising his great vision that lacks a word limit you might have had room for a sentence noting the irony that Musk played a key role in making the policies you (and I) favor on this front off limits
I assure you the EVs were thoroughly politicized in the US well before his 2025 shenanigans.
This was the effect of paid misinformation and influence campaigns by the usual Merchants of Doubt (Tobacco) lawyers, paid by the Oil majors and, um, Toyota.
While I agree with much of this article, I do not think that “The main reason America is missing the EV transition is that we’ve insisted on thinking of EVs in terms of climate.”
The real reason is that electric cars are more expensive than ICE cars. Until that changes, I think ICE cars will dominate the market.
A related point is that gasoline prices are quite low in most of the US. If we had European pump prices the EV situation in the US would be quite different.
I don’t disagree with any of your analysis except one. Everyone I have ever spoken to about their Tesla universally loves it, with one exception. It doesn’t get the range you suggest, especially in very cold weather. Of course, the other problem is one of cost. EVs in America are not cheap.
Take any drive you want you will see Trucks and SUVs on the road. A few years ago the traditional US Automakers announced they would discontinue making passenger cars.
There is a very practical reason for their move. They are unable to make money selling $25,000 passenger cars. It has to do with Union Legacy costs. Detroit makes money selling $75,000 trucks and $60,000 SUVs.
I just bought a Hybrid Toyota Land Cruiser. We probably have less than 1000 miles on it. I have yet to see the dashboard reveal that our MPG is over 18.5. The sticker said we should get 22.5 MPG. This has been a consistent problem for my industry. No car gets the advertised MPG.
If there is a complaint from Tesla drivers, it is that the claimed MPG is never achieved. I also believe you understand that cold reduces battery life. It will be a while before Montanans buy an EV. For the burbs, EVs are fine, and if they can sell a $30,000 EV with a third row, perhaps that model will take off. You so blithely said you can charge your car at home.
The last time I checked, a Tesla power unit was about $1500 to install, and that presumes you have an updated panel. When I moved into my 1964-built house, that panel was original.
The ability to charge is a real problem for those who live in Apartment buildings. It’s not like you can run a 220v from your apartment with an extension cord.
I have one other comment. I wish we would start looking at the CO2 issue in terms of science. Science will get us out of this mess. When enviro nuts talk about climate change, as “we’ve got 12 years," as AOC famously did, it is so counterproductive.
Last year, I bought a 2023 Volvo C40 BEV, for under $30k. Very similar specs to the more common MachE. But quicker and a nicer interior. Bought a $200 adapter, and it charges seamlessly on Tesla superchargers. Ofc I charge at home with an L2 that I DIY installed in 2014 for $800, and my energy costs 5 cents/mile.
Must have third row and be under $30k? Haha. Holy moving goalposts Batman! There are amazing used BEVs out there at great prices TODAY.
If used BEV prices were high, would you be saying this is a good sign due to strong demand? Or would you take it as evidence that BEVs are not yet ready for mass adoption?
"When enviro nuts talk about climate change, as “we’ve got 12 years," as AOC famously did, it is so counterproductive."
I 100% agree with you on this. IMO, the biggest blunder enviros made was switching their activism focus to be 100% about climate costs while almost completely de-emphasizing air pollution costs. The air pollution costs battle is much easier to win public support for and the harm/cost estimates are much more robust in terms of both economic costs and public health costs (You don't need a super complex 100 year climate model to know that coal plant emissions kill a lot of people).
The same goes for cars. The present value of lifetime air pollution from a passenger ICE car is between $3k and $5k and this is an order of magnitude or two less controversial than the roughly similar climate cost estimate. Enviros stopped taking about the most robust and uncontroversial justification for taxes or regulations on auto emissions.
Matt Yglesias was in a twitter battle recently with a bunch of anti-growth leftys claiming that emerging economies replacing coal generation with US made LNG was barely an environmental win at all since LNG processing emits some carbon. The enviro nutjobs making this moronic claim were completely ignoring the economic and health costs of coal air pollution.
Nothing is worse for the environment than environmentalists. They killed the best CO2 reducing technologies of the past 100 years, nuclear, and now are trying to kill the second best, which is gas.
The enviros also blocked fracking in NY as well as natural gas pipelines to bring in gas to NYC because of exaggerated climate change reasons, but both would increase use of natural gas in place of oil heating and coal power and actually reduce emissions of both GHG and other pollutants meaning blocking these makes pollution, CO2 and costs higher. Maybe Gov. Hochul is finally realizing this, since she allowed the pipeline finally.
It's actually even worse up here in New England in terms of the enviros blocking gas pipelines. After we use up all the pipeline gas available, the marginal winter power generators use LNG first (expensive and carbon intensive) and then oil next. That means every winter we burn barrels and barrels of dirty oil to make power that could have been much cleaner pipeline gas.
To be fair, from a pure cost standpoint there were questions about the economics of building pipeline capacity that'd only get used for a couple of dozen winter days per year. Some, I think legitimately, argued that although it's dirty it's actually cheaper to just use the LNG and oil for the few days a year that we're short on pipeline capacity.
The other issue is that the utilities make more more money in this scenario, in an otherwise revenue capped business, and can pass all the blame onto NIMBYs. The utility regulators in New England are corrupted.
Not sure what you mean here. The ones making lots of money are the power plant owners, not the utilities. The power plant owners aren't meaningfully revenue capped. They try to make as much profit as they can.
New England has wholesale power generation markets and the regulated monopoly utilities aren't allowed to own any generation capacity or make any profits from power generation. The monopoly utilities buy power for their customers and pass the costs to them without any markup at all. They make all their profits on operations and upkeep and buildout on the distribution grid, not on generation.
On the generation side, with wholesale power markets, the idea is that if owners of power plants start making excess profits from scarcity, other power plant companies will built more power plants and compete away the excess profits. The problem in this case is that there are already plenty of power plants, they're just sitting idle because they can't get fuel. We have more than enough generation capacity in the winter. The grid peaks in the summer when demand is 1/3 higher than in the winter. The problem that on the coldest winter days all available pipeline capacity is getting used up by home heating customers. It's a weird and complicated problem of misaligned incentives and there's not a straightforward way for market forces or regulators to fix it without changing the way the whole system works.
I've been following this story for years. TBH the multiple allegations of market manipulations have been investigated and found to be unfounded.
The allegations were that the pipeline game was similar to what Enron was doing to power transmission between TX and CA in the 2000s... reserve transmission capacity, cancel it at the last minute, and the capacity is not utilized. Shortage is created, spiking power prices and profits. This was 100% legal, and a gaming of the existing allocation system.
Another factor is that the gas generators mostly have pipeline contracts where they are required to shut down during high demand periods so gas can be prioritized to residential heating customers.
Realistically, hardly anyone needs to upgrade their main service to accommodate EV charging anymore. First, about 80-90% of drivers can get enough nightly range with an L1 charger that plugs into any standard outlet. Many EV owners charge from standard outlets and never need any more than that.
Those that truly need a high power charging can get an EVSE w/built-in load management that eliminates the need for a panel upgrade by dynamically adjusting the charge rate based on main panel load.
Or you can plug the level 2 charger into your dryer outlet, if it happens to be near your garage. It seems like a good solution would be to have a switch system to allow your EV charger to use the high voltage connection for a furnace/heat pump or water heater since those are usually near the garage and only run intermittently, which isn’t a problem for EV charging.
That would cost money, I presume. In a country where half say they don’t have enough money saved for a $500 emergency expense, I still believe there is an affordability issue.
The average sales price of a new car is over $50k and taxes and registration adds another 5-10% on top of that. So for the vast majority of new car buyers, the cost for home charging is a rounding error, especially given that many people just use an existing outlet.
EVs have already reached total cost of ownership parity vs ICE cars in most areas, even with up front costs factored in. What we're left with is a just financing/cash flow problem. Since the vast majority of new car buyers use credit of some sort (lease or finance), higher up-front EV capital costs still yield lower overall cash flows for most (eg lower total monthly out of pocket finance/lease/fuel costs).
Certainly. Purchasers of any product self-select. For expensive purchases like autos, buyers also suffer from the principle of commitment and post-purchase rationalization. These are stronger for Tesla, being the more expensive product.
However, what's salient here is the rate of buyers who later sell or trade their used car. Toyota hybrid buyers are much less likely to sell or trade than Tesla buyers, despite greater relative demand for their used vehicle.
Thanks for this - it’s frustrating to hear both left and right bandying childish arguments and zero-sum thinking instead of acting like adults negotiating difficult reality-based tradeoffs, so I appreciate your tone. And it’s hard to find reliable information that doesn’t cherry-pick for political purposes.
For Toyota Hybrids you usual only get the claimed MPG if you enable the Econ drive mode. I have a Crown Platinum that is supposed to get 25 MPG combined, but I don’t like the slower acceleration so I use Sport mode instead of Econ and the MPG drops a bit.
I've often thought that it would be a good tactic to separate the types of vehicles that are readily EV/battery adaptable from those that aren't or at least aren't with existing technology. Passenger cars, light trucks, passenger rail, light commuter aircraft, etc., are EV/battery adaptable. Caterpillar D-9 bulldozers (354 kW (474 hp) of gross power and an operating weight of 49 short tons (44 t))
are not. Long haul tractor-trailer trucks, most dump trucks, heavy freight trains, and just about every cargo or tanker ship are not adaptable to battery power with current technology. We aren't going to be able to make an Airbus A350 carry that will carry 300 passengers across the Atlantic on battery power alone anytime soon.
Yes, for certain limited applications, battery powered versions of the above are being tinkered with, but these carbon fueled vehicles will necessarily be with us for a long time to come.
Why I think it would be a good tactic to include these vehicles when talking about the future of EV's is that by acknowledging them, we might be able to frame a better argument for advancing EV passenger vehicles. There will still be a role for oil, natural gas, and propane fuels, even with EV technology. If we don't point this out, we'll never win over the skeptics.
Also even for light trucks, as soon as you need to tow anything of any significance the battery goes to hell. I don’t know whether a series hybrid generator can keep up with towing requirements or whether you require a parallel hybrid. But lots of people who tow like once a year are probably pissed at their 6 figure electric pickups.
All true. This is another reason why US policy should be to focus on hybrids and EV's, but at the same time acknowledging that there are applications where EV' just don't work well. Eventually I think the power density of batteries may enable heavier loads, but by that time some other technology may come along, such as suitcase nuclear.
Yes, in certain limited locations, with light loads, long haul electric trucks could be plausible, but you aren't going to do that in hilly West Virgina, or across the Rockies hauling cars or heavy equipment.
I would note that Heavy Truck =/= Long-haul (certainly its a component of heavy but these are not perfect synonyms or identities).
Heavy and in circular route Muni usage or doing "shuttle" between logistic centers on a very defined pattern is different than say long-hualer for a trucking company that may be doing load-boarding non-rigid defined (and long-haul).
Of course it is very easy to let Perfect be the Enemy of the Good and jump from 'can't be done for say typical American trucking co doing long-haul and load-boarding servicing on multi-and-varying client basis" and "can't be done at all."
The battery swapping I have read about but one has to be cautious - PRC can and will oblige acceptance of safety handling risks that won't fly ex-PRC (although equally they may be solving such concerns, so I can't say one should say no-way... just one has to be cautious to not leap to final conclusions of "this is solved" )
One should not treat domestic Chinese sales data naively, and it is further the case that what the usage pattern and perimeter is absolutely does matter. Long haul is not synonymous with heavy - or rather heavy does not equal long-haul as synonym.
Hilly routes are actually better than flat or long inclines for EV semis since the regeneration from braking can recharge the batteries better when going up and down frequently. Same as when riding a bicycle, up and down is much easier than just up.
Yes and one needs specific kinds of routes and patterns to allow for recharge (and efficient asset utiliation) - it's certainly possible in defined locations, particularly like intra center logistics (as well as heavier solutions on defined routes e.g. in muni service where also the asset, the vehicles, are often overnight at central).
But long-hual and heavy load remains outside of actionability - I rather think trucks in a more "diesel-elec type"(as like the locomotives) hybrid mode may be a hybridisation path.
By the way ~4 months go Engineering with Rosie had a useful video on the subject in terms of a brief view on the logistics on trucks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGMUMAZ7shY - her video is reasonable, as part of my firm invests in RE powered logistics centers, her touching on this is quite spot on.
I have indeed read that. I would caution on over-reading and cautioun on battery swapping (concerns on several fronts - what Chinese will tolerate in re safety risk vs developed countries...). Not to suggest (a) impossible, (b) infeasible, (c) not-going-to-work ex-PRC but equally one has to be cautious around both current claims and on over-drawing conclusions - defined long-haul routes is one problem, and not of course a trivial component but it's also not 100%.
Tesla is ramping up Semi production this year in Nevada. They have already sold some to PepsiCo, I assume for local distribution, not long haul. I think the main market for these will be in moving containers around the ports in San Pedro and Long Beach since California regulations are soon prohibiting diesel trucks in those areas.
I don’t really understand who “we” is in this context. The Biden administration certainly didn’t miss the significance of EVs, batteries, and solar power they just lost the 2024 election. And it’s not like the Trump administration lacks access to Elon Musk’s views — he was Trump’s #1 donor in 2024, served at a high level in the Trump administration, and has committed to spend freely on behalf of the GOP in the 2026 midterms. It seems like maybe *Elon Musk* missed the significance of this, since he is the single largest financial backer of the political movement that is dismembering America’s nascent efforts? But the hypothesis here is that Musk is the one guy who really does get it. So maybe the situation is actually fine?
Totally agree. The question, of course, is how? The US tried the centralized, top down approach via BIL/CHIPS/IRA, which has been thrown in the political woodchipper, so what next?
America's secret sauce is its innovation and entrepreneurship, including the policy entrepreneurship of different state governments throwing different ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks.
We (RMI) released a report on how state governments can play a decisive role in building out the electro-industrial stack late last year that you may be interested in: 'GREASE Lightning: A playbook for investment-led, state-driven electro-industrial economies' (https://rmi.org/insight/grease-lightning/)
Between the multi-billion dollar megadeals that attract battery factories, control over public utility commissions, site preparation, R&D tax credits and infrastructure funds, states hold a lot more of the critical levers to unlock investment than most people appreciate (just look at how important electricity affordability was in the 2025 statewide elections!).
As we write:
"The electro-industrial transition is not a spectator sport, and it will not be decided by federal tax credits alone. It will be won by places that can match a new technological stack with a new delivery stack —governments that behave like builders, not just rule writers; regions that concentrate advantages rather than spread them too thin; and coalitions that see environmental gains as part of a competitiveness agenda, not a trade-off. GREASE is the playbook for that kind of statecraft, turning a window of opportunity into durable capacity: more power, more factories, more compute, and more widely shared prosperity."
We transitioned to the petroleum economy without the government getting involved, but it didn't get in the way either. If the government stops being an obstacle the only thing needed is the profit motive.
The E in your GREASE is part of the problem, making everything into environmental (climate crisis), but the rest of it, I guess is a step up from RMI’s previous plans to promote electricity use mainly by trying to get states to ban natural gas stoves and hook ups.
I see your point but I would push back by first saying one E in a six-letter acronym is hardly making everything about the climate crisis. I do agree there was some ideological overreach from many environmental organizations, but accounting for environmental risks and degradation is hardly an extremist position. As much as we may want to emulate China’s industrial strategy, we certainly don’t want to emulate the devastating effects its had on its countryside, rivers, and air quality. What’s more, there’s pretty good evidence to suggest lots of other countries are wary of Chinese investment for exactly that reason - so being good stewards of the environment can be a comparative advantage in creating export markets and investment opportunities for US electro-industrial firms.
Can America be a leader in building the full electric tech stack with the EV industry alone — even if we go all in? Or will it require us to rebuild broad manufacturing excellence across multiple industries (consumer electronics, semi) to achieve the scale necessary?
I don’t think consumer electronics is coming back soon, but robots are coming (check out the new videos of the Boston Dynamics/Hyundai Alpha “super humanoid” robot with 360° joint rotation doing work in Hyundai’s South Carolina factory) as are defense drones (Anduril, Skydio and others). And data centers will need batteries for power load smoothing and temporary backup. Another area where we are leading is in solid oxide fuel cells from Bloom Energy which can make electricity from natural gas as a replacement for the standard gas turbines (which are now backlogged for over 3 years and not readily available).
1. Electric vehicles are just going to win, because they are cheaper and better!
2. We need subsidies or else people won’t buy them!
GM today wrote off $6 billion on its EV transition failure, coming a few weeks after Ford wrote off $15 billion of losses on its EV failure. Tesla vehicle sales are falling two years in a row.
And saying that EVs are taking over South America is hyperbole when EVs (including plug-in hybrids which still have gasoline engines) there make up only 10% of new vehicle sales, which make up a small part of vehicles on the road.
Musk sure didn’t help himself with the dishonest political shenigans (he lied so much re his DOGE work). Otherwise, I get it. Question though: what do we do about the horrible working conditions of folks who extract some important portion of the rare earth stuff (cobalt)? To read about what people in the DRC go through to survive by extracting this stuff is horrible.
Well the emerald mine story is silly, but the arc of his life from South Africa to where is now is pretty extraordinary, and has been an economic benefit to many people. Even if he is frequently an asshole, the personal benefit to me just from StarLink service (I couldn’t get any decent internet at my house at any price before) is worth it.
Same. I was really excited about the covid era government investment in rural municipal broadband, but years later still nothing is available yet. Meanwhile Starlink has been a reliable game changer and keeps getting better.
In a way the problem -- turning an econmic issues into social/culture war issues -- that Noah diagnoses as having ocurred with eletric power/storage, also happend with immigration (how to attract the worlds most talented ambitious people), fiscal policy (how to reduce the defict to the leve of public investment), and taxation/regulation of externalities (CO2 emissions, land use, infrastructure permissioning)
I have to say that when Noah began pushing on this (Elec. Tech stack) some time back even as a Ren.Energy financing guy I was somewhat initially sceptical a few years ago. Now it is clear in the market that it is real.
It's long though been my personal observation from doing assets and having internationalt to US comparisons that the US is crippling itself throungh accumnulanted "cruft" of layered on red tape (and veto points for every little step on anything hard-asset builds), each step well-intended but accumulating to paralysis - early on in the Biden admin push I personally was climbing the walls as many things I liked but the grid and infra build out was not getting practical attention - as like, getting it done at speed and scale and not paralysed by 100 levels of Everything Bagel requirements ("nudges" argh).
In any case I think less EV talk and more "other electrification of industrial processes" is a path - and one less "greeny Lefty" coded that can be a path forward. Electrifiation for process and final energy efficiencies is really fundamental to an industrial future - although the US seems right now trapped in a backwards "we have to replicate an idealised nostalgia-not-real 1960s industrial network" rather than a future focus rennaissance.
I saw a comment also re Hybrids, I think in EV space for USA given the distances and cultural aspects that hybrid is indeed a neglected path that has much to merit reflection - particularly if in direction of the hybrid model that is EV in design tech rather than IC centered but without the purism to exclude onboard IC gen for recharge.
ETA: to expand clarify on this last given other comment thread here - Hybrid based on not dual power trains and slapping Elec in duplicate alongside IC, but rather full EV drivetrain and IC is a genset to elec, not a dual duplicative power train, kinda sorta vaguely analagous to how rail has evolved.... for heavy duty as in e.g. trucking etc. this strikes me as a path as well although I am not a vehicle engineer - financial economist so.....
Honda’s Insight transitioned in its third generation in 2019 to a series hybrid (with the engine mainly charging the battery, but still having a drive shaft connecting at highway cruising speed) but it was discontinued in 2022. I think the newer Nissan e-Power models are a series hybrid, but otherwise as you say this is used mainly for locomotives and large vehicles.
yes I had Nissan e-Power in mind.
What stood out to me here isn’t really Musk so much as the coordination gap. Once core technologies get treated as culture-war symbols instead of basic infrastructure, you start losing compounding advantages that are hard to claw back.
On EVs specifically, it also feels like we’re skipping the bridge. Hybrids seem like a practical on-ramp to mass adoption, but we keep framing the transition as all-or-nothing. Capacity failures are quieter than ideological ones, but much harder to reverse.
Hybrids (I mean plug-ins, PHEVs) are an iffy compromise, more than a bridge. Having TWO drivetrains makes for the worst of both worlds in terms of upfront costs, complexity, mass and maintenance.
I am sure that PHEVs will have a niche... for folks with long haul needs, towing needs, or extreme cold climates. But pure EVs, BEVs, are more than ready for prime time for the majority of American drivers and their uses cases, today. No bridge required.
It really depends on the make and model. The Toyota RAV 4 Plug-in is rated as extremely reliable by Consumer Reports. Owners that I have talked to confirm this finding.
Other manufacturers do not have the same experience with designing and manufacturing hybrids, so they not surprisingly, have much lower reliability.
" Having TWO drivetrains makes for the worst of both worlds in terms of upfront costs, complexity, mass and maintenance."
This will become true eventually, but according to consumer reports, today's EVs are less reliable than ICE cars overall. This is mostly due to the high rate of technological change in EV designs.
On top of this, the most popular PHEVs from Toyota use a 25 year old hybrid drivetrain that's got billions of miles on it. The Rav4 PHEV uses the same eCVT part number as the non-PHEV Toyota Highlander. The eCVT is sort of like a transmission that blends power from the IC engine and the electric motors. So the Rav PHEV is a tried-and-true Toyota hybrid with a bigger battery and a charge port.
In terms of weight and cost, a PHEV uses a 15-20 kwh battery that is both cheap enough and light enough to much more than offset the mass and cost difference versus an EV that lugs around an extra 60-80 kwh of heavy and expensive battery.
"This will become true eventually, but according to consumer reports, today's EVs are less reliable than ICE cars overall. This is mostly due to the high rate of technological change in EV designs."
Sadly, consumer reports has become a bit addicted to clickbaity findings. If you dig into their recent EV findings, you will find that the 'issues' counted with EVs were largely small glitches in the user interface, many of which were repaired by OTA updates, while the ones with ICE were actually drivetrain or utility issues, which required physical repairs and mods. Not apples to apples.
PHEV batteries have worse longevity issues due to their proportionally higher cycle life, and current Prii are using Lithium battery tech that was only fielded in the last few years... not like the NMH batteries of older models. Their long term reliability is TBD.
Yeah, I get that there were problems like OTA update counting, but IMO the high level claim holds up. BTW - I say this from a household that drives a BEV along with a Toyota PHEV.
I'm sitting now basically biding my time before the ICCU on my Hyundai E-GMP car blows up. Hyundai is quiet about failure rates, but the best guess is about 5% or so of the units in the field need replacement each year. They still haven't addressed the root cause of the failure (multiple cases of cars needing multiple ICCU replacements). This is the cost a consumer has to pay for going with the latest and best tech (still love the car BTW).
As an interesting coincidence, the part that's equivalent to Hyundai's ICCU on our Rav4 already got replaced under a recall campaign. Between the two cars, we're up to 5 recall service visits so far in 3 years. Our last Rav4 ICE went for 10 years without a single unscheduled service visit before we replaced it.
I've driven 3 BEV models and 1 PHEV over the last 12 years, and never had a recall or drivetrain issue requiring a physical repair. Any little things, like a broken pump or heater core were fixed cheaply by a shade-tree mechanic.
It sounds like the Hyundai ICCU failures are related to the additional 12V batteries. I don’t know why the hybrids continue to use 12V lead acid legacy batteries, other than to keep common components with the non hybrid versions, but having two different electrical systems seems inefficient, adds complexity and is redundant. My Highlander Hybrid also has trouble if you leave a light on or something and the 12V battery goes dead, the whole car becomes useless, even though the main batteries are still holding a full charge.
The main issue is safety. Shorting a traction battery is much more dangerous than shorting a 12V, so it lives in an armored box with a fail safe contactor that only closes when an onboard computer passes a safety self-test. So there needs to be an auxilliary battery on the outside to power that electronics at least. Since large starting amps are not required, it is often smaller than in an ICE car. Mine uses a half-sized AGM.
I also carry a small 12V 'jump pack' which can be used to boot up the vehicle if the 12V battery gets drained. In 12 years, I have used it once.
Yeah the Toyota experience should show this clearly isn’t true considering their usage in very high demand taxi jobs all over the place.
It is entirely possible and probably long-term technologically preferable to have Hybrid as single drive train rather than Parallel hybrids.
Nothing in hybrid concept in itself = dual, it is car mfg being stuck in a conceptual model of their classic IC build and then adding elec. IC is in single drive train purely a generator to the elec system and no dual drive-train.
Nissan and Chinese mfg examples already. Building dual drivetrain hybrids is indeed almost certainly now dead-end, so going full elec tech onrientation with IC as generator (rather more conceptually like rail and usage of diesel elec [not direct comp to be sure])
I think at least for a while there's still a legitimate battle between the Toyota PHEV design, that uses their tried and true hybrid eCVT (Rav4 PHEV uses hybrid Highlander's eCVT) and EREV designs where all propulsion is electric with a separate generator that's not connected to the drivetrain. If it wasn't Toyota, I'd say the EREV definitely wins, but Toyota won't let their premier drivetrain tech just fade into the night without a fight.
Wasn't Toyota Prius a ERHEV albeit with a very small battery?
Not sure what that would mean exactly. I've always heard the prius classified as HEV rather than an ERHEV.
For me, anything with "extended range" in its classification implies the IC engine isn't in any way connected to the wheels and can't provide propulsion at all.
The Prius design, as well as all Totoya's PHEVs use an eCVT that manages and blends power from electric motors and the engine to send power to the wheels.
As others have noted, not so iffy for Toyota's implementation.
In large countries with less population density, and therefore sparser charging networks, hybrids in some form are going to be preferred for a while before they become exclusive to rural and remote niches.
I completely agree with you. Go to hybrids first, then transition to full EV. We'd have been a lot further along by now.
Agreed, far too much purity ponyism on a political basis and for US given multi-factors, hybrid, particulary if pushed towards elec-tech centric has much to recommend.
Although I think there is an over-focus on EV versus electrification of industrial processes.
We have major problems for this transition:
1. politicization
2. insane environmental regulations
3. unions
4. general luddism / conservatism of the general public
Treating it as basic infrastructure only removes one of those obstacles, and based on the way we build non political basic infrastructure now you can see that won't be much better.
Odd you couldn’t find room for a sentence that perhaps Elon shouldn’t have put his fortune behind a political movement expressly dedicated to dismantling American investment in these technologies. But he obviously found something more important there.
He thought he could coexist with the strange MAGAs after Biden and the Democrats made it clear his mojo wasn’t wanted since they needed to make strange animal noises for their union voters or something.
don't forget that he was really backing DeSantis and had to do an awkward pivot toward Trump after the former imploded. rough situation all around though I'm sure the ketamine didn't help.
With David Sacks. I remember him helping Desantis announce on Twitter.
Like I said...if you don't want technology to be dominated by a single kooky right-wing guy, then focus on policies that make it easier for more people to succeed at the kind of things Elon has succeeded at. Shaming Elon himself will get us nowhere in terms of technology *or* politics.
I’m not saying you (or anyone else) can “shame” Musk; that’s obviously impossible. It’s just that in a piece effusively praising his great vision that lacks a word limit you might have had room for a sentence noting the irony that Musk played a key role in making the policies you (and I) favor on this front off limits
Question: Does Gavin Newsom understand the importance of the Electric Tech Stack?
Probably not. But someone should check.
Musk must have done more than anyone except Trump to make EV's into a political statement with his DOGE stunt.
I assure you the EVs were thoroughly politicized in the US well before his 2025 shenanigans.
This was the effect of paid misinformation and influence campaigns by the usual Merchants of Doubt (Tobacco) lawyers, paid by the Oil majors and, um, Toyota.
If you include hybrids in the EV category (as the charts in the post do) then the biggest EV maker by US sales is Toyota, not Tesla or Hyundai or GM.
Most analysts break out hybrid ICE vehicles as HEVs and separate from PHEVs and BEVs.
The rationale is that the motive power for an HEV comes solely from gasoline, not the grid.
The EMBER graph of EV adoption is PHEV+BEV, and does not include HEV.
I agree with that, too. But let’s add those ridiculous subsidies for EV purchse!
While I agree with much of this article, I do not think that “The main reason America is missing the EV transition is that we’ve insisted on thinking of EVs in terms of climate.”
The real reason is that electric cars are more expensive than ICE cars. Until that changes, I think ICE cars will dominate the market.
A related point is that gasoline prices are quite low in most of the US. If we had European pump prices the EV situation in the US would be quite different.
Yes, heavy taxes on gasoline in Europe do shape car purchase decisions. But the very expensive electricity in Europe cut the other way.
The more expensive and unreliable electricity is, they less EVs make sense.
I don’t disagree with any of your analysis except one. Everyone I have ever spoken to about their Tesla universally loves it, with one exception. It doesn’t get the range you suggest, especially in very cold weather. Of course, the other problem is one of cost. EVs in America are not cheap.
Take any drive you want you will see Trucks and SUVs on the road. A few years ago the traditional US Automakers announced they would discontinue making passenger cars.
There is a very practical reason for their move. They are unable to make money selling $25,000 passenger cars. It has to do with Union Legacy costs. Detroit makes money selling $75,000 trucks and $60,000 SUVs.
I just bought a Hybrid Toyota Land Cruiser. We probably have less than 1000 miles on it. I have yet to see the dashboard reveal that our MPG is over 18.5. The sticker said we should get 22.5 MPG. This has been a consistent problem for my industry. No car gets the advertised MPG.
If there is a complaint from Tesla drivers, it is that the claimed MPG is never achieved. I also believe you understand that cold reduces battery life. It will be a while before Montanans buy an EV. For the burbs, EVs are fine, and if they can sell a $30,000 EV with a third row, perhaps that model will take off. You so blithely said you can charge your car at home.
The last time I checked, a Tesla power unit was about $1500 to install, and that presumes you have an updated panel. When I moved into my 1964-built house, that panel was original.
The ability to charge is a real problem for those who live in Apartment buildings. It’s not like you can run a 220v from your apartment with an extension cord.
I have one other comment. I wish we would start looking at the CO2 issue in terms of science. Science will get us out of this mess. When enviro nuts talk about climate change, as “we’ve got 12 years," as AOC famously did, it is so counterproductive.
Last year, I bought a 2023 Volvo C40 BEV, for under $30k. Very similar specs to the more common MachE. But quicker and a nicer interior. Bought a $200 adapter, and it charges seamlessly on Tesla superchargers. Ofc I charge at home with an L2 that I DIY installed in 2014 for $800, and my energy costs 5 cents/mile.
Must have third row and be under $30k? Haha. Holy moving goalposts Batman! There are amazing used BEVs out there at great prices TODAY.
"There are amazing used BEVs out there at great prices TODAY."
There's a reason the prices are low, low, low. And it's a bad sign for new EVs.
If used BEV prices were high, would you be saying this is a good sign due to strong demand? Or would you take it as evidence that BEVs are not yet ready for mass adoption?
Heavy depreciation is generally not a great sign for a car company.
It could be due to the rapid pace of BEV improvement, which makes older, used models obsolete and thus less valuable.
"When enviro nuts talk about climate change, as “we’ve got 12 years," as AOC famously did, it is so counterproductive."
I 100% agree with you on this. IMO, the biggest blunder enviros made was switching their activism focus to be 100% about climate costs while almost completely de-emphasizing air pollution costs. The air pollution costs battle is much easier to win public support for and the harm/cost estimates are much more robust in terms of both economic costs and public health costs (You don't need a super complex 100 year climate model to know that coal plant emissions kill a lot of people).
The same goes for cars. The present value of lifetime air pollution from a passenger ICE car is between $3k and $5k and this is an order of magnitude or two less controversial than the roughly similar climate cost estimate. Enviros stopped taking about the most robust and uncontroversial justification for taxes or regulations on auto emissions.
Matt Yglesias was in a twitter battle recently with a bunch of anti-growth leftys claiming that emerging economies replacing coal generation with US made LNG was barely an environmental win at all since LNG processing emits some carbon. The enviro nutjobs making this moronic claim were completely ignoring the economic and health costs of coal air pollution.
Nothing is worse for the environment than environmentalists. They killed the best CO2 reducing technologies of the past 100 years, nuclear, and now are trying to kill the second best, which is gas.
LOL
The enviros also blocked fracking in NY as well as natural gas pipelines to bring in gas to NYC because of exaggerated climate change reasons, but both would increase use of natural gas in place of oil heating and coal power and actually reduce emissions of both GHG and other pollutants meaning blocking these makes pollution, CO2 and costs higher. Maybe Gov. Hochul is finally realizing this, since she allowed the pipeline finally.
It's actually even worse up here in New England in terms of the enviros blocking gas pipelines. After we use up all the pipeline gas available, the marginal winter power generators use LNG first (expensive and carbon intensive) and then oil next. That means every winter we burn barrels and barrels of dirty oil to make power that could have been much cleaner pipeline gas.
To be fair, from a pure cost standpoint there were questions about the economics of building pipeline capacity that'd only get used for a couple of dozen winter days per year. Some, I think legitimately, argued that although it's dirty it's actually cheaper to just use the LNG and oil for the few days a year that we're short on pipeline capacity.
The other issue is that the utilities make more more money in this scenario, in an otherwise revenue capped business, and can pass all the blame onto NIMBYs. The utility regulators in New England are corrupted.
Not sure what you mean here. The ones making lots of money are the power plant owners, not the utilities. The power plant owners aren't meaningfully revenue capped. They try to make as much profit as they can.
New England has wholesale power generation markets and the regulated monopoly utilities aren't allowed to own any generation capacity or make any profits from power generation. The monopoly utilities buy power for their customers and pass the costs to them without any markup at all. They make all their profits on operations and upkeep and buildout on the distribution grid, not on generation.
On the generation side, with wholesale power markets, the idea is that if owners of power plants start making excess profits from scarcity, other power plant companies will built more power plants and compete away the excess profits. The problem in this case is that there are already plenty of power plants, they're just sitting idle because they can't get fuel. We have more than enough generation capacity in the winter. The grid peaks in the summer when demand is 1/3 higher than in the winter. The problem that on the coldest winter days all available pipeline capacity is getting used up by home heating customers. It's a weird and complicated problem of misaligned incentives and there's not a straightforward way for market forces or regulators to fix it without changing the way the whole system works.
I've been following this story for years. TBH the multiple allegations of market manipulations have been investigated and found to be unfounded.
The allegations were that the pipeline game was similar to what Enron was doing to power transmission between TX and CA in the 2000s... reserve transmission capacity, cancel it at the last minute, and the capacity is not utilized. Shortage is created, spiking power prices and profits. This was 100% legal, and a gaming of the existing allocation system.
Another factor is that the gas generators mostly have pipeline contracts where they are required to shut down during high demand periods so gas can be prioritized to residential heating customers.
A couple of nit picks on this...
Realistically, hardly anyone needs to upgrade their main service to accommodate EV charging anymore. First, about 80-90% of drivers can get enough nightly range with an L1 charger that plugs into any standard outlet. Many EV owners charge from standard outlets and never need any more than that.
Those that truly need a high power charging can get an EVSE w/built-in load management that eliminates the need for a panel upgrade by dynamically adjusting the charge rate based on main panel load.
https://www.amazon.com/EMPORIA-Pro-Level-Charger-Preconfigured/dp/B0D9MQ415Y/
Or you can plug the level 2 charger into your dryer outlet, if it happens to be near your garage. It seems like a good solution would be to have a switch system to allow your EV charger to use the high voltage connection for a furnace/heat pump or water heater since those are usually near the garage and only run intermittently, which isn’t a problem for EV charging.
That would cost money, I presume. In a country where half say they don’t have enough money saved for a $500 emergency expense, I still believe there is an affordability issue.
The average sales price of a new car is over $50k and taxes and registration adds another 5-10% on top of that. So for the vast majority of new car buyers, the cost for home charging is a rounding error, especially given that many people just use an existing outlet.
EVs have already reached total cost of ownership parity vs ICE cars in most areas, even with up front costs factored in. What we're left with is a just financing/cash flow problem. Since the vast majority of new car buyers use credit of some sort (lease or finance), higher up-front EV capital costs still yield lower overall cash flows for most (eg lower total monthly out of pocket finance/lease/fuel costs).
With BEVs, there's a lot of self-selection at work. Buyers who don't like their Teslas sell them. There are always lots available.
The high turnover of Teslas is partly why resale values are low. Toyota hybrids are scarce and almost investment-grade in comparison.
There are also lots of folks that don't/won't drive Toyotas. But they usually just pass after the test drive.
Certainly. Purchasers of any product self-select. For expensive purchases like autos, buyers also suffer from the principle of commitment and post-purchase rationalization. These are stronger for Tesla, being the more expensive product.
However, what's salient here is the rate of buyers who later sell or trade their used car. Toyota hybrid buyers are much less likely to sell or trade than Tesla buyers, despite greater relative demand for their used vehicle.
Thanks for this - it’s frustrating to hear both left and right bandying childish arguments and zero-sum thinking instead of acting like adults negotiating difficult reality-based tradeoffs, so I appreciate your tone. And it’s hard to find reliable information that doesn’t cherry-pick for political purposes.
For Toyota Hybrids you usual only get the claimed MPG if you enable the Econ drive mode. I have a Crown Platinum that is supposed to get 25 MPG combined, but I don’t like the slower acceleration so I use Sport mode instead of Econ and the MPG drops a bit.
Econ drive mode and the OEM, low-rolling resistance tires. And a less heavy foot than my usual. Sigh.
I've often thought that it would be a good tactic to separate the types of vehicles that are readily EV/battery adaptable from those that aren't or at least aren't with existing technology. Passenger cars, light trucks, passenger rail, light commuter aircraft, etc., are EV/battery adaptable. Caterpillar D-9 bulldozers (354 kW (474 hp) of gross power and an operating weight of 49 short tons (44 t))
are not. Long haul tractor-trailer trucks, most dump trucks, heavy freight trains, and just about every cargo or tanker ship are not adaptable to battery power with current technology. We aren't going to be able to make an Airbus A350 carry that will carry 300 passengers across the Atlantic on battery power alone anytime soon.
Yes, for certain limited applications, battery powered versions of the above are being tinkered with, but these carbon fueled vehicles will necessarily be with us for a long time to come.
Why I think it would be a good tactic to include these vehicles when talking about the future of EV's is that by acknowledging them, we might be able to frame a better argument for advancing EV passenger vehicles. There will still be a role for oil, natural gas, and propane fuels, even with EV technology. If we don't point this out, we'll never win over the skeptics.
Also even for light trucks, as soon as you need to tow anything of any significance the battery goes to hell. I don’t know whether a series hybrid generator can keep up with towing requirements or whether you require a parallel hybrid. But lots of people who tow like once a year are probably pissed at their 6 figure electric pickups.
All true. This is another reason why US policy should be to focus on hybrids and EV's, but at the same time acknowledging that there are applications where EV' just don't work well. Eventually I think the power density of batteries may enable heavier loads, but by that time some other technology may come along, such as suitcase nuclear.
Electric semis (including long haul) are taking off in China and EU.... much lower costs per mile, which is what shippers appear to care about most.
Yes, in certain limited locations, with light loads, long haul electric trucks could be plausible, but you aren't going to do that in hilly West Virgina, or across the Rockies hauling cars or heavy equipment.
"Limited locations", "Could be plausible"? You need to pay attention to actual data, given the rapid rate of progress.
Battery powered semis were >20% of new heavy truck sales in China in 2025.
Then why not link to “the actual data?”
What is the definition of “heavy truck” used in that metric? Somehow, I think it is very different from the American definition.
Plus the CCP forces people to do lots of things that they otherwise would not do if they were free to choose.
I would note that Heavy Truck =/= Long-haul (certainly its a component of heavy but these are not perfect synonyms or identities).
Heavy and in circular route Muni usage or doing "shuttle" between logistic centers on a very defined pattern is different than say long-hualer for a trucking company that may be doing load-boarding non-rigid defined (and long-haul).
Of course it is very easy to let Perfect be the Enemy of the Good and jump from 'can't be done for say typical American trucking co doing long-haul and load-boarding servicing on multi-and-varying client basis" and "can't be done at all."
The battery swapping I have read about but one has to be cautious - PRC can and will oblige acceptance of safety handling risks that won't fly ex-PRC (although equally they may be solving such concerns, so I can't say one should say no-way... just one has to be cautious to not leap to final conclusions of "this is solved" )
They have battery swaps, apparently. It'll be a while before that gets setup here.
One should not treat domestic Chinese sales data naively, and it is further the case that what the usage pattern and perimeter is absolutely does matter. Long haul is not synonymous with heavy - or rather heavy does not equal long-haul as synonym.
Hilly routes are actually better than flat or long inclines for EV semis since the regeneration from braking can recharge the batteries better when going up and down frequently. Same as when riding a bicycle, up and down is much easier than just up.
Yes and one needs specific kinds of routes and patterns to allow for recharge (and efficient asset utiliation) - it's certainly possible in defined locations, particularly like intra center logistics (as well as heavier solutions on defined routes e.g. in muni service where also the asset, the vehicles, are often overnight at central).
But long-hual and heavy load remains outside of actionability - I rather think trucks in a more "diesel-elec type"(as like the locomotives) hybrid mode may be a hybridisation path.
By the way ~4 months go Engineering with Rosie had a useful video on the subject in terms of a brief view on the logistics on trucks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGMUMAZ7shY - her video is reasonable, as part of my firm invests in RE powered logistics centers, her touching on this is quite spot on.
Apparently the Chinese are battery swapping their long haul trucks because they have the infrastructure already setup.
I have indeed read that. I would caution on over-reading and cautioun on battery swapping (concerns on several fronts - what Chinese will tolerate in re safety risk vs developed countries...). Not to suggest (a) impossible, (b) infeasible, (c) not-going-to-work ex-PRC but equally one has to be cautious around both current claims and on over-drawing conclusions - defined long-haul routes is one problem, and not of course a trivial component but it's also not 100%.
Tesla is ramping up Semi production this year in Nevada. They have already sold some to PepsiCo, I assume for local distribution, not long haul. I think the main market for these will be in moving containers around the ports in San Pedro and Long Beach since California regulations are soon prohibiting diesel trucks in those areas.
Yes, there are many transportation modes where electrification is much harder than others. Many people often miss that.
I don’t really understand who “we” is in this context. The Biden administration certainly didn’t miss the significance of EVs, batteries, and solar power they just lost the 2024 election. And it’s not like the Trump administration lacks access to Elon Musk’s views — he was Trump’s #1 donor in 2024, served at a high level in the Trump administration, and has committed to spend freely on behalf of the GOP in the 2026 midterms. It seems like maybe *Elon Musk* missed the significance of this, since he is the single largest financial backer of the political movement that is dismembering America’s nascent efforts? But the hypothesis here is that Musk is the one guy who really does get it. So maybe the situation is actually fine?
Totally agree. The question, of course, is how? The US tried the centralized, top down approach via BIL/CHIPS/IRA, which has been thrown in the political woodchipper, so what next?
America's secret sauce is its innovation and entrepreneurship, including the policy entrepreneurship of different state governments throwing different ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks.
We (RMI) released a report on how state governments can play a decisive role in building out the electro-industrial stack late last year that you may be interested in: 'GREASE Lightning: A playbook for investment-led, state-driven electro-industrial economies' (https://rmi.org/insight/grease-lightning/)
Between the multi-billion dollar megadeals that attract battery factories, control over public utility commissions, site preparation, R&D tax credits and infrastructure funds, states hold a lot more of the critical levers to unlock investment than most people appreciate (just look at how important electricity affordability was in the 2025 statewide elections!).
As we write:
"The electro-industrial transition is not a spectator sport, and it will not be decided by federal tax credits alone. It will be won by places that can match a new technological stack with a new delivery stack —governments that behave like builders, not just rule writers; regions that concentrate advantages rather than spread them too thin; and coalitions that see environmental gains as part of a competitiveness agenda, not a trade-off. GREASE is the playbook for that kind of statecraft, turning a window of opportunity into durable capacity: more power, more factories, more compute, and more widely shared prosperity."
We transitioned to the petroleum economy without the government getting involved, but it didn't get in the way either. If the government stops being an obstacle the only thing needed is the profit motive.
The E in your GREASE is part of the problem, making everything into environmental (climate crisis), but the rest of it, I guess is a step up from RMI’s previous plans to promote electricity use mainly by trying to get states to ban natural gas stoves and hook ups.
I see your point but I would push back by first saying one E in a six-letter acronym is hardly making everything about the climate crisis. I do agree there was some ideological overreach from many environmental organizations, but accounting for environmental risks and degradation is hardly an extremist position. As much as we may want to emulate China’s industrial strategy, we certainly don’t want to emulate the devastating effects its had on its countryside, rivers, and air quality. What’s more, there’s pretty good evidence to suggest lots of other countries are wary of Chinese investment for exactly that reason - so being good stewards of the environment can be a comparative advantage in creating export markets and investment opportunities for US electro-industrial firms.
Can America be a leader in building the full electric tech stack with the EV industry alone — even if we go all in? Or will it require us to rebuild broad manufacturing excellence across multiple industries (consumer electronics, semi) to achieve the scale necessary?
The latter, but EVs are by far the biggest source of battery demand. (Data centers could change that though)
I don’t think consumer electronics is coming back soon, but robots are coming (check out the new videos of the Boston Dynamics/Hyundai Alpha “super humanoid” robot with 360° joint rotation doing work in Hyundai’s South Carolina factory) as are defense drones (Anduril, Skydio and others). And data centers will need batteries for power load smoothing and temporary backup. Another area where we are leading is in solid oxide fuel cells from Bloom Energy which can make electricity from natural gas as a replacement for the standard gas turbines (which are now backlogged for over 3 years and not readily available).
1. Electric vehicles are just going to win, because they are cheaper and better!
2. We need subsidies or else people won’t buy them!
GM today wrote off $6 billion on its EV transition failure, coming a few weeks after Ford wrote off $15 billion of losses on its EV failure. Tesla vehicle sales are falling two years in a row.
And saying that EVs are taking over South America is hyperbole when EVs (including plug-in hybrids which still have gasoline engines) there make up only 10% of new vehicle sales, which make up a small part of vehicles on the road.
Musk sure didn’t help himself with the dishonest political shenigans (he lied so much re his DOGE work). Otherwise, I get it. Question though: what do we do about the horrible working conditions of folks who extract some important portion of the rare earth stuff (cobalt)? To read about what people in the DRC go through to survive by extracting this stuff is horrible.
In before the commentariat claiming that anybody with a familal emerald mine would have been just as successful as Elon Musk.
Well the emerald mine story is silly, but the arc of his life from South Africa to where is now is pretty extraordinary, and has been an economic benefit to many people. Even if he is frequently an asshole, the personal benefit to me just from StarLink service (I couldn’t get any decent internet at my house at any price before) is worth it.
Same. I was really excited about the covid era government investment in rural municipal broadband, but years later still nothing is available yet. Meanwhile Starlink has been a reliable game changer and keeps getting better.
In a way the problem -- turning an econmic issues into social/culture war issues -- that Noah diagnoses as having ocurred with eletric power/storage, also happend with immigration (how to attract the worlds most talented ambitious people), fiscal policy (how to reduce the defict to the leve of public investment), and taxation/regulation of externalities (CO2 emissions, land use, infrastructure permissioning)
"Slightly kooky?" This doesn't strike you as a bit of an understatement?
Noah doesn’t want to piss him off too much, or he might go away and take his rockets, cars and batteries with him.