The last week of the year is always a little surreal to me. Much of the working world shuts off. Much news shuts off. But we typically roll through it all like any other day, and the news that does slip into the end of the year has a special tint.
This past week, the hottest stories on CleanTechnica were:
The year just wrapped up here in Europe. Below were the 30 most popular articles of the year here on CleanTechnica. Naturally, despite a slower production ramp than expected and planned, the big cleantech story of the year was the Tesla Model 3. However, no article about that car won the top spot. Surprisingly, the top spot was won by a piece I very quickly put together after almost deciding to go to bed instead. I think there’s really something to that article’s success, and I think Tesla would be wise to consider it — but that’s a discussion for another day.
Elon Musk has been off Twitter for days. The internet is panicking. Some humanoids — facing a mental-emotional vacuum — are even now pondering the meaning of life.
We love journalism. We need journalism. We need local journalism, high-access national journalism that puts a check on the power elite, and deeply investigative journalism that goes where few would dream to go. If people truly respected one of the great thinkers behind the forming of the United States, they would respect that the work of journalists is valuable — critical — to a democratic society. Thomas Jefferson said:
We write a lot about electric vehicles here on CleanTechnica, because we’re a tech site. But some of the best ways to cut emissions involve no tech at all. One of the best things you can do to cut your carbon footprint and pollution output is live in a walkable, mixed-use location where much of your recreation and relaxation can be done right there in the neighborhood or community where you live. That eliminates the need to drive, traffic on the road, the stimulus to build more roads, and extra parking lot asphalt.
As I noted a moment ago, I recently took a small risk, faced a short freakout, and then made it through my first Tesla software update. The reason I cut it close on the timing and installed the update was that it was a fun Christmas one that I knew my older daughter (3 years old) would love.
Some other members of our Tesla Shuttle team installed Tesla software updates on our Model S earlier in the year, but the first time I personally did so was the day after Christmas (or 2nd day of Christmas as some people call it). I was a little uncertain whether to do the update at that time — we needed to leave approximately 2 hrs later and the car said it would take 1 hour and 40 minutes. Additionally, I was a little concerned about how much energy it might take. We had an 85% charge but quite a ways to drive. “How much energy does a Tesla software update take?” I had never thought to ask and didn’t recall seeing this information somewhere, so I searched online. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find an answer.
Just yesterday, I ran through a bunch of hypotheticals, delivery estimates, and financial assumptions for Tesla for the year 2022. One of those was the assumption that Tesla would have a pickup truck on the market by 2022 — and hitting 55,000 deliveries a year by 2022. Another assumption was that Tesla’s energy generation and storage revenue would approximately triple from 2017 to 2022.
The top 20 CleanTechnica articles of the week leading up to Christmas? Have scroll below. Yes, 6 are specifically about Tesla — especially the Tesla Model 3 — and 3 more have a strong Tesla component, but the top story of the past week wasn’t a Tesla story. Catch the details below.
We’ve been conducting electric vehicle reviews for years, but we really stepped it up in 2017. Much thanks in particular is owed to Kyle Field and Nicolas Zart, both of who have written a ton of EV review articles this year. Thanks are also due to Cynthia Shahan, Steve Hanley, Jose Pontes, and several guest contributors and less frequent writers who have also contributed articles. And I’ve admittedly been having fun with a long-term review of the Tesla Model S, which began around the time Kyle’s ended.
