Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you have to give the short sellers credit for their dedication. Hedge fund manager Mark Spiegel even follows the market while taking a bath — two computer screens perched near the tub keep him apprised of the latest ill winds. Much of his time is spent sitting at his dining room table, sending a steady stream of tweets explaining why Tesla will eventually crash and burn, making Spiegel an even wealthier man.
The last full week of 2018 is already over. Everyone else in the media seems to take off for the biggest holiday of the year, but we keep rolling here on CleanTechnica — because we’re obsessed. The good news is that means some actual reading for millions of people with nowhere else to turn who are bored to death from hanging out with family (including in-laws) all week long. This past week, the following were the most popular stories on CleanTechnica, in case you happened to miss them or are just curious how things rank.
Tesla set record after record in 2018. It passed up automaker after automaker in terms of sales as well as market cap. And it actually started turning a profit. Let’s have a closer look as 2018 comes to a close.
Could electric vehicles disrupt the reign of Big Oil? Apparently not. According to Arab News, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih publicly downplayed, “what he described as the ‘hype’ of the electric vehicle market.” And he emphasized that “miscalculations around the pace of [vehicle] electrification could create ‘serious’ risks around global energy security.”
Much of this year was marked by a massive smear campaign against Elon Musk and his electric car company Tesla. FUD [fear, uncertainty, and doubt] was at an all-time high. Ignore it. If you cut through the clutter, and instead, according to Wired, “If you focus on Tesla the company, then 2018 has been very good indeed.”
The most popular stories of the past week here on CleanTechnica included 7 Tesla Model 3 stories, 3 other Tesla stories, 3 other electric car stories, a story about an electric tractor, a climate science story, a couple of renewable energy news pieces, and a bit more. Read on for details and to read any of the hot cleantech stories you missed.
The number of articles about Tesla this past week and even this past month is quite low. Nonetheless, we do see something unusual in the raw data that you don’t see on any of the charts.
Kia has unveiled the 2020 Kia Soul EV, giving it much improved range based on the same great battery and powertrain as its younger Korean siblings. Once again, the Hyundai–Kia due is showing its ability to make compelling and affordable EVs.
Wind, solar, a continent-scale grid, and open economic borders all contributed to the death of the French nuclear dream. It’s time for France to wake up and join the future, and it has.
What is going on with Tesla? We have seen weeks with 283 articles of which there were only 29 positive headlines. This week, we have a total of 28 articles. As we said last week, this is probably a good thing — no distractions for Elon or other Tesla staff.
