Last week, California finally received a shipment of life-saving ventilators that the state desperately needed to help in the fight against COVID-19. When the boxes arrived, however, hopes were quickly dashed, as 170 of the ventilators were broken and useless. At least, they were until fuel cell engineer Joe Tavi got a hold of them.
Last month, Lucid Motors quietly took a pre-production Lucid Air electric sedan on a 400-mile (643 km) drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The run was part range test, part proof of concept, and part PR mission, and went off without a hitch. Then, once the Lucid crew made it to LA?
They charged up, and drove back.
Every day after school for the past three years, I have walked past the same line of cars, smelled the same stench of exhaust, and felt the same need for action.
We’re quite fond of running and publishing total cost of ownership forecasts here, whether comparing the Tesla Model 3 with the BMW 3 Series, comparing the Tesla Model Y with the Mercedes-AMG GLE 63 S, or comparing the Volkswagen ID.3 with the Volkswagen Golf.
The COVID-19 pandemic is laying bare two unavoidable facts about our new reality: we are more interconnected than ever, and cities are at the front lines of this crisis and will be at the front lines of any similarly globalized crisis in the future.
I spend probably far too much of my day reading about the COVID-19 pandemic. Sometimes I find stuff that’s uplifting and hopeful. Sometimes I find stuff that’s more or less terrifying. Much is up in the air because much is still unknown about the virus and its effects across a representative sample of humanity. A one percentage point difference on a variety of matters, including hospitalization rate of those infected and death rate of those infected, can result in an enormous difference across society. As far as I have seen, no one yet has a clear handle on some of these key factors, so keep that in mind as you read on (and share data in the comments if you think you have answers).
We recently reported on the Tesla Model 3 being the 3rd best selling vehicle in California in 2019 as well as the Tesla Model X ranking either #1 or #4 in its class, depending on which class you put it in. Some other electric cars did quite well in California as well, though. The Chevy Bolt was the 2nd best selling subcompact car in California and the BMW i3 was the 3rd best selling “entry luxury car” there.
Editor’s note: I encouraged a friend to write his first impressions driving his son’s new Volkswagen e-Golf recently in California. At home in Florida he drives a non-electric car. He seems to have his eye on an electric vehicle now. A thank-you to Frank Semmens for taking the time to write up his original review.
As California experienced uncharacteristically low precipitation in February, normally its peak rainy season, parts of the state are moving into drought conditions. This is likely to increase wildfire prevalence in the state in 2020, and it underscores the point that communities need to be thinking about a range of strategies to increase their resilience to wildfires.
Recently, OutBack Power™ released an AC coupling firmware update to its SkyBox™ hybrid inverter. AC coupling is ideal when users have an existing solar PV system and want to add batteries for backup and time-of-use energy management.
