Tesla targets 1 million in sales, 200 gigafactories, a moron Senator in Pennsylvania, & more! #39

Today from the Clean Power Hour, we discuss how Tesla is targeting a million in vehicle sales, the gigafactory battery manufacturing race with 200 lithium battery plants scheduled before 2030, a moron in Pennsylvania moonlighting as a Senator, and more! This excessive commentary is brought to you by Tim Montague and yours truly – the CommercialSolarGuy – John Fitzgerald Weaver.

First, a link to the podcast #39 – and now the news:

SpaceX SN11 goes BOOM, and then flying chunks of metal

Global Battery Arms Race: 200 Gigafactories, China Leads

Benchmark Mineral Intelligence now tracking 200 super-sized lithium ion battery cell plants in the pipeline to 2030…brings the total capacity in the pipeline for 2030 to 3.4TWh, which is set to increase from 755 GWh of global capacity in 2020.

RMI Launches Canary Media, run by Eric Wesoff

You should follow these three authors on Twitter to stay in touch with these folks – Julian Spector, Emma Foehringer M., and Jeff St. John

Project of the week: Speedway Solar

Near Joliet, IL – a build of 2 MWac/3 MWdc with CES and SRE:

Overview of Early Electric Cars (1895-1925)

I find it absolutely interesting that there were more electric car models available in the early 1900s than for the rest of the 1900s, and so far in the early 2000s.

NASA’s Mars Helicopter Survives First Cold Martian Night on Its Own

Ingenuity, has survived the first cold night on its own, a major milestone for the small rotorcraft because surface temps can plunge as low as -130 degrees F (-90 degrees C).  Ingenuity’s first attempt to lift off from the middle of its 33-by-33-foot (10-by-10-meter) “airfield” – chosen for its flatness and lack of obstructions – will be no sooner than the evening of April 11.Within 30 Martian days, or sols (a Martian day is 24.6 hours), on the surface, Ingenuity will complete its testing, and Perseverance’s scientific exploration of Jezero Crater will kick into high gear.

Caterpillar unveils an all-electric 26-ton excavator with a giant 300 kWh battery pack

The unit is equipped with a giant 300 kWh battery pack, which they design to withstand a lot of rough movements. The result is a fairly heavy pack at 3.4 tons. The excavator’s powertrain also includes a 122 kW electric motor, which remains almost silent – though the hydraulic pumps can be heard.

Pickup truck covered with solar panels from Meyer Burger

…equipped with highly efficient vehicle integrated photovoltaics (VIPV) — ten PV modules with a nominal output of 2,180 Wp to charge the high-voltage traction battery…modules using silicon heterojunction solar cells from Meyer Burger, which were interconnected at ISFH with smartwire interconnection technology…Vitesco supplied electronics and developed the DC-to-DC converter to convert the voltage from 12 V to 400 V…Energy required for driving the demo vehicle is similar to that of passenger cars at around 19 kWh/100 km, the Institute added.

Today, we’re talking about a moron – Sen. Yaw criticizes PA’s new solar energy initiative: ‘What happens at night?’

I’m just going to rant that this is yet another uneducated politician spouting talking points from the 1970’s. All of these tired old crappy talking points are simply regurgitated – really – this dude just copy pasted what his fossil handlers told him to.

Induction cooktop electricity costs

This is the Induction stove cooktop that the CommercialSolarGuy bought. As you can see, it costs under 3¢/kWh. Probably costs less to cook with gas, but, the price is so low that I don’t care – and it’s not why I bought it anyway – electrification and indoor air quality. But it is cool to see the numbers so explicitly with the technology.

Germany awards second round of permits to close hard coal plants

In all, three successful bidders – totalling 1,514 MW to go offline in December – will receive between zero and 59,000 euros per MW, the regulator said. This was what they had offered to close their plants for, after the regulator set a maximum price of 155,000 euros/MW.

Tesla Q1 2021 Vehicle Production & Deliveries

Tesla delivered 184,800 cars in Q1’2021, on an annualized basis with zero growth that puts the company at 739,200 units delivered by the end of the year with zero growth. If company growth is 20% compounding per quarter, then they’ll deliver ~993,000 units for the year.

And now – to the podcast: