Cleantech & EV’s

SpaceX confirmed it will power Terafab, its $16.8 billion chip megafactory in Texas, with its own natural gas power plants and “very large battery arrays.” Tesla solar isn’t in the plan. That’s despite Tesla being a partner on the project, and despite Tesla selling solar panels, Powerwalls, and grid-scale batteries built for exactly this kind of load. A chip fab on the bones of a coal…

Micromobility regulation continues to tighten in New York City, and now Mayor Zohran Mamdani is taking aim at the online retailers that have become a major source of high-speed electric bikes and scooters. The mayor’s office has sent cease-and-desist letters to 40 online retailers, including Amazon, Walmart, Target, Temu, Wayfair and others, demanding that they stop selling electric bikes…

The FCC added foreign-made connected power inverters to its Covered List on July 28, cutting off the federal authorization new models need to be imported, marketed, or sold in the US. It’s aimed at the radios inside modern inverters, not the power electronics. And it lands on a market where US factories are on track to supply just 40% of combined solar and battery demand next year, according to…

Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov laid out the clearest technical case yet for why cameras alone can’t take a self-driving system to full autonomy, arguing that “weak sensing” hits a safety ceiling long before it reaches superhuman performance. He never said the word Tesla. But camera-only is Tesla’s entire bet, and this was a direct shot at it. The sensor debate, from someone with 220 million…