Trump and the horse and buggy effect
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Steve Jobs liked to say that most customers don’t know what they want until they see it. “If you asked somebody what they wanted a century ago before the auto was invented, they’d say ‘a faster horse.’”
The same axiom applies to President Donald Trump and his 1980s approach to the world, including climate change, and especially with respect to electric vehicles.
While the White House has kneecapped the EV industry in the U.S., electric and hybrid vehicles are booming almost everywhere else in the world. The International Energy Agency said this week in its annual clean energy report that more than 23 million electric and hybrid vehicles were sold worldwide last year, almost a third of all vehicles.
This year is supposed to be even stronger, with growth surging 40% to 50% in some countries in Europe and Latin America. While China, a leader in EVs, has seen sales level off this spring after cutting some incentives, the U.S. is the real holdout. Trump’s hostility to EVs is at odds with the rest of the world.
With no end in sight for the Iran war and its impact on oil prices, second-hand EVs in the U.S. have become the hottest vehicles in local dealerships in the past few months. People aren’t buying EVs for climate change, for the most part. They’re buying them because they look cool, accelerate like nothing most drivers have ever seen, and most of all, are less expensive.
As the World Cup starts next month, it’s helpful to reflect on how stubborn the U.S can be sometimes in rejecting something the rest of the world can’t get enough of. Some sort of twisted U.S. exceptionalism.
But in the end, we’re missing out and just like with football (soccer), change will come to EVs more slowly than expected. But it is coming, nonetheless.
Don’t forget to contact me directly if you have suggestions or ideas at dcallaway@callawayclimateinsights.com.
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Zeus: For tech world, SpaceX IPO most awaited since Google
. . . . The hype around the IPO of Elon Musk’s SpaceX next month is reminiscent of the blockbuster IPO of Google GOOGL 0.00%↑ 22 years ago, writes David Callaway. The market was hypnotized by the potential of the search giant’s offering, but the chaos around it prevented the shares from doing anything for several months before they eventually took off like a, um, rocket. SpaceX doesn’t have quite the monopoly Google had back then. Its Starlink business appears healthy, but the other operations Musk has crammed together with it — the X social media site and xAI — are still largely subject to Musk’s vision rather than strong balance sheets. And at least two other AI offerings — Open AI, and Anthropic — are right around the corner. Investors love a good story, though and at least for this summer, the AI juggernaut appears ready to continue into the public stock market.
Thursday’s subscriber insights
War on wind power leaves New England grid exposed to extreme heat
The White House war against offshore wind projects, which state energy regulators warned would deprive New England of an important source of electricity, was exposed for its folly this week after electric grid operators were forced to turn on dirty oil to keep the power on during a spring heat wave.
As temperatures in Boston reached a record 96°F on Wednesday, the ISO New England grid turned to oil to keep the power on after routine seasonal maintenance interrupted its usual mix of natural gas and renewable energy. It was the second time this year the grid was forced to tap oil following an emergency during a winter storm in January. Because of higher oil prices tied to the Iran war, the operation was more expensive as well as damaging to the environment.
The emergency revealed the poor strategy of the White House’s attacks on offshore wind projects, some of which were just starting to come online when they were halted or closed over the past year. Many of the projects are currently in legal limbo as investors seek to combat vague claims from the Trump administration of national security issues tied to the offshore wind turbines.
Earlier today, President Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin of the Environmental Protection Agency said they would slow federal requirements to phase out dangerous hydrofluorocarbons used in air conditioners and refrigerators, sometimes called Super Pollutants, because businesses were not ready to invest in them.
The strategy will basically push the cost of developing new, cleaner systems to a later date beyond the extreme heat that is expected this summer across the country, beyond the current energy crisis, and importantly for the White House, beyond the midterm elections Those costs, as well as the environmental costs of delaying the projects, will inevitably be borne in a greater way during the next power emergency, whenever it comes.
Editor’s picks: Thailand and Vietnam love EVs; plus, LA fires force 44,000 to evacuate
Watch this video: Thais and Vietnamese are switching to electric cars in huge numbers — attracted by government subsidies and a more exciting range of EVs. Jobs in the car industry are also up in both countries as a new generation of manufacturers compete for domination of the emerging electric market. But can the pace of growth last? Will the boom in electric cars reduce the chronic air pollution in cities like Bangkok? And will it help Thailand and Vietnam reduce their carbon emissions? Check out this special report from the BBC World Service.
LA fire forces 44,000 to evacuate
A wind-driven fire continues to burn in the hills near Simi Valley, 30 miles northwest of Los Angeles. As of Tuesday, more than 44,000 people were under evacuation orders as the wildfire threatened suburban homes, according to published reports. The Ventura County Fire Department said in a Wednesday afternoon update, “firefighters on the ground and in the air continue battling the Sandy Fire in steep, stubborn terrain. Crews are deploying hose lines and constructing handlines to strengthen containment efforts, while air tankers continue dropping retardant ahead of the fire to slow its spread. Approximately 900 firefighters remain assigned to the incident.”
Latest findings: New research, studies and projects
This is salmon on cocaine
Cocaine is one of the most common illicit substances found in waterways around the world. Scientists and environmentalists have been concerned for years about the impact of cocaine on wildlife, but it’s difficult to study. The New York Times notes that many studies have looked at how fish and other animals respond to cocaine in a laboratory setting, yet none had studied the impact of the drug in the real world. But researchers at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences found a way. According to a study published recently in the journal Current Biology, salmon on cocaine, well, swim a lot faster and travel farther than salmon who aren’t doing coke. The study was accomplished by implanting tracking tags and slow-release capsules in 2-year-old Atlantic salmon at a hatchery in southern Sweden. The fish were released into a lake in Sweden that is stocked with Atlantic salmon for recreational fishing. Researchers tracked the salmon for about two months. The study authors wrote, “Illicit drug pollution poses an increasing risk to ecosystem function and human health. An estimated 292 million people worldwide used illicit substances in 2022 alone, with many of these compounds being excreted and subsequently detected in aquatic environments due to insufficient removal during wastewater treatment. … Once in the environment, these substances can pose a particular threat to non-target wildlife due to their potency at low concentrations and their ability to interact with evolutionarily conserved neurological pathways. Moreover, with the global use of illicit drugs increasing by ∼20% over the past decade, the environmental impact of these substances is likely to grow. … Our findings demonstrate that environmentally relevant concentrations of cocaine and its major metabolite benzoylecgonine can accumulate in the brains of exposed Atlantic salmon — an ecologically and economically important species of high conservation concern — and disrupt the movement and space use of these fish in the wild.”
Words to live by . . . .
“The climate crisis is a threat to our safety and security, social cohesion, human rights and health. Far from being a problem solely for future generations, it is a real and present threat to us right now in Europe. Climate action is not merely a necessity. It is a high-return investment for a more just and resilient society. We all have a political and moral responsibility to act now.” — H.E. Katrín Jakobsdóttir, chair of the Pan-European Commission on Climate and Health.