Tesla Semi fire, Uber supercharges its C-suite, Rivian expands, and Maine gets windy

[Music] you're tuned into Quick Charge the high voltage podcast bringing you the top stories in electric vehicles and sustainable energy daily and it's all powered by [Music] Electric welcome to Quick Charge it's August 20th 2024 and I'm your host Joe Boris we're going to start today off with news from Tesla Tesla and byd benefit as the EU Cuts plan tariffs on Chinese Imports electric cars made in China are getting a break after the European Union cut proposed tariff rates on EV Imports Tesla and byd are some of the big Winners set to benefit from the adjusted tariffs as part of its ongoing anti-subsidy investigation the EU cut tariff rates on Chinese EV Imports to between 9 and 36% that's down from the initial 17.4 to 38 .1% proposed in June Tesla is the biggest winner here with its Duty rate slashed from 20.8% to just 9% that's on top of the current 10% rate on Car Imports Tesla requested a new rate based on the amount of subsidies it received China's leading EV maker byd saw a slight drop from 17.4% to 177% Volvo and PSAR owner gie got a rate cut from 20% to 19.3 while pych had the highest at 36.3% down from 38.1% % all other cooperating companies will get a 21.3% tariff rate which is actually up from the 21% reported in June those reduced tariffs are a good thing for Tesla too because it's going to need to be able to sell all the vehicles it can make out of its new Mega Factory in China which it's making significant progress on earlier this year Tesla officially broke ground for the new project saying that it's now aiming for production to start in the first quarter of 2025 which is still a fairly aggressive timeline Grace talin Tesla VP in China shared an update on the project today on webo translated from Chinese now Tesla's first energy storage gigafactory outside the United States is also speeding up construction with a progress of about 45% striving to run at the Tesla speed and lingen speed again the executive says that the plant is about 45% complete sharing these photos of its progress it's not all good news for Tesla however a Tesla semit truck caught fire on a highway near the California Nevada border according to the calfire Nevada Yuba Placer unit despite frequent media reports of course there's no evidence that electric vehicles catch on fire at a higher rate than fossil fuel power vehicles in fact fossil fuel powered vehicles like diesel gasoline tend to start many more fires than electric vehicles however since they are a relatively new technology they sometimes catch on fire for different reasons than gas- powerered Vehicles usually a battery defect in something like the Chevy bolts case those instances should obvious viously be investigated and reported and now we have news that a Tesla semi one of Tesla's Class 8 electric semi- trucks has caught on fire near the Nevada border the calire Nevada uba Placer unit first reported the fire quote Tesla electric commercial fire hazardous material incident due to lithium ion batteries involved minimal spread to the vegetation with aircraft utilization to confine fire until it is safe to build control Lines no word yet about how the fire started but no crash was reported it's not even clear the truck caught on fire first or the cargo as the firefighter mentioned quote a lithium ion battery fire but Tesla's trucks are known to carry battery packs from Tesla's Nevada Factory to its Fremont California Factory the top comment so far by Doug T reads this fire response likely cost over $200,000 in state and local resources but it was a good move to have an airdrop to mitigate the one megawatt of burning cells I'm glad they were able to prevent a widespread forest fire that could have cost Millions some may correctly point out that the energy in a gas tank is typically three times that in the battery of an equivalent range EV but battery fires are significantly harder to extinguish than gas and Diesel fires and the fumes are often more toxic at some point I'm guessing that Regulators will start limiting battery chemistry types or certification based on EV vehicle class and total kilowatt hours or mass battery safety testing and certification is still an evolving field in both Tech and regulations but clearly needs to be ironed out as soon as EV adoption increases and Battery tech matures now this is something we're seeing in fire departments across the country we're also seeing this at racetracks especially drag strips which are often owned by smaller operations they don't necessarily have the money to keep up to dat with the latest Fire extinguishing and Fire Safety materials and they are struggling to keep up with all of the new and different battery technologies that are out there and some of the different chemistries that require different amounts of water or other chemicals to put out at the end of the day though the fact is that EV catch on fire at a significantly lower rate than internal combustion cars and ultimately have proven to be significantly safer as well so I think it's important that while these are headline grabbing incidents they do not accurately represent what's going on for every Tesla semi fire that you've seen there have been probably a hundred diesel semi fires that you haven't read about so you can do that research on your own go to the National Institute for Highway Safety all that good stuff and see what's going on now while Teslas are burning on the highway Elon Musk is burning his own company by destroying the supercharger Network that said one man's trash is another man's treasure and Uber has snapped up Tesla's former head of charging who was fired by Elon Musk of course referring to Rebecca tanucci who famously ran the supercharger Network she deserves a significant part of the credit for Tesla's incredible deployment of charging infrastructure throughout several leading roles that she's had in the team over the last six years including as head of the charging team her team built undoubtedly the best and most most extensive DC fast charging Network in the world and this is why it was so surprising when Elon Musk fired her and her entire 500 person team earlier this year as we reported the story behind her firing seems to be that musk asked her to fire a certain percentage of her staff as part of broader layoffs across Tesla she complied but when musk asked for further layoffs and she pushed back musk decided to fire her entire team out a spite the company ended up having to rehire some of the former team members now we learn that Uber has hired tanucci to lead the electrification of its ride haling Fleet according to a memo obtained by Bloomberg Uber is trying to completely Electrify its Global Fleet by 2040 through many different programs to incentivize its drivers to go electric and the deployment of Eed charging stations and while Uber is lining itself up as an all electric competitor to Tesla's perpetually two years away Robo taxi service rivan is also expanding they've approved a major plant expansion in Normal Illinois to build the R2 the normal Town Council voted in favor of rivian's planned expansion on Monday the amendments to its site include a new quote R2 building which is a 1.1 million squ foot building on the east side of the main plant it also includes expanding its current 3.8 million foot plant by about 200,000 square fet or roughly 5% the additions include a conveyor system connecting rivan's current building to the new R2 facility which is already under development rivan was also improved for four new par parking lots three of these for employees with one reserved for new vehicles waiting to be shipped out and finally you know I like to end these talking about energy talking about sustainable energy especially wind solar utilities all that good stuff today is no different we're talking about Maine which was awarded the United States First floating offshore wind research lease the Bureau of ocean energy management was awarded the US First floating offshore wind energy lease to the state of Maine the lease area covers 15,000 acres and is 28 nautical miles off the shore of Maine and the US outer continental shelf it could allow for the deployment of up to 12 floating offshore wind turbines capable of generating up to 144 megawatts of clean energy the research array will allow the state the fishing Community Wildlife experts the offshore wind industry and other stakeholders to conduct in-depth studies and thoroughly evaluate floating offshore wind as a renewable energy resource in the region the research conducted will evaluate floating offshore winds compatibility with existing ocean uses and assess its potential effects on the environment Supply chains and job Creations Dan Burgess director of the Maine Governor's energy office said harnessing the Abundant clean power generated by offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine will grow Maine's economy reduce carbon emissions and help the state reach 100% clean energy by 2040 already a Pioneer in a floating offshore wind the lease will further the state's ongoing research by providing critical firstand experience with the first multi-t turbine floating wind array in the United States that's all I've got for today August 20th if you really want to hear more about floating wind turbines and other projects that do not bother right whales in the slightest be sure to like And subscribe for more