Month: April 2018

Enlarge (credit: Tesla)

It's no exaggeration to say that Tesla is a remarkable car company. Founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, the company now run by Elon Musk did what many thought impossible—it made the electric vehicle desirable.

Don't believe me? Consider the astounding demand for the Model 3. Even at the height of his powers, Steve Jobs could never have persuaded more than 400,000 people to cough up a $1,000 deposit for a product more than a year in advance. Or just look at the company's valuation—at today's share price, Tesla is worth $48.3 billion, making it worth more than companies that sell millions more cars each year.

But the past few months have been rough. The final quarter of 2017 saw Tesla's biggest loss ever. In March, the company had its debt downgraded. Production of the Model 3 has been mired in difficulties. On top of that, there have been weeks of bad publicity following a third death linked to the company's Autopilot system, including a charge from the National Transportation Safety Board that Tesla is more worried about "headlines than actually promoting safety." And if that wasn't enough, there have been claims that Tesla has failed to adequately report serious injuries at its factory in Fremont, California.

Enlarge / BLOCK ISLAND, RI - AUGUST 11: Offshore turbines are constructed three miles off Block Island, RI. The nation's first off-shore wind farm is nearing completion, a milestone that clean energy advocates hope will usher in a new era of wind power. (Photo by David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) (credit: Getty Images)

The US is a latecomer to the world of offshore wind. The first commercial offshore wind farm in the US, a small, five-turbine, 30MW installation off the coast of Rhode Island, only just switched on in December 2016. Since then there have been no new offshore farms, although a few preliminary plans for new farms have been announced for coastal waters off New York and Massachusetts.

Compare that to Europe. The continent now has 15,780MW of offshore wind, according to Wind Europe, 526 times the capacity that the US has. European projects added 560 new offshore wind turbines across 17 different offshore wind farms in 2017 alone.

A group of researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) is now asking: what is the value of the offshore wind that the US didn't build over the last decade? Although many analyses have studied the falling cost of installing offshore wind, assigning a value to offshore wind is ground that is less well-tread. Though it's much more expensive to construct turbines in the ocean, offshore wind can also generate more value because sea breezes tend to be stronger and more reliable, and wind turbines can be built bigger.

Enlarge / Ford’s truck business will continue growing as the company adds new models and powertrains with an eye toward continued growth in high-end trims. But if you want a sedan or hatchback, you better act now, because they're going away soon. (credit: Ford)

On Wednesday, Ford dropped a bombshell during its Q1 earnings call: it's going to stop selling almost all its cars in the US. The Mustang will remain on sale, as will the Focus Active, a model that won't debut until next year. But kiss goodbye to the Fiesta, Focus, Fusion, Taurus, and C-MAX. Instead, the company will focus almost exclusively on SUVs, crossovers, and trucks in the US domestic market.

Ford's President and CEO Jim Hackett cited the declining popularity of the car—which the company pioneered more than a century ago—as the reason for the decision. "We are committed to taking the appropriate actions to drive profitable growth and maximize the returns of our business over the long-term. Where we can raise the returns of underperforming parts of our business by making them more fit, we will. If appropriate returns are not on the horizon, we will shift that capital to where we can play and win," he said.

As we learned earlier this year, Ford has redesigned Explorer and Escape SUVs coming next year, with a reborn Ford Bronco plus another unnamed crossover coming soon after. And it still plans to expand its line-up of battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid EVs, launching six by 2022.