Liam Denning

It seems the Trumpian recession in US green energy fails to apply to one of the more Trumpian areas of the country: Texas. Solar power and batteries are taking large bites out of America’s biggest state power grid in the US, and helping to suppress electricity prices in the process.

Weeks after taking office again, President Donald Trump established the National Energy Dominance Council, proclaiming that “abundant natural resources” would help to, among other things, cool prices, cut the deficit and “end wars across the world.” Some 18 months later, gasoline that costs more than $4 a gallon has stoked inflation, the national debt has topped $40 trillion and the US has started a war several thousand miles across the world.

Data Centers Going Off-Grid Doesn’t Make Them Good Neighbors

Elon Musk’s empire spans energy, cars, rockets, robots and more besides. The common thread is his command of attention: attracting it, shaping it and monetizing it. The world’s wealthiest person has been busy in this regard of late, hosting two earnings calls, including this week’s inaugural one for Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX. He also sat for a long interview with The Economist, offering visions of artificial intelligence and humanity’s future, laced with the controversy and

Shawn Fain, leader of the United Auto Workers, is warning his members that artificial intelligence and robots represent a threat on par with the North American Free Trade Agreement, which pushed jobs across borders. “We are in a fight for humanity,” he declared at the union’s recent convention. The UAW was angered this year when General Motors Co. idled workers and then installed robots at an assembly plant in Detroit.

Elon Musk has denied a Wall Street Journal report that Tesla Inc. might hive off its business in China to facilitate a merger with Space Exploration Technologies Corp. as “absurdly fake news.” Let’s acknowledge that upfront. Let’s also acknowledge that Tesla’s chief executive officer has been known to post things, including about proposed deals involving the company, that end up being not quite accurate. If any sort of corporate restructuring involving Tesla’s Chinese operation is even being dis

A Troubling Glimpse into an AI Musktopia in Interview

As Tesla Inc.’s main electric vehicle business has stalled, its narrative has expanded to new frontiers. The company’s trillion-dollar-plus valuation increasingly relates more to the sheer size of some touted addressable market, rather than how well Tesla addresses that market. The latest earnings call, on Wednesday evening, didn’t help on either front.

Lucid Group Inc., a maker of high-end battery electric vehicles, didn’t so much stare into the abyss this week as bungee-jumped it. An article on an obscure EV blog claiming Lucid was considering filing for bankruptcy touched off an intra-day 57% plunge in the stock on Tuesday. While the company has hired a strategic advisor, it denied plans for Chapter 11 and all of that drop, and then some, was erased by Wednesday.

The latest leading indicator of the robotaxi revolution is a tiff. Waymo LLC, a unit of Alphabet Inc., and Uber Technologies Inc. are nominally partners. Uber was telling Atlantans “the future is here” only a year ago, with a tie-up allowing them to summon Waymo’s robotaxis exclusively on the ride-hailing giant’s app. These days, the two companies trade thinly veiled jabs in a gathering lobbying battle.