BYD’s Trek Toward #1 Automaker, New EV Reviews, Solar Power Boom — Top 10 Cleantech Stories

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What are the hottest, most interesting, and most important cleantech stories of September so far? Here’s my opinion on that. Note that this is part of CleanTechnica’s weekly newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter here!

1. Juan Diego Celemín Mojica wrote an analysis for us this week on EV manufacturing in Latin America — both now and in the future. It’s one of the most fascinating regions for me for EVs at the moment, and getting an overview like this helps to really understand what is going on.

2. We have a handful of electric vehicle reviews this week. Rather than featuring them each individually, here’s a list of them:

3. Some readers inspired me to delve into BYD’s rapid rise and potential for becoming the #1 automaker in the world. That was a fun exploration! After a general piece on that, I got some data and played the number game on this. As part of that, the #1 automaker, Toyota, probably has to fall — but, boy, it sure looks like it well. Another part of that is that BYD has risen to 20% of the overall China auto market! As a post script, there was a request to look at Tesla’s sales trend in China this year (charts and all), so I’m squeezing that in here too. On the same note, one analysis has concluded BYD manufacturing competitiveness has cruised past Tesla manufacturing competitiveness in a new EV manufacturing ranking.

4. New solar PV power is expected to reach 600 gigawatts (GW) this year, a new record. Aside from being a new record, though, it’s a big step up from 2023, and a huge step up from 2022.

5. In the US, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, passed when Democrats controlled the US House of Representatives, US Senate, and White House, has been leading to a big boom in US solar module manufacturing.

Related to this, US clean energy jobs are reportedly growing at more than twice the rate of overall US employment.

6. The Hyundai IONIQ 5 has become the first non-Tesla electric vehicle to be produced with a Tesla Supercharging (aka North American Charging Standard) port built into the vehicle — not requiring an adapter to use Tesla Superchargers. This is a huge new era in the US EV market, and while Ford opened the floodgates to legacy automakers joining the Tesla standard, it’s interesting that the Hyundai IONIQ 5 now leads the way in incorporating the Tesla Supercharging port.

7. As usual, we had a stream of EV sales reports. Here are those most recent ones:

8. Paul Fosse dove into how Chinese cars like the Xpeng M03 will impact the global auto industry. Again, like #1 above and related to #2 above, I find this to be one of the most interest cleantech stories at the moment. It’s fascinating to consider and discuss how the global auto industry is going to shift from the rapid shift to electric vehicles we’re currently in the middle of.

9. Here in the US, Rivian has been building up steam and has big plans. It is approaching profitability as well as mass manufacturing of lower-cost EVs. Is it Rivian’s time to rise?

Side note: you can currently enter a raffle to win a Rivian while supporting a solar nonprofit organization.

10. To wrap up this top 10 ranking, Michael Barnard published a couple new pieces dismantling the ongoing carbon capture and storage (CCS) hype, and the wastefulness of throwing money at CCS instead of into real climate solutions. Mike’s two new pieces are “Another Day, Another Nonsensical Oceanic Carbon Capture Non-Solution, This Time Italian” and “Carbon Capture Is Mostly An Oil & Gas Industry Shell Game — Masala Flavored.”

We have so many other stories that seemed like they deserved a mention, so I’m including an “honorable mentions” list this time. It’s long. Enjoy!