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The news sent international automaker stocks plummeting: Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and Continental lost the equivalent of $4.8 billion in combined market value “as investors panicked at the prospect of more costs and complexity in an industry already struggling with a slow ramp-up of electrification and high logistics costs,” Reutersreported. The car levies are set to come into effect April 3.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has hired a new general counsel who was, until recently, pursuing legal challenges to offshore wind farms on behalf of the fishing industry, Heatmap’s Jael Holzman has learned. NOAA’s Fisheries division, also known as the National Marine Fisheries Service, regulates species protection within U.S. waters. Activists have sought to persuade the Trump administration to review the division’s previous and future approvals for offshore wind projects that interact with endangered marine life, which would be a huge win for the “wind kills whales” movement.
Enter Anne “Annie” Hawkins, NOAA’s new general counsel, who comes to the agency after serving for years as the executive director of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, an organization founded in 2017 that has fought offshore wind projects on behalf of the fishing industry. Hawkins stepped down as RODA’s executive director last fall, shortly after Trump won the presidential election. RODA is involved in legal challenges against individual wind farms that received their permits under the Biden administration. The organization boasts that it was the first fishing trade association to sue against approvals for the Vineyard Wind project in 2022, and earlier this month petitioned the Supreme Court to undo federal approvals for Vineyard Wind. RODA has been in the legal fight against the Revolution Wind and South Fork wind projects since last year, according to its website.
Researchers at Brown University prominently listed RODA in a map released in 2023 detailing different key organizations in the American anti-offshore wind activist movement.
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The Trump administration is reportedly strategizing ways to strip the Federal Emergency Management Agency of its ability to aid in disaster recovery by October 1. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is pushing to shrink or eliminate the agency, even as climate-fueled weather disasters intensify and hurricane season looms. “Noem and other officials are looking to rebrand FEMA by putting it directly under White House control and narrowing the agency’s responsibilities to helping survivors in the immediate aftermath of disasters,” sources toldE&E News. “FEMA or its successor would give states disaster funding to address only ‘immediate needs’ and for life-saving or life-sustaining operations such as search-and-rescue missions and for providing emergency supplies such as shelter, food, and water.”
As Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo reported this week, the Trump administration is currently holding up more than 200 FEMA grants to states for disaster recovery, relief, and preparedness, despite a district court’s order from March 6 calling for the funds’ release.
The Department of Energy is reportedly considering cutting $4 billion in funding for hydrogen hubs approved under the Biden administration. The seven hubs are scattered across the country, and each received a slice of some $7 billion in funding as part of a push to turn hydrogen into a viable alternative to fossil fuels. Four of the seven hubs are up for funding cuts, including those in the Midwest, Pacific Northwest, California, and the Mid-Atlantic. As Reutersnoted, “the hubs that could have their funding cut would largely serve Democratic states, while the three hubs that would be kept are located in Republican states.”
Hyundai pulled back the curtain on its new Metaplant in Georgia with a grand opening on Wednesday. The $7.6 billion factory produces electric and hybrid vehicles – about one per minute – and Hyundai Motor Company CEO José Muñoz announced that the plant’s capacity will be increased from 300,000 vehicles per year to 500,000 per year. Earlier this week, Hyundai announced plans to build a $5.8 billion steel plant in Louisiana, part of a larger $21 billion investment by the South Korean automaker in its U.S.-based manufacturing operations as President Trump’s tariffs on imported steel and cars take effect. The plant is already producing the Ioniq 5 SUV, one of the most popular EVs in America. Hyundai’s 2024 EV sales (when combined with those of its sister brands Kia and Genesis) made it the second-largest EV brand in the U.S., behind Tesla.
Hyundai
Over the past 20 years, glacier loss from climate change has exposed more than 1,000 miles of Greenland’s coastline.
China plans to add about 1,500 steel, aluminum, and cement companies to its carbon market this year, according to the environment ministry. As of now, only power companies are included in the system, which was launched in 2021 and requires firms to buy carbon credits to cover their emissions. But the expansion has been in the works for a while, and will cover about 60% of China’s total emissions. The country will eventually rope in other industries such as building materials, chemicals, and aviation to account for about 75% of total emissions. The newly added industries will have softer emissions rules to begin with, with caps only coming into place in 2027. This delay will “ease the financial burden on the new entrants,” Bloombergnoted.
Rivian officially spun off a new micromobility company today aimed at helping people switch to small electric vehicles (think bikes, scooters, or golf carts) for short daily journeys. Rivian said the new company, called Also, has raised a $105 million Series B funding round. Also’s CEO Chris Yu told Heatmap’s Katie Brigham that owning a car and owning a smaller EV are not mutually exclusive. “If I’m taking my family to Yosemite on the weekend, I want to use my Rivian R1S, but for my daily school runs, probably not,” Yu said. Also’s flagship product is set to launch in the U.S. and Europe early next year, and will be followed by consumer and commercial products for the Asian and South American markets, though the company hasn’t yet said what these products will be.
A new report on 2024 renewable power trends has both good news and bad news: While the world added more renewables last year than ever before, we’re still not on track to triple capacity by 2030. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, 585 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity was installed in 2024, “the largest increase in renewable energy capacity to date.” Renewables accounted for about 93% of all global power additions, with solar alone making up three-quarters of the installations. But “current growth rates indicate the world is not on track to triple installed renewable power capacity to 11 TW by 2030,” said IRENA’s international director general, Francesco La Camera. “With just 6 years remaining to meet the goal adopted at COP28 to triple installed renewable power capacity by 2030, the world now needs additions in excess of 1,120 GW each year for the rest of this decade to keep the world on a 1.5 degrees Celsius pathway.”
In case you missed it: The Federal Emergency Management Agency has continued to withhold millions of dollars from states for disaster recovery, relief, and preparedness despite a district court’s order from March 6 calling on the administration to release the funds. As Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo reported, among the more than 200 FEMA grants to states that remain frozen are a case management program for survivors of the 2023 Maui wildfires, emergency readiness projects in Oregon, and flood hazard mitigation in Colorado, according to a motion filed on Monday in the lawsuit State of New York v. Trump. The motion was filed the day after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said her department would move to “eliminate” FEMA during a cabinet meeting.
States say the lack of access to funding is going to start disrupting crucial programs. “If Hawaii doesn’t start receiving reimbursements for its federally-funded case management program by March 31, for example, it will be forced to immediately discontinue its work helping more than 4,000 wildfire survivors create tailored disaster recovery plans and navigate recovery resources,” Pontecorvo wrote.
Nissan confirmed that its Leaf EV is making a comeback, but this time it will be an SUV. The car will be available in the U.S. sometime in the next year. No word yet on pricing. The company showed off the vehicle for the first time today:
Nissan
