HadNews.com

In retrospect, the turnaround — and just how fast it happened — is difficult to believe. In 2010, Ontario’s economic future looked grim. Tied as it had been for more than a century to the automobile industry, the provincial economy was in freefall. General Motors and Chrysler went bankrupt, dozens of plants were shuttered, and tens of thousands of well-paying auto jobs were lost along Ontario’s automotive-producing zone from Windsor to Oshawa. Ontario’s auto sector, once the wellspring of the province’s prosperity, looked to be in the process of an inevitable decline. It was, quite literally, a dinosaur industry seemingly destined to...... Read Full article on HadNews

Panasonic’s new US$4 billion battery factory in De Soto, Kansas, is designed to be a model of sustainability – it’s an all-electric factory with no need for a smokestack. When finished, it will cover the size of 48 football fields, employ 4,000 people and produce enough advanced batteries to supply half a million electric cars per year. But there’s a catch, and it’s a big one. While the factory will run on wind and solar power much of the time, renewables supplied only 34% of the local utility Evergy’s electricity in 2023. In much of the U.S., fossil fuels still play a key role in meeting power demand. In fact, Evergy has asked permi...... Read Full article on HadNews

In 2023, more than 7% of cars sold in the United States were electric vehicles. In some parts of the world, such as Norway, the percentage was a whopping 20%. In California, where I live, almost 60% of people looking for a car in 2021 said they would at least consider getting an EV. This upswing in demand comes after years of flagging sales. As recently as 2010, fewer than 100,000 cars on U.S. roads were EVs. That number crossed the 1 million mark in 2018, up more than 80% over the prior year. What explains this seemingly unexpected surge over the past few years? The key word here is “seemingly.” And the answer reveals an interestin...... Read Full article on HadNews