Top tech executives were at the White House on Wednesday promising to shoulder more of their data centers’ energy costs, a sign that both Washington and Silicon Valley are nervous about growing popular backlash to the AI boom.
Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, xAI, Oracle, and OpenAI signed a “ratepayer protection pledge,” which Trumpp said will have “a tremendous impact on electricity costs.” Data centers used 7% of all US electricity generated in 2025, according to Goldman Sachs, double their share from 2022. Right now the pledge is aspirational: It doesn’t include any specific new policies to help tech companies finance or build new energy projects, and the job of hammering out rate structures will ultimately fall to state and local regulators. The big drag on building out enough new power generation to keep prices in check is yearslong waitlists for gas turbines.
But as electricity prices rise faster than inflation, polling moves against data centers, and local protests stop some projects, the politics are hitting Wall Street. After Democrats flipped two seats in November on the Georgia utility regulators’ board, analysts downgraded shares of the state’s biggest utility.
“Good intent — but if it takes a White House pledge to prevent cost shifts, something’s broken,” Jamie Van Nostrand, who was the chair of Massachusetts’ utility regulator until October (and has a new Substack well-timed to cover the debate), tells Semafor. “A pledge alone won’t do it unless states give regulators the staff and expertise to enforce it.”
So in the immediate future, gas will not be providing much new electric capacity.
Manufacturing Backlogs & Lead Times:
Major manufacturers like GE Vernova and Siemens Energy report record order books extending to 2028-2030, causing 5-7 year wait times for new, large-scale units.
Side note, been very happy with the GE breakup, but GE Healthcare has been the dog
of the three.
Unknown to me.
GEHC has done amazingly bad considering how health care is such a big and
expensive item in the US with annual cost increases.
From this they seem stand-alone…?
Genworth Life Insurance Company is a subsidiary of
Genworth Financial, Inc. (NYSE: GNW), a publicly traded financial services holding company headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. It operates under the broader Genworth Financial umbrella, which also includes subsidiaries like Enact Holdings and Genworth North America Corp.
But I recall now long time ago GE was saddled with those long term care contracts
that were eating their lunch.
That article, if I understood it correctly, says the EPA would probably give it 400 mile range. Still very decent, especially with that short recharge time.
Agree a 400 mile range for a road trip is plenty if there is fast charging. Over 5 hours of straight driving is plenty.
Even though they list 600 which is probably city, it is not a true 600 since proper battery maintenance requires staying between 20-80% capacity. That is still about 360 miles which is good for city driving.
The did spin it out but still owned a large chunk. All the long term care companies are losing money on contracts from the 1990’s thru to 2015. Most got out of the business but some stayed in and adjusted contracts and pricing.
Long term care is the biggest risk most current retirees face
$15k EV. If we had this I would buy one today. Msrp is $37k here. Best sale pricing I see is $31-33K
For comparison pricing I checked RAV4 prices in China and they range from 25-32k. Not very far off from how much they are in the US.
Seems to me this could be a sub 20K car here in the US and will be whenever Toyota decides to run with it, which may take some ending of some gasoline protectionism policies we have now.
It’s not necessarily Toyota that is at fault here, at least not totally.
Toyota, as would all major auto-makers in the US, would be happy to amp up EV vehicles.
The issue is the ecosystem that surrounds it in the US, is not supportive.
China has direct, arms-length reach to renewable energy supply chains. China is also much more friendly to dense residential infrastructure and public transit, which goes hand in hand with the acceptance of EVs by consumers.
We also have the issues of EV subsidies. The US needs more. a LOT more.
But it’s not a major voting issue because people don’t really see the purpose of it. Climate change still does not seem like an immediate threat (or a threat at all) to many Americans for their own reasons.
Same. Getting close, numbers wise, to making a lot of sense but I’m not in the market for a vehicle now. Will enjoy my hybrid for at last 4 more years.
That said I was thinking about buying my son one for graduation in 2027-28 if it makes sense. So, I’m kinda hoping these long range options and lowering of prices do happen. If not, hybrid for him too.
EV manufacturing in the US still relies on fossil fuel-based economics and inputs.
If 50% of all vehicles in America were EVs, that would come at a significant cost to the Oil and Gas industry, both upstream and downstream.
That would lend to an increase in manufacturing costs for EVs, because shareholders of O&G companies would need to make up for that loss.
In other words, given that O&G relies heavily on transportation for their profits, downstream they would be forced to increase the cost of refining, which would increase the cost to manufacture steel, plastics, rubber, etc…
