horadam.bsky.social
Mostly energy, supply chains, and transportation. Toto enthusiast. Still a MENA student at heart.
Onward, Rocinante!
832 posts
1,299 followers
258 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
comment in response to
post
Every American has the right to desecrate their flag in protest, but it’s utterly distasteful to do so.
I would denounce it under any circumstance, no matter how great the injustice (real or perceived).
comment in response to
post
The latter.
comment in response to
post
When I think, “what city would I expect to be Cybertruck ground zero?” it would be Miami.
I would have shared the comment anywhere I’d heard it, but thought it was especially funny coming here.
comment in response to
post
“Data-oriented (but shallow) contrarianism” has a home over there in a way that just doesn’t play here. So much of the Substack crowd thrives on “dumb person’s idea of a smart person” vibes.
comment in response to
post
I would hope they are not citing Welch favorably after the damage he wrought on American competitiveness
comment in response to
post
And then after writing it turned around and NIMBYed multifamily development in his own city. He’s always been a bad faith actor.
comment in response to
post
What Silicon Valley has done better than anyone is harness the desires of people who want to both “do things” and “make a f***ton of money” and convince them that building “optimization” software widgets to offload on IBM or dogwalking apps are producing meaningful contributions to society.
comment in response to
post
And the neoliberal consensus around shrinking the public sector produced the same effect in state and local governments.
Obviously regulations can impose additional barriers, time, and costs to getting things built and deployed, but the overpaid lawyers and consultants benefit from that complexity.
comment in response to
post
Like an overbred dog, corporate America has warped over decades to a landscape in which all the “best and brightest” go into professional services…where they create nothing, commit to nothing, and get away with it all at exorbitant prices because corporate leadership decided FTE headcount was bad.
comment in response to
post
We can’t build anything affordably because everyone with an education wants $200k+ for a consulting gig.
We can’t finance anything innovative that’s actually useful because capital wants either a 10% IRR for no risk, or 10x potential for anything else.
comment in response to
post
You can argue America has always been a haven for speculative bets and get-rich-quick schemes, but the past few decades have created something different.
Americans got addicted to excessive returns on absolute nonsense.
And we’re the only place in the world where it’s possible.
comment in response to
post
At least they properly used the word “decimate.”
comment in response to
post
In this first blog post for the ZETA, I'll share some perspectives on the US automarket, spurred on by great data from Edmunds. I'll also discuss why investment in these newer vehicles, mainly new battery technologies, is vital for US competitiveness.
www.zeta.org/insights/the...
comment in response to
post
While these plants rarely generate major headlines, they’re crucial investments for supply chain security and lowering domestic battery production costs.
But many of these products are extremely low-margin & require federal incentives + strong EV demand growth expectations to reach project FID.
comment in response to
post
And then suppliers of chemical products like Louisiana’s existing petchem sector workforce and supply chain synergies when selecting sites to produce battery precursor materials.
These chemicals help us make lithium-ion battery electrolytes, separators, and electrode binding agents.
comment in response to
post
Many junior miners have tried to follow Syrah's model of importing foreign feedstock for US refining of critical minerals to qualify for grants, loans, and tax credits (30D/45X).
The Port of New Orleans and MS River, plus proximity to reagent suppliers, make this model logistically compelling.
comment in response to
post
The battery plants and lithium mines get headlines, but LA has been an attractive target for 2 types of companies in particular.
1. Vertically integrated critical minerals producers
2. Specialty chemical manufacturers making precursors for battery materials...Like UBE.
electrek.co/2025/02/17/5...
comment in response to
post
Like sorry, I’m not going to blindly trust an LLM if it spits out, “experts disagree on whether hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for COVID-19” just because certain websites got flooded with content citing a couple of junk studies and that boosted a bad result’s confidence level.
comment in response to
post
Problem is even if you ask the right questions, you won’t have the expertise or intuition to discern right from wrong.
Life isn’t a game of deferring to the highest probability outcome. Because probabilities are limited by datasets.
That’s why expert judgement matters.
bsky.app/profile/mcub...
comment in response to
post
At least in functions that require high degrees of precision. If you’re just trying to spit out marketing materials with small incremental costs for additional targets, it can make sense.
Similarly, serving as a research aide to gather sources that an experience professional will vet.
comment in response to
post
Sorry, forgot to mention it this time, but this data is coming from Ward’s.
comment in response to
post
Tesla January BEV market share by year:
2017: 40.8%
2018: 71.7%
2019: 90.7%(!!!)
2020: 79.8%
2021: 75.6%
2022: 73.4%
2023: 53.9%
2024: 58.9%
2025: 44.5%
Definite “rise of the rest” vibes, though no single OEM comes close. GM’s BEV share is #2, at ~8.5% of the market.
🔌💡🚗
comment in response to
post
Always hard to know with Tesla given its different sales approach and product strategy, and we’ll see what happens with the refreshed Model Y landing in the US shortly.
But this was the company’s lowest sales month since January 2023, when Austin’s Model Y production was still ramping up.
comment in response to
post
And the Model Y:
2021: 9,296
2022: 13,400
2023: 21,500
2024: 32,200
2025: 26,187
The Cybertruck did another ~3,600, consistent with its past couple months. Right now it’s a 40k-45k/year product.
Model S/X once again combined for just under 3,000 units.
comment in response to
post
Finally…Tesla, which tends to have less cyclical and therefore relatively much stronger Q1 sales than other OEMs.
Here are January Model 3 deliveries by year:
2018: 2,075
2019: 18,190
2020: 17,109
*2021: 8,642
2022: 14,500
2023: 15,000
2024: 11,530
2025: 9,311
*(still dealing with Covid)
comment in response to
post
That includes the Cadillac Optiq, the lower-priced counterpart to the Lyriq, which delivered its first 145 units last month.
The Polestar 3 (1,013) was the other BEV model to debut in the data last month.
comment in response to
post
Ford, Honda, Kia, and Hyundai already report monthly sales, so nothing new there.
GM did 8,182 deliveries across its brands (including my new Equinox EV!), up 28% over 2024.
Comparisons are tough though with both Bolt models retiring last year, and five new models not doing Jan24 deliveries.
comment in response to
post
Strong numbers from Volvo XC90 (1722, or 2x the previous January high), Audi Q5 (950, best January by +50%), and the Kia Sportage (1130, or 3x last January’s previous high).
Range Rovers starting to put up real numbers too (~600 between the two PHEV models after starting volume deliveries in Q4).
comment in response to
post
PHEVs were down about 16% YoY, and as expected, it’s mostly a Stellantis story. Whatever market juice their PHEV Jeeps had appears to be gone. And the Pacifica turned in its lowest sales month since 2020.
But it wasn’t all bad news for PHEVs...
comment in response to
post
We’ll start with the fact Volkswagen appears to have put up its best ID.4 sales month ever, with nearly 5000 units.
Obviously some of this pent up demand after a serious door malfunction issue effectively shut down production and deliveries for 3 months.
comment in response to
post
The lack of Ewoks really did it for me.
(Should have clarified as “first sequel trilogy film”…aka “The Force Awakens")