Tesla’s market cap has exploded and it has become the most valuable automaker in the world.
The company smashed through milestones, surpassing auto giants like Toyota in terms of market value. Shares are up a staggering 26% this week — and then there are the Q2 delivery numbers. Tesla crushed those as well even in the middle of a pandemic.
Tesla delivered more vehicles than expected this quarter — a total of 90,650. Of these deliveries, about 80,000 were Model 3s and Model Ys.
Nonetheless, Elon Musk and his team were able to not only meet expectations but exceed them by a wide margin. Now, this sets up the question of whether or not Tesla can hit its guidance of delivering a half-million vehicles this year.
In order to do that, Tesla will have to deliver at least 322,000 vehicles over the next six months — challenging, not impossible — but definitely challenging.
Today marks another big step forward in New Jersey’s coronavirus recovery plan.
Ahead of the Fourth of July holiday weekend there are a number of reopenings including casinos, amusement parks, museums and libraries, to name just a few.
Indoor dining is still on an indefinite pause, and the governor warned he’ll scale back reopenings if the same large crowds without masks gather at sites across the state.
Gov. Phil Murphy extended the public health emergency for another 30 days to keep his executive orders in place. While signing another, in contrast, that raises the limit on crowd sizes for outdoor gatherings to 500 people, effective today.
The limits on indoor gatherings remain. Despite progress slowing the virus, the state reported another 27 COVID-19 related deaths on Thursday. Total confirmed and probable fatalities is 15,105.
There were 539 new positive test results overnight for a cumulative total of 172,356.
The state also announced another roughly 130 contact tracers have been on-boarded over the past week to help prevent new cases that become flare ups and threaten the state’s recovery.
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On June 29, 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that its March 26, 2020 Temporary Policy Memo, which modified the Agency’s enforcement discretion in light of the sweeping impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States (the “Temporary Enforcement Policy”), will terminate in its entirety at 11:59 PM Eastern Daylight Savings Time on Monday, August 31, 2020. Accordingly, EPA will not base its exercise of enforcement discretion on the Temporary Enforcement Policy as to any noncompliance by regulated entities occurring after August 31, 2020.
EPA’s Temporary Enforcement Policy suspended enforcement activity and imposition of penalties for violations of routine compliance monitoring, testing, sampling, laboratory analysis, training, reporting and certification obligations, where a regulated entity could document that noncompliance was attributable to operational challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Temporary Enforcement Policy quickly drew sharp criticism from Democratic lawmakers and coalitions of environmental conservation groups and states, and prompted multiple lawsuits against EPA. These still-pending legal challenges argue that EPA’s Policy has allowed polluting industries to shirk their obligations under various environmental laws, compromising public health and further endangering already imperiled species.
In choosing August 31 as the termination date for the Temporary Enforcement Policy, EPA observed that as state and local restrictions imposed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic are gradually relaxed or lifted, operational challenges being faced by regulatory entities should begin to subside. EPA further noted that “as states and business begin to re-open, there will be a period of adjustment as regulated entities plan how to effectively comply both with environmental legal obligations and with public health guidance.”
EPA’s June 29 announcement additionally advised that, notwithstanding the August 31 termination date, EPA reserves the right to terminate its Temporary Enforcement Policy at any earlier time, on a regional or national basis and in whole or in part, upon seven days’ advance notice to the public.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday ordered tougher restrictions on indoor activities for most of the state, marking a major step backward in the reopeningand an attempt to slow an alarming rise of the coronavirus in 19 counties.
The governor took action to halt visits to indoor restaurants, bars, wineries and tasting rooms, entertainment centers, movie theaters, zoos, museums and card rooms for the next three weeks in Los Angeles, Riverside, Ventura, Orange, San Bernardino and Sacramento counties and other regions hard hit by the virus.
Newsom is imposing the restrictions in an effort to reduce opportunities for people to gather indoors in advance of the July 4 holiday weekend, when officials fear disaster if Californians continue to ignore safety guidelines and businesses remain open in areas already experiencing significant spikes in coronavirus infections.
As of Wednesday at 5 p.m., there were 237,068 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in California, following record increases earlier in the week, and 6,152 total deaths, according to data tracked by The Times.
“We have to be much more vigilant in terms of maintaining our physical distancing from others and be much more vigilant as it relates to the prospects of being in situations where we are transmitting COVID-19,” Newsom said. “The decisions we’re making here today — we do so soberly but thoughtfully and deliberately with an idea on mitigating the spread of this virus.”
The change signals a reversal in the state’s reopening that began in early May and quickly progressed by June 12 to allow retail stores, dine-in restaurants, bars, religious services, hair salons, gyms and other businesses to open again with modifications in counties that met state guidelines.
Newsom is also recommending the cancellation of all fireworks shows on the Fourth of July in the affected counties, and is urging Californians to rethink having large get-togethers with friends and neighbors to celebrate the holiday.
The governor emphasized that the new mandates would allow businesses to remain open for outdoor service and takeout. Bars and other drinking establishments in the affected counties are also allowed to seat guests outdoors as long as they sell a meal with drinks in the same transaction and meet all of the same safety requirements as restaurants.
The state applied the closures to counties that have been flagged for at least three consecutive days based on troubling longer-term data on key public health metrics, including hospitalizations, community transmission and hospital capacity. The state has been using the data to determine when counties are safe to open businesses and now to decide when to “toggle back,” as Newsom has described the process of reversing course and closing down.
Newsom’s order immediately applies to the affected indoor business activities in Contra Costa, Fresno, Glenn, Imperial, Kern, Kings, Los Angeles, Merced, Orange, Riverside, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Joaquin, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Solano, Stanislaus, Tulare and Ventura counties.
State officials have long anticipated that reopening would lead to an increase in cases and risk of more deaths as Newsom shifted power to counties in May to open businesses at their own pace.
Newsom began sounding the alarm about the growing spread of the virus on June 18 by requiring Californians to wear masks or other face coverings in public and high-risk settings. But the state continued to speed up the reopening process and allowed personal care services in one of the highest-risk sectors, such as nail salons, massage parlors, tattoo shops and waxing services, to resume the next day.
The governor defended his administration’s approach to reopening the state’s economy on Wednesday, saying it relied heavily on local public health officials to assess the severity of the outbreak in their areas and to determine the safest approach.
The big bank and the big oil company show widening corporate interest in renewable energy
A boarded-up Wells Fargo Bank in Washington. (Joshua Roberts/Getty Images)
By Steven MufsonWashington Post– June 23, 2020 at 9:00 a.m.
Wells Fargo will buy electricity generated by solar plants from Shell Energy, a move that demonstrates widening corporate interest in renewable energy even among some of the strongest supporters of fossil fuels.
The deal is modest: Wells Fargo says its share of the plants’ combined capacity, purchased from three locations in Virginia and one in California, would add up to 62.7 megawatts and would meet about 8 percent of its global energy needs.
But it carries symbolic value. Wells Fargo, the second-biggest lender to fossil fuel companies over the past four years, is buying carbon-free electricity from Shell, a company that’s been in the oil business since the 1880s. The deal also shows the appeal of solar projects even in the midst of the punishing economic downturn brought on by the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Shell Energy, a unit of oil giant Royal Dutch Shell, which entered into a long-term contract to buy power from the solar plants’ developers, will resell some of the energy to Wells Fargo. The Wells Fargo contract for solar energy from California will last seven years, and those from the Mid-Atlantic will last six years and seven months.
Curt Radkin, senior vice president and corporate properties sustainability strategist at Wells Fargo, said that the bank has “a pipeline of additional transactions that we’re hoping to bring to closure.”
The continued push for renewable projects comes amid the economic downturn. In April, Wells Fargo set aside $3.1 billion for potential losses and said its quarterly profit fell nearly 90 percent.
Wells Fargo has been a target of climate activists, who point to a Rainforest Action Network report that said the bank had provided nearly $200 billion of financing for fossil fuel firms and projects since the Paris climate agreement was signed in December 2015.
Bear sightings surged in the first half of 2020 compared to the same time frame last year, according to new statistics released in June by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
The DEP reported 147 bear sightings around the state in that period. That’s a 93% increase from the 76 sightings in the first half of last year. The figures cover bear sightings and complaints from Jan. 1 to June 21.
Larry Hajna, a DEP spokesman, indicated that the increase says less about changes in the bear population and more about people spending increased time at home due to coronavirus-related restrictions.
“This is the time of year when bears are looking for habitat, particularly younger males that have left their mothers,” Hajna said in a statement. “Reports may have increased due to more people being at home seeing bears as they disperse into habitats.”
General complaints of bears being a nuisance or inflicting damage are up nearly 40%, with 327 complaints so far this year compared to 234 this time last year.
The 474 total bear incidents — sightings and complaints combined — in the first half of 2020 mark a 53% increase from 310 incidents in the same time frame last year.
The report only includes bear sightings and complaints reported to the DEP. Any bear activity reported to local police or other agencies without the involvement of the DEP is not included.
The report breaks down the bear incidents into three categories, with Category 1 involving the most severe incidents. Category 1 reports increased slightly, from 13 in the first half of 2019 to 15 so far in 2020. Reports of bears entering homes have doubled, though reports of bears being aggressive have decreased from last year.
Less severe incidents — like property damage and bothering unprotected bee hive complaints — are classified by the state as Category 2. Reports of bears going through garbage and being a general nuisance are the two most frequent complaints in this category. Overall, Category 2 incidents have increased about 38% since last year.
The least severe bear reports are grouped into Category 3, which has seen a 70% increase in complaints since last year. Sightings make up the majority of reports in this category, but vehicle strikes and reports of bears bothering bird feeders are also up. Reports of injured bears and bears found dead are down.
