Panasonic said it will stop producing solar cells and modules at Tesla’s factory in Buffalo, N.Y., ending a four-year joint venture with the electric automaker. Nikkei Asian Review was the first to report that Panasonic planned to end its production agreement with Tesla . Panasonic has since issued an announcement to explain its decision. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment. Panasonic said it will cease solar manufacturing operations at the Tesla factory by the en

The science of renewable energy is remarkable—the ability to harness nature to magically power our modern world is a seductive vision. And yet, the actual business of renewable energy is late to establish itself as a viable competitor to the petrochemical industry. The problem is rooted in cost parity and the challenges of production, storage, and disposal (Figure 1). To use the industry’s fancier and totally sensible term, it’s the math of levelized cost of energy (LCOE) tha

This week, Tesla locked in a new patent for a distributed electrical grid management system, with capability to control everything from massive grid-scale energy storage installations down to your washing machine to keep everything humming along nicely. The new patent is a natural extension of Tesla’s Grid Controller solution that manages grid-scale assets, but the new solution takes it a step further by folding in Tesla’s in-home solutions, and then some. The result proposed