Interesting Ideas

Our 20 favourite pieces of in-depth reporting, essays and profiles from the year

Victor Pelevin made his name in 90s Russia with scathing satires of authoritarianism. But while his literary peers have faced censorship and fled the country, he still sells millions. Has he become a Kremlin apologist?

As Zach mentioned yesterday, The Guardian reported data from ACEA showing that Tesla sold 12,130 vehicles in Europe in November, down from 18,430 last year, while the overall market grew slightly. Tesla’s market share shrank from 2.1% to 1.4%. However, while Tesla staggered, BYD’s sales growth accelerated in the EU, ... [continued]

The post BYD Rises in Europe as Tesla Falls, More Than Tripling Sales appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Met Office says temperatures are tracking ahead of 2022 after year of heatwaves and drought, though late cold spell could yet intervene

Forecasters say 2025 is “more likely than not” to break the record for the hottest year in the UK since records began, after a summer of heatwaves and drought followed by a mild autumn.

According to the Met Office, the official forecaster, the mean temperature for 2025 is tracking well ahead of the previous highest year, set in 2022. However, a colder spell expected from Christmas until the new year makes it too close to call definitively.

Renewables peak as fossil fuel power generation reaches historic low, while transportation emissions also plummet While not on target to reach 2030 climate goals, state continues to close the gap SAN FRANCISCO — In one of California’s single largest year-over-year emissions reductions on record, the state lowered its climate pollution ... [continued]

The post California Records One of Its Single Largest Drops in Climate Pollution on Record appeared first on CleanTechnica.

You may be familiar with China’s green license plates for electric vehicles. They help people to notice which vehicles are electric and which aren’t. Now there’s apparently a new kind of license plate, and the first four of them have been delivered in Chongqing and Beijing. I reported last week ... [continued]

The post Arcfox & Deepal Get China’s First L3 Autonomous Driving License Plates appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Christmas Day expected to be dry and bright, with low temperature warnings posing greater risk to vulnerable people

Christmas Day will bring bright weather in much of the UK, but a cold health alert has been issued warning of a “greater risk to life of vulnerable people”.

While the prospect of a white Christmas is “highly unlikely”, according to forecasters, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has issued a yellow cold health alert from 6pm on Christmas Day to noon on 27 December for south-west England.

Thousands of farms set to go bankrupt as grain farmers in particular hit by trade disruptions caused by price hikes

Donald Trump, having promised to “NEVER LET OUR FARMERS DOWN”, appeared to come through for them this month when he unveiled a $12bn aid package. Industry leaders say thousands of farms will still go bust this year.

While the US president has vowed to increase domestic farm production, and even claimed this formed a “big part” of his plan to lower grocery prices for Americans, many US farmers are grappling with mounting financial issues – compounded by Trump’s agenda.

CATL is the largest EV battery producer in the world. It continues to progress, with the latest news being a factory under construction in Spain and restarting of a lithium mine in China. CATL + Stellantis Battery Factory in Spain The US and Japan led on electric vehicles for a ... [continued]

The post CATL Battery Factory in Spain, Lithium Mine in Yichun appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Dursley, Gloucestershire: We have to embrace these darker months and get outside, but there’s also only so much wind and sludge I can take

Winter is tiring. The footpath is a gully of slop, and each step forwards is a little slip backwards. The north-facing slope was OK – the frost hadn’t been thawed by the sun, and crunchy ground is better than slippy ground. But the rest of Gloucestershire has turned into slurry.

It’s just as well that I enjoy it; I do this every week. For the last seven years I’ve been going out on a Friday, taking some combination of buses and trains to wherever the previous walk ended, and continuing. My Friday walk is a single tangly line stretching from Birmingham to Dorset, and the Malverns to the M25, and I go whatever the weather.

Seaweed has become a key cash crop as climate change and industrial trawling test the resilient culture of the semi-nomadic Vezo people

Along Madagascar’s south-west coast, the Vezo people, who have fished the Mozambique Channel for countless generations, are defined by a way of life sustained by the sea. Yet climate change and industrial exploitation are pushing this ocean-based culture to its limits.

Coastal villages around Toliara, a city in southern Madagascar, host tens of thousands of the semi-nomadic Vezopeople, who make a living from small-scale fishing on the ocean. For centuries, they have launched pirogues, small boats carved from single tree trunks, every day into the turquoise shallows to catch tuna, barracuda and grouper.

A boat near lines of seaweed, which has become a main source of income for Ambatomilo village as warmer seas, bleached reefs and erratic weather accelerate the decline of local fish populations

From Copenhagen’s cycle lanes and Vienna’s shared parks to Barcelona and London’s unfulfilled potential, better living is close at hand

The angry rumble of a speeding SUV. The metallic smog of backlogged traffic. The aching heat of sun-dried neighbourhoods baking in an oven of concrete and asphalt.

For most people, the mundane threats that plague our environments are likely to annoy more than they spark dread. But for scientists who know just how dangerous our surroundings can be, the burden of knowledge weighs heavy each day. Across Europe, environmental risks cause 18% of deaths from cardiovascular disease and 10% of deaths from cancer. Traffic crashes in the EU kill five times more people than murders.

Scientists working for government breed biological control agents in lab to take on species choking native wildlife

Crayfish, weevils and fungi are being released into the environment in order to tackle invasive species across Britain.

Scientists working for the government have been breeding species in labs to set them loose into the wild to take on Japanese knotweed, signal crayfish and Himalayan balsam, and other species that choke out native plants and wildlife.

By Proterra Team The commercial electrification market is entering 2026 in transition. Regulatory frameworks are being rewritten. Federal incentives are under review. OEMs face uncertainty about which compliance standards will govern their products. 2026 will be a year of clarification; some applications will prove economically viable now while others will ... [continued]

The post State of Commercial Electrification — 2026 Outlook appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Most Western analysis of the automotive transition still carries a quiet but profound blind spot. China is often treated as one large market among several, occasionally acknowledged as the largest, but rarely internalized as the market that now determines global scale, cost curves, and learning rates. This is not a ... [continued]

The post The China EV Flywheel And Why Exports Will Keep Rising appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Leapmotor feels like “the little EV company that could” to me (a reference to The Little Engine That Could for those from a certain time period). The company was formed in late 2015 and launched its first car in June 2019, in the middle of an already quite big and ... [continued]

The post Leapmotor Expects 2025 Profitability, Launching EV with Airline-Like Seats appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The world’s leading battery producer, CATL, has decided to flex some of its robot muscles this month. It has revealed the first humanoid robot battery production line…. That is, a battery production line “manned” by humanoid robots. First of all, yes, these humanoid robots have apparently replaced human workers. In ... [continued]

The post Humanoid Robot Battery Production — CATL Achieves A World First appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Studies show crustaceans can learn, remember, solve problems and form relationships

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Crustaceans are a festive season staple for many families, particularly in Australia where an estimated 18.5m kilograms of prawns and more than 150,000 lobsters are eaten over Christmas and new year.

Globally, trillions are caught and consumed each year. Australia is a major producer, with prawn, lobster and crab industries valued at more than $1bn.

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November saw plugin EVs at 35.2% share in Germany, up from 22.8% share year-on-year. BEV volume increased by 59% YoY, while PHEVs grew 57%. Overall auto volume was 250,671 units, up some 2.5% YoY. November’s best-selling BEV was the Volkswagen ID.7. November’s auto sales saw combined EVs at 35.2% share ... [continued]

The post EVs At 35.2% Share In Germany – Incentives Reboot? appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Tesla has put its customers at risk by relying on electrically activated door locks and downplaying mechanical locks.

The post Electric Door Handles — What Did Elon Know, And When Did He Know It? appeared first on CleanTechnica.

U-turn lifts limit from £1m to £2.5m after protests and warnings that family farms were at risk

Ministers will increase the threshold for taxing inherited farmland from £1m to £2.5m after months of pressure from campaigners and MPs representing rural areas.

In a statement slipped out just before Christmas, the environment department announced the U-turn, which will apply from April when the tax kicks in.