For years the freight industry tried to force a false choice. Battery-electric or hydrogen. Back the right horse. Ignore the rest. Daimler Truck’s new Mercedes-Benz NextGenH2 Truck gives Tesla Semis a run for their money and suggests that the argument is already getting old.

Daimler says its new liquid-hydrogen fuel cell truck will enter small-series production from the end of 2026, with 100 trucks planned for customer operations. The truck is designed for ranges of well over 800 miles on a single fill and borrows major components from the battery-electric eActros 600, including the integrated e-axle, digital cockpit and latest safety systems. That matters because it points to something more realistic than a clean-tech cage match: the future of freight is likely to be electric and hydrogen, depending on route logic, geography, infrastructure and what is actually being hauled.

This is not a small distinction. It changes how ports, logistics firms, governments and even investors should think about decarbonizing freight. A battery-electric truck and a hydrogen truck are not moral rivals. They are tools for different jobs.

Battery-electric trucks are rapidly becoming the better answer for repeatable, corridor-based freight. Think port-to-warehouse routes, retail distribution loops, industrial zones and regional supply chains where trucks can charge during planned dwell times. They are quieter, simpler, mechanically cleaner and increasingly economical where charging can be controlled. That is why Daimler has already been pushing the eActros 600 hard into the market and why other manufacturers are racing to scale their own heavy-duty electric fleets. In those settings, batteries make obvious sense.

Hydrogen comes into its own where the route gets longer, the payload gets heavier and the downtime becomes more expensive. That is exactly the space Daimler is targeting with the NextGenH2. Liquid hydrogen allows the truck to carry more energy on board than compressed gaseous hydrogen, and much more usable long-haul range than many battery systems can currently offer without weight and charging tradeoffs.

Daimler says the truck can be refueled in 10 to 15 minutes using its sLH2 liquid hydrogen standard and that the system is designed to make the vehicle more comparable to diesel in real operations. That is the real benchmark in freight. Not whether the truck is futuristic, but whether it can actually replace a diesel workhorse on the routes that matter.

That also explains why the truck shares so much DNA with the eActros 600. Daimler is not building two completely separate futures. It is building one freight architecture with two energy pathways. The e-axle, digital cockpit, battery buffer, assistance systems and even aerodynamic elements are converging. The truck may store energy differently, but the logic of the vehicle is becoming unified. That is important because the clean freight revolution will not happen if every technology lives in its own expensive silo. It has to become modular, scalable and familiar enough for fleet operators to trust.

Trust is not a small issue in trucking. Freight operators are not early adopters in the consumer-tech sense. They are skeptical for good reason. Their margins are thin and their routes are punishing. Their equipment, which requires a massive upfront investment, like the cost of a house, has to work in the rain, the heat, the cold and the dark, often on deadlines that leave little room for idealism or climate values. The promise of zero-emission trucking only becomes real when it fits the brutal rhythm of actual logistics.

That is why Daimler’s move matters beyond Germany. It arrives at a moment when the global shipping and trucking system looks increasingly exposed. Wars in and around the Middle East, Red Sea disruptions from Houthi pirates, bottlenecks at ports, and the continued vulnerability of the Strait of Hormuz all remind us that diesel is not just dirty. It is geopolitically fragile. A logistics system that can increasingly run on domestic electricity or locally produced hydrogen is not only cleaner. It is harder to destabilize. Saudi Aramco, the world’s richest company, and which controls endless oil reserves knows that the cost of oil can flatten in a minute once local hydrogen fuel production is figured out. That’s why they are investing in it too in Indonesia.

And yes, there is still a serious caveat. Hydrogen is only as green as the way it is made. If it comes from fossil gas without real carbon controls, the emissions story weakens quickly. The same is true of electric trucks charged from dirty grids. A zero-emission vehicle is only truly low-carbon if the energy behind it is also getting cleaner. But that does not make the transition less important. It makes the surrounding energy system more important too.

There is another reason the industry is moving this way, and it has less to do with climate than with safety. Daimler says the NextGenH2 will carry over the latest assistance systems from the eActros 600, including Active Brake Assist 6, Front Guard Assist and Active Sideguard Assist 2. These are not marketing flourishes. Heavy trucks remain among the most dangerous machines on public roads, and any serious upgrade in crash prevention matters. The more freight becomes software-defined, sensor-rich and digitally governed, the more it can move away from the old diesel model built around fatigue, blind spots and brute force.

Battery-electric trucks will likely dominate repeatable routes where charging is easy and economics are already starting to work. Hydrogen trucks will likely serve the heavier, longer and more demanding lanes where batteries still struggle in countries like Australia, Canada, and the US. In the future: Rail will matter more. Ports will become smarter. Road trains and platooning may return in digital form and freight itself will slowly become less about individual vehicles and more about coordinated systems like how airlines collaborate at airports around the world. Everyone has a space and a time for refueling, cleaning, loading, taxi-ing and take-off.

For now, Daimler’s NextGenH2 is not proof that hydrogen has won. It is proof that freight is finally getting more honest. The future was never going to be battery-only or hydrogen-only. The future is electric and hydrogen for shipping.

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When wars in Iran threaten oil routes, and Saudi Aramco jacks up prices because it can, the weakness of global freight becomes impossible to ignore. The latest tensions tied to Iran and the Strait of Hormuz have exposed, again, how fragile it is to move food, medicine, fuel, industrial goods and consumer products through a logistics system still built around diesel.

A single chokepoint can raise prices across continents. A single delay or boat of Houthi pirates attempting to blow up an oil tanker ripples from port to warehouse to supermarket shelf. The lesson is no longer abstract. Freight needs to become more electric, more local, more automated, more resilient and, above all, safer. And all that needs to be linked to battery storage microgrids and renewable energy produced close to home. My goal is to see the share price of Saudi Aramco sink.

The symbol most people recognize is the Tesla Semi, Tesla’s battery-electric Class 8 truck which we wrote about more than 5 years ago. Tesla says the Semi can travel up to 500 miles on a charge, use about 1.7 kWh per mile, and recover up to 70% of range in 30 minutes with its 1 MW charging system. Those are no longer vague concept-car numbers. They are logistics numbers that matter because freight does not need novelty: it needs predictable routes, lower operating costs, better energy security and fewer people dying on the road.

But Tesla is only one part of the story. The more interesting shift is that long-haul trucking is now splitting into two serious zero-emission paths: battery-electric for predictable corridors and depot-based logistics, and hydrogen fuel cell for longer ranges, faster refueling and heavier-duty freight where batteries may still be too limiting.

Why electric trucks are finally becoming real

Battery-electric trucks make the most sense where routes are repetitive and tightly managed: ports to warehouses, regional distribution centers, industrial parks, airport freight corridors and retail supply loops. These trucks can charge during planned dwell times, brake regeneratively in traffic and increasingly move as part of coordinated fleets rather than as isolated machines.

This is where Green Prophet’s old fascination with road trains starts to look less eccentric and more prescient. The old Australian road train was about linking trailers together for remote hauling. The new version is software-driven and possibly fueled by green hydrogen: platooned electric trucks traveling in synchronized formation to reduce aerodynamic drag, save energy and move freight more efficiently between hubs.

Research published in 2025 suggests electric truck platooning can reduce total operating costs when charging, routing and convoy formation are optimized together. That may sound technical, but it points to something simple: the next road train is not a dusty outback oddity. It is a digitally managed freight system.

Companies like Einride are already operating electric and autonomous freight systems in Europe and the United States. Volvo Trucks, Daimler Truck, PACCAR and others are all pushing battery-electric heavy-duty platforms into real-world operations. The market is still young, but it is no longer imaginary.

Where hydrogen enters the picture

If battery-electric trucks are best suited to fixed and repeatable corridors, hydrogen fuel cell trucks are being positioned for the stretches where battery weight, charging time and infrastructure become harder to manage. Think Canada, inner states in the US and Australia. Even wide parts of the Middle East desert where the price of oil costs less than water. This is where the argument gets serious.

Daimler Truck says its new Mercedes-Benz NextGenH2 Truck will enter small-series production from the end of 2026, with 100 trucks planned for customer operations. Daimler says the liquid hydrogen truck is designed for ranges well over 800 miles on a single fill and uses components shared with its battery-electric eActros 600, including safety systems and digital cockpit architecture. That matters because it suggests the future may not be electric or hydrogen, but electric and hydrogen depending on route logic.

That same dual-path logic is why truckmakers are hedging across both technologies. Nikola, despite its damaged reputation and corporate instability, has still pushed hydrogen fuel cell trucks into commercial trials. The technology itself should not be dismissed because one company handled it badly. Hydrogen trucks offer compelling advantages where time-sensitive freight, high utilization and diesel-like refueling rhythms still matter.

There is a catch, of course. Hydrogen is only as clean as the way it is made. If it comes from fossil gas without meaningful carbon capture, the climate case weakens. If it comes from renewable electrolysis, the case improves dramatically. The same critique applies to battery-electric trucks. They are only as green as the grid charging them. If fossil fuels are running the battery charging stations, the whole point becomes ridiculous. We need an all-systems effort here. But even when it’s not green, electric drivetrains and fuel cells shift freight away from combustion at the point of use, which is still a major health and air quality gain for the roads cities around them.

Why safety may be the strongest argument of all

This is not only a climate story. It is a safety story, and trucking badly needs one. According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, there were about 503,000 police-reported crashes involving large trucks in the United States in 2022, including 5,279 fatal crashes. The agency also notes that 82% of fatalities in fatal large-truck crashes were not occupants of the large truck. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has repeatedly shown that large trucks create disproportionate danger for people in smaller vehicles.

That is the context in which electric and hydrogen trucks need to be judged. Not against some fantasy of perfect roads, but against the current freight system, which still depends too heavily on fatigue, weak oversight, inconsistent training and vehicles operating under deadline pressure.

Advanced safety systems are already proving useful. IIHS has reported that forward collision warning and automatic emergency braking reduce rear-end crash rates for large trucks. These are not distant future gains. They are available gains. Battery-electric and hydrogen trucks are both well positioned to integrate these systems more deeply because they are increasingly software-first platforms. Their cameras, sensors, telemetry, braking logic and route controls can be managed at fleet level rather than left to the limits of human judgment alone.

That is where the promise lies. A truck that is digitally supervised from depot to destination is harder to fake, easier to monitor and easier to discipline. Its speed, route, braking behavior, maintenance events and charging or fueling cycles can all be tracked. It is not a moral solution to human failure, but it is a technical one, and freight needs more of that.

The dirty secret of freight is not just diesel

There is another reason the trucking sector is ripe for change: too much of it is held together with bad labor conditions, training shortcuts and dangerous corner-cutting. Canada has become a cautionary example. Ontario authorities suspended truckers’ licences after uncovering dishonest testing and training practices, according to TruckNews. Alberta also shut down unsafe truck driver training schools and targeted carriers linked to poor safety practices, again reported by TruckNews. A few years ago, a trucker from India killed an entire hockey team when he was driving on a suspended license from infractions. He should not have been on the road. But lack of government oversight with unsustainable immigration goals have put Canadian roads at risk. Make it electric!

This is where the public conversation often goes off the rails. The issue is not “foreign drivers” as a lazy culture-war talking point. The issue is licensing integrity, labor exploitation, poor oversight and freight systems that reward cost-cutting until people die. If electric and hydrogen trucks are managed through better software, better route discipline and better oversight, they can help reduce those failure points. They will not erase human corruption, but they can make dangerous operations more visible and easier to regulate.

The next road train may move at night

One of the least discussed advantages of electric and hydrogen freight is when it can move. The future of long-haul logistics is not just about propulsion. It is about timing of the drive.

Night freight may become one of the biggest advantages of automated and electrified trucking. Roads are less congested at night. Temperatures are lower. Delivery windows are easier to manage. Noise is lower with electric drivetrains. Human fatigue has always made night trucking dangerous, but digitally managed freight corridors, better sensors, automatic braking and lane support change that equation. A future fleet of trucks moving quietly between depots after midnight may turn out to be one of the safest ways to keep cities and supply chains functioning.

This is also where autonomy enters the picture. Companies like Aurora are already running driverless freight routes in Texas and have expanded their network as confidence in the systems grows. That does not mean human drivers disappear tomorrow, and it certainly does not mean the technology is risk-free. But it does suggest that the future freight vehicle may be less like a cowboy truck and more like a rolling logistics node, with the human gradually shifting from driver to supervisor.

The Middle East should care more than most

For the Gulf and other regions exposed to oil-route instability, this transition is not just environmental. It is strategic. Green Prophet recently reported how Etihad Rail is using solar power at a freight terminal, a small but important signal that logistics is beginning to decouple from diesel. Rail, electric trucking, hydrogen corridors and distributed renewable energy can begin to work together as one freight architecture.

That is the real post-oil freight future. Not a single silver bullet, but a layered system: electric trucks on predictable routes, hydrogen trucks on heavier and longer hauls, autonomous convoying where it makes sense, rail where possible, and maybe even tunnels where cities become too congested to keep pretending surface freight is enough.

That last idea sounds absurd until you look at what Elon Musk’s Boring Company is trying to do. Green Prophet recently covered its proposed Dubai Loop. Most of the discussion focuses on passenger transport, but the freight implications may be more important. Underground logistics corridors for high-value goods, airport freight, port distribution and urban delivery are no longer science fiction. They are expensive, yes, but so are crashes, congestion, diesel pollution, road wear and lost time.

What could go wrong

There are real pitfalls and they should not be brushed aside.

Charging infrastructure is still thin for heavy trucks. Hydrogen refueling infrastructure is even thinner. Grid readiness is uneven. Green hydrogen is still expensive. Battery weight remains a payload issue. Autonomous regulation is inconsistent across jurisdictions. Public trust can collapse after a single bad crash.

And then there are jobs. Better electric and hydrogen logistics will almost certainly mean fewer traditional long-haul driving jobs over time, especially on repetitive corridor freight. Some of those jobs will shift into fleet management, charging and fueling infrastructure, maintenance, software operations and remote supervision. Some will not. Governments and unions should be preparing for that reality now, not pretending it will sort itself out.

The real promise

The real promise of electric and hydrogen long-haul trucks is not that they are trendy. It is that they make freight less stupid.

They offer a path away from a system built on diesel dependency, poor air quality, avoidable crashes, labor strain and geopolitical fragility. They will not replace every truck overnight. They do not need to. Freight changes corridor by corridor, depot by depot, terminal by terminal. That is how this transition will happen too.

The old diesel model gave us pollution, fatigue, noise, vulnerability and too many deaths on the road. The next freight era should be quieter, cleaner, more disciplined and harder to destabilize. Battery-electric and hydrogen trucks are not a fantasy anymore. They are beginning to look like the most practical answer we have.

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When the US-Israel-Iran war rattles oil routes and sends stocks linked to oil prices in chaos, we remember how vulnerable freight really is. From Houthis blowing up shipping containers in the Red Sea to the IRGC regime stopping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.

The latest instability tied to Iran and the Strait of Hormuz has again exposed a truth that should have been obvious years ago: moving fuel, food, medicine and industrial goods with diesel trucks from source points around the world is not only dirty and expensive, it is strategically brittle.

A single chokepoint can raise costs across continents. A single delay can ripple through ports, warehouses and supermarket shelves. If there is a serious transportation lesson from this latest era of conflict, but also from the COVID era and the beginning of the Ukraine-Russia war, it is that freight has to become more electric, more automated, more distributed and much safer.

The most visible symbol of that future is the Tesla Semi, but it is only one part of a wider shift that includes platooning, electric road trains, tunnel logistics (the Boring Company) and autonomous overnight freight. Tesla says their new Semi can travel up to 500 miles on a single charge, potentially charge itself, use just 1.7 kWh per mile, and recover up to 60% of range in 30 minutes using Tesla’s dedicated Semi chargers. These are no longer vague promises from a concept vehicle. They are operational logistics numbers, and they matter because freight does not need novelty. It needs reliability, lower costs, cleaner energy and fewer funerals on the road.

The real story is not just battery range. It is what electric trucks can do to the geometry of freight itself. Electric heavy vehicles are better suited to repeatable, software-managed routes than diesel trucks, especially on corridors between ports, warehouses, data centers, industrial parks and distribution hubs. They can charge during planned dwell time, brake regeneratively in traffic, and eventually move in synchronized convoys. That is where an old Green Prophet idea suddenly feels new again.

Years ago Green Prophet wrote about road trains as a way to reduce energy use and pollution on major corridors. Back then it sounded slightly utopian. Today it looks practical. Road trains are already used in places like Australia for long-haul freight, where multiple trailers are linked in controlled formation. The next version is more sophisticated: platooned electric trucks using software, automation and vehicle-to-vehicle coordination to move with less drag, better braking and tighter control. If war has reminded us how fragile fuel supply can be, then electrified road trains offer a direct answer. They move goods using power that can increasingly come from domestic grids rather than imported oil.

“Well said,” says Mark Russell, from Eco Trilogy, “Unfortunately, every new idea introduced in the West right now seems to be met with “that’ll never work” instead of “we can make this happen.” Somewhere along the way we’ve shifted from practical, solutions-focused thinking to a culture that resists improvement.

“Healthy debate is one thing—I can respect that. What’s harder to accept is the deliberate misinformation and outright falsehoods that cloud real progress. Take electric motors for example—they’re vastly more efficient than diesel, and that’s only the beginning of what’s possible when we choose to move forward instead of hold back.”

This is not just a climate story. It is also a safety story, and trucking badly needs one. According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, 6,050 large trucks and buses were involved in fatal crashes in 2022. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety notes that most deaths in large truck crashes are not truck occupants but people in smaller vehicles. Canadians have experienced this too well. A recent high-profile case is about an Indian truck driver with dozens of traffic offenses who wiped out an entire hockey team. Truckers themselves, though happy for the jobs that require unskilled labor, lead to back problems, opiode use and addiction. My brother-in-law got addicted to crack on this path. But in society, the danger comes from mass, height, visibility problems and human error. Trucks are essential to modern life, but the diesel freight system we tolerate is still one of the most physically unforgiving machines in daily public use. If you live in rural areas in Canada for instance, it’s fairly common to hear stories of people who have been hit by logging trucks out on old lonely logging roads.

That context matters when people dismiss autonomous or semi-autonomous freight as “experimental.” The current system is experimental too. It is just old enough that we stopped calling it that. Human fatigue, poor training, distracted driving, mechanical neglect and congested road conditions are still doing terrible work every day. The case for electric freight is not that software is magic. It is that electric and digitally managed fleets can reduce some of the oldest failure points in trucking if they are deployed honestly and regulated properly.

There is strong evidence that advanced safety systems already help. A study highlighted by the IIHS found that forward collision warning and automatic emergency braking greatly reduce crash risk for large trucks. Another transportation safety summary reported that forward collision warning reduced rear-end crash rates for large trucks by 44% and automatic emergency braking cut them by 41%. These are not futuristic gains. They are available gains, and electric trucks are especially well positioned to integrate them deeply because they are software-first vehicles from the start.

This is where the Tesla Semi has real promise beyond the brand mythology. A truck that is built around sensors, cameras, digital controls, active safety systems and fleet-level telemetry is not just a cleaner truck. It is a more governable truck. That matters because freight safety is often less about one great driver and more about whether the entire system is designed to reduce bad decisions. Electric fleets can be routed to avoid dangerous congestion, scheduled for lower-risk windows and monitored continuously for maintenance, speed, route adherence and braking behavior.

Canada has already shown what happens when freight systems become too loose and too dependent on low-cost labor with weak oversight. Ontario authorities suspended truckers’ licences after uncovering dishonest testing and training practices in the commercial driving pipeline, mainly through Indian and Pakistani new immigrants, a scandal that has raised concerns about how unqualified drivers can end up operating very large vehicles on public roads. The report in TruckNews made clear that the issue was not theoretical.

There have also been wider crackdowns in western Canada. In Alberta, regulators shut down unsafe truck driver training schools and targeted carriers linked to poor safety practices, according to another TruckNews report. This is where the so-called Indian trucker scam story belongs: not in xenophobic shorthand, but in a larger, documented failure of training quality, licensing integrity and freight oversight. The public safety issue is real and the solution is better standards, better enforcement and eventually fewer opportunities for dangerous human error in the first place.

Electric and autonomous freight systems can help close that gap. A truck that is digitally supervised from depot to destination is much harder to fake than a paper credential. Its route, braking profile, charging pattern, maintenance logs and safety events are all visible. Its blind spots can be monitored more effectively. Its lane keeping can be assisted. Its speed can be constrained. Its night operation can be managed more intelligently than traditional diesel trucking, where too much depends on exhausted people trying to survive punishing schedules.

Night freight, in particular, deserves more attention. Most people think of night driving as inherently more dangerous, and for tired human drivers that is often true. But electric freight paired with high-grade sensors, automatic braking, lane support and controlled corridors changes that equation. Roads are less congested at night. Temperatures are lower and  delivery windows are easier to manage. A future fleet of electric trucks moving through dedicated logistics lanes or semi-autonomous convoy corridors after midnight may actually be one of the safest ways to move goods through and between cities of Boston and New York. As my design prof friend Tom Klinkowstein said while driving through Soho on his electric BMW, “wheeeeee.”

That is especially important in hot countries and regions vulnerable to fuel disruption. In the Gulf, for instance, the logic is already visible. Green Prophet recently covered how Etihad Rail is using solar power at a freight terminal, which points to a larger truth: logistics is beginning to decouple from diesel. Rail, electric trucking and distributed renewable power can work together to make freight less exposed to global oil shocks. If you can move a growing share of cargo using electricity generated at home, then conflict in a shipping chokepoint matters a little less.

And then there is the tunnel idea. Elon Musk’s Boring Company is usually treated as either a curiosity or a vanity project, but its freight implications are worth taking seriously. The company explicitly positions itself around transportation, utility and freight tunnels, and Green Prophet recently looked at its proposed Dubai Loop. Most public discussion focuses on moving people, but the more consequential long game may be underground logistics around ports, airports, industrial districts and city delivery corridors.

Imagine what that means in practical terms. Instead of forcing every container, parcel or pallet through surface congestion, cities could build dedicated electric freight arteries below grade. Not for everything, but for enough high-frequency, high-value freight to change the economics of last-mile logistics. Tunnels are expensive, but so are collisions, delays, diesel pollution, road wear and lost time. If electrified trucking is the first phase of cleaner freight, then freight tunneling may become the second.

There is also a strategic military and civil defense logic to all this. When surface infrastructure is exposed, tunnel logistics and electrified transport corridors become more than just sustainability projects. They become resilience infrastructure. A society that can move food, medicine, construction materials and even emergency fuel with less dependence on imported diesel is not only cleaner: it is harder to destabilize.

There will be labor consequences and they should not be brushed aside. Better electric logistics will almost certainly mean fewer traditional long-haul driving jobs over time, especially on repetitive corridor freight. Some of those jobs will be replaced by fleet management, remote operations, charging infrastructure, maintenance, software supervision and tunnel logistics, but not all of them. That is a real social cost and governments should be planning for it now. But it should not be used as an excuse to defend a freight model that is dangerous, polluting and geopolitically fragile.

The bigger truth is simple. If the world wants safer freight after the Iran war, it should stop talking only about oil supply and start talking about transport design around renewable energy nodes and battery storage stations. Electric trucks like the Tesla Semi, road-train logic, managed night freight, autonomous convoying and freight tunnels are not fringe ideas anymore. They are pieces of a practical, lower-risk logistics future.

The old diesel model gave us pollution, dependency, fatigue and too many deaths on the road. The next freight era should be quieter, cleaner and much less lethal. That would be a technological upgrade worth taking seriously.

The big question I have is if the first versions will include sleeper cabins. Can a trucker just put the vehicle on automatic mode and write poetry from his cabin behind the wheel?

The post Tesla Semi, electric road trains and the safer freight future after the Iran war appeared first on Green Prophet.

When I was a kid my Grade 4 teacher said that in the future energy will be free. We’ll have found a way to make energy from water and salt, with no byproducts. Fast forward 40 years: news in the last year suggests we are closer to both hydrogen fusion and storing energy with salt.

Batteries made from salt which can store energy from renewable energy plants may sound like science fiction, but a new grid-scale deployment in the United States suggests the technology is moving closer to reality. It solves a major problem when harvesting solar, wind or geothermal energy. When the grid can’t use the excess energy it needs to be stored, or go to waste. The holy grail in renewable energy are robust batteries that can work without expensive and rare earth metals like lithium.

The news hook comes from a recent announcement by US energy storage company Peak Energy, which is working with RWE Americas to deploy a new sodium-ion battery system for grid storage. The project is designed to store renewable electricity from solar and wind and release it when demand rises.

Unlike conventional lithium-ion batteries, sodium-ion batteries use sodium, or salt, one of the most abundant elements on Earth and a key component of common salt. Instead of lithium ions moving between electrodes during charging and discharging, sodium ions perform the same function.

The chemistry is similar to lithium batteries, but the materials are far cheaper and easier to source. In its announcement, the company highlighted the cost advantage of the technology.

“Peak Energy’s sodium-ion battery system uses a passively cooled architecture that eliminates the need for complex thermal management systems.”

The design of the system also removes some of the most expensive components found in conventional battery installations.

Energy storage has become one of the biggest bottlenecks for renewable power. Solar panels and wind turbines generate electricity only when conditions are right, which means grids need large batteries to store excess power for later use.

Today most large storage projects rely on lithium batteries, which depend on global supply chains for lithium, cobalt and nickel. Sodium batteries could reduce those costs dramatically because sodium is widely available in seawater and common minerals.

For utilities trying to scale renewable power, the difference could be significant. If sodium-ion systems prove reliable at grid scale, they could provide cheaper, safer storage for solar and wind, making renewable electricity more affordable for power systems around the world.

Peak Energy has raised about $65 million in venture funding since launching in 2023. The company was founded by Landon Mossburg, former president of Northvolt North America and a Tesla manufacturing veteran, together with Liam Maddock, a former operations executive at Zipline who previously held supply-chain roles at Tesla, Apple and Lyft.

Their team includes engineers and battery specialists from companies such as Tesla, Northvolt and SunPower. The company’s $10 million seed round was led by US venture firm Eclipse Ventures with participation from TDK Ventures in Japan, while its $55 million Series A was led by Xora Innovation, a Singapore-based deep-tech fund backed by Temasek.

Additional investors include Doral Energy-Tech Ventures in Israel, Tishman Speyer in the United States and other global energy-tech funds.

The company is entering a rapidly emerging sodium-ion battery race, competing with major Chinese manufacturers such as CATL, BYD, and HiNa Battery, as well as Western players including Northvolt in Sweden, Faradion in the United Kingdom and US grid-storage developer Natron Energy. Unlike lithium batteries, sodium-ion systems rely on abundant salt-based materials, which could make large-scale renewable energy storage significantly cheaper if the technology scales successfully.

Looking to invest in our sustainable future? Check out Peak Energy.

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It doesn’t take a genius city planner to know that tunnels under the city spare pedestrians and foot traffic in the city above. Major cities around the world have built traffic tunnels, and it’s obvious when you are in New York how tunnels can get you across the city quickly.

Tunneling is impressive but it comes with problems. London’s Crossrail project, for example, uncovered thousands of archaeological artifacts mid-construction.

Modern cities have centuries of buried infrastructure: gas pipes, water mains, electrical conduits, fiber optic cables, old foundations. Routing tunnels around all of this requires painstaking planning and coordination with dozens of agencies but Dubai, a relatively new city that’s missing even basic sewage pipes in some buildings, has a great chance to build its city from scratch right.

Dubai has announced this month that they will be working with Elon Musk‘s Boring Company to build tunnels in Dubai.

At an estimated $545 million for 14 miles, the Dubai Loop is actually relatively cheap by global standards: New York’s Second Avenue Subway cost roughly $2.5 billion per mile. Most cities simply can’t finance that.

Dubai’s Particular “Boring” Problem

Dubai is sprawling, car-dependent, and built in a desert climate where surface-level public transport is actively hostile to pedestrians for much of the year. Temperatures regularly exceed 40°C (104°F) in summer, making walking between transit stops an uncomfortable proposition. Imagine how you feel when your car’s air conditioning stops working?

Underground transport sidesteps the heat. A cool, connected tunnel network with frequent stops could shift behavior in a city where the private car, and even gold Mercedes, have long reigned supreme. The pilot route will offer “first- and last-mile solutions”, meaning it’s designed to work with Dubai’s existing Metro rather than in competition with it.

If it succeeds, Dubai Loop could become a compelling model for other Gulf cities, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Doha, all that share the same urban sprawl, heat, and car dependency challenges.

Steve Davis, President of The Boring Company, commented that: “We are proud to partner with the Roads and Transport Authority, one of the world’s leading entities in adopting innovative solutions in the transport sector. Through this partnership, we look forward to delivering advanced, safe, and highly efficient tunnelling solutions that support Dubai’s vision for sustainable and future mobility.”

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On April 28, 2025, Spain and Portugal experienced a massive power outage that disrupted daily life for tens of millions. The blackout, which began around 12:30 p.m., led to halted transportation, communication failures, and significant economic losses. This event has sparked a critical examination of the challenges associated with the integration of renewable energy sources into national power grids.​

According to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the country experienced a sudden loss of 15 gigawatts of power—approximately 60% of its electricity demand—in just five seconds. This abrupt drop overwhelmed the remaining supply and led to a cascading failure that affected Portugal due to the interconnected nature of their power grids. The blackout was one of the most significant in recent European history, affecting around 60 million people. ​

Investigations and Potential Causes

While the exact cause of the blackout remains under investigation, several factors are being considered:​ Grid Inertia: The lack of inertia in renewable energy systems, particularly solar and wind, may have contributed to the instability. Unlike traditional power plants, renewable sources do not provide the kinetic energy needed to stabilize the grid

Preliminary reports suggest that a series of disconnection events in southwestern Spain, a region rich in solar power, may have triggered the collapse. ​

Authorities have ruled out cyberattacks but are investigating other possibilities, including equipment failures and potential sabotage. ​

Spain’s Prime Minister Sánchez has called for a thorough investigation into the blackout’s causes and emphasized the need for collaboration between the government and private energy firms. He stated, “All the necessary measures will be taken to ensure that this does not happen again.” ​

The Spanish government has convened meetings with major energy operators, including Red Eléctrica and Iberdrola, and announced the creation of a commission to investigate the incident. ​

Implications for Renewable Energy Integration

The blackout has raised concerns about the resilience of power grids heavily reliant on renewable energy. While renewable sources are essential for reducing carbon emissions, their intermittent nature and lack of inertia pose challenges for grid stability.​

Related: Germany powers down its nuclear power plants as Turkey fires up its first

Experts suggest that integrating advanced energy storage systems and enhancing grid infrastructure are crucial steps toward mitigating such risks. Investments in technologies that can provide synthetic inertia and rapid response capabilities are also being considered. ​

As Europe continues its transition toward renewable energy, the Iberian blackout serves as a stark reminder of the importance of grid modernization and resilience. Ensuring a stable and reliable power supply will require a balanced approach that combines renewable energy integration with robust infrastructure and advanced technologies.​

The incident underscores the need for comprehensive planning and investment to support the continent’s ambitious climate goals without compromising energy security.​

Energy resilience at home – what you can do

At the household level, energy storage systems like Tesla’s Powerwall can be game-changers. These units store solar energy and automatically provide backup power during outages. Tesla’s Storm Watch feature even preps the system in advance of predicted grid instability, making homes part of the solution—not the problem.

SolarEdge and Enphase inverters with smart load balancing.

Sonnen batteries, which allow home-to-grid energy sharing in cooperatives.

Heat pumps with built-in thermal storage, now subsidized across much of Europe. When Green Prophet was invited to tour Finland 15 years ago we met some of the leading heat pump companies. It’s normal there.

Clean Tech Companies to Support

There are several clean technology companies working to solve precisely these challenges:

Neoen (France): Developers of large-scale battery storage like the Hornsdale Power Reserve in Australia. Their solutions are designed to provide the kind of grid stability Spain and Portugal lacked during the blackout.

Moixa (UK): A pioneer in smart home batteries and virtual power plant technology, enabling homes to store and share solar energy efficiently.

GridBeyond (Ireland): Uses AI to manage grid demands in real time, helping to smooth out variability in renewables.

CorPower Ocean (Sweden): Developing wave energy as a consistent, grid-friendly complement to wind and solar.

The post Spain and Portugal’s Renewable Energy Blackout: A Wake-Up Call for Europe’s Green Transition​ appeared first on Green Prophet.

How Brake Dust Could Be More Harmful Than Car Exhaust—and Why Electric Cars Could Be the Answer

When we think about car pollution, we often focus on the visible exhaust—clouds of smoke that puff from tailpipes, blackening the air. But what if the real culprit isn’t so easy to see? What if the pollution caused by cars is a quieter, more insidious threat that’s hiding in plain sight? Research from 2015 and picked up again at Yale Environment 360 suggests that brake dust—tiny particles that are kicked up from the wear and tear of brake pads—may actually cause more harm to our lungs than exhaust fumes.

Brake Dust vs. Diesel Exhaust: A Hidden Threat

The 2015 study published in Particle and Fibre Toxicology brings this issue into sharper focus. Researchers exposed human lung cells to two sources of pollution: brake dust and diesel exhaust. To their surprise, the brake dust caused more harm to the cells than the exhaust did. The reason? Brake dust contains harmful chemicals, especially copper, which has been shown to aggravate respiratory issues like asthma and other lung diseases.

What’s even more startling is that newer brake pads—made to replace asbestos-containing pads—were found to be even more toxic. While asbestos is a well-known carcinogen, the copper in modern pads is no less dangerous, especially when it’s released into the air as dust. And while some states like California and Washington have passed laws to reduce the amount of copper in brake pads, this type of pollution remains largely unregulated.

Electric Vehicles: A Cleaner, Healthier Future

Now, here’s where electric vehicles (EVs) come into play. Unlike their gas-powered counterparts, most electric cars—Teslas included—use regenerative braking. This process allows the car’s motor to harness energy as the vehicle slows, which reduces the need for traditional friction-based brake pads. As a result, EVs generate significantly less brake dust, making them a cleaner option for both the environment and public health.

Beyond the obvious benefits of reducing tailpipe emissions, electric vehicles represent a deeper shift toward sustainability. Regenerative braking not only improves energy efficiency but also helps keep dangerous particles out of the air we breathe. And while the environmental benefits of EVs are often touted for their role in reducing CO2 emissions, it’s important to recognize that they also help mitigate the less visible but equally harmful effects of brake dust.

The Bigger Picture: Why Electric Cars Matter Beyond the CEO of Tesla

In a world that seems increasingly divided, it’s easy to become caught up in personal grievances—whether it’s about corporate leadership of Elon Musk and DOGE, political agendas, or social issues. For some, the decision to buy or keep a Tesla might be influenced by frustration with Elon Musk or other factors. But here’s the thing: our personal feelings about a brand or a CEO shouldn’t overshadow the very real, collective impact electric cars have on the planet.

By choosing an electric car, you’re not just supporting a brand or a CEO. You’re making a statement about the future you want to create. A future with cleaner air, healthier communities, and less pollution. You’re helping reduce harmful brake dust, which poses a hidden health risk to millions of people. And you’re reducing the demand for fossil fuels, contributing to a broader movement toward renewable energy and environmental sustainability.

The post Selling your Tesla for a conventional car? Think of the silent pollutant appeared first on Green Prophet.

Ask any driver of a Tesla and you will find a happy customer. The cars look good, drive incredibly fast quickly, they cost a quarter of the price of petrol to run, and they have a fart cushion feature that makes every kid laugh.

With electric mobility continuing to gather pace especially in urban environments, recycling high-voltage batteries is increasingly under the spotlight. This is where urban miners, and companies that can recycle batteries and parts after a product’s first life is over.

After successfully launching a closed-loop recycling system for the reuse of raw materials from high-voltage batteries thanks to the BMW Brilliance Automotive Joint Venture in China in 2022, BMW has now hit another milestone on its journey to make cleaner, greener electric cars.

This past November, BMW launched a pan-European partnership with SK tes, a company that can mine valuable minerals such as cobalt, nickel and lithium from used batteries before returning them to the value chain to make new batteries.

This closed-loop system is set to expand to the car markets in the US-Mexico-Canada regions as early as 2026.

Its long-term partnership with SK tes sees the BMW Group directly involved in the practical recycling processes, allowing it to feed back valuable insights to the development departments: high-voltage batteries from BMW Group development, production and markets in Europe that are no longer fit for use are to be delivered to SK tes in what is the first step towards an effective and sustainable circular economy for batteries.

SK tes then converts the old batteries into high-quality metals that can be reintroduced to battery production. The latter process sees the batteries mechanically shredded, during which the metals are concentrated to leave a material called black mass.

The valuable materials, namely nickel, lithium and cobalt, are then recovered in a highly effective chemical process called hydrometallurgy. Among other things, these secondary raw materials will be used for the new GEN 6 drive train. Government groups like the Department of Energy are actively funding the development of mineral recovery technologies –– we recently reported on more than $20 million USD going toward funding the recycling of decommissioned wind turbines.

“Partnerships like this increase our efficiency in terms of the circular economy. In the closed-loop process, all partners mutually benefit from their experiences,” says Jörg Lederbauer, Vice President Circular Economy, Spare Parts Supply High Voltage Battery and Electric Powertrain at BMW AG. 

We interviewed Regenx on its business model. And how lucrative upcycling minerals can be as the world looks to dangerous alternatives such as deep sea mining to develop new sources of minerals like lithium which exist waiting to be pulled from existing end-of-life products.

“The promotion of circular economy is an important strategic topic for the BMW Group. The development of recyclable products, the increase of secondary materials in our components, and the closing of loops play an equally important role,” says Nadine Philipp, Vice President Sustainability Supplier Network at BMW AG. “And by the means of circular economy we are also increasing our resilience in the supply chains.”

The BMW Group follows the principles of Re:Think, Re:Duce, Re:Use, and Re:Cycle in the sense of a conservation of resources when it comes to circular economy.

From vehicle design and production to recycling and reuse: everything is geared towards ensuring BMW vehicles become a raw materials source for new cars once they reach the end of their useful life. One such example is the BMW Group’s Recycling and Dismantling Centre.

Over a period of 30 years now, the centre has developed processes and put them into practice, making key progress in parts and materials recycling.

Let’s hope a struggling Volkswagon will learn something from BMW in the face of Chinese cars flooding Europe.

::SK tes

The post BMW partners with mineral miner SK tes to recycle electric batteries appeared first on Green Prophet.

Researchers say that the money invested in green taxation in Israel does not achieve its public goals. Instead of reducing pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and encouraging electric vehicles, it has become a strategic pricing tool used by car importers to influence their profits.

A study indicates that the green tax reform implemented in Israel for 15 years with the aim of reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions has not achieved its goals. Based on the findings of the study Ben-Gurion University of the Negev published a surprising recommendation: to abolish all tax brackets for polluting vehicles and leave only one broad tax benefit for the purchase of electric vehicles.

In Israel, unlike the rest of the world, the green tax system on new vehicle purchases determines benefits in tax rates based on emission level. Thus, vehicles with low pollution ratings receive a benefit of up to 16,530 shekels, while vehicles with high pollution ratings receive no benefit at all. In 2023, there was a significant increase in the purchase of electric vehicles in Israel, from 45,270 in 2022 to 95,761, accounting for 27.4% of all new vehicles. This is a significant increase compared to previous years and reflects a clear trend of changing public preferences.

Fifteen years after the green tax reform, a research group led by Prof. Ofir Rubin and Prof. Stav Rosenzweig from the Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management and the Goldman Sonnenfeldt School of Climate Change at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev examined its impact and found that from 2016 onwards, the impact of the green tax was offset and became virtually meaningless. It appears that drivers who purchased efficient cars gradually increased their mileage, creating a “rebound effect” that grew until it completely nullified the impact of the tax.

Related: remember Shai Agassi and Better Place, the world’s most unique EV car concept that never worked?

Between 2016 and 2023, the state granted benefits totaling over NIS 34.5 billion, but did not create the desired savings in energy or pollution levels.

Transportation is one of the human activities with the most severe impact on the environment and climate. The main reason for pollution and emissions from transportation stems from the fact that modern transportation relies heavily on fossil fuels, which exacerbates the effects on global warming and environmental damage. Additionally, the global economic damage from air pollution is estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars per year. Economic losses include medical treatment costs for diseases such as asthma, loss of workdays, and decreased productivity.

The researchers say that the money invested in green taxation in Israel does not achieve its public goals. Instead of reducing pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and encouraging electric vehicles, it has become a strategic pricing tool used by car importers to influence their profits.

The lack of government oversight over vehicle pricing has allowed importers to generate high profits from tax benefits without fully passing them on to consumers. Therefore, the consumer response to tax benefits was minimal and did not generate a meaningful change in purchasing habits, which is one of the reasons why there was only a partial impact on the environment.

The National Institute for Climate and Environmental Policy Research recommends a simpler and more focused policy, which will include, on the one hand, the abolition of purchase tax benefits for polluting vehicles and, on the other hand, the imposition of a distance-based road tax, where the price will be calculated according to distance and travel time, with higher rates during peak hours. Such a tax can help reduce traffic congestion and reduce emissions.

“These measures offer a practical and focused tax system that will directly impact the reduction of air pollution and encourage the transition to electric vehicles, while maintaining simplicity and flexibility in the tax system, without the need for oversight of the pricing strategy of car importers,” explained Tamar Zandberg from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She is the former Minister of Environmental Protection. “These recommendations are designed to encourage the transition to clean energy and reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions more effectively,” she concluded.

The post One quarter Israel’s cars are electric but green taxation isn’t working appeared first on Green Prophet.

Increasingly, business owners are concerned about environmental sustainability, and for a variety of reasons, including long-term profitability, compliance, and customer satisfaction. If you have a fleet of vehicles to manage, you’ll know how important it is to control fuel economy and environmental sustainability more broadly.

So what are the best strategies to do it?

Keys to Fleet Vehicle Sustainability

These are some of the best strategies for improving vehicle sustainability within your fleet:

1. Set specific goals. Your vehicle sustainability strategy isn’t going to make much of an impact unless you have specific goals to aim for. Additionally, these goals will serve as benchmarks for you to gauge your progress. Many businesses attempt to reduce their carbon emissions by a specific amount, or eliminate certain forms of waste, for example. The exact goals you choose don’t particularly matter; what’s important is that you have a specific vision for how you want your environmental sustainability plans to develop.
2. Make some preliminary reports. Reporting is vital for understanding your goal progress as well. Using appropriate software, this becomes much easier. Figure out which objective sustainability metrics you can reliably track and put them together in a report that you can create on a monthly, or perhaps annual basis. This is going to serve as the foundation for the future of your environmental sustainability strategy.
3. Audit your current environmental impact. Every business needs to start somewhere, so audit your current environmental impact. How much fuel are you using? How much carbon are you emitting? How much waste are you producing? Once you have your existing metrics, you’ll be in a position to know just how much of an impact your improvements are making.
4. Invest in efficient vehicles. Some vehicles are naturally more efficient than others. Small vehicles use less fuel than big vehicles, and electric and hybrid vehicles use even less fossil fuel. Companies transitioning to cleaner transport can benefit from advanced emobility solutions that help manage charging infrastructure, vehicle data, and overall fleet performance. Additionally, some vehicles are designed with efficiency in mind, allowing them to use fuel more efficiently and produce fewer emissions. Whenever you need to purchase new vehicles, consider more efficient vehicles to add to your fleet. The only caveat here is that you shouldn’t go out of your way to replace existing vehicles with new ones, as this produces additional waste in most cases.
5. Maintain and repair when possible. In line with this, maintain and repair your vehicles rather than replacing them, whenever possible. Producing a new vehicle demands significant energy and resource expenditure, so it’s typically the more sustainable choice to repair what you already have, rather than getting something totally new.
6. Retread, repair, and recycle. Try to keep and make use of materials, rather than throwing them away. For example, you can retread old tires, rather than purchasing brand new ones. You can recycle certain materials, rather than purely disposing of them. Incorporate these measures into your processes so you can reduce waste and improve efficiency.
7. Optimize routes. Use software or careful planning to optimize your routes. In nearly all transportation situations, there are multiple available routes, but only one “most efficient” route in terms of fuel efficiency. Not only will this reduce emissions, but it should also save you money on fuel.
8. Hire and train optimal drivers. Hire and train the best drivers you can. Optimal drivers focus on fuel-efficient routes and drive their vehicles with care to avoid unnecessary resource expenditure. They also pay attention to potential issues, so they can be handled proactively.
9. Consider carbon offsets. Carbon offsets are certificates associated with practices designed to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. They can be useful in mitigating some of the effects of your operation.
10. Consider additional efforts. Depending on your goals, you may want to go even further, participating in environmentally responsible habits or donating or volunteering to environmental causes. While this will only indirectly be associated with your fleet, it could look great for your business.

Reaping the Benefits

There are many benefits of pursuing more sustainable fleet vehicle management.

• Cost savings. Many environmentally sustainable practices have the incidental benefit of helping you save money. For example, route optimization reduces the amount of fuel your vehicles need.
• Regulatory compliance. Following environmental sustainability best practices means ensuring regulatory compliance in many cases, limiting your potential liability.
• Future proofing. Adopting environmentally friendly practices now is a way of future proofing your organization, as environmental restrictions and regulations are likely to become even stricter in the future.
• Brand reputation. Today’s consumers demand ethical environmental practices, so your sustainability efforts can greatly improve your brand reputation.

Sustainability isn’t a strict requirement for effective fleet vehicle management, at least not yet. But businesses that dedicate themselves to improving sustainability in this area are much more likely to increase their profitability with time.

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