Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Season's Greetings to all! Another year comes to a close and what a great one it has been for renewable energy.

Despite all the turbulent times we’ve seen, are still experiencing, or yet still worsening, across the world huge industrial and societal pushes have been made, finally backed by governments, and it's fantastic to see the progress accelerating in the right direction. With stationary battery pack projects popping up all over, solar and wind generation deployment seeing all time highs with coal being displaced in favour of cheaper, more efficient and 100% green solutions. New buildings in certain countries now forbid natural gas installation or require battery storage and home EV charging capabilities, and humanity took its first steps into successfully efficient nuclear fusion, a truly ground-breaking discovery, to name just a few examples of the huge strides achieved this year.

I’ve had an incredible experience for the first year of EV ownership and can only be thankful that I even have the ability to say that. It’s been such a smooth transition from I.C.E. to Tesla that after having the opportunity to trial a couple of other options recently, I can fully appreciate just how difficult and jarring the switch could be - more to come on that. I’ve learned more about electricity, batteries, renewable technology and clean transportation than I ever imagined existed and there’s always more being discovered, developed and put into practice that I can’t wait to dig into!

In the world of Tesla, we saw;

• Two new Giga Factories came online bringing their total annual production rate to nearly 2 million

• Model Y began deliveries in Europe and became the best-selling car in that market

• Optimus was announced, prototyped and demoed to a live audience within 12 months

• The Semi began production and was finally delivered to initial fleet customers

• Full Self Driving continually improves and begins to exhibit some real proficiency, with a wide beta release to North America and Canada

• Their solar division completed the 500,000th installation and Virtual Power Plants are gaining popularity and momentum

The ecosystem is beginning to spread…

Holiday software update

As a bit of fun, the now regularly expected holiday update was distributed to customer vehicles last week and contained a few exciting features, along with some very helpful tools such as:

• Auto turn-signal cancelling after lane changes

• Climate control and Dog Mode quality of life improvements, including access to the interior camera feed via the app

• Improved navigation UI

• Apple Music app

• Zoom app

• Light Show synchronisation

• Next-generation gaming via Steam - the largest and most trusted digital gaming community and marketplace

• And much more... all sent automatically and free of charge via an over the air software update!

Elon’s catalogue of companies

But that’s not all for Elon Musk’s ventures, as The Boring Company slowly expands - out of sight and mind, Neuralink boasts massive advances in material science, automated surgery and Brain Computer Interfaces (to be in covered in depth very soon). Starlink now provides almost global internet coverage with thousands of satellites in their constellation and over 1 million active subscribers, now including aircraft and cruise ships, and SpaceX? Well they single-handedly put America back into the new space race for the Moon, Mars and beyond, whilst also being responsible for putting the majority of the world’s payload to orbit in 2022, by reducing cost per kg by an order of magnitude thanks to reusable rocketry and radical rapid iteration.

Love him or hate him, it’s undeniable that the world is a better place thanks to the work he’s accomplished and perpetually persues. Almost every major vehicle manufacturer has finally admitted that EVs are the future and are hustling to catch their share of the market, or be left for dead in the water, it's unfolding as predicted and a major milestone for civilization’s march to the clean energy future we all deserve.

Here's to an even stronger 2023, where great challenges remain ahead, but our perseverance and combined voice will continue to change Earth for the better.