Silicon Valley Business Journal: ​Tesla Motors Gets Hammered by Consumer Reports

Tesla Motors was ranked one of the least-reliable car companies in America by Consumer Reports on Monday, just ahead of its third-quarter earnings report.

The Palo Alto-based car maker now ranks No. 25 out of 29 for reliability, per the report, based on annual surveys of the magazine's subscribers. That’s a far drop from when the automaker received Consumer Reports’ best-ever performance rating.

"It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that there's been mechanical problems with the Tesla Model X," Jake Fisher, director of automotive testing for Consumer Reports, told the Los Angeles Times.

Los Angles Times: Is Electric Car Startup Faraday Future Already Running Out of Cash?

Nevada’s state treasurer has a message for electric car company Faraday Future: Show me the money. The company building a $1 billion factory for Faraday in Nevada has a similar message: Pay up now.

Money problems appear to be plaguing the secretive Gardena-based startup, which is trying to rival Tesla and other automakers.

Faraday hasn’t paid $21 million due in September, with bills totaling an additional $25 million due for October and $12 million for November, according to Aecom, a multinational engineering firm. The Los Angeles company is the prime contractor for Faraday’s car factory under construction in North Las Vegas, which, if completed, is expected to turn out 150,000 cars annually.

Faraday also owes a $75 million performance bond to the state of Nevada.

Bloomberg: End of Nuclear in U.S. Seen by Carlyle Group Without Subsidies

Nuclear power will come to an end in the U.S. if the industry doesn’t get more government support, according to Carlyle Group LP, one of the world’s largest investment firms.

The nation’s nuclear reactors need more subsidies to keep running, such as a federal carbon tax that’ll reward them for their zero-emissions power, Bob Mancini, co-head of Carlyle Group’s power unit, said at a conference in New York. Carlyle, which has $176 billion in assets under management across funds, invests in natural-gas- and coal-fired power plants and renewable energy projects.

Reuters: Two Clashing Visions of How America Will Power Its Cars and Homes

Forget the accusations of groping, bigotry and email mismanagement.

If the American voter had to choose between Republican nominee Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton based on their energy policies alone, the presidential election would still be a remarkable drama, amounting to the biggest referendum on global climate change since the term was coined.

How the country decides on Nov. 8 will have far-reaching implications for the price of electricity and gas at the pump, as well as the future of the U.S. energy industry, which employs about 10 million people.

Trump's vision is an America where oil derricks pump furiously again, coal miners get back to work, and the country puts its own economy ahead of foreign nations worried about the effects of fossil fuels on sea levels, droughts and storms.

Clinton sees an America where half a billion solar panels power homes, cars run on electricity, oil use is cut by a third, and the clean energy sector provides a deep well of new jobs supported by government mandates and subsidies.

The Hill: How Driverless Cars Can Reduce Pollution

There are a number of ways that autonomous vehicles can reduce pollution, from increased ride-sharing to better traffic coordination on U.S. roads.

But environmental advocates warn that decreasing greenhouse gas emissions can only be achieved if driverless cars are rolled out alongside a smart public policy approach.

“It will be important for us and policymakers to move very quickly in thinking about what the policy steps are to lead us to the ‘heaven scenario,’” Tony Dutzik, a senior policy analyst at the Frontier Group, said during a webinar discussion on Monday.

The White House has been making an aggressive push to help bring self-driving cars to market, with transportation officials hailing the technology’s ability to save lives, enhance mobility and reduce fuel use.