After struggling with EVs, US Automakers Pivot to Energy

Tesla’s energy storage business and the head of statefor more than ten years. The growth of its Powerwall (battery storage for the home) and Megapack (battery storage for useful and commercial products) sales have been, in recent years, has helped offset the decline in EV salesalthough the previous quarter saw a sudden decrease in energy costs. However, Tesla is moving forward with its plans to open a Houston location dedicated to the new, larger Megapack later this year.

In all, 11 battery plants are being renovated for energy storage, according to a March count by BloombergNEF, with eight of those in the US.

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One reason investors are so concerned about battery power savings is their push for AI. The AI ​​industry needs it data centerand data centers need power. Batteries are particularly suitable for data centers, says Shan Tomouk, who leads research into battery energy storage Benchmark Mineral Intelligencea research company that focuses on batteries. Batteries can directly support power-hungry environments, which constantly run servers and other equipment, as well as cooling systems that keep them running.

Storage systems can also be suitable for data centers that often rely on other resources, such as natural gas. Battery power storage systems can act as a source of backup power in case something goes down and can help the data center to handle the large fluctuations in wild power related to AI training. They can also help to reduce the need for this group, reducing costs not only for the data centers, but for everyone who depends on the same system – the most important thing communities that are already hostile to technology.

“If the big data center market is growing every year, it makes sense for car manufacturers to be around,” says Tomouk. He hoped it would. “In the US, there is a real push to build data centers, where keep US as number one based on AI.”

For automakers moving toward EVs, there’s another option for battery storage, even if the pivot isn’t working. “If automakers aren’t making savings and not making money from EVs, they’d rather not make savings because they’re not competing with their natural gas production,” says Gil Tal, who directs the EV Research Center at UC Davis’ Institute of Transportation Studies. “It sounds good, unfortunately.”