| | | | | | | Generate | | By Ben Geman ·Oct 21, 2020 | | Good morning! Today's Smart Brevity count: 1,167 words, 4.5 minutes. 🚨 Situational awareness: It's official now! Pioneer Natural Resources is buying Parsley Energy in a $4.5 billion all stock deal, the latest step in what's becoming major consolidation in the battered shale patch. The Wall Street Journal has more. 🎸 And at this moment in 1978, Funkadelic was atop Billboard's R&B charts with today's irresistible intro tune... | | | | | | 1 big thing: GM dives full-throttle into electric |  | | | GMC Hummer EV. Photo courtesy of General Motors | | | | What has LeBron James as a pitchman, some slightly awkward promotional phrasing ("watts to freedom"), and a six-figure starting price? The electric GMC Hummer. Driving the news: General Motors unveiled the vehicle — a reborn version of the deceased mega-guzzler — with a highly produced rollout last night that included a World Series spot. They also began taking reservations. The big picture: Last night's rollout was GM's second EV announcement yesterday. - Hours earlier, it unveiled plans to invest $2 billion to renovate a Tennessee factory near Nashville for electric vehicle production, starting with the Cadillac Lyriq in 2022.
Why it matters: The back-to-back announcements show how GM is pushing in its chips on EVs, even though they're still a small market. - The Tennessee plant will become GM's third U.S. manufacturing site for EVs in a bet-the-company pivot away from conventional gasoline-powered cars and trucks, notes Axios' Joann Muller.
- GM plans to unveil at least 20 new EVs globally by 2023 (including the Hummer). Since March 2019, GM has pledged to invest $4.5 billion for EV production in the United States.
Where it stands: Getting back to the Hummer, here are a few specs and features on what GM is calling the "ultimate off-road EV supertruck." - The tri-motor, four-wheel-drive system has 1,000 horsepower, and you can engage the "watts to freedom" propulsion system that provides a 0-60 mph time of roughly 3 seconds, if you're into that kind of thing.
- There's an estimated 350+ miles of range on a full charge, and the capacity to quickly charge to about 100 miles in 10 minutes.
- It also has the off-road "CrabWalk" feature that enables diagonal movement (which we covered in this edition of Generate).
- Availability of "Extract Mode" that raises the suspension 6 inches to help with "extreme off-road situations such as clearing boulders or fording water."
By the numbers: Initial production at GM's Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Center begins late next year for the 2022 model, which starts at $112,595. - Less pricey versions start arriving later, with a roughly $100,000 model available in late 2022, a $90,000 version in spring of 2023, and a $80,000 version a year later.
What we don't know: How much the suite of electric pickups en route — from Rivian, Tesla, Ford and others — will help electricity start competing with gas in the immensely popular pickup market. - But GM has other motivations — even a pricey beast that won't sell in big numbers helps to show that they're serious about EVs, even for their core pickup business, Joann points out.
Go deeper: 2022 GMC Hummer electric pickup first look: an off-road icon reborn (MotorTrend) |     | | | | | | 2. Quick take: The stakes of GM's Hummer revival | | Edmunds' senior manager Ivan Drury sees a mix of potential and pitfalls in the Hummer rollout. - He said that by showing that "big" doesn't mean inefficient, the Hummer is a "paradigm shift" that benefits GM and will "help push consumer acceptance of EVs into a new realm."
- Drury also said the tech-stuffed vehicle allows GM to show off features that will "trickle down through its lineup."
Yes, but: Drury, in comments circulated to reporters, notes that the first wave of EV pickups from various automakers are quite pricey, and that's just one thing that could hinder consumer buy-in. "Options and considerations will be different from what consumers might be accustomed to when shopping for a traditional truck, some of the styling can be highly polarizing, and real-world functionality has yet to be proven." | | | | | | | | 3. Breaking: A big renewables deal | | Avangrid, a subsidiary of Spanish energy giant Iberdrola, is buying the big New Mexico-based power company PNM Resources in a $4.3 billion deal. Why it matters: The companies said the deal, valued at $8.3 billion including debt, will form the third-largest renewable power company in the United States. - The merged companies will have a combined market value of roughly $20 billion, per Reuters.
The big picture: The deal "reflects increasing focus on the transition to cleaner energy in the U.S., driven by economics favoring wind and solar farms over coal," Bloomberg notes. - PNM is a major power supplier in New Mexico and Texas, giving Avangrid "a route to expand its regulated business beyond the U.S. northeast," Reuters reports.
What's next: The companies hope to complete the transaction in about a year. It still requires approval by PNM shareholders and a suite of state and federal agencies. | | | | | | | | 4. Poll shows backing for Biden's $2T climate plan | | 66% of likely voters support Joe Biden's plan to spend $2 trillion on clean energy and climate efforts, per this New York Times/Siena College poll. Why it matters: The new poll of nearly 1,000 likely voters suggests Biden would have political wind at his back on the proposal if he wins and Democrats take the Senate. How it works: The pollsters specifically asked, "Tell me whether you support or oppose each of the following: A two trillion dollar plan to increase the use of renewable energy and build energy-efficient infrastructure." - A separate finding shows a split on fracking, with 44% supporting it and 42% in opposition.
Catch up fast: In July, Biden proposed spending $2 trillion over four years on climate-friendly energy and infrastructure of various stripes, ranging from power to transit to buildings to sustainable agriculture programs. - It's a proposal the campaign is casting as part of a wider economic recovery package.
Of note: The poll of 987 likely voters conducted Oct. 15-18 has a margin of error of ±3.4%. | | | | | | | | 5. Trump can't revive coal but the election matters anyway |  Data: EIA; Chart: Sara Wise/Axios A new Moody's Investors Service report sums up the state of play for the coal sector just ahead of the election... "[D]emand for thermal coal will remain in secular decline in the 2020s regardless of the winner of the presidential election given expectations for a small improvement in 2021 followed by continued contraction driven by a combination of factors including persistently low natural gas prices, increasing emphasis on renewable energy, and long-term regulatory uncertainty." Yes, but: The sector's future demand will still be influenced by the election, given Joe Biden's push to speed up the power sector's ongoing transition and President Trump's efforts to boost coal, Moody's said. "Biden's plans to achieve carbon-free electricity by 2035 would increase pressure on utilities and power generators to reduce emissions and an associated acceleration in the secular decline in demand for thermal coal in the U.S." The big picture: Check out the chart above, which shows total U.S. coal production (thermal coal that goes into power plants is the biggest part). - U.S. production peaked in 2008 but has since fallen to its lowest levels in decades, with declining power sector demand playing a big role.
Go deeper: Biden victory would accelerate decline of U.S. thermal coal, Moody's says (S&P Global) | | | | | | | | 6. Chart of the day: Global divide on natural gas |  Reproduced from Pew Research Center; Chart: Axios Visuals The U.S. is hardly the only country with a political split over natural gas, but it's particularly stark here. Driving the news: That chart above is one takeaway from a newly released Pew Research Center survey on global attitudes about the fossil fuels — gas, coal and oil — that dominate the world's energy mix. The big picture: More broadly, the 20-nation survey shows considerably more support for expanding use of gas than coal or oil. The median amount of support for gas was 69%, - "Public support for expanding use of natural gas stands in contrast to the much smaller shares of adults who express support for expanding oil (median of 39%) and coal (median of 24%)," Pew notes.
Of note: The full survey's margins of error for all 20 countries ranges from 2.6 to 4.1 percentage points. | | | | | | | | Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters.
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