ADVERTISEABOUT USSUBMIT A STORYSUBSCRIBETERMS OF USEPRIVACY POLICY
Visit our family of Brands

Houston solar rally, renewable energy celebration to take place this weekend

where to be

Sun Day Houston will be held this Sunday, Sept. 21. Photo via Upslash.

Local organizations will celebrate solar, wind and renewable energy this Sunday, Sept. 21, during Sun Day Houston.

Timed with the autumn equinox, the inaugural event will bring together speakers, exhibits, workshops and hands-on activities that promote the adoption of clean power sources outside of Christ the King Lutheran Church at 2353 Rice Blvd., near Rice University. It will take place from 2-4:30 p.m.

Featured speakers include:

  • Daniel Cohan, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice, who will speak on the science of renewable energy and its growing role in ERCOT and the national U.S. energy grid
  • Andrea Oyuela, manager of the Harris County Solar for All program, who will speak on Harris County’s efforts to expand solar energy access to underserved communities and the county's leadership role in the Texas Solar for All Coalition

Attendees will also be able to participate in mobile solar and home solar battery displays, an electric vehicle show-and-tell, and a rain barrel workshop. Other workshops include the Tips and Tricks for Going Solar Workshop and the Welcoming the Energy Transition Workshop.

Exhibits will be hosted by:

  • Harris County Sustainability Division
  • Solar United Neighbors
  • Environment Texas
  • Public Citizen
  • Houston Chapter, Citizens Climate Lobby
  • Texas Campaign for the Environment
  • Houston Electric Vehicle Association
  • Houston Climate Boulder Project
  • Turtle Island Restoration Network
  • Climate Conversation Brazoria County
  • Sunrise Movement
  • Rice Wildlife Conservation Corps

Sun Day Houston is part of hundreds of Sun Day events worldwide. TH!RD ACT, a national nonprofit founded by environmentalist Bill McKibben, is serving as the primary sponsor. It is co-sponsored by 22 Gulf Coast environmental organizations, including Sierra Club of Houston, Harris County Sustainability Division, the Green Building Council, and many others. Find more information here.

From Your Site Articles
A new report shows that Texas has about 16 public charging stations per 1,000 EVs. Photo by Kindel Media/Pexels

Texas among top states for EV charging access, report shows

by the numbers

A new study from FinanceBuzz reports that Texas has the fifth most public electric vehicle charging stations among states in the U.S.

In its Electric Vehicle (EV) Statistics [2025]: Trends in Sales, Savings, and More report, FinanceBuzz, a personal finance and investment adviser, compiled electric vehicle data to find sales trends, adoption rates, charging infrastructure, costs, savings and more.

Texas has a total of 3,709 public EV charging stations, which equals about 16 stations per 1,000 EVs, according to the report. The remaining top five included:

  • No. 1 California with 17,122 EV charging stations
  • No. 2 New York with 4,814 EV charging stations
  • No.3 Massachusetts with 3,738 EV charging stations
  • No. 4 Florida with 3,715 EV charging stations

Los Angeles had the most public charging stations at 1,609 among U.S. cities. Austin was Texas’s top city with 656 stations.

The study also looked at how much Americans are spending on transportation, and found that the average American using a gas vehicle spends $1,865 annually on fuel. FinanceBuzz found that electric vehicle owners would pay 65 percent less on energy costs. Calculations were based on driving 14,489 miles annually, which measures to 37.9 miles per day. The full report sourced data from the International Energy Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Transportation, AAA, the U.S. Energy Information Administration and other organizations.

The report said Americans purchased over 1.5 million EVs in 2024, which equals approximately 10 percent of all new light-duty vehicles sold, citing information from the International Council on Clean Transportation.

While Tesla remains the most popular make, 24 new EV models were launched in 2024 by other companies, which represents a 15 percent increase from the previous year.

Other trends in the report included:

  • The U.S. now has more than 64,000 public charging stations and over 168,000 charging ports, which is up from fewer than 1,000 stations in 2010.
  • An average EV owner will spend about $654 per year on electricity, compared to $1,865 for a gas-powered vehicle. The savings equate to about $1,211 per year.
  • In 2024, U.S. EV sales surpassed 1.5 million, but the pace slowed compared to the previous year, with a 10 percent increase versus 40 percent in 2023.
  • Insuring an EV can be more costly because parts are harder to come by, making repairs and replacements more expensive.
  • In the second quarter of 2024, nearly half of new EVs were leased, which is a 28 percentage point increase since 2021.
Houston researchers have uncovered why solid-state batteries break down and what could be done to slow the process. Photo via Getty Images.

Houston team’s discovery brings solid-state batteries closer to EV use

a better battery

A team of researchers from the University of Houston, Rice University and Brown University has uncovered new findings that could extend battery life and potentially change the electric vehicle landscape.

The team, led by Yan Yao, the Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UH, recently published its findings in the journal Nature Communications.

The work deployed a powerful, high-resolution imaging technique known as operando scanning electron microscopy to better understand why solid-state batteries break down and what could be done to slow the process.

“This research solves a long-standing mystery about why solid-state batteries sometimes fail,” Yao, corresponding author of the study, said in a news release. “This discovery allows solid-state batteries to operate under lower pressure, which can reduce the need for bulky external casing and improve overall safety.”

A solid-state battery replaces liquid electrolytes found in conventional lithium-ion cells with a solid separator, according to Car and Driver. They also boast faster recharging capabilities, better safety and higher energy density.

However, when it comes to EVs, solid-state batteries are not ideal since they require high external stack pressure to stay intact while operating.

Yao’s team learned that tiny empty spaces, or voids, form within the solid-state batteries and merge into a large gap, which causes them to fail. The team found that adding small amounts of alloying elements, like magnesium, can help close the voids and help the battery continue to function. The team captured it in real-time with high-resolution videos that showed what happens inside a battery while it’s working under a scanning electron microscope.

“By carefully adjusting the battery’s chemistry, we can significantly lower the pressure needed to keep it stable,” Lihong Zhao, the first author of this work, a former postdoctoral researcher in Yao’s lab and now an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at UH, said in the release. “This breakthrough brings solid-state batteries much closer to being ready for real-world EV applications.”

The team says it plans to build on the alloy concept and explore other metals that could improve battery performance in the future.

“It’s about making future energy storage more reliable for everyone,” Zhao added.

The research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Battery 500 Consortium under the Vehicle Technologies Program. Other contributors were Min Feng from Brown; Chaoshan Wu, Liqun Guo, Zhaoyang Chen, Samprash Risal and Zheng Fan from UH; and Qing Ai and Jun Lou from Rice.

Zeta Energy's batteries are targeted to power Stellantis electric vehicles by 2030. Image via Zeta Energy

Houston company to develop game-changing lithium-sulfur EV batteries for automaker

team work

Houston-based Zeta Energy Corp. has teamed up with an automaker to develop new battery technology.

Zeta Energy and Stellantis N.V. announced a joint development deal to advance battery cell technology for electric vehicle applications that will develop lithium-sulfur EV batteries with gravimetric energy density that can achieve a volumetric energy density comparable to today’s lithium-ion technology. The batteries are targeted to power Stellantis electric vehicles by 2030.

“The combination of Zeta Energy’s lithium-sulfur battery technology with Stellantis’ unrivaled expertise in innovation, global manufacturing and distribution can dramatically improve the performance and cost profile of electric vehicles while increasing the supply chain resiliency for batteries and EVs,” Tom Pilette, CEO of Zeta Energy, says in a news release.

The batteries will be produced using waste materials and methane that boasts lower CO2 emissions than any existing battery technology. Zeta Energy battery technology is intended to be manufacturable within existing gigafactory technology and would leverage an entire domestic supply chain in Europe or North America.

The technology can lead to a significantly lighter battery pack with the same usable energy as contemporary lithium-ion batteries. The companies believe this will enable greater range, improved handling and enhanced performance. The technology has the potential to improve fast-charging speed by up to 50 percent, which can make EV ownership easier.

Lithium-sulfur batteries are expected to cost less than half the price per kilowatt of current lithium-ion batteries according to a news release. Zeta has more than 60 patents on its proprietary lithium-sulfur anode and cathode technologies.

Lighter and more compact EV batteries have become an important design goal for vehicle designers and manufacturers. This objective is similar to what General Motors is doing with prismatic cell technology with LG Energy Solution.

“Our collaboration with Zeta Energy is another step in helping advance our electrification strategy as we work to deliver clean, safe and affordable vehicles,” Ned Curic, Stellantis chief engineering and technology officer, says in the release. “Groundbreaking battery technologies like lithium-sulfur can support Stellantis’ commitment to carbon neutrality by 2038 while ensuring our customers enjoy optimal range, performance and affordability.”

Last year, Zeta Energy announced that it was selected to receive $4 million in federal funding for the development of efficient electric vehicle batteries from the U.S. Department of Energy's ARPA-E Electric Vehicles for American Low-Carbon Living, or EVs4ALL, program.

The strong performance changed the trajectory of the year for the Austin, Texas-based company, which had seen sales and profits decline in the first two quarters. Photo courtesy of Tesla

Tesla posts surprise $2.17B third-quarter profit, up from a year ago

by the numbers

Tesla’s third-quarter net income rose 17.3 percent compared with a year ago on stronger electric vehicle sales, and an optimistic CEO Elon Musk predicted 20 percent to 30 percent sales growth next year.

The strong performance changed the trajectory of the year for the Austin, Texas-based company, which had seen sales and profits decline in the first two quarters.

In its letter to investors, Tesla predicted slight growth in vehicle deliveries this year, better than the 1.8 million delivered worldwide in 2023.

Tesla said Wednesday that it made $2.17 billion from July through September, more than the $1.85 billion profit it posted in the same period of 2023.

The earnings came despite price cuts and low-interest financing that helped boost sales of the company’s aging vehicle lineup during the quarter. It was Tesla’s first year-over-year quarterly profit increase of 2024, a year plagued by falling sales and prices.

Revenue in the quarter rose 7.8 percent to $25.18 billion, falling short of Wall Street analysts who estimated it at $25.47 billion, according to FactSet. Tesla made an adjusted 72 cents per share, soundly beating analyst expectations of 59 cents.

Shares in Tesla Inc. soared nearly 12 percent in trading after Wednesday’s closing bell.

On a conference call with analysts, Musk said the profit increase came despite a challenging environment for auto sales with still-high loan interest rates. “I think if you look at EV companies worldwide, to the best of my knowledge, no EV company is even profitable,” he said.

Musk qualified his prediction that Tesla would post 2025 vehicle sales growth of 20 percent to 30 percent by saying it could be changed by “negative external events.”

Earlier this month Tesla said it sold 462,890 vehicles from July through September, up 6.4 percent from a year ago. The sales numbers were better than analysts had expected.

The letter said that Tesla is on track to start production of new vehicles, including more affordable models, in the first half of next year, something investors had been looking for. The new vehicles will use parts from its current models and will be made on the same assembly lines as Tesla’s current model lineup, the letter said.

The new vehicles were not identified and the price was nebulous. Musk has said in the past the company is working on a car that will cost about $25,000, but said Wednesday that a new affordable vehicle would cost under $30,000 including government tax incentives.

Earlier this month, the company showed off a purpose-built two-seat robotaxi called “Cybercab” at a glitzy event at a Hollywood movie studio. Musk said it would be in production before 2027 and cost around $25,000.

By using parts from existing models and the current manufacturing system, Tesla won’t reach cost reductions that it previously expected using a new manufacturing setup.

Tesla said it reduced the cost of goods per vehicle to its lowest level yet, about $35,100.

The company’s widely watched gross profit margin, the percentage of revenue it gets to keep after expenses, rose to 19.8 percent, the highest in a year, but still smaller than the peak of 29.1 percent in the first quarter of 2022.

During the quarter, Tesla’s revenue from regulatory credits purchased by other automakers who can’t meet government emissions targets hit $739 million, the second highest quarter in company history.

Musk said Tesla's “Full Self-Driving” system is improving and would drive more safely than humans in the second quarter of next year. Despite the name, Teslas using “Full Self-Driving” cannot drive themselves, and human drivers must be ready to intervene at all times.

The company, he said, is offering an autonomous ride-hailing service to employees in the San Francisco Bay Area, but it currently has human safety drivers. It expects to start a robotaxi service for the public in California and Texas next year, he said.

Musk also conceded that it may not be possible to reach autonomous driving safety levels with older editions of “Full Self-Driving” hardware. If it can't do that, Tesla will upgrade computers in the older cars for free, he said.

The self-driving claims come just five days after U.S. safety regulators opened an investigation into the system's cameras to see in low-visibility conditions such as sun glare, fog and airborne dust. The probe raised doubts about whether the system will be ready to drive on its own next year.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in documents posted Friday that it opened the probe of 2.4 million Teslas after the company reported four crashes in low visibility conditions. In one, a woman who stopped to help after a crash on an Arizona freeway was struck and killed by a Tesla.

Investigators will look into the ability of “Full Self-Driving” to “detect and respond appropriately to reduced roadway visibility conditions."

Edward Jones analyst Jeff Windau said the earnings report and conference call showed that Tesla is making money on software, a business with high profit margins.

Still, he has a “hold” rating on the stock as the company moves toward robotics and autonomous vehicles. “They’ve got a lot of challenging goals out there,” he said.

Soon, the country will have IONNA's "Rechargery" locations thanks to the support of Texas-based Toyota and other automakers. Rendering courtesy of IONNA

Texas automaker invests in first-of-its-kind EV charging station initiative

plugging in

A charging network founded by eight of the world’s top automakers have announced that they have broken ground on their first electric vehicle charging station.

IONNA will work to transform a historic district gas station into a new "Rechargery" in North Carolina. The initiative is backed by Plano-based Toyota, along with BMW, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Kia, and Stellantis.

With plans to open locations across the country, the station will provide 10 covered parking bays and will be accessible to both CCS and NAC chargers. The charging ports will be capable of up to 400 kilowatts and 800+ Volts. The site will also include an indoor driver’s lounge, coffee service, food/beverage, restrooms, and WIFI.

“We are excited to announce our support of IONNA to deploy DC fast chargers throughout the U.S. and Canada,” Ted Ogawa, president and CEO of Toyota Motor North America, says in a news release. “We believe this will not only promote the adoption of BEVs and increase customer confidence in the technology, but it will provide our Toyota and Lexus customers with access to IONNA’s rapidly growing charging network in North America.”

IONNA will “enable urban and long-distance EV mobility for all with over 30,000 ultra-fast-and-reliable charging points by 2030” according to the company.

IONNA also announced Jackie Slope as the Chief Technology Officer. Slope previously worked with customer experiences at Crypto.com Arena and Madison Square Garden.

“Having spent my career raising the bar around the customer experience I am excited to find ways to innovate and elevate the charging experience by serving the customer above all else in this new and exciting industry,” Slope said in a news release.

While the North Carolina location is the first of its kind, IONNA plans to expand its Rechargery stations around North America soon.

In other EV news, Hyundai Motor and Kia launched a project on Sept. 25 to develop lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cathode material. Hyundai Steel and cathode material market leader EcoPro BM will aim to synthesize materials directly without creating a precursor for LFP battery cathode material production

Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Houston battery recycling company secures $32M in financing

fresh funding

Houston-based Ace Green Recycling has raised $32 million in private investment in public equity (PIPE) financing to support its future plans for growth.

The battery recycling technology company secured the financing with Athena Technology Acquisition Corp. II, a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company that Ace previously announced it plans to merge with. Once the merger is completed, Ace will become a publicly traded company on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "AGXI."

Ace says the financing will be used to complete the merger and scale the company.

“This investment accelerates our mission to redefine battery recycling at a global scale,” Ace CEO Nischay Chadha said in a news release. “At Ace, we are deploying Greenlead® and LithiumFirst™ as a new standard–fully electrified, Scope 1 emissions-free solutions designed to replace legacy processes and unlock a cleaner supply chain for critical materials. We believe that the future of electrification depends on how efficiently and sustainably we recover these resources, and this milestone brings us meaningfully closer to that future.”

Ace says the funding will also be primarily used to fund capital expenditures related to the development of its planned flagship recycling facility, located outside of Beaumont, Texas. According to a February investor presentation, the facility is expected to launch in 2027. It will recycle lead-acid and lithium-ion batteries.

Ace agreed to a 15-year battery material supply agreement with Miami-based OM Commodities last year, in which OM Commodities would supply Ace with at least 30,000 metric tons of lead scrap to be recycled annually. Switzerland-based Glencore plc agreed to a 15-year offtake agreement to purchase up to 100 percent of ACE’s products from four of its planned lead-acid and lithium-ion battery recycling parks back in 2022.

Ace also reported that the funding will be put toward "supporting the expansion of operations and to fund the purchase of other companies," in the release.

Houston AI startup rolls out platform to reshape oil and gas workflows

AI for energy

Houston-based Collide is looking to solve AI issues in the energy industry from within.

Co-founded by former oil roughneck Collin McLelland, the company has developed AI software for operators and field teams, shaped by firsthand oilfield experience. Its AI-native platform “retrieves and synthesizes data from authoritative sources to deliver accurate, cited, and energy-focused insights to oil and gas professionals,” according to the company.

“Oil and gas has a graveyard full of technology that was technically impressive and operationally useless,” McLelland tells Energy Capital. “The reason is almost always the same: the people who built it didn't understand what they were actually solving for. When you're an outsider, you see workflows and try to automate them. When you're an insider, you understand why those workflows exist—the regulatory constraints, the physical realities, the liability concerns, the trust dynamics between operators and service companies.”

Collide’s large language model, known as RIGGS, performed well in recent benchmarking results when taking a standardized petroleum engineering (SPE) exam, the company reports. The exam assesses understanding from conceptual terminology to complex mathematical problem-solving.

According to Collide, RIGGS achieved a score of 67.5 percent on a 40-question subset of the SPE petroleum engineering exam, outperforming other large language models like Grok 4 (62.5 percent), Claude Sonnet 4.5 (52.5 percent) and GPT 5.1 (4 percent).

RIGGS completed the test in 15 minutes, while Grok took two hours. Collide hopes over the next few months, RIGGS will receive a score between 75 percent to 80 percent accuracy.

The software could potentially help oil and gas companies produce accurate outputs and automate trivial workflows, which can open up valuable time for engineers and teams to work on other pressing matters, according to McLelland.

“Collide exists because we sat in those seats — we were the engineers, the operators, the field guys,” he says. ”RIGGS scoring higher on the PE exam versus the frontier labs isn't a party trick. It's evidence that the model understands petroleum engineering the way a petroleum engineer does, because it was built by people who do.”

RIGGS was trained on Collide’s Spindletop hardware and is supported by a vast library of information, as well as a reasoning engine and validation layer that uses logic to solve problems.

“Longer term, we see RIGGS as the intelligence layer that sits underneath every operator's workflow — not a chatbot you open in a browser, but something embedded in the tools engineers already use,” McLelland says. “The goal is to give every engineer the knowledge and pattern recognition of a 30-year veteran, on demand."

According to McLelland, Collide is already building toward reservoir analysis and production optimization, automated regulatory compliance (Railroad Commission filings, W-10s, G-10s), workover report generation, and engineering decision support in the field for near-term use cases. In March, Collide and Texas-based oil and gas operator Winn Resources announced a collaboration to automate the time-intensive process of filing monthly W-10 and G-10 forms with the Texas Railroad Commission, completing what’s normally a multi-hour task in under 30 minutes. Collide reports that Winn’s infrastructure now automates regulatory filings and provides real-time visibility into data gaps, which has reduced processing time by over 95 percent.

“Before Collide, I'd spend hours manually keying in filings,” Buck Crum, director of operations, said in a news release. “(In March), we had 50 wells to file and I was done in 20 minutes. It does the majority of the heavy lifting while keeping me in control. That human-in-the-loop approach saves meaningful time and gives us greater confidence in our compliance and reporting.”

Collide was originally launched by Houston media organization Digital Wildcatters as “a professional network and digital community for technical discussions and knowledge sharing.” After raising $5 million in seed funding led by Houston’s Mercury Fund last year, the company said it would shift its focus to rolling out its enterprise-level, AI-enabled solution.

Oxy officially announces CEO transition, names successor

new leader

Houston-based Occidental (Oxy) has officially announced its longtime CEO's retirement and her successor.

Oxy shared last week that Vicki Hollub will retire June 1. Reuters first reported Hollub's plan to retire in March, but a firm date had not been set. Hollub will remain on Oxy's board of directors.

Richard Jackson, who currently serves as Oxy's COO, will replace Hollub in the CEO role.

“It has been a privilege to lead Occidental and work alongside such a talented team for more than 40 years," Hollub shared in a news release. "Following the recently completed decade-long transformation of the company, we now have the best portfolio and the best technical expertise in Occidental’s history. With this strong foundation in place, a clear path forward and a leader like Richard, who has the experience and vision to elevate Occidental, now is the right time for this transition. “I look forward to supporting Richard and the Board through my continued role as a director.”

Hollub has held the top leadership position at Oxy since 2016 and has been with the energy giant for more than 40 years. Before being named CEO, she served as COO and senior executive vice president at the company. She led strategic acquisitions of Anadarko Petroleum in 2019 and CrownRock in 2024, and was the first woman selected to lead a major U.S. oil and gas company.

Hollub also played a key role in leading Oxy's future as a "carbon management company."

Jackson has been with Oxy since 2003. He has held numerous leadership positions, including president of U.S. onshore oil and gas, president of low carbon integrated technologies, general manager of the Permian Delaware Basin and enhanced oil recovery oil and gas, vice president of investor relations, and vice president of drilling Americas.

He was instrumental in launching Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, which focuses DAC, carbon sequestration and low-carbon fuels through businesses like 1PointFive, TerraLithium and others, according to the company. He also serves on the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative’s Climate Investment Board and the American Petroleum Institute’s Upstream Committee. He holds a bachelor's degree in petroleum engineering from Texas A&M University.

Jackson was named COO of Oxy in October 2025. In his new role as CEO, he will also join the board of directors, effective June 1.

“I am grateful to be appointed President and CEO of Occidental and excited about the opportunity to execute from the strong position and capabilities that we built under Vicki’s leadership,” Jackson added in the release. “It means a lot to me personally to be a part of our Occidental team. I am committed to delivering value from our significant and high-quality resource base. We have a tremendous opportunity to focus on organic improvement and execution to deliver meaningful value for our employees, shareholders and partners.”

View All Listings