GreenergyDaily
Apr. 16, 2024
1. Tesla is laying off more than 10% of its global headcount, affecting more than 14,000 people, to cut costs and boost productivity, according to an internal email sent to staff by CEO Elon Musk, Electrek and Bloomberg News reported on Monday.
2. China maintains its global lead with 26 nuclear power units under construction nationwide and a total installed capacity of 30.3 mln kW, according to a blue paper on Monday. The country's nuclear power plants generated 433.371 bln kWh of electricity in 2023, ranking 2nd globally.
3. Sales of Chinese-brand passenger vehicles soared 26.4% YoY to about 3.39 million in Q1 2024. The market share of domestic-brand passenger vehicles rose 7.4 percentage points YoY to 59.6% during the same period, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
4. Energy major BP has cut more than a tenth of the workforce in its EV charging business after a bet on rapid growth in commercial EV fleets did not pay off, Reuters reported on Monday.
5. Chinese battery giant CATL said yesterday net profit rose 7% to CNY10.5 billion (USD1.5 billion) in the first quarter of 2024 from a year ago. Revenue dropped 10.4% to CNY79.7 billion.
6. The International Energy Agency chief has criticised Europe for falling behind China and the US after making "two historic monumental mistakes" in energy policy, by relying on Russian gas and turning away from nuclear power. Fatih Birol, the agency's executive director, told the Financial Times that European industry was now paying the price for these errors and that the bloc would need "a new industrial master plan" to recover.
7. Co-operation between China and Germany was not a "risk" but a guarantee for stable ties and an opportunity for the future, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday, amid complaints by the EU about Chinese goods flooding the bloc's markets. The industrial and supply chains of China and Germany are deeply intertwined and their markets are highly interdependent, Xi told German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Beijing.
8. China's gross domestic product expanded by 5.3 percent year-on-year in the first quarter after a 5.2 percent rise in the fourth quarter, official data showed on Tuesday, boding well for a steady economic recovery in the following months.
9. China's major electricity production enterprises saw over 2.23 trillion kWh of power output in Q1 2024, up 6.7% YoY. The power generation grew 2.8% YoY to 747.7 billion kWh in March, with a notable increase of wind power by 16.8%: National Bureau of Statistics, Tuesday.
10. Chinese President Xi Jinping met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday in Beijing. Noting that both China and Germany depend heavily on industry and support free trade and economic globalization, Xi said the two sides should be vigilant against rising protectionism, look at the issue of production capacity objectively and dialectically from a market-oriented and global perspective, adhere to economic principles, and foster further cooperation.
