Jacob Hunka August 10, 2026 · 5 min read
Point a sheet of glass at the sun and you are making the cheapest power on the planet. That is Bill McKibben's framing in a new TED talk, and the numbers behind it are hard to dodge. What is interesting is everything downstream, because that is where the expensive problems have quietly relocated. Also this week: a Porsche with 108 kWh that nearly out-ranged a Rivian with 140, a Chinese supercar with four seats and a fridge, and the most powerful road-going Porsche ever built, which is, of course, an SUV. Let's go.
THE WEEK'S BEST STORIES
McKibben's argument is that solar crossed an economic line earlier this decade and most people missed it. He tells TED that roughly 90 percent of the world's new electricity generation last year came from sun and wind, that Australians will soon get three hours of free electricity every afternoon, and that California now runs past 100 percent renewable on most days. His sharpest example isn't from a rich country. He says Pakistani farmers are using 30 percent less diesel for irrigation than two years ago, largely by importing cheap Chinese panels, watching YouTube to wire them up, and laying them flat on the ground because they can't afford mounting frames. The framing is more arguable than the figures, and he closes on beauty rather than economics. But the actionable detail for American readers sits mid-talk: he says Americans pay around three times what Europeans and Australians pay for solar, and puts most of that gap down to state and local bureaucracy rather than the cost of the panels themselves. He also notes Utah legalizing small-scale plug-in solar, with Maine and Virginia following last week. If you priced balcony solar at some point and found it wasn't permitted where you live, that may have changed recently. Worth checking again.
A 108 kWh Cayenne Nearly Out-Ranged a 140 kWh Rivian
Out of Spec Reviews
Out of Spec ran the new Porsche Cayenne Electric against a Rivian R1S in a 70 mph highway range test, and the result was much closer than the battery sizes suggest. The Cayenne carries 108 kWh usable. The R1S dual-motor Max Pack carries roughly 140. The Porsche went 344.7 miles before it could no longer hold 70 mph, at 316 watt-hours per mile. The Rivian showed 358.3 miles, which the channel corrects to around 356 once the speedometer difference is accounted for. For most of the run the two sat within one percent of each other on state of charge, which the host says he'd never seen in a comparison before. Range tests are usually settled by pack size, which is what makes this one worth reading twice. The Cayenne was ordered with Porsche's range package, which allows a no-cost drop to 20-inch wheels instead of the standard 21s. That single box on the order form is doing enormous work, and I'll come back to it below. Out of Spec is upfront that the Rivian wasn't a fresh example: 27,000 miles on it, pulling 138 kWh against a previous best of 144, roughly four percent degradation, which the host estimates would have put a new one nearer 370 miles. Conditions were about as controlled as a public-road test gets, around 81 degrees, little wind, cruise set by GPS. Porsche won the engineering argument and Rivian won the test. Getting 345 miles out of 108 kWh in an SUV this size is the more impressive number, and a small pack refilled at 400 kW is a shorter break than a large pack refilled slowly.
Denza brought its Z to Goodwood, and Electrifying got a passenger seat and then a turn at the wheel of one of six cars the company says exist so far. The figure is 1,604 horsepower from three motors, one front and two rear, with a claimed zero to 100 km/h under two seconds. It also seats four and has a cool box that runs to minus six degrees. The number that should interest buyers isn't the horsepower, it's that the horsepower doesn't change. All three versions get the same 1,604, with the differences confined to aerodynamics, hardware, and features like the boost button and race mode. That makes the cheapest car in the range mechanically equal to the most expensive, which is unusual at this end of the market. UK pricing runs just under £143,000 for the coupe to £172,900 for the track-focused racing version. On track the presenter says it feels lighter than its weight suggests, crediting the two rear motors shuffling torque between the back wheels along with magnetic dampers that adjust in milliseconds. His one reservation is a ride slightly softer than some rivals. The timing is the thing the video doesn't dwell on: Denza launches in the UK in autumn 2026 with seven or eight dealers, and the Z isn't due to reach customers until the start of 2027. Denza is a BYD sub-brand, and the presenter's closing point is the one worth repeating. Chinese manufacturers spent recent years proving they could build affordable electric family cars. They've now turned up at Goodwood with a 1,604 horsepower supercar.
The most powerful road-going Porsche is now an SUV. Carwow quotes the Cayenne Electric Turbo at 1,139 horsepower and 1,500 Nm, timed it at 2.46 seconds to 60 mph and 9.98 seconds over the quarter mile, then stopped it from 60 in 29 metres, all while carrying a claimed 2.6 tonnes. UK pricing starts at £80,000 for the entry car and £130,000 for the Turbo. The car in the video wore £42,000 of options and came to £170,000. Rear-axle steering is £1,500 of that, the active anti-roll system £7,000, carbon ceramic brakes £8,000. Here's where it connects to the range test above. This Turbo averaged around 2.4 miles per kWh on 22-inch wheels, which carwow works out to roughly 250 miles. The Out of Spec car, same family, on the no-cost 20-inch range package, returned better than three miles per kWh and 344.7 miles. That's a spread of roughly 25 percent in efficiency between two Cayennes, decided by wheels and options rather than anything in the powertrain. The driving section is warmer than the pricing commentary: rear-axle steering cuts the turning circle from 12.7 to 11 metres, air suspension stays comfortable even in its firmest setting, and the brakes get praise for progressive feel. Complaints are mostly ergonomic, reflections off the curved display, cupholders set low, mirror controls down by the knee. Carwow's own verdict is that the entry-level car is quick, comfortable, and practical enough, and the Turbo's ceiling is unreachable on a public road. Buy the base car, tick rear-axle steering, keep the other £50,000.
Nikita Gorchakov and Rocco Siliotto keep returning to one claim about the Silent 62: it's natively solar rather than converted. Not a diesel hull with panels bolted on, not a repurposed sailing design, and built in series rather than as a one-off. The reported spec is 42 rigid glass high-voltage panels, up to 100 kWh a day in ideal sun and 50 to 60 on a realistic day at sea, a liquid-cooled battery rated for 5,000 cycles, a 340 kW direct-drive motor, and a generator kept only as backup. What separates this from the usual solar boat pitch is disclosure. Vice chairman Steve Bell reads live energy in and out off the dashboard on camera, and Silent streamed full data across an Atlantic crossing from Gibraltar to Antigua, roughly 3,800 miles. For a category long on renderings and short on measured passages, that's the whole argument. Price is never mentioned, which is the obvious gap, and a fair thing to hold against it. For scale, 50 to 60 kWh is an excellent free day for a yacht, and roughly half of what the Cayenne above carries in its pack. The sunlight is the free part. Everything wrapped around it, the hull, the motor, the control software on its eighth revision in 18 months, is where the money went.
The week is yours. See you next Monday.
Jacob Hunka, Founder nexusEVnews.com
P.S. Know someone who follows the auto industry and ignores the electric side of it? Now is a good time to fix that.