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Self-Driving Cars On Ramp As Feds Tax Oil In New Obama Budget

Autonomous cars, self-driving cars, robot cars — not only are they far along in development, now they can read dollar signs. A $98.1 billion federal transportation budget proposal came out Tuesday as the White House announced President Barrack Obama’s final $4.1 trillion budget proposal, which would slap a $10.25-a-barrel tax on oil. The transportation budget plan allocates $3.9 billion over 10 years for “large-scale deployment pilots” to develop a framework for how connected cars and autonomous vehicles will inter-operate across states. Regulators had penciled in the autonomy figure in an announcement at last month’s Detroit auto show, after President Obama alluded to plans for a “21st century transportation system” in his State of the Union speech. The president’s overall budget proposal is sure to fire up controversy and roadblocks when considered by the Republican-controlled Congress. “To speed our transition to an affordable, reliable, clean energy system, my budget funds Mission Innovation, our landmark commitment to double clean energy research and development funding,” Obama said in his budget message . “It also calls for a 21st Century Clean Transportation initiative ,” he said, “that would help to put hundreds of thousands of Americans to work modernizing our infrastructure to ease congestion and make it easier for businesses to bring goods to market through new technologies such as autonomous vehicles and high-speed rail, funded through a fee paid by oil companies.” The Department of Transportation plans to test autonomous cars in “corridors throughout the country” to accelerate development and adoption of “safe vehicle automation through real-world pilot projects.” “We are on the cusp of a new era in automotive technology with enormous potential to save lives, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transform mobility for the American people,” DOT Secretary Anthony Foxx said in the auto show announcement, speaking alongside executives from General Motors ( GM ), Tesla Motors ( TSLA ), Alphabet ( GOOGL )-unit Google, Ford Motor ( F ) and others. “Today’s actions and those we will pursue in the coming months will provide the foundation and the path forward for manufacturers, state officials, and consumers to use new technologies and achieve their full safety potential.” Electric car maker Tesla and several mainstream automakers have been developing autonomous vehicles. So have Alphabet’s Google and, reportedly, Apple ( AAPL ). Monday, Tesla expounded in a blog post on the safety aspects of the new Summon feature , in its Autopilot software, that lets the Model S and Model X come pick up their owners in a driveway and park themselves in a garage at night. “Summon lays important groundwork for an increasingly autonomous world. One where the convenience and safety of transport vastly exceed what we are used to today,” Tesla said in summing up Summon. It added that semi-autonomous features like Summon can reduce the occurrence of accidents relative to conventional driving. From @POTUS , @WhiteHouse a #budget that moves #transportation forward https://t.co/MOlt0ZPK8D pic.twitter.com/kY09OE1nww — Anthony Foxx (@SecretaryFoxx) February 9, 2016 The overall budget proposal unveiled by Foxx on Tuesday, for fiscal year 2017, outlines the department’s 30-year vision for how automation and other changes can better cope with traffic as the U.S. population grows by an expected 70 million people. It covers everything from autonomous vehicles to unmanned aircraft systems, or drones. It prioritizes “clean, 21st Century surface transportation options”; public-private sector collaboration to accelerate low-carbon technologies and intelligent transportation systems; transportation safety enhancements; and what it calls 21st Century government and project delivery — meaning things like modernized permitting. It also allocates $15 million toward cybersecurity. In a December presentation, Foxx announced a “smart city” transportation contest with a $50 million prize, saying the DOT is “imagining connected and autonomous vehicles that can practically eliminate crashes and interact with wired infrastructure to eliminate traffic jams.” Loading the player… RELATED: Obama Will Speed Self-Driving Car As Google Partners Tesla Adds ‘Summon’ Self-Driving To Cars: A Big Deal?  

SolarCity Torched On Q1 Guidance As Losses Expected To Deepen

SolarCity ( SCTY ) stock was torched after hours Tuesday, after the No. 1 residential installer guided to deepening Q1 losses and slower installation growth in 2016, despite CEO Lyndon Rive’s earlier pledge to curb losses by 2017. SolarCity stock was down more than 30% after the close, after the company released its Q4 earnings and gave guidance, and after falling 5.7% in Tuesday’s regular session. Shares of rival installer  Sunrun ( RUN ) also wrapped Tuesday’s regular session down 7% and were down another 6% after hours. Big solar companies  SunPower ( SPWR ) and First Solar ( FSLR ) were down 6% and more than 2%, respectively, after hours. For Q4, SolarCity reported $115.5 million in sales, up 61% year over year, and a per-share loss ex items of $2.37, widening from a $1.33 per-share loss in the year-earlier quarter. Both measures beat Wall Street expectations for $105.6 million and $2.59, as well as SolarCity’s three-months-ago outlook for $100 million to $108 million and $2.60 to $2.75 losses. During Q4, SolarCity installed 272 megawatts, which was up 54% vs. the year-earlier quarter but missed the company’s earlier guidance for 280 MW to 300 MW. SolarCity ended the year with $399.6 million in sales, $7.91 losses per share minus items and 870 MW installed. The consensus of 18 analysts polled by Thompson Reuters saw $389.7 million and $8.03. Installations for the year came in below prior guidance for 878 MW to 898 MW, up 73% from 2014. Current-quarter guidance for $2.55 to $2.65 losses per share ex items would deepen from $2.36 in the year-earlier quarter and would miss analyst expectations for $2.36. SolarCity didn’t offer a Q1 sales view. The consensus modeled $113 million, which would be up 57%. Shortening Cash Conversion Cycle SolarCity’s Q1 180 MW installation guide would be up 18% year over year. For the year, it expects installations of 1.25 gigawatts, up 44%, as the extended Investment Tax Credit (ITC) on solar provides more growth tailwinds. The ITC extension will lead to “good growth in 2017 and beyond,” Rive told analysts during the company’s earnings conference call late Tuessday. But SolarCity shifted its focus in Q3 to becoming cash flow positive, sacrificing its typical 80% annual installation growth rate. Rive reiterated SolarCity’s 40% growth target for 2016 despite the low 18% growth forecast for Q1. Part of that process is shortening SolarCity’s cash conversion cycle, Rive told analysts. As a result, commercial installations will be back-end loaded. “While the ultimate result will be shorter time from the start of construction to operation and thus higher cash generation, the initial impact is lower installations in the first period implemented,” according to SolarCity’s letter to shareholders. Nevada Policies Nick Q1 Installations Nevada’s decision to slash net-metering payments to solar customers also impacted Q4 installations and Q1 guidance, Rive said. During Q4, Nevada contributed 23 MW in installations and typically accounts for 20 MW per quarter. By year’s end, Rive expects Nevadans to overturn the Public Utility Commission’s late-December decision. “Homeowners in Nevada want solar, they want the freedom to choose where their energy comes from, and I think this is going to be overturned by the public, by ballot referendum by the end of the year,” he said. Solar has thrived on other policy fronts. As the Nevada battle waged, California regulators opted to continue paying solar customers for energy fed back into the grid. And in December, more than 190 countries pledged to curb carbon emissions during a climate change summit in Paris. “The majority of this (climate change agreement) is going to be on renewable energy, which is going to be solar,” Rive told analysts. Tesla Motors ( TSLA ) CEO Elon Musk is SolarCity’s chairman. Tesla is due to report earnings late Wednesday. Tesla stock rallied to close up 0.2% after falling intraday to a two-year low.  

Tesla Partner SolarEdge Joins SunPower, SolarCity In Storage Game

Tesla Motors ( TSLA ) and SolarEdge ( SEDG ) entered the solar storage melee in December and expect to “sell thousands of units” in the first half of 2016, SolarEdge CEO Guy Sella told analysts Wednesday. Their StorEdge solution will join a bevy of products entering the nascent solar storage market. In August, SunPower ( SPWR ) and Sunverge Energy piloted an Australian residential storage project, and SolarCity ( SCTY ) has its own Tesla partnership for battery backup. (SolarCity’s chairman, Elon Musk, is CEO of Tesla.) SolarEdge stock brightened Thursday after the company late Wednesday guided Q3 above the consensus model and posted fiscal Q2 sales and earnings that beat Wall Street views. SolarEdge stock jumped 6.5% to 29.22 on the stock market today , after earlier touching a six-month high of 30.50. For its fiscal Q2 ended Dec. 31, SolarEdge reported 44 cents earnings per share ex items on $124.8 million in sales, up 267% and 70%, respectively, year over year. Both measures topped the consensus views. Current-quarter guidance for $121 million to $125 million in sales smashed Wall Street expectations for $117.3 million. Sales would be up 42% at the midpoint of guidance. Needham analyst Y. Edwin Mok raised his price target on SolarEdge stock to 38 from 34 and reiterated a buy rating. SolarEdge stock became a top pick for FBR analysts on Thursday. Solar Storage Faces Hurdles Near Term Industry watchdogs remain split on the feasibility of solar storage, which would allow some customers cut their utility ties completely by storing the excess energy generated rather than feeding it back into the grid. As it is, solar customers still need utility electricity at night and on cloudy days. In 2014, financial services company CohnReznick, technology firm Homer Energy and the Rocky Mountain Institute, a sustainability organization, called solar storage a “real, near and present” threat to traditional utilities. But on Wednesday,  ProVision Solar President Marco Mangelsdorf told Green Tech Media, “It’s not happening now … and it’s not going to happen in the near term.” For SolarEdge, solar storage will drive growth in 2017, Mok predicts. But near-term, technical complexities have forced average sales prices above traditional inverters, he said. (Inverters convert the power in a solar panel into AC electricity.) “Total revenue from those initial shipments is likely very small relative to SolarEdge’s size,” he wrote in a research report. “Nevertheless, we believe there is a good level of market interest in this product and SolarEdge’s first-mover partnership with Tesla should ensure a good ramp-up throughout the year.” During fiscal Q2, SolarEdge saw 17% sequential growth in its U.S. sales, Mok estimated. International revenue fell 10% from the previous quarter, but that followed especially strong 31% growth in the September quarter, he said. Commercial sales outpaced overall growth and comprised about 25% of SolarEdge’s total Q2 revenue, Mok wrote. The segment will continue driving growth, he predicted. “While commercial comes with lower ASPs, it carries higher margins and greater volume potential,” he wrote.