Equinor just brought its biggest US battery online in Texas

(WO) — Equinor has selected Emerson to provide measurement instrumentation, analytical technologies and lifecycle services across its global offshore and onshore operations under a frame agreement spanning up to 13 years, including options. The agreement will support Equinor’s efforts to accelerate project development, extend field life, improve hydrocarbon recovery and standardize operations across its asset portfolio.

Despite hybrids being so hot right now and compact luxury crossovers being so hot right now, the overlap in the resulting Venn diagram has historically been small enough for but one vehicle: The Lexus NX. For more than a decade, Lexus has planted its flag firmly in the soil, declaring reign over the fuel-sipping corner of the reasonably-sized, reasonably posh, reasonably tall car market. Now it’s going all the way: with a 2027 refresh, the Lexus NX is going hybrid-only. It couldn’t have come at a more important moment. For the first time in what feels like forever, Lexus isn’t alone in taking electrification in this segment seriously. With new plug-in and non-plug-in rivals either already on the market or hitting showrooms imminently, Toyota’s brand for the Whole Foods set needed to keep up with the Joneses by revamping some of the weaker spots on its second-most-popular model. So, has it worked? I headed not far from the NX’s North American production plant to find out.

The great thing about doing this job is that it’s something I was doing anyway, looking at classified ads for crappy old cars and annoying people (usually my wife) by babbling about them. Now I just get to annoy a lot more people. The terrible thing about this job is finding a whole bunch of cars I wish I could buy, like the two I’m about to show you. One is on the wrong side of the country, and the other is nearby, but twice the price and broken. Yesterday we looked at a couple of Ford’s stranger post-malaise efforts: a diesel Escort and a 4WD Tempo. I was surprised by the results; I didn’t expect that many of you to cotton to the idea of a $4,000 Ford Escort. Oh, it still lost, but only by about two to one. I thought it would be a lot worse.

Vik is the Co-Founder and former Editor at MotorAuthority, a leading U. S. website covering performance and luxury cars. Since 2025, he has contributed to CarBuzz, blending his engineering background and almost 20 years of automotive journalism experience to deliver cutting-edge news and analysis. Ferrari unleashed the F80 hybrid hypercar at the tail end of 2024 as the latest entry in its Special Series, that collection of flagship models that includes cars like the LaFerrari and Enzo before it. And just like those previous entries, the F80 will spawn additional variants. One we know is coming is an open-top version. Another is likely to be a hardcore version designed strictly for track use, and we might already know its name.

I was hoping there would be at least two Slate Trucks on site, so I could compare build quality between trucks and check things like panel gaps, window operation, and chassis creaks. But only one truck was on display. And it wasn’t close to a production model; rather, the black Slate Truck was a hand-built, older prototype with a black wrap (the Slate Truck base color is gray). The bed and passenger sides were cordoned off, but the driver-side door was open so shoppers could hop in and check out the interior. It was bigger than I expected—to my eye, roughly the size of a Hyundai Santa Cruz. The tailgate was down, and it felt reassuringly sturdy when I pressed down on it. The 5-foot-long (152.4 cm) bed floor looked and felt durable, not much different from any other pickup on the market.

Tom started his career as a daily newspaper reporter in metro Detroit and after a decade changed course to cover cars, spending the next 25 years at Wards Automotive doing test drives, technology and supplier coverage, editing WardsAuto World magazine and managing the Wards 10 Best competitions for powertrains, then interiors, then the user experience. He became executive editor at Autoweek in 2022 and joined Valnet in 2025. At CarBuzz, he's returned to his roots: a reporter seeking out news and trends and telling stories, but with more experience. Tom's wife has been putting up with him since 1990, and they have two adult children. He runs half-marathons and plays guitar in a rock band with other Detroit auto writers, called the Exhaust Tones. When the Lexus NX compact crossover came to the US in 2014, many critics found the hourglass-shaped "spindle grille" far too aggressive, some suggesting that it resembled the angry Predator face from the sci-fi thriller. The redesigned Lexus RX also got the same controversial grille treatment. But Lexus got the last laugh, because the RX and NX have consistently been the brand's bestsellers for years.