The pipe belonged to Tesla. The dark liquid was wastewater from the company’s nearly $1 billion lithium refinery, which began operations in December 2024 and was, at the time, the first commercial-scale spodumene-to-lithium-hydroxide refinery in North America. Tesla had marketed the plant for years as an “acid-free clean process,” promising sand and limestone as the main byproducts. The drainage district had not been told that 231,000 gallons of treated wastewater per day would be flowing through its infrastructure.

Left out of those negotiations were the Memphis City Council; the county Board of Commissioners; and TVA, whose board ultimately had to approve any requests for more than 100 MW of power.

They only learned about the deal in early June, after the deal was done, when Musk announced it with a post on X referencing Memphis’ illustrious music history: “Elvis is in the building.”

That includes the TVA board, which was planning to consider new rates for data centers, including xAI, at its May board meeting. But the board can no longer approve resolutions after President Donald Trump fired two of its members. Consideration of the data center measure has been postponed, TVA spokesperson Scott Brooks said.

The result is a loophole, allowing the entire auto industry to sidestep some of the more painful efficiency requirements by inflating vehicle footprints. And historically, drivers almost always lean toward larger vehicles. “In general, if everything else about the vehicle is the same, consumers prefer the bigger one, with the roomier interior,” says Kate Whitefoot, a senior program officer at the National Academy of Engineering and the lead author of the paper (she was a doctoral student at the time of the study). Combine a regulatory loophole with a built-in, well-known customer choice, and the industry lurches towards the inevitable: larger models and more light trucks.