About us
About Spark Powered
Who runs the site
Spark Powered is an independent site owned and edited by Geoff Baron. It is not owned by, or paid by, any carmaker, solar installer, battery maker or utility. The editor decides what the tools calculate and is responsible for everything published here.
Where our numbers come from
Our calculators and state pages use public data from the US Energy Information Administration (electricity and gasoline prices, household usage), the Department of Energy's Alternative Fuels Data Center (charging stations), the PVWatts model from the National Laboratory of the Rockies (solar output) and EPA ratings on fueleconomy.gov (vehicle efficiency and range). Tax rules come from the IRS. Every page lists its sources and the date the data was retrieved.
Read exactly how each figure is calculated, and what it leaves out, on our methodology page.
How we use automation and AI
The vehicle list in the EV Finder and the product list in the Home Battery Sizer are refreshed by an automated research step that uses an AI model with web search to collect current prices and specifications. Those lists can contain errors or go out of date, so we label prices as indicative, show EPA-rated range alongside the EV results where we can match a model, and tell you to confirm details with the manufacturer. Our state data pages and calculators do not use AI-generated numbers; they are computed directly from the government datasets above.
How we handle news from other publishers
Our headlines page lists recent articles from Electrek, CleanTechnica, InsideEVs and Solar Power World, taken from the RSS feeds those publishers provide. We show only the headline, the publisher's name and the date, and link straight to the original article. We do not copy articles or images, and we do not present their reporting as our own. That page is kept out of search results because the reporting belongs to those publishers.
How the site is funded
Some links on our product guides (portable power stations, home batteries, plug-in solar kits and solar quote marketplaces) are affiliate or referral links: if you buy or sign up through one, we may earn a commission at no cost to you. Pages with these links say so near the top, the links are marked as sponsored, and they never change what a calculator returns or which products we pick. Read the full affiliate disclosure.
Photo credits
Photos are from Unsplash, used under the Unsplash License.
- Smiling father holding a toddler on his shoulders and hugging his young son outside a home with a white picket fence: Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
- Woman in a yellow scarf plugging her electric car into a wall charger beside her front door: Zaptec on Unsplash
- Rooftop solar panels on a suburban house under a clear blue sky: Watt A Lot on Unsplash
- Two plug-in solar panels mounted on the railing of a ground-floor apartment balcony in the sun: Yuma Solar on Unsplash
- Couple relaxing on a sunny deck among pine trees with a portable power station running a grill and a cooler: Jackery Power Station on Unsplash
- Wall-mounted home battery and solar inverter system neatly installed on a garage wall: Sergio Martins on Unsplash
- Outdoor heat pump unit on the lawn beside a brick house, framed by green shrubs: alpha innotec on Unsplash
- Person lifting the lid of a stainless steel pot on a sleek black induction cooktop: Obi Udensi on Unsplash
- Smiling woman in a helmet riding an e-bike along a sunny tree-lined path: KBO Bike on Unsplash
- Small house at night with warm lights glowing in the windows while the street around it is dark: Devon MacKay on Unsplash
Corrections
If you spot a number that is wrong or out of date, we want to fix it. Each data page shows when its figures were last updated; corrections are made on the page itself and the update date changes. Email corrections or questions to geoff@mylastlap.com.