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☆ EV big rigs already make sense for half of the $4 trillion freight truck market, says Einride CEO
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( Eric Rosenbaum | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Swedish EV trucking startup Einride has been able to so far go toe-to-toe with Tesla and its Semi in attracting top corporate clients. "In the $4 trillion freight mobility space, between 40%-50% should be electric driven by the business case today," Falck said on CNBC's "Worldwide Exchange" in an interview on Thursday after his company ranked No. "In the near-term, of course, the business case for diesel becomes slightly better," Falck said in the April interview. In freight, unlike the consumer market, "it's not about range, it's about how to secure the business case," he said. Swedish electric vehicle maker Einride will supply two of its heavy-duty trucks to PepsiCo as part of an expansion into the U.K. Einride

☆ Growing Pains Intensify for EV Startups Lucid and Fisker
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Sean Mclain | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Rivian is under pressure to prove it can build its electric trucks at scale without having ramped up production before, as competition heats up from legacy automakers. WSJ toured Rivian’s and Ford’s EV factories to see how they are pushing to meet demand. Illustration: Adam FalkElectric-vehicle startups Lucid and Fisker are confronting dwindling cash piles as the two companies strain to get more vehicles into the hands of customers, first-quarter results show. Lucid, Fisker and electric-truck maker Rivian were among a host of EV startups to go public over the last two years, as investors placed bets on finding the next Tesla . Now, their share prices continue to get hammered as cash reserves dwindle and larger legacy automakers join the EV race.

☆ Rivian’s Quarterly Loss Narrows as EV Startups Face Cash Crunch
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Sean Mclain | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Rivian is under pressure to prove it can build its electric trucks at scale without having ramped up production before, as competition heats up from legacy automakers. WSJ toured Rivian’s and Ford’s EV factories to see how they are pushing to meet demand. Illustration: Adam FalkElectric-vehicle startup Rivian reported narrower losses in the first quarter as it slashed spending to conserve cash and stood by its vehicle production target for the year. At the same time, its cash burn accelerated, underlining a key challenge facing young auto companies like Rivian. Absent new funding, they face a limited timeline in which to turn a profit before running out of money.

☆ Auto Dealers Feel the Squeeze
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Jinjoo Lee | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Yet auto makers aren’t offering enough incentives to move vehicles off the lots, either. AutoNation said on Thursday that on a same-store basis, it sold 2.8% fewer new vehicles and 17.5% fewer used cars on a same-store basis. Lithia Motors on Wednesday said it sold 6.3% fewer new vehicles and 2.4% fewer used vehicles over the same period. Cars are sitting on lots for longer as a result: Lithia said there were about 52 days of supply of new vehicles in the first quarter, up from 47 days a quarter earlier. AutoNation is carrying 25 days’ worth of new vehicle supply, up from 19 days from the prior quarter.

☆ The Swedish rival to Tesla's Semi scores a deal with PepsiCo to deliver snacks in the UK
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Ryan Browne | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Home appliances company GE Appliances began testing an Einride vehicle without a safety driver on board on U.S. public roads in October 2022. Einride said its U.K. vehicles will be driven by human operators. Operating electric trucks to ship goods across countries at scale is a tough thing to accomplish. "So we're looking at a transport system, where the efficiency is 6%," Falk said. "So that means that you are at 94% waste of the potential of the transport system itself.

☆ Evan Gershkovich ‘Belongs in This Newsroom’: WSJ Journalists Speak Out
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Cars Return to Dealer Lots. Interest Rates Could Make Them a Harder Sell. At Adam Lee’s Jeep dealership, customers are seeing something they haven’t in years: lots of new cars. But while supply is returning, higher interest rates are hitting demand and sparking concerns that 2023 could be another turbulent year for the car industry. Photo Illustration: Adam Falk

☆ US banks have well over $1 trillion of uninsured deposits. Signature Bank was among the most exposed.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( Alistair Barr | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The US government shut down Signature Bank on Sunday. This time it was Signature Bank. The FDIC insures US bank deposits up to $250,000 per account to prevent bank runs and failures. The demise of SVB, and now the collapse of Signature Bank, have stretched this system to a breaking point. The authorities are giving the same special exemption to Signature Bank, so all depositors will be made whole there too.

☆ Relax, SVB's implosion is nothing like the 2008 financial crisis, and the economy will be fine
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( Jacob Zinkula | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

But it's not a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis, when the government stepped in to support the US banking system. In recent days, many have drawn comparisons to the 2008 financial crisis, when the federal government doled out roughly $200 billion to hundreds of banks to support the US banking system. The size of SVB's bank failure has only been surpassed once in American history — by Washington Mutual when it collapsed in 2008. While the economy and markets aren't the same thing, a struggling market can be a negative leading indicator for a weakening economy. If the US economy does enter a recession as some experts expect, SVB's failure is unlikely to be the reason why.

☆ Politicians Are Using ‘Blight’ to Bulldoze Neighborhoods and Seize Property
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

☆ A psychology expert shares the 7 toxic signs of 'highly insecure' people—and how to deal with them
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Stefan Falk | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

And through my research, I've found that insecure people are often the most difficult to deal with. Here are their most common toxic behaviors, according to Harvard career expert Amy Gallo :Insecure types are extremely risk averse and unproductive. While feeling insecure is natural, problematic behaviors can develop when people consistently attempt to conceal or compensate for their self-doubt. Insecure types — whether in the form of a team member or boss — are all around us, so it's important to know how to deal with them efficiently. Count the interactions you've had with the insecure person.

☆ Nike's messy dispute over who gets credit for signing Michael Jordan is hitting the big screen in film starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Matthew Kish | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

That debate will get renewed attention in April when Ben Affleck and Matt Damon release "Air," a movie that recounts how Nike signed Jordan. "A lot of people want to take credit for signing Michael Jordan, most obviously Sonny Vaccaro." It's unclear if Vaccaro spoke with Knight, Vaccaro, or Jordan or if he relied on existing sources, including "Sole Man," an ESPN documentary about Vaccaro. Several books and news stories also have recounted how the Jordan deal came about, including parts of "Just do it," "Swoosh," and a sweeping 1992 story in the Washington Post. Regardless of the movie's spin on events, the Jordan deal was a pivotal moment for Nike.

☆ Inside Occupied Mariupol: Residents Scramble to Find Missing as Russia Rebuilds
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Inside Rivian and Ford’s Plants, as They Race to Build EVs Faster Rivian is under pressure to prove it can build its electric trucks at scale without having ramped up production before, as competition heats up from legacy auto makers. WSJ toured Rivian’s and Ford’s EV factories to see how they are pushing to meet demand. Illustration: Adam Falk/The Wall Street Journal

But they fear a harsh new anti-gay law passed by Russian lawmakers will leave them little choice. As the Kremlin prepared to finalize the expansion of the 2013 discriminatory anti-gay law, members of the LGBTQ community in Russia told CNN they feared the uncertain future ahead. Activists say a new legislative package that beefs up an existing anti-gay law is a threat to LGBTQ people in Russia. And it’s just reducing the space within which a non-heterosexual existence can comfortably take place in Russia,” Healey told CNN. Yulia Alyoshina, Russia's first transgender politician, said the new law was discriminatory and would make life tougher for Russia's LGBTQ community.

☆ What to Watch: The 19 Best New Movies and TV Shows From November
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-03 | by ( Wsj Arts In Review Staff | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Here’s a roundup of the month’s most noteworthy movies and TV shows, as covered by The Wall Street Journal’s critics. After the remake of “Murder on the Orient Express” revived the murder mystery in 2017, two years later “Knives Out” revived the subgenre of the comic whodunit best exemplified by such ’70s Peter Falk movies as “The Cheap Detective” and “Murder by Death.” When it comes to comedy, Daniel Craig is no Peter Falk, and in the second “Knives Out” movie, the biggest mystery remains, “Why is Daniel Craig’s Southern accent so terrible?” I half-expected the explanation to be that Mr. Craig’s detective Benoit Blanc is actually a suave English spy in disguise. Still, the nattily attired Blanc is not only a detective dandy, he’s a dandy detective, and “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” is breezy holiday entertainment.

☆ ‘Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery’ Review: Daniel Craig Solves a Puzzle on a Greek Isle
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-26 | by ( Kyle Smith | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +2 min

Still, the nattily attired Blanc is not only a detective dandy, he’s a dandy detective, and “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” is breezy holiday entertainment. All of them accept the offer to be guests at the lavish Greek island property of a jovial billionaire, Miles Bron ( Edward Norton ). We learn that he used to hang out with all of them at a tavern called the Glass Onion before he launched the tech business that made his fortune. Now he’s doing well enough to have built himself an enormous mansion topped by a palatial structure shaped like a glass onion. He boasts to his old friends that, unknown to his insurers, he has installed an override button that removes the protective glass housing around the masterpiece.

☆ KKR is canceling its plans for a big new Manhattan office. It joins Meta, Netflix, and other big firms pulling back on office space.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Daniel Geiger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Two senior leasing executives in Los Angeles told Insider that Meta just canceled its plans to expand by 300,000 square feet in the city. KKR's decision comes as New York City's office market flagsTenants who are on the fence about taking space have little incentive to rush to commit to deals as the city's office market continues to soften. Leasing activity in Manhattan totaled 20.27 million square feet through October, according to CBRE, 38% more than the same period last year. Leasing is on track to finish the year well below prepandemic activity in 2018 and 2019, when 32.4 million and 31.6 million square feet were leased respectively in total. Cushman & Wakefield data showed there was over 21 million square feet of sublease space available in Manhattan in September.

☆ France's Digital Virgo to list in U.S. in $513 mln SPAC deal
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Joyce Lee | Soo-Hyang Choi | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Nov 17 (Reuters) - Digital Virgo said on Thursday it would list in the United States in a blank-check deal that values the French mobile payments platform at $513 million, including debt. Digital Virgo is among a few companies that have opted to list in the United States at a time of severe market turbulence. read moreGoal Acquisitions Corp (PUCK.O) will acquire Digital Virgo shares at $10 apiece, with the deal providing the latter at least $100 million. A special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) is a listed company lacking an inherent business model, formed solely to take other firms public via mergers. Goal is led by sports executives including Harvey Schiller, Bill Duffy and basketball star Michael Jordan's former agent, David Falk.

Indiana's Republican-controlled legislature passed the law in May, overriding the veto of the state's Republican governor, Eric Holcomb, who had said it was unnecessary. Proponents of the law say that allowing transgender girls to play on girls' teams is unfair because they have a biological advantage. The mother of a 10-year-old transgender girl attending public school in Indianapolis then sued the school district in Indianapolis federal court, seeking to stop it from enforcing the law against her. The Indianapolis school district itself did not oppose the injunction, but the state of Indiana intervened to defend its law. A group of 19 Republican-led states filed their own brief supporting Indiana in September.

☆ Judge blocks Indiana abortion ban week after it took effect
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-22 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana judge on Thursday blocked the state’s abortion ban from being enforced, putting the new law on hold as abortion clinic operators argue that it violates the state constitution. Owen County Judge Kelsey Hanlon issued a preliminary injunction against the ban that took effect one week ago. The ban, which includes limited exceptions, replaced Indiana laws that generally prohibited abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy and tightly restricted them after the 13th week. The Indiana abortion ban includes exceptions allowing abortions in cases of rape and incest, before 10 weeks post-fertilization; to protect the life and physical health of the mother; and if a fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly. The new law also prohibited abortion clinics from providing any abortion care, leaving such services solely to hospitals or outpatient surgical centers owned by hospitals.

Abortion rights demonstrators protest outside the House chambers in the Indiana Statehouse during a special session to debate banning abortion in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S. August 2, 2022. REUTERS/Cheney Orr/File PhotoSept 19 (Reuters) - A Planned Parenthood affiliate and other abortion rights groups and providers on Monday urged an Indiana judge to block the state's ban on most abortions, which took effect last Thursday. The ACLU sued to challenge the law alongside Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai'i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky and others. He argued the ban puts Indiana residents' health at risk and that Hanlon should put it on hold while she considers the case. "That history forecloses any legitimate claim to a right to have an abortion under the Indiana constitution," he said.

☆ YouTube Home Tours Are Blowing Up. Enes Yilmazer Is Cashing In.
▼ + stars: | 2021-04-29 | by ( Adam Falk | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

E5A Cascades Home Designed to Feel Like Summer Camp Bill Broadhead says his family's second home – what he calls "Mid-Century mountain" – works best when it is full of guests. Beyond its six bedrooms and a bunk room that sleeps 13, common areas give guests plenty of room to spread out and enjoy the views. He gives us a tour. Photo: Bill Broadhead

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