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☆ Tesla offering discounts of over $1,300 on some U.S. Model 3 cars -website
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Hyunjoo Jin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

SAN FRANCISCO, May 19 (Reuters) - Tesla (TSLA.O) is offering discounts of more than $1,300 on some Model 3 cars in its U.S. inventory following even heavier discounts in Europe, according to a Reuters' review of its website, at a time when the electric carmaker has raised U.S. prices on most newly ordered cars this month. Tesla, which this year has aggressively cut vehicle prices in several regions, is resorting to the traditional automakers' tactic of offering incentives to clear inventory at a time when it faces economic headwinds and rising competition, industry analysts say. Tesla CEO Elon Musk told shareholders on Tuesday the company will try advertising for the first time, in a move seen by analysts to drum up demand. Musk also warned Tesla was not immune to the global economy, which he said will be difficult for the next 12 months. Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Ben Klayman and Nick ZieminskiOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin wins NASA contract to build astronaut lunar lander
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Joey Roulette | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/3] Founder, Chairman, CEO and President of Amazon Jeff Bezos unveils his space company Blue Origin's space exploration lunar lander rocket called Blue Moon during an unveiling event in Washington,... Read moreWASHINGTON, May 19 (Reuters) - A team led by Jeff Bezos' space company Blue Origin won a coveted NASA contract to build a spacecraft to send astronauts to and from the moon's surface, NASA's chief announced on Friday, capping a high-stakes contest. NASA's decision will give the agency a second ride to the moon under its Artemis program, after it awarded Elon Musk's SpaceX $3 billion in 2021 to land astronauts on the moon for the first time since the final Apollo mission in 1972. Those initial missions using SpaceX's Starship system are slated for later this decade. Reporting by Joey Roulette, editing by Ben Klayman and Nick ZieminskiOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Bezos' Blue Origin wins NASA contract to build astronaut lunar lander
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Joey Roulette | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The Blue Origin contract is valued roughly $3.4 billion, NASA's exploration chief Jim Free said, with Blue Origin privately contributing "well north" of that amount, Blue Origin's lunar lander head John Couluris said. Blue Origin plans to build its 52-foot (16-meter) tall Blue Moon lander in a partnership with Lockheed Martin (LMT.N), Boeing(BA.N), spacecraft software firm Draper, and robotics firm Astrobotic. Friday's announcement in Washington was a long-awaited outcome for Blue Origin, which had unsuccessfully had competed for past contracts. After losing in 2021, Blue Origin unsuccessfully fought to overturn NASA's decision to ignore its Blue Moon lander, first with a watchdog agency and then in court. Blue Origin and lawmakers had pressured NASA to award a second lunar lander contract to promote commercial competition and ensure the agency has a backup ride to the moon.

☆ Tesla offering discounts of over $1,300 on some U.S. Model 3 cars
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Hyunjoo Jin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/2] Workers walk among a row of Tesla Model 3 electric vehicles at Tesla's primary vehicle factory in Fremont, California, U.S. May 11, 2020. REUTERS/Stephen LamSAN FRANCISCO, May 19 (Reuters) - Tesla (TSLA.O) is offering discounts of more than $1,300 on some Model 3 cars in its U.S. inventory following even heavier discounts in Europe, according to a Reuters' review of its website, at a time when the electric carmaker has raised U.S. prices on most newly ordered cars this month. Tesla CEO Elon Musk told shareholders on Tuesday the company will try advertising for the first time, in a move seen by analysts to drum up demand. Musk also warned Tesla was not immune to the global economy, which he said will be difficult for the next 12 months. Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Ben Klayman and Nick ZieminskiOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

But Michelin, Continental and Pirelli (PIRC.MI) told Reuters they are pursuing alternatives to 6PPD, with Michelin and Continental adding collective industry action may be necessary to find solutions. Continental said its dandelion tyres were developed to find a sustainable form of natural rubber, and addressing 6PPD was a separate focus. The worst-performing rival tyres Michelin has tested so far emit around 8 kg per year. Michelin and Continental said they are already focused on making their tyres more durable - Michelin cut its tyre emissions 5% between 2015 and 2020, Roget said. "The advent of the EV is the time to make this change," to improve tyres," Enso's Erlendsson said.

Musk revealed those plans on Tuesday at the company's annual meeting, an about-face for the celebrity executive who recently acquired social media platform Twitter. Musk told CNBC he did not yet have a "fully formed strategy" for Tesla advertising. Tesla spent $151,947 on advertising in the U.S. in 2022, according to advertising intelligence firm Vivvix, which measured ads across places including TV, social media, Web banners and billboards. Diaz-Ortiz is a former Twitter manager who has written books about the social media company. Thomas Martin, senior portfolio manager at Tesla shareholder Globalt Investments, sees Musk's embrace of advertising as a positive.

The unboxed assembly process is intended to enable Tesla to hit that ambitious price target. Several big questions loom: What sort of impact will Tesla's process have on the auto industry overall? Body panels are painted separately, then joined together toward the end of the assembly process. If everything works as planned, the unboxed process could rewrite the industry's standard playbook and practices. Oba worked previously for the Toyota Production System Support Center, a division that helps the automaker's suppliers and others implement TPS.

☆ Battle for China's electric SUV market heats up at home and abroad
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

The trend will spread abroad with growing exports of China-made electric SUVs. The market for SUVs has boomed in China over the past decade and now represents almost 40% of all cars sold, with 400 SUV models of all fuel types. Legacy automakers Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE), BMW (BMWG.DE) and Toyota (7203.T) are counting on new electric SUVs to bolster China sales. Tesla and Renault (RENA.PA) have already been exporting their China-made electric SUVs to Europe on a large scale. Chinese automakers have their own plans to grow electric SUV sales to Europe.

☆ US airlines thrown a curveball as consumer habits change post-pandemic
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Rajesh Kumar Singh | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Even as the thirst for travel remains strong, the changing trends are driving up airlines' operating costs and hurting revenue. Travel demand has also softened on days in the middle of the week, but has strengthened on peak days. Frontier Airlines (ULCC.O) decided to slash flights on Tuesdays and Wednesdays by about 20%, citing weak demand. Delta Airlines (DAL.N) reported that bookings for trips inside 30 days were declining, while those outside 30 days were stronger. Last year, it denied boarding to more customers than American Airlines (AAL.O) and United, U.S. Transportation Department data shows.

☆ Analysis: Battle for China's electric SUV market heats up at home and abroad
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

"That's what we are looking towards as we are working with our pilots union to get a deal done." American Airlines, United Airlines (UAL.O) and Southwest Airlines (LUV.N) are all in the middle of contract negotiations with their pilots. The carrier's pilot union said it made no concessions in the deal, which included dozens of work-rule improvements and quality-of-life related items. In an update to its members this week, United's pilot union said it is seeking similar improvements. Casey Murray, head of the Dallas-based airline's pilot union, said it has lost more pilots in the first four months of this year than it did in all of 2022.

Starship is SpaceX's next-generation rocket crucial for the company's commercial launch business and Musk's aim to start human colonies on Mars. The U.S. offers few such options and export controls would make building a foreign launch site difficult. SpaceX has eyed another Kennedy Space Center launch site for future Starship launches, LC-49, a few miles from LC-39A. But that location is in the midst of a lengthy environmental review that could take years. Plans for that orbital launch site, Spaceport Camden, were nixed by a local referendum after a lawsuit raised concerns about its environmental impact.

☆ GM to end production of Chevrolet Bolt EV later this year
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( David Shepardson | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/3] A close-up view of the Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicle is seen at Stewart Chevrolet in Colma, California, U.S., October 3, 2017. "We have progressed so far that it's now time to plan to end the Chevrolet Bolt EV and EU production, which will happen at the very end of the year," GM CEO Mary Barra told investors on Tuesday. The Bolt, GM's first mass market EV, still accounts for more than 90% of all U.S. GM EV sales. The Bolt was preceded by the Chevrolet Volt -- a plug-in hybrid that GM ended production in 2019. The recall prompted GM to halt Bolt production and sales for more than six months.

"The Tesla bull case has centered around the company's growth goals, which it is failing to meet." Tesla's stock is trading at about 43 times expected earnings, down from astronomical levels above 200 times in 2021, according to Refinitiv data. Tesla on Wednesday doubled down on the price war it started at the end of last year, as Musk said the company would prioritize sales growth ahead of profit. In the first quarter, Tesla posted its lowest quarterly gross profit margin in two years. You're investing in Elon Musk," said Kim Forrest, chief investment officer of Bokeh Capital Partners.

[1/3] BMW's concept model i Vision Dee is unveiled during an event at the Auto Shanghai show, in Shanghai, China April 18, 2023. While the battery-electric vehicle market share of German automakers in China is rising, it is still miniscule. The EV sales of all four German brands added up to only a quarter of BYD's in 2022. "The Chinese market is no longer as stable for German carmakers as it was," Thomas Luk, partner at management consultancy Kearney, said on the sidelines of the Shanghai show. Many are also adopting direct sales, an approach German automakers like BMW and Mercedes-Benz have also said in recent months they are moving towards.

[1/6] Tundra trucks and Sequoia SUV's exit the assembly line as finished products at Toyota's truck plant in San Antonio, Texas, U.S. April 17, 2023. TOYOTA'S PAST SUCCESSWashington's push to accelerate the shift to battery-electric vehicles amplifies the threat posed by Tesla to Toyota's position as the world's largest automaker. Toyota San Antonio has weathered a series of challenges since it built its first truck in 2006. The future for factories like Toyota San Antonio will play out across the next several years. Reporting by Norihiko Shirouzu in San Antonio, Texas, Joseph White in Detroit and David Shepardson in Washington Written by Joseph White Editing by Ben Klayman and Matthew LewisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The Dallas-based carrier has blamed the hour-long outage on a vendor-supplied network firewall failure, causing a temporary loss of connection to key systems. Southwest told Reuters on Wednesday it opted to halt flights out of caution, adding there were no indications of a cyber attack. It declined to identify the vendor and did not address why this failure was not part of the company's planning. While the exact cause is not clear, some industry experts questioned why Southwest systems did not include more redundancy. Southwest was able to manually launch flights while SWIFT was down but decided to suspend departures at 8:27 a.m. CST.

☆ Analysis: China’s Xpeng takes cues from Tesla for its new EV platform
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-18 | by ( Paul Lienert | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] He Xiaopeng, the co-founder, chairman and CEO of XPeng Motors attends a news conference ahead of the Shanghai Auto Show, in Shanghai, China April 16, 2023. "It's obvious the design of the (G6) came from the Model Y," industry analyst Sandy Munro told Reuters. Xpeng's simplified vehicle platform design - in effect, a three-piece frame that is both flexible and scalable - saves on parts, tooling, development and assembly time, and appears to have been lifted from Tesla, according to Munro. Such a platform has the potential to give Tesla, Xpeng and other automakers considering this approach a new weapon to help restore margins hit by recent price wars in China and other markets. Reporting by Paul Lienert in Detroit, Editing by Ben Klayman and Matthew LewisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

REUTERS/Aude GuerrucciLOS ANGELES, April 17 (Reuters) - United Parcel Service (UPS.N) and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union will on Monday start U.S. private sector labor contract talks covering roughly 340,000 U.S. drivers, package handlers and loaders at the global delivery firm. The powerful Teamsters union wants an agreement that shares billions of dollars in UPS pandemic profits with workers, exerts leverage over other negotiations and helps to recruit new members - including Amazon warehouse workers. UPS, the world's biggest parcel delivery firm and No. "Failure is not an option," Teamsters General President Sean O'Brien told a rally on an April 2 in Boston. These are the first labor talks for both O'Brien and UPS CEO Carol Tomé.

Meanwhile, BlackRock is part of another group investing $650 million to build chargers along freight routes. Because port real estate is at a premium, most early drayage charging projects will be "behind the fence" on trucking company property, experts said. Electric trucks cannot operate without chargers, but it does not make sense to build chargers if drivers are not using electric trucks. Prologis, the biggest U.S. warehouse owner, created its mobility business to install electric truck chargers and solar panels. "A marriage between real estate and energy infrastructure" will be needed to accelerate the transition to electric-powered trucking, Prologis Mobility's Holland said.

☆ Analysis: Rocket startups face adapt-or-die moment amid investment drought
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-17 | by ( Joey Roulette | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Venture investment in space startups has dropped 50% year-over-year in 2022 to $21.9 billion, according to VC firm Space Capital. Astra Space (ASTR.O), which ditched its small Rocket 3.3 for a planned, larger Rocket 4 in the next few years, has struggled to bring its stock price above $1, facing delisting threats from Nasdaq. Despite the startups' struggles, launch demand has soared after sanctions following Russia's invasion of Ukraine cut off access to Russian rockets. Recent failures with Europe's Arianespace's Vega-C rocket have added to demand in the U.S., outstripping the number of available rockets. Private plans to deploy mega-constellations, vast swarms of satellites in low-Earth orbit, have also given launch startups hope for future demand.

☆ Lack of electric vans opens door for Chinese, other EV makers
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Nick Carey | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

[1/3] Tristan Thomas, CEO of Packfleet, demonstrates charging an electric van made by Chinese brand Maxus at the fully-electric package delivery firm's headquarters in London, Britain, October 27, 2022. Packfleet grew tenfold in 2022 and CEO Tristan Thomas said most of the company's 53-vehicle fleet are Maxus vans. SAIC said it sold 18,000 mostly electric Maxus brand vehicles in Western Europe and Scandinavia last year, including buses and pickup trucks. Fleet manager Sean Clifton has 50 additional Ford vans and 20 Maxus vans on order, but will need more soon as Asda electrifies its 1,300 delivery vans. There is no difference in delays for conventional and electric vans at Renault, said commercial vehicle marketing director John Cleworth.

☆ Analysis: Twitter's advertising business seen facing slow recovery
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Sheila Dang | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Musk, who also runs electric carmaker Tesla Inc (TSLA.O), earlier this week told the BBC that most of Twitter's advertisers are returning to the platform and the business was "roughly breaking even." Research firm Insider Intelligence this week slashed its forecast for Twitter's global ad revenue this year by 37% to $2.98 billion. That would represent a 28% decline from Twitter's 2022 ad revenue of $4.14 billion. 33 among Twitter's top advertisers before Musk's acquisition, according to Sensor Tower. Twitter's ad business is "eroding" and its subscription product Twitter Blue is seeing only moderate success, Similarweb said in a blog post.

[1/3] U.S. President Joe Biden attends the groundbreaking of the new Intel semiconductor manufacturing facility in New Albany, Ohio, U.S., September 9, 2022. But all that new construction has a real estate problem. That would be a problem for the Biden administration, which has pushed through legislation to fuel the developments. A White House official said it was a "high-class problem" to have, adding: "Folks are finding places to build. The governors of South Carolina, Virginia and North Carolina have each proposed to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on readying industrial sites in the coming years.

Higher costs and a shortage of available new parts are also delaying aircraft repairs, which risk pushing up air fares. Some makers of brand-name parts like General Electric Co (GE.N) stand to benefit because they also sell used parts, known as used serviceable material. Honeywell Aerospace Trading (HON.O), the U.S. conglomerate's used parts business, is among companies enjoying higher demand since 2021. Ultimately, the alternatives to new parts may bring relief but a congested supply chain must be fixed, said Benjamin Hockenberg, president of JSSI Parts & Leasing. "Certain models, certain situations, (used parts) will fill the void, but I think we also need to see a repaired supply chain," said Hockenberg.

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