People – Page 18790 – I wish I had more to offer

Softbank-backed delivery app Rappi lays off 6% of workforce-statement

SAO PAULO/MEXICO CITY, Jan 9 (Reuters) – Softbank-backed Latin American delivery app Rappi has laid off 6% of its workforce, the company said in a statement, without providing a raw number on the job cuts. Rappi said Softbank Group Corp , which is a major shareholder and has a board seat, was involved in the… Continue reading Softbank-backed delivery app Rappi lays off 6% of workforce-statement

Fiat Chrysler plants in Windsor and Belvidere will idle for two weeks amid slow sales – The Detroit News

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV’s assembly plants in Windsor and Belvidere, Illinois, will idle for two weeks this month following a year of declining sales for the minivans and SUVs built in those plants. Windsor Assembly, which produces Chrysler Pacifica and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans, will be down for the weeks of Jan. 13 and Jan. 20, the… Continue reading Fiat Chrysler plants in Windsor and Belvidere will idle for two weeks amid slow sales – The Detroit News

@GM: Capital Markets Day and Q4 2019 Earnings Details Announced

Capital Markets Day and Q4 2019 Earnings Details Announced 2020-01-09 DETROIT — General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) will announce its fourth-quarter and full-year 2019 financial results and 2020 guidance on Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2020. Materials, including a press release and financial highlights, and Capital Markets Day presentation slides will be available on the company’s investor… Continue reading @GM: Capital Markets Day and Q4 2019 Earnings Details Announced

Brunswick and Sea Ray debut a boat loaded with futuristic features at CES

The automobile industry has experienced considerable change when it comes to powertrain and cabin technology features in the past decade, but what about boats? They’re also getting some cutting-edge upgrades made possible by the same technologies that are improving the power and performance of smartphones, and Sea Ray debuted a new top-end outboard boat at… Continue reading Brunswick and Sea Ray debut a boat loaded with futuristic features at CES

Empirico Raises $17M, Inks 3-Year Antisense Collaboration with Ionis

January 9th, 2020 Xconomy San Diego — Empirico, a biotech that has developed tools to analyze genomics data and use those insights to identify potential therapeutic targets, has signed a collaboration deal with antisense drug developer Ionis Pharmaceuticals that includes a $10 million equity investment. The 14-person startup, founded in 2017, has developed technology that… Continue reading Empirico Raises $17M, Inks 3-Year Antisense Collaboration with Ionis

Mercedes/BMW Ride-Hailing Group “Free Now” Buys 60 Tesla Automobiles

Invest
Electric Cars
Electric Car Benefits
Electric Car Sales
Solar Energy Rocks
RSS
Advertise
Privacy Policy

Cars

Published on January 9th, 2020 |

by Steve Hanley

Mercedes/BMW Ride-Hailing Group “Free Now” Buys 60 Tesla Automobiles

Twitter
LinkedIn
Facebook

January 9th, 2020 by Steve Hanley

Free Now is a mobility service owned jointly by Mercedes and BMW. What we call a mobility service today used to be known as a taxi company. The difference is that a mobility service uses a smartphone app to match up taxis with riders and handle payment. (There are also now taxi apps that do that.)

Credit: Free Now via Facebook

What is called Free Now today is a conglomeration of two prior app-based ride-hailing companies –mytaxi and Hailo. According to Wikipedia, mytaxi was founded in 2009 in Germany. In 2014, it was acquired by Mercedes-Benz. Hailo began in London in 2011 and merged with mytaxi in 2016, making mytaxi the largest licensed taxi e-hailing service in Europe and the UK. In February 2019, BMW became a partner with Mercedes and the name of the company was changed to Free Now.

According to a report by Handlesblatt, Free Now has decided to expand its fleet of electric taxis in Germany and will begin by adding 60 Teslas to its inventory of cars in Hamburg, which is where Free Now has its headquarters. The news report does not specify which Tesla models will be added to the fleet, but it’s a good bet that most if not all of them will be Model 3s.

Free Now is big business. It has about 28,000 drivers throughout Europe and the UK and experienced a 20% increase in ridership in Germany last year. It grossed over €2 billion in revenues in 2019 from 300 million trips by 39 million passengers. In all, it has 1,800 employees in 35 cities.

It is laudable that the company wants to expand its electric car fleet but sad that neither Mercedes nor BMW has electric cars of their own they consider up to the task. So, the score in the electric taxi revolution stands at Tesla 60, Mercedes and BMW 0. There’s no clearer indication of who is leading the charge toward an electric car future than that.

GM & LG Chem’s 30+ GWh Ohio Battery Gigafactory Highlights Rapid EV Industry Progress

Invest
Electric Cars
Electric Car Benefits
Electric Car Sales
Solar Energy Rocks
RSS
Advertise
Privacy Policy

Batteries

Published on January 9th, 2020 |

by Zachary Shahan

GM & LG Chem’s 30+ GWh Ohio Battery Gigafactory Highlights Rapid EV Industry Progress

Twitter
LinkedIn
Facebook

January 9th, 2020 by Zachary Shahan

“Gigafactory” isn’t yet in a Merriam-Webster dictionary, as far as I’ve seen, but it’s a fun term that Tesla CEO Elon Musk coined years ago for a large battery factory producing many gigawatt-hours worth of batteries a year. The original plan for Tesla’s first gigafactory, located in Nevada, was 35 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of annual production capacity, which was seen as a wild goal at the time — and many critics thought it would never come about. The market has changed much since then, and just one month ago GM and LG Chem announced a joint venture to build a 30+ GWh battery factory in Ohio, and drive down battery costs in the process. From the press release, it’s noted that the partnership aims to “drive cost per kilowatt hours to industry-leading levels.”

The two companies will equally own the joint venture, 50–50. Together, they’re putting in $2.3 billion to develop the gigafactory. (By the way, they don’t use the term gigafactory, just calling it a manufacturing facility or complex.)

The batteries will be used in GM electric vehicles, demonstrating that GM has more significant plans for vehicle electrification output than is probably presumed based on what’s on the market right now and the models expected to come to market in the next few years. Though, GM has indicated an intention to electrify more rapidly from the top down, starting with its Cadillac brand, which could be 100% electric by 2030. The images that came along with this press release implicitly reference the Cadillac plans.

“The joint venture between GM and LG Chem will create a battery cell assembly plant in the Lordstown area that will create more than 1,100 new jobs in support of GM’s next-generation battery-electric vehicle portfolio.” Photo courtesy GM.

Approximately 4 new fully electric Cadillac models will be coming out within the next two years. GM has hinted at an electric XT6 crossover, Escalade SUV, and high-performance sedan.

As noted in the headline, GM and LG Chem expect to directly produce 1,100 jobs in Ohio with this gigafactory. “With this investment, Ohio and its highly capable workforce will play a key role in our journey toward a world with zero emissions,” said GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra. “Combining our manufacturing expertise with LG Chem’s leading battery-cell technology will help accelerate our pursuit of an all-electric future. We look forward to collaborating with LG Chem on future cell technologies that will continue to improve the value we deliver to our customers.”

This partnership goes on top of GM’s previous $28 million investment in a battery lab in Warren, Michigan, which was revealed in late 2018. Ground is supposed to be broken on the new battery gigafactory in the Lordstown area of Northeast Ohio in the middle of this year, 2020.

GM and LG Chem have worked together for years, most notably collaborating to get the Chevy Bolt EV onto the US market before any other long-range, basically affordable electric vehicle. The new partnership indicates that the companies have worked together well in the past and appreciated what each partner contributed.

LG Chem is seen as an EV battery leader around the world and has contracts with many of the world’s automakers. However, it is a big step further to fully partner on an EV battery factory.

Overall, a takeaway from this story that I think stands out the most is how much the EV industry has changed in a handful of years. When Tesla announced its Gigafactory 1 plan in 2014, it was seen by many as a shocking, idealistic dream. (Some saw it as a logical, necessary step in the electrification of transport and assumed other automakers would need to do the same thing.) In the past year, Tesla has built the first phase of a second gigafactory, Tesla has announced a third gigafactory (in Germany) that it will break ground on soon, and GM and LG Chem have announced this Ohio gigafactory, the industry response to which seems to be “duh” rather than “wow.” That said, I think this is another major moment or milestone in the industry, as it’s one of a few recent announcements that have shown conventional automakers are increasingly acting like Tesla and showing an intention to genuinely mass produce electric vehicles and try to be leaders in this world in the 2020s and beyond.

Do I think GM and LG Chem should have run with the fun and called this Ohio complex a gigafactory? Naturally, I do, but much more important than terminology is putting the money down, building the factories, and putting zero-emissions electric vehicles onto the road as soon as possible.

I’ll end on a quote that is sure to ruffle some feathers and fill others with pride:

“Our joint venture with the No. 1 American automaker will further prepare us for the anticipated growth of the North American EV market, while giving us insights into the broader EV ecosystem,” said LG Chem Vice Chairman & CEO Hak-Cheol Shin.

Follow CleanTechnica on Google News.
It will make you happy & help you live in peace for the rest of your life.

About the Author

Zachary Shahan is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director and chief editor. He's also the CEO of Important Media. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao.

Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA] — after years of covering solar and EVs, he simply has a lot of faith in this company and feels like it is a good cleantech company to invest in. But he offers no investment advice and does not recommend investing in Tesla or any other company.

Support CleanTechnica – $3/Month

Advertise with CleanTechnica to get your company in front of millions of monthly readers.

Tesla’s $45m deal to acquire land outside Berlin is approved, but not out of the woods yet

A €41 million ($45 million) deal for Tesla to acquire land outside of Berlin to build its recently announced Gigafactory 4 has been approved by the state government, but it’s still not sealed yet. Last year, CEO Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla is going to build Gigafactory 4 in the “Berlin area.” The project will be… Continue reading Tesla’s $45m deal to acquire land outside Berlin is approved, but not out of the woods yet

Tesla driver charged with careless driving for flossing his teeth on Autopilot at 84 mph

A Tesla driver has been charged with careless driving in Oakville, Ontario, because he was flossing his teeth while driving on Autopilot at 135 km/h (84 mph). Ever since Tesla launched Autopilot, the public, media, and even some Tesla drivers have confused the driver-assist system for a full self-driving system. It has led to some… Continue reading Tesla driver charged with careless driving for flossing his teeth on Autopilot at 84 mph

Farm to Frameworks: French Duo Fork Into Sustainable Farming with Robotics

What began as two classmates getting their hands dirty at a farm in the French Alps has hatched a Silicon Valley farming startup building robots in Detroit and operating in one of the world’s largest agriculture regions. San Francisco-based FarmWise offers farmers an AI-driven robotic system for more sustainable farming methods, and to address a… Continue reading Farm to Frameworks: French Duo Fork Into Sustainable Farming with Robotics