Author: KnowledgeHippo
General Motors said on Tuesday that its profit in the final three months of 2023 was reduced by the cost of a 40-day strike at some of its US plants and an accounting charge related to electric vehicles.The automaker, which has seen rapid growth in sales of battery-powered models, earned $2.1 billion in the fourth quarter, it said, up from $2.0 billion a year earlier. GM’s revenue jumped about 10% to $171.8 billion.”The pace of EV growth has slowed, which has created some uncertainty,” the company’s chief financial officer, Paul Jacobson, said on a conference call.The strike, by the United…
There are more than four million electric vehicles on American roads, but fewer than 1,000 of them are heavy-duty trucks. On Tuesday, the three biggest truck makers announced a push to fix that shortfall, calling on governments and utilities to help them build many more places to charge big rigs.Daimler Truck, which owns Freightliner. Navistar, which is controlled by Volkswagen. and Volvo Group North America have formed an association to push for chargers, improvements to the electric grid and other measures they say are needed to promote trucks powered by batteries or hydrogen.The new organization, Powering America’s Commercial Transportation, will…
Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, suffered a stunning rebuke on Tuesday when a judge in Delaware struck down the pay package that helped make him a multi-billionaire and the world’s richest man.In a decision that cast a harsh light on the conduct of Mr. Musk and Tesla’s board, Chancellor Kathaleen St. billion — with the help of compliant board members.”The process that led to the approval of Musk’s compensation plan was deeply flawed,” the judge said. He ordered that the contract that gave Mr. Musk “the largest potential compensation plan in the history of public procurement” be voided…
A Delaware judge’s decision to strike down the pay package that helped make Elon Musk the world’s richest man leaves Tesla’s board of directors with some tough decisions to make.Chancellor Kathaleen St. Now the company’s directors must find a new compensation plan that can pass muster and satisfy Mr. Musk, who recently asked the board to significantly increase his Tesla ownership.Tesla and Mr. Musk could appeal the court ruling. Mr Musk said on Thursday he would seek to incorporate the company in Texas, a state he believes could be more welcoming to business. What about Mr. Musk’s stock options?As part…
Amazon entered the consumer chatbot fray on Thursday, announcing a new personal AI shopping assistant as the company struggles to catch up with other tech giants.Customers can ask questions about the tool, Rufus, directly in the search bar of the company’s mobile app, Amazon said in a blog post. The AI will then provide answers in a conversational tone. Examples provided in the announcement included a comparison of different types of coffee maker, gift recommendations, and a follow-up question about the durability of running shoes.Rufus will be available starting Thursday to a “small subset of customers,” according to the post,…
Apple had a lot of challenges to start the year. The Apple Watch has been dogged by patent lawsuits, the App Store has come under fire from developers, and the iPhone has faced renewed competition in China.To top it all off, the company was recently dethroned as the undisputed king of the stock market when Microsoft replaced it as the world’s most valuable public company.But on Thursday, the tech giant showed the agility and strength of its business, reporting that sales rose 2 percent to $119.58 billion during the three months ended in December. It was Apple’s first quarterly revenue…
Meta on Thursday reported a 25% rise in quarterly revenue while profits more than tripled, a rise fueled by its advertising business after a volatile 18 months of layoffs and a difficult digital advertising market.The Silicon Valley company, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, also said it will issue its first dividend, 50 cents per share. Dividends are usually associated with mature and slower growing companies. Meta made the announcement as it spends heavily on capital investments such as data centers and other infrastructure. The company also approved an additional $50 billion in stock purchases.The results sent Meta shares up…
A lawmaker in the Australian state of Victoria sat down to watch the nightly news Monday, expecting to see herself as a prominent opponent of duck hunting.But Victorian MP Georgie Purcell noticed that in a photo used by 9News, the tattoos on her lower back were missing.”I saw the image come up on the screen and I thought, ‘This is really weird’ because my stomach is heavily tattooed,” Ms Purcell said on Wednesday.She compared the image to the original photo, taken last year by a local newspaper, and realized that not only had her tattoos been removed, but her dress…
Listen and Follow “Hard Fork”Apple | Spotify | Amazon | YouTubeApple’s Vision Pro headphones are now on sale in stores. Will it live up to the hype? Kevin Roose and Casey Newton tried it out to see. Then, in a high-profile congressional hearing on child safety and social media, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, apologized to the families of victims of online child abuse. Is there new legislation on the horizon? And finally, what the collapse of Cruise, the autonomous vehicle company, means for the future of self-driving cars.Credits“Hard Fork” is hosted by Kevin Rouse and Casey Newton and are produced…
With space and weight limitations, what would you bring if you went to Mars? An ideal choice might be a single material that can shift shapes to any object you can imagine.In the morning, you could mold this stuff into dinnerware. When you finish breakfast, you can transform your fork and knife into a shovel to tend your garden on Mars. And then, when it’s happy hour on the red planet, that shovel could become a cup for your Martian beer.What sounds like science fiction is, perhaps, one step closer to reality. Researchers at the University of Chicago Pritzker School…