Tesla price cut sees customers storm stores to demand compensation—and a rival BYD employee may have led the charge

Christiaan Hetzner

Mon, January 9, 2023 

Elon Musk’s gambit to slash Tesla prices in China may have partly backfired as angry owners protested the instant loss of value of their new vehicles over the weekend.

Feeling the heat from local rival BYD, Tesla lowered the entry point for its two main model lines on Friday to lure customers back into showrooms and build up its depleted order book.

The move worked, but not entirely for the reason desired.

A mob of angry Tesla customers reportedly showed up at several Tesla showrooms across the country demanding some form of compensation for buying a new car at the older, higher prices.

One protest even appears to have at least in part been organized by none other than an employee from Tesla’s biggest competitor.

A man identifying himself on Chinese social media site Weibo as "Wang Xingguang" acknowledged he had participated in a protest at the Tesla dealership in Xi’an, Shaanxi province. He claimed he was there strictly in a personal capacity, not as an employee of BYD.

Whether credible or not, his confession only encouraged further gloating in the Tesla community, because he revealed being there on behalf of his wife. A Tesla customer herself, she apparently preferred Musk’s cars to those built by her own husband’s employer.

“I defend my family's rights and interests, which is a personal act and has nothing to do with the company I work for,” he posted to Weibo. “As a family member of the car owner, can't I protect my rights?”

With legacy automakers still diverting much of their attention to their bread-and-butter combustion engine business to the detriment of their less-profitable EV models, China’s BYD has emerged as Tesla’s single biggest competitor.

The carmaker is not as well known internationally as other main competitors like General Motors, Ford or Volkswagen, because BYD has only just begun to sell vehicles outside of China.

BYD's vehicle sales in China doubled those of Tesla and then some last year, although the former's revenue per unit was nowhere near as high due to lower average selling prices.

Why is Tesla cutting prices?

The price cut, Tesla’s second since late October, is a subject of intense debate given ongoing fears that Musk’s incredible growth story is starting to take on water as production begins to exceed demand.

The last time Musk lowered the starting price of his vehicles, the stimulative effect lasted only briefly.

While weekly unit sales tripled to 16,000 by the end of November, they subsequently dropped to just 4,338 going into the new year.

For the moment, the fresh cuts appear to have spurred some improved demand in the world's largest EV market, but only for certain Model Y crossovers.

Wait times for the single motor entry version and the maximum range dual motor variant have now widened to two to five weeks.

Every other Chinese-built model continued to feature the same one- to four-week waiting times as before. In the past, Chinese customers might not have had their new Tesla vehicle delivered for months.

[hotlink ignore=true]News of the budding price war sent shares of Chinese EV manufacturers tumbling on Friday and even briefly pushed Tesla stock to a fresh two-year low.

Bulls have argued Tesla’s automotive gross margins of near 30% give it the wherewithal to withstand a withering price war far longer than less profitable competitors, including BYD.

They have cited comments for example from Tesla official Grace Tao, who posted to her Weibo account on Friday that the cuts would not dilute margins since they could be offset by “numerous engineering innovations.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

SK On says it is undecided whether to proceed with battery venture with Ford, Koc


The logo of SK Innovation is seen in front of its headquarters in Seoul

Sun, January 8, 2023 

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean electric vehicle battery maker SK On said on Monday it has not decided whether to pursue a battery cell venture in Turkey with Ford Motor Co and Koc Holding AS, after signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in March.

The Dong-A Ilbo daily newspaper earlier reported, citing an unidentified source, that SK On plans to scrap the idea due to a weak macro economic environment.

"After signing the MoU in March 2022, we have been discussing the joint venture case in Turkey, but discussions have not been completed. The final decision whether or not to halt negotiations regarding the joint venture has not been made yet," SK On said in a statement.

SK On is the wholly owned battery unit of SK Innovation Co Ltd, and counts Hyundai Motor Co, Volkswagen AG and Ford Motor among its customers.

In announcing the joint venture plans in March, SK On said the partners aimed for annual production capacity of 30-45 gigawatt hours (GWh) with production starting in 2025.

SK On has battery manufacturing sites in South Korea, China, Hungary and the United States.

(Reporting by Heekyong Yang; Editing by Christopher Cushing)


Ford, SK Cancel Turkey Battery Joint Venture Plan, Daily Reports



Heejin Kim and Shinhye Kang
Sun, January 8, 2023

(Bloomberg) -- Ford Motor Co. and SK Innovation Co.’s battery unit canceled plans to build an electric-vehicle battery plant in Turkey amid rising global interest rates and weaker EV demand in Europe, the Korea Economic Daily reported.

The two companies recently withdrew an initial accord that was signed in March 2022, the paper said Monday, citing unidentified sources. The plant was slated to start operation as soon as 2025 with annual production capacity of 30 to 45 gigawatt hours and was part of a push by Ford to produce 2 million electric vehicles a year by 2026.

In a text message response to Bloomberg News, SK On said it hasn’t decided whether to stop negotiations with Ford on setting up the joint venture in Turkey.

--With assistance from Seyoon Kim.

US tech giants say Indian panel's recommended competition act 'absolutist and regressive'



Manish Singh
Sun, January 8, 2023

An influential industry group that represents Google, Meta and Amazon, among other tech firms, has expressed concerns about the digital competition law recommended by an Indian parliamentary panel that seeks to regulate their alleged anticompetitive practices, calling the proposal "absolutist and regressive" in nature in the latest escalation of tension between U.S. tech giants and New Delhi.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance recommended last month that the government enact a digital competition act to regulate anticompetitive business practices by Big Tech companies on its platforms, prohibiting them from preferentially promoting their in-house brands or not supporting third-party systems. The competition act, the panel said, “will be a boon not only for our country and its nascent startup economy but also for the entire world.”

Industry group Asia Internet Coalition said in a statement that the proposed digital competition law may hurt digital innovation in India and could impact the investments by businesses in India and have "disproportionate costs" to consumers in the South Asian market. "The report put forward by the committee is prescriptive, absolutist and regressive in nature," it added.

The Indian panel said last month that its recommendation was systemically important to counter monopoly and warned that tech giants "must not favour its own offers over the offers of its competitors" when acting as mediators to supply and sales markets.

The parliamentary panel’s recommendation cites the EU’s proposed Digital Markets Act and the U.S.’s American Innovation and Choice Online Act and the Open App Market Act.

The industry group AIC said that both AICOA and OAMA have "failed to attain bipartisan support due to substantive disagreements and concerns for unintended consequences on consumers, growth, and innovation. In sum, there is no consensus that a DMA-style ex ante legislation is the way forward for addressing potential competition concerns in the digital space,” it said in the statement.

India is the world's second largest internet market and has in the past decade attracted more than $75 billion in investment from firms including Google, Meta and Amazon, and investment shops Sequoia, Lightspeed, SoftBank and Tiger Global. New Delhi has enforced and proposed a number of policy changes in the past three years to bring more accountability and fairness in how the tech firms operate in the country in moves that have rattled many U.S. giants.

New Delhi is entering 2023 with several more such policy changes, including a telecom law that would tighten the government's grip on internet firms.

"We urge the government to first observe whether these overseas regulatory developments bring about benefits that outweigh costs. Specifically, it is important to note that the government has recently proposed two significant bills, i.e the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill and the Competition Amendment Bill (CAB), both of which seek to protect consumers, preserve competition and promote tech innovation, with a special focus on digital markets," said Asia Internet Coalition.

"Accordingly, it is critical to first understand the effects of these two bills on the digital ecosystem before introducing any new legislative proposals."

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said last month that India was going through an important period of time as it drafts several key regulations and asserted that it stands to benefit from open and connected internet.

PRICE GOUGING

Moderna considers pricing COVID vaccine at $110-$130 - WSJ

Mon, January 9, 2023 

Jan 9 (Reuters) - Moderna Inc is considering pricing its COVID-19 shot at $110 to $130 per dose in the United States when it shifts from government contracting to commercial distribution of the shots, the company's Chief Executive Officer Stephane Bancel told the Wall Street Journal on Monday.

"I would think this type of pricing is consistent with the value," said Bancel, according to the WSJ report, adding the company was in discussions with hospital systems, pharmacies and pharmacy-benefit managers to line up distribution of its vaccine ahead of a potential fall booster shot campaign.

Moderna had previously estimated the commercial price expectations in a range of $64 to $100 a shot.

Moderna did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the report.

In October last year, rival Pfizer Inc said it planned to hike its COVID vaccine's price to about the same range - $110 to $130 per dose - after the United States government's current purchase program expires. 

(Reporting by Raghav Mahobe in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)

United Arab Emirates says it will teach Holocaust in schools


FILE, -The Emirati and Israeli flags fly overhead as Israeli President Isaac Herzog gives a speech at Expo 2020 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Monday, Jan. 31, 2022. When Israel struck an agreement to establish diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates in 2020, but two years after an expected windfall of Gulf Arab tourists to Israel has been little more than a trickle.

Mon, January 9, 2023 

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates will begin teaching about the Holocaust in history classes in primary and secondary schools across the country, the country's embassy in the United States said.

The embassy provided no details on the curriculum and education authorities in the Emirates, a federation of seven sheikhdoms, on Monday did not acknowledge the announcement.

However, the announcement comes after the UAE normalized relations with Israel in 2020 as part of a deal brokered by the administration of President Donald Trump.

“In the wake of the historic (hashtag)AbrahamAccords, (the UAE) will now include the Holocaust in the curriculum for primary and secondary schools,” the embassy said in a tweet, referring to the normalization deal that also saw Bahrain and ultimately Morocco also recognize Israel.

Ambassador Deborah E. Lipstadt, the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, praised the announcement in her own tweet.

“Holocaust education is an imperative for humanity and too many countries, for too long, continue to downplay the Shoah for political reasons,” Lipstadt wrote, using a Hebrew word for the Holocaust. “I commend the UAE for this step and expect others to follow suit soon.”

The announcement comes as a meeting of the Negev Forum Working Groups, which grew out of the normalization, began in Abu Dhabi on Monday. Officials from Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Morocco, the UAE and the U.S. are to attend. Egypt has diplomatically recognized Israel for decades.

In the Holocaust, Nazi Germany systematically killed 6 million European Jews during World War II. Israel, founded in 1948 as a haven for Jews in the wake of the Holocaust, grants automatic citizenship to anyone of Jewish descent.

Other Arab nations have refused to diplomatically recognize Israel over its decades-long occupation of land Palestinians want for their future state.

The announcement by the UAE also comes after the federation and other Arab nations condemned an ultranationalist Israeli Cabinet minister for visiting a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site last week, for the first time since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new far-right government took office.

The site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, is the holiest site in Judaism, home to the ancient biblical Temples. Today, it houses the Al Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam. Since Israel captured the site in 1967, Jews have been allowed to visit but not pray there.

___

Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

Court revives claims by Texas death row inmate backed by DA


In courtrooms across America, defendants get additional prison time for crimes that juries found they didn’t commit. The Supreme Court is being asked, again, to put an end to the practice.

MARK SHERMAN
Mon, January 9, 2023 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday revived claims by a Texas inmate who has the rare support of the state prosecutor's office that put him on death row.

The justices threw out a Texas appeals court ruling that refused to grant the inmate, Areli Escobar, a new trial. The state appeals court had overruled a lower court judge who documented the flaws in the forensic evidence used to convict Escobar.

The high court's action returns the case to the appeals court.

Escobar was convicted and sentenced to death in the May 2009 fatal stabbing and sexual assault of Bianca Maldonado, a 17-year-old high school student in Austin. They lived in the same apartment complex.

The focus of the prosecution case against Escobar was evidence from the Austin Police Department's DNA lab.

But a later audit turned up problems at the lab that led Judge David Wahlberg of the Travis County District Court to conclude that Escobar's trial was unfair.

“The State’s use of unreliable, false, or misleading DNA evidence to secure (Escobar's) conviction violated fundamental concepts of justice,” Wahlberg wrote.

When the case returned to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Travis County prosecutors no longer were defending the conviction. Voters had elected a new district attorney, Jose Garza, who ran on a promise to hold police accountable in Austin, the state capital and county seat.

But the appeals court refused to go along, saying it had conducted its own review that justified affirming the conviction and sentence, and not mentioning the prosecution's change of position. Even after Garza's office pointed out it was no longer standing behind the conviction, the appeals court stuck with its ruling.

In its filing with the Supreme Court, Garza's office wrote that prosecutors have a duty to see justice done and that the appeals court “undermined the District Attorney’s historical role in the criminal justice system.”

Escobar's lawyers, unsurprisingly, agreed, telling the court that their case is so clear, the justices could reverse the appellate ruling without hearing arguments.

“If ever there were a case calling for summary reversal, it is this capital case. Denying the petition would be a grave miscarriage of justice,” they wrote.

EPA, pipeline operator reach deal to clean up Kansas spill


HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH
Mon, January 9, 2023 

MISSION, Kan. (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday that it has reached an agreement with a pipeline operator to clean up a spill that dumped 14,000 bathtubs’ worth of crude oil into a rural Kansas creek.

The agency said in a news release that the Dec. 7 rupture of the Keystone pipeline affected 3 1/2 miles of the creek as it flows through rural pastureland in Washington County, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northwest of Kansas City.

The order requires TC Oil Pipeline Operations Inc., whose parent company is Canadian-based TC Energy, to recover oil and oil-contaminated soil and vegetation and contain the further spread of oil in the creek.

Meg McCollister, an EPA regional administrator, said in a statement that the federal government and the state are “committed to a thorough cleanup and restoration."

The 2,700-mile (4,345-kilometer) Keystone system carries heavy crude oil extracted from tar sands in western Canada to the Gulf Coast and to central Illinois.

The cause of the 14,000-barrel spill hasn't yet been announced. Each barrel is 42 gallons, the size of a household bathtub.

But U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat who chairs the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, raised concerns in a letter Monday about the decision to grant TC Energy a permit that allowed the pressure inside parts of the Keystone system — including the stretch through Kansas — to exceed the typical maximum permitted levels.

“This latest spill is no surprise," Cantwell told the deputy administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration in demanding a review of the permit.

The spill was the largest onshore in nine years and larger than 22 previous spills on the Keystone system combined, according to U.S. Department of Transportation data.

The company and government officials have said drinking water supplies were not affected. No one was evacuated, and most of the Keystone system was back in operation in eight days.

Concerns that spills could pollute waterways spurred opposition to plans by TC Energy to build another crude oil pipeline in the same system, the 1,200-mile (1,900-kilometer) Keystone XL, across Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska. President Joe Biden’s cancelation of a permit for the project led the company to pull the plug on the project last year.

 Cost of IRS funding repeal? More than $100 billion, says federal budget watchdog.

 Jan. 10, 2023
By Robert Schroeder

Stopping new money to the Internal Revenue Service would cost the government in the long run, a budget group warned Monday.

House Republicans’ plans to repeal billions of dollars of funding for the Internal Revenue Service would boost the U.S.’s red ink by more than $100 billion over the next decade, a budget watchdog estimated Monday, hours before the GOP approved the measure.

Approved on a party-line, 220-213 vote Monday night, the measure takes aim at $80 billion in extra funding for the IRS that was included in the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act — their big climate, healthcare and tax package. The vote followed approval of a package of rules for the new session of Congress — which some Republicans had voiced opposition to but which ultimately garnered all GOP votes but one.


The aim of the extra money for the IRS is to expand support for the agency’s operations, modernize its systems, improve customer service and strengthen tax enforcement, as the Committee for a Responsible Budget summarized in a new analysis Monday.

Denying the agency the funding, says the CRFB, would increase federal deficits by well over $100 billion over a decade, including $30 billion in 2031 alone.

The IRS measure is one of a few items that House Republicans are prioritizing as they get down to business in the new Congress. Because Democrats control the Senate, however, it won’t pass that chamber, so the bill is largely symbolic.

Still, campaigning against the IRS featured heavily in Republicans’ midterm election pitches, with candidates warning that the legislation empowers 87,000 new agents to target middle-income Americans. That figure has been dubbed misleading, however, by fact checkers including the Associated Press, which noted many hires will be used to replace some 50,000 IRS employee retirements in coming years. Others will become customer-service representatives answering taxpayer phone calls.

TaxWatch (November 2022): IRS loses $500 billion a year to unpaid taxes — but it’s about to invest $80 billion in administration and enforcement

Bill Gates considers W.Va. to expand nuclear energy efforts


Bill Gates speaks during the Global Fund's Seventh Replenishment Conference, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022, in New York. Gates topped The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual list of the 10 largest charitable gifts announced by individuals or their foundations in 2022. This year's list totaled nearly $9.3 billion. Gates gave $5 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to back the grantmaker’s work in global health, development, policy and advocacy, and U.S. education. 

LEAH WILLINGHAM
Mon, January 9, 2023

GLASGOW, W.Va. (AP) — Bill Gates is looking to West Virginia as he plans for the next phase of his effort to reboot U.S. nuclear energy technology: powering the east coast.

Microsoft co-founder Gates, who visited a closed down coal-fired plant in Glasgow, West Virginia on Monday, said he needs to see how his Natrium nuclear reactor demonstration in Wyoming performs before making any announcements about new sites. The Kemmerer, Wyoming sodium-cooled nuclear reactor is taking over the site of a current coal-powered plant and was scheduled to be online by 2028, but is facing delays because its only source of fuel was uranium from Russia, now at war with Ukraine.

However, during a visit to the American Electric Power plant, which closed in 2015, Gates called the West Virginia’s Legislature’s decision last year to repeal the state’s ban on nuclear power facilities “quite impressive" and said he's looking for sites to expand his efforts to the east coast.

West Virginia’s new law has opened the door to discussions with American Electric Power during the last six months, said Gates, who founded TerraPower, the company behind the $4 billion project in Wyoming.

“Really, I think six months ago we really weren’t on their radar much at all, nuclear wasn’t, but the Legislature did say, ‘Okay, we’re open-minded to nuclear’ and that was quite impressive,” he said of the American Electric Power plant, known as AEP.

The Wyoming coal-fired power plant that is being converted for the sodium-cooled nuclear reactor is scheduled to close in 2025, when Gates said its 200 employees will stay on and transition to working with nuclear energy. The demonstration project comes as many U.S. states see nuclear emerging as an option to help transition energy production away from coal, oil and natural gas to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Wyoming plant will feature a sodium reactor and molten salt energy storage system that will perform better, more safely and cost less than a traditional nuclear power, Gates said.

TerraPower CEO Chris Levesque said sites like the Glasgow plant are “ready and capable" to support a plant like Natrium because the company can take advantage of existing infrastructure, like the grid connection.

“You can get a two-year jump on this one — this is ready to go now,” Democratic Sen. Manchin joked, as he accompanied Gates on a tour of the plant in Glasgow.

The coal-fired plant, known as the Kanawha River Plant, is located along the Kanawha River in Glasgow, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) southeast from Charleston. It went into operation in 1953 and was retired in May 2015 as part of AEP’s plan to comply with the U.S. EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.

Gates said that as the Wyoming project matures, it will be more clear how efforts can be expanded to new sites and will give utility companies the time needed to look at their overall strategy and see how and if nuclear power fits in.

“We hope to say, three years from now, have a couple of utilities that have a pretty solid plan and that Natrium is a part of their multi-decade generation strategy,” he said.

An Associated Press survey last year of the energy policies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia found that a strong majority— about two-thirds— say nuclear, in one fashion or another, will help take the place of fossil fuels. The momentum building behind nuclear power could lead to the first expansion of nuclear reactor construction in the U.S. in more than three decades.

Kanawha Valley Regional Transportation Authority bus driver Anthony Smith's grandparents lived in Glasgow, and both his parents worked at the plant before it closed. He said the town of less than 1,000 is in need of a boost.

“This town needs rejuvenating, honestly. It was different back then, you know?" he said. “I'd love to see things back how they used to be, that's probably what a lot of people feel anywhere they're from that has an area that's struggling, they just want to see it get better.”

Holtec seeks $7.4 billion loan for expansion tied to new reactor



Jim Walsh, Cherry Hill Courier-Post
Mon, January 9, 2023 

CAMDEN – Holtec International Inc. has applied for a $7.4 billion federal loan to fund expansion expected from future sales of a company-designed nuclear reactor.

Holtec would tap the loan to boost capacity to make parts at its existing U.S. facilities, and to build and commission “at least four” SMR-160 advanced light water reactors.

It also expects to build “one or more additional manufacturing plants,” the company said.

Holtec added it’s “actively evaluating” potential sites “for the new ultra-modern manufacturing plant(s)."

The firm has three nuclear manufacturing facilities in the United States, including one at its Camden corporate campus that was designed for the eventual production of SMR-160s. It also has a fabrication plant in India.

Holtec claims its small modular reactor produces carbon-free energy more safely than a conventional nuclear power plant.

The firm has invested more than $400 million in the reactor's development since 2010. It was approved in 2020 for $116 million in federal aid "to support the SMR-160’s commercialization readiness."

Holtec is seeking the loan from the U.S. Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office, which received an infusion of about $111 billion from last year's Inflation Reduction Act.

"We anticipate that (the application process) will be ongoing for a while as DOE usually (has requests) for information or clarifying questions for an applicant," said Holtec spokesman Patrick O'Brien.

"Our goal is to have an SMR-160 licensed and operational by 2030," he said.

The company has said it’s “exploring” the potential to put its first SMR-160 at the Oyster Creek complex in Ocean County, where Holtec is decommissioning a former atomic power plant.

Earlier:Lacey to receive grant to prepare for future without Oyster Creek

It's also looking at two southern states “with rapidly growing regional demand for carbon-free energy,” Holtec said in a review of its 2022 performance.

Holtec also said it expects the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission “early this year” will license its planned nuclear-waste storage facility in New Mexico.

The complex, in the works for seven years, could hold “the vast quantity of spent nuclear fuel presently stored at more than 70 nuclear sites in 35 states,” the company said.

But an environmental coalition plans to challenge any NRC approval in federal court, said Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear, a nonprofit that’s sharply critical of Holtec’s plan.

Kamps said Holtec’s waste-storage project also faces court challenges from the states of New Mexico and Texas, as well as from businesses with mining and ranching interests near the proposed storage site.

He also described potential federal aid to Holtec as “an outrageous pickpocketing of hardworking American taxpayers to benefit a filthy rich private company.”

According to Holtec, the operation of a consolidated waste-storage site would spur nuclear power in the United States, “leading to the rise of small modular reactors."

It also expressed the belief that modular reactors made in America would find “a large global export market.”

Holtec previously has predicted it could place 32 SMR-160s in the United Kingdom by 2050.

The company said it expects to pair its SMR-160 with a “Green Boiler” facility that can store excess energy “from an SMR-160, a wind or a solar power plant, and generally from the grid in periods of excess power, then deliver that stored energy in times of generation deficit."

Holtec has been developing the Green Boiler since 2021.

Jim Walsh is a senior reporter at the Courier-Post, the Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal.

This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Holtec seeks federal loan for production of advanced nuclear reactor