adplus-dvertising
Connect with us

Business

General Motors to boost spending on electric vehicles 30%, add two new battery plants

Published

 on

General Motors Co will boost global spending on electric and autonomous vehicles to $35 billion through 2025, a 30% jump over its most recent forecast as it pursues EV leadership, people briefed on the matter told Reuters.

As part of that spending, the No. 1 U.S. automaker will build two additional U.S. battery plants and move ahead some of its EV investments, said the sources, who asked not to be identified. In November, GM upped its spending plans from $20 billion, a figure that was announced in March before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the auto industry.

The Detroit company declined to comment.

The expected announcement of increased spending by GM comes less than a month after rival Ford Motor Co upped its EV spending by more than a third to over $30 billion by 2030.

300x250x1

The combined $65 billion in commitments by the largest U.S. automakers, as well as increased spending by EV leader Tesla Inc and startups including Lucid and Rivian reflect the EV arms race that has left some automakers like Lordstown Motors Corp scrambling to raise more funds.

In addition, GM Chief Executive Mary Barra is scheduled to meet on Wednesday with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other key Democrats to discuss EVs and vehicle emissions, the sources said.

Barra will also meet U.S. Representative Richard Neal, head of the tax policy Ways and Means Committee, Frank Pallone, who chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee, and two key Michigan Democrats: Representatives Dan Kildee and Debbie Dingell, the sources said.

WOOING WASHINGTON

Working with Washington is critical as President Joe Biden has proposed $174 billion to boost EVs and charging as part of his infrastructure plan, including $100 billion in new EV rebates. GM’s ability to benefit from the current $7,500 federal EV tax credit has expired.

GM has sparred with Democrats over vehicle emissions rules, but last week said it supported overall emissions reductions in California’s 2019 deal with other major automakers. It has also sought more flexibility to hit carbon reduction target between now and 2026.

The Associated Press reported on Monday that GM planned to announce two new U.S. battery plants, citing comments by President Mark Reuss. GM confirmed the executive’s comments, but sources said the company has not decided where in the United States to build the plants, which are each expected to cost more than $2 billion.

In January, GM said it was setting a goal to sell all its new cars, SUVs and light pickup trucks with zero tailpipe emissions by 2035, a dramatic shift away from gasoline and diesel engines.

GM and its South Korean joint-venture partner, LG Energy Solution, are already building a battery plant in northeastern Ohio and have announced a second, $2.3 billion battery plant will be located in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

GM confirmed in November it would speed up the rollout of new EVs, with plans to offer 30 models globally by 2025, up from a prior target of 20 by 2023. Barra said the automaker wants to exceed annual sales of 1 million EVs in the United States and China by 2025.

On May 26, a Senate committee advanced legislation that would boost tax credits to as much as $12,500 for EVs assembled by union workers in the United States. The current maximum tax credit is $7,500.

The bill also includes a 30% tax credit for manufacturers to retool or build new facilities to produce advanced energy technologies including batteries. That would represent a big boost to GM’s battery factory plans.

 

(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

Continue Reading

Business

Unplanned shutdown of Imperial pipeline will affect delivery of fuel to Winnipeg for months – The Globe and Mail

Published

 on


Open this photo in gallery:

Grain and oil rail cars pass by a grain elevator in Rosser, Mb., which is just outside Winnipeg, in March, 2014.JOHN WOODS/The Canadian Press

Imperial Oil Ltd. has shut down a key pipeline that supplies the Winnipeg area with gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, as the Calgary-based company scrambles to make repairs and find ways to continue transporting fuel to the city by truck and train.

Routine inspections by Imperial IMO-T earlier this year found what the provincial government calls “integrity concerns” in a section of the Winnipeg Products Pipeline under the Red River near St. Adolphe, a community about 30 kilometres south of Manitoba’s capital. The line was shut down on Sunday as a result – an unplanned move that the company says is “preventative maintenance to ensure the integrity of the line.”

Imperial would not provide details about what the inspections uncovered that required the repairs.

300x250x1

The City of Winnipeg’s chief administrative officer, Michael Jack, initially contended that the problem is far worse than Imperial has said but changed his opinion on Monday.

“Candidly, I don’t believe this PR statement accurately conveys the gravity of the situation; we have reason to believe the supply of gasoline products to the entire city (and beyond) may be compromised for a period of time,” he wrote to city councillors on Sunday, in an e-mail obtained by The Globe and Mail.

At a press conference on Monday, Mr. Jack told reporters he is “feeling good” after conversations with Imperial. “We are paid to worry about these things. We don’t send a lot of e-mails saying everything is fine,” he said.

“A discussion around gas can cause people to get anxious, and we just simply don’t have any reasons to think anybody should.”

Later on Monday, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said while there is no reason for the public to panic or for people to stock up on fuel, the government is looking at obtaining backup supplies in case Imperial falls short.

Mr. Kinew said he has also been in contact with North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum to enquire about equipment, logistical expertise and any fuel supplies that the province can turn to the state to help with. More than 50,000 train cars carrying fuel as well as fuel trucks are on their way to Winnipeg as of this week, he said.

“We have a week or two worth of fuel supply in the city right now. Our hope is that that backup supply will be in place ahead of that two-week period,” the Premier said.

The pipeline carries refined petroleum products to Winnipeg from the Enbridge Mainline pipeline at Gretna, Man., on the Canada-U.S. border.

Imperial said in a statement Sunday night that it is arranging alternate forms of transport to keep fuel moving into Winnipeg and surrounding communities. The company is also identifying other terminal locations where customers can pick up products, including at Enbridge’s Gretna crude oil tank terminal, which remains connected to pipeline supply from Western Canada. The terminal has a capacity of about 335,000 barrels.

Gasoline supply will be managed with additional storage and loading capacity at the Gretna terminal, using rail and trucks to transport the fuel to Imperial’s Winnipeg terminal, and arranging for customers to use other supply points outside of the region where possible.

Diesel supply will be managed by rail, and jet fuel by truck.

Imperial said in an e-mail Monday that it expects the line will be out of service for three months, but the company is working to expedite work where possible.

The provincial government and Imperial say nothing has been spilled into the environment from the pipeline.

However, the pipeline shutdown comes at a time of increased scrutiny of Imperial. It came under fire early last year for failing to tell local Indigenous communities about months of leaking from tailings at its Kearl oil sands facility in Northern Alberta into the environment. There have also been two spills at the site in the past year.

The oil pipeline shutdown also comes just weeks after two City of Winnipeg sewage pipelines burst under the Red River. Hundreds of millions of litres of raw sewage had spilled into the river for days, a situation the city attributed to aging infrastructure.

Mr. Kinew said the province is not yet sure whether the Imperial shutdown relates to Winnipeg’s old infrastructure. He is leaning on the company to do the right thing, but “with a healthy dose of skepticism,” he said.

“Through the initial stages of this response, we have seen that there is probably a need for more regulation and legislation in this space,” he said.

Adblock test (Why?)

728x90x4

Source link

Continue Reading

Business

USD/JPY moving around, swings helped by thinning liquidity ahead of Bank of Japan decision – ForexLive

Published

 on


300x250x1

Adblock test (Why?)

728x90x4

Source link

Continue Reading

Business

Tech giant Nvidia unveils higher performing ‘superchips’ to power AI – Al Jazeera English

Published

 on


Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang tells developers conference that computing is advancing at an ‘insane’ rate.

Nvidia has unveiled its latest family of chips for powering artificial intelligence as it seeks to consolidate its position as the major supplier to the AI frenzy.

“We need bigger GPUs. So, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to a very, very big GPU,” CEO Jensen Huang said on Monday at a developers conference in California, referring to the graphics processors that are vital in the creation of generative AI.

300x250x1

The event, dubbed the “AI Woodstock” by Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, has become a can’t-miss date on big tech’s calendar due to Nvidia’s singular role in the AI revolution that has taken the world by storm since the introduction of ChatGPT in late 2022.

“I hope you realise this is not a concert, this is a developers’ conference,” Huang joked as he took the stage in a packed arena usually reserved for ice hockey games and concerts.

Nvidia’s powerful GPU chips and software are an integral ingredient in the creation of generative AI, with rivals like AMD or Intel still struggling to match the power and efficiency of the company’s blockbuster H100 product, launched in 2022.

Apple, Microsoft and Amazon have also developed chips with AI in mind but for now are stuck trying to get their hands on Nvidia’s coveted products to deliver on their own AI promises.

That linchpin role in the AI revolution has seen Nvidia’s share price rise by roughly 250 percent over the last 12 months, propelling the company above Amazon when measured by market capitalisation, behind only Microsoft and Apple.

Not letting up, Nvidia told the audience of developers and tech executives it was releasing an even more powerful processor and accompanying software, on a platform called Blackwell – named after David Blackwell, the first Black academic inducted into the National Academy of Science.

Blackwell GPUs were AI “superchips” four times as fast as the previous generation when training AI models, Nvidia said.

“The rate at which computing is advancing is insane,” Huang said.

They would also deliver 25 times the energy efficiency, Nvidia said, a key claim when the creation of AI is criticised for its ravenous needs for energy and natural resources when compared with more conventional computing.

Unlike its rivals Intel, Micron and Texas Instruments, Nvidia, like AMD, does not manufacture its own chips, but uses subcontractors, mainly the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

Given the geopolitical concerns with Taiwan and China, this could be a potential weak spot, and the US has banned Nvidia from sending its most powerful chips to Chinese companies.

Nvidia also announced other AI developments, including a platform for training humanoid robots.

Project Gr00t, which Nvidia said was not named after the Guardians of the Galaxy movie character Groot, was described as the “world’s first human foundation model”.

Gr00t-powered robots will be designed to understand what people say and mimic people’s movements, learning from experience how to interact with the world, according to Nvidia.

The models “will enable a robot to learn from a handful of human demonstrations so it can help with everyday tasks and emulate human movement just by observing us”, Nvidia said.

Nvidia said it was also working with Apple to put AI capabilities into the newly-released Vision Pro spatial computing gear.

The collaboration comes as Apple is under pressure to show it is not being left behind by Amazon, Google, Meta and OpenAI when it comes to artificial intelligence.

Nvidia also unveiled the Earth-2 Cloud Platform for predicting climate change, using simulation by AI supercomputers.

Adblock test (Why?)

728x90x4

Source link

Continue Reading

Trending