Minggu, 07 April 2019

Tesla & Fiat Dance An Interesting Tango - CleanTechnica

Cars

Published on April 7th, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan

April 7th, 2019 by  

We occasionally joke about people who have claimed for the past 11 years that Tesla will die any day. The truth is, though, it’s nearly unbelievable that Tesla has indeed survived, and how quickly it has grown to become so big and influential.

Fiat has been on the flip side of the electrification story, generally eager to avoid it, deny it, defer it, and complain about it.

One of the things that has been a bit of help to Tesla over the years has been California clean transport policies, policies which have required automakers to go electric … or buy credits from an automaker that has sold more electric vehicles than required. The automaker selling those? Tesla, of course. Selling those credits has provided a decent little revenue stream for Tesla over the years.

“There’s a new game in town. Europe has been increasing its clean vehicle requirements. Yet again, some major automakers aren’t prepared to meet them. The news today is that Fiat has essentially thrown up a white flag and partnered with Tesla in order to minimize its costs,” the Financial Times reports (h/t Alter Viggo).

“Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has agreed to pay Tesla hundreds of millions of euros so the electric carmaker’s vehicles are counted in its fleet in order to avoid large fines for breaking tough new EU emissions rules. The move will allow FCA to offset CO2 emissions from its cars against Tesla’s, lowering its average figure to a permissible level. From next year, the EU’s target for average CO2 emissions from cars is 95g per kilometre. In 2018, average emissions were 120.5g per kilometre, according to data supplier Jato Dynamics. FCA averaged 123g last year, according to UBS, which said the carmaker had the “highest risk of not meeting the target”.”

It appears that rather than being fined billions (potentially), Fiat will pay Tesla hundreds of millions.

Some see this as a bad move — enabling Fiat’s foot dragging is seen as a harmful move. Fiat should be forced to pay the fines or get its electric act together, critics say.

The flip side of the argument could be that boosting Tesla financially is more worthwhile at the moment. Tesla, no doubt about it, has been pushing the auto industry to electrification much faster than it would have gotten there on its own. In fact, it’s possible the European regulations forcing Fiat to pay fines or buy credits from Tesla wouldn’t be nearly as strong as they are if it wasn’t for Tesla proving that consumers do indeed want competitive electric cars, and that they can be produced.

Giving Tesla hundreds of millions of euros could help keep the young company in a financially secure form, could speed up its development, and could even speed up the construction of a Tesla Gigafactory in Europe. In the end, is the financial boost for Tesla worth more than Fiat meeting the minimum emissions requirements? Or is Tesla fine and dandy and it would be better to force Fiat to electrify quicker, close down shop, or go on the market itself? That’s a complicated calculus to make.

What seems clear, though, is that Europe is getting more serious about electric transport, and Tesla is again poised to capitalize on that while it continues to push for cleaner air and a stable climate as strongly as it possibly can.

Any other thoughts on this tango between Tesla and Fiat? Any guesses about other automakers Tesla may bail out (and profit off of) in Europe’s brave new world?

Images by Tesla and Tesla Shuttle

 
 





 

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About the Author

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself (and other species). He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director and chief editor. He's also the president of Important Media and the director/founder of EV Obsession and Solar Love. 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, and Canada. Zach has long-term investments in TSLA, FSLR, SPWR, SEDG, & ABB — after years of covering solar and EVs, he simply has a lot of faith in these particular companies and feels like they are good cleantech companies to invest in. But he offers no professional investment advice and would rather not be responsible for you losing money, so don't jump to conclusions.



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https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/07/tesla-fiat-dance-an-interesting-tango/

2019-04-08 00:36:44Z
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Amazon Wants You to Use Alexa to Track Health Care - The Wall Street Journal

New features let Alexa schedule urgent-care appointments, check health-insurance benefits, read blood-sugar results and handle other health-care tasks. Photo: STEPHANIE AARONSON/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL; ISTOCK
By

Amazon.com Inc. AMZN 1.01% is positioning Alexa, its artificial-intelligence assistant, to track consumers’ prescriptions and relay personal health information, in a bid to insert the technology into everyday health care.

Seattle-based Amazon says Alexa can now transfer sensitive, personal health information using software that meets health-privacy requirements under federal law. Five companies, including insurer Cigna Corp. , diabetes-management company Livongo Health Inc. and major hospital systems, said they developed new Alexa features for consumers using the federal protocol. The features let Alexa perform tasks such as scheduling urgent-care appointments, tracking when drugs are shipped, checking health-insurance benefits or reading blood-sugar results.

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For developers of digital health services, the move is an avenue to expand the use of voice commands. Smart speakers have proliferated rapidly since their 2014 introduction, with one in five adults reporting they owned at least one in a 2018 national survey by Edison Research and NPR.

But voice technology has been slow to take hold in health care because of patient-privacy concerns. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known as HIPAA, requires that health-care companies and their contractors, like Alexa, take steps to keep patient information confidential, ensure it can be accessed when needed and prevent tampering. HIPAA violations can expose health-care companies to penalties and criminal charges.

Consumers have been measured in their willingness to use Alexa for all but basic tasks, raising questions about whether the new features will be used widely. Alexa, too, has stumbled publicly on privacy. Last year, it recorded and shared a private conversation after miscues.

With the new health-care features, Amazon will be able to further expand Alexa’s offerings as it battles technology giants with competing voice assistants, including Alphabet Inc.’s Google Assistant and Apple Inc.’s Siri. Amazon’s smart-speaker market share fell to about 40% last year from 59% the previous year, according to technology-focused, venture-capital firm Loup Ventures.

A spokeswoman for Google said the company’s developers aren’t allowed to create features that transmit information protected under federal privacy law. Apple declined to comment.

Health-care executives said they see promise in voice commands as an easier alternative in some circumstances to typing or tapping a screen.

“We were waiting for this level of privacy and security to be complete because it’s obviously critical,” said Richard Roth, head of strategic innovation for Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health, one of the nation’s largest hospital systems. The system, which operates 142 hospitals across 21 states, is developing its own Alexa option for appointment scheduling, he said. It wasn't among those unveiled last week.

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Still, while health-care companies might be ready to connect with consumers via voice, consumers might not be.

New York hospital system Northwell Health launched a service on Alexa roughly two years ago that searches for wait times at local emergency rooms and doesn’t require HIPAA compliance. It isn’t used widely, said Emily Kagan, Northwell’s vice president of digital and innovation strategy. “It’s been tepid,” she said of demand.

That hasn’t dimmed hopes for the use of voice, she said, and younger adults are far more comfortable with the technology than older generations. “Everybody feels like it is going to be really game-changing,” she said. “We’re all still experimenting.”

Alexa made headlines last year after mistakenly recording a private conversation and sending it to someone else on a user’s contact list. The device picked up sounds it believed to be commands, but weren’t.

Amazon recommends that its Alexa health-care features verify the identity of the speaker, either with a voice code or by requiring users to log in with passwords for existing health-care accounts. Developers of new features caution users in a disclaimer that their information “may be available to anyone using your Alexa devices.”

Developers of Alexa’s new health features include Livongo, Cigna and its pharmacy-benefit manager Express Scripts, Providence St. Joseph Health and Boston Children’s Hospital. Each requires users to verify their identity to initiate the feature, according to Alexa product web pages and some of the companies. Atrium Health’s Alexa urgent-care scheduling feature does not.

Livongo worked to avoid possible confusion that might occur when diabetic customers ask Alexa for blood-sugar readings, said the company’s chief product officer, Amar Kendale. Users must state both words—“blood” and “sugar”—for a response, to prevent any potential mixup caused by using the word “sugar” alone.

Parents of heart-surgery patients treated by Boston Children’s Hospital can use the hospital’s new Alexa feature to report whether their children are experiencing pain or diminished appetite after surgery. The new feature will also offer appointment reminders.

“Voice is natural,” said John Brownstein, the hospital’s chief innovation officer. Users don’t need to download apps or review tutorials to use speakers, he said.

Amazon and health-care providers will also collect some data to improve voice recognition and track how consumers use the services. Developers of new Alexa services said such data would be valuable as they push to expand the use of voice in health care. Data will be stripped of identifying information before being shared and studied, some of the companies said.

The Alexa feature offered by Providence St. Joseph allows consumers to book and cancel appointments at most of its express clinics in Washington state.

The hospital system based in Renton, Wash., developed its feature by asking users to test it and studying their reactions to Alexa’s replies, said Aaron Martin, the company’s executive vice president and chief digital officer. User data will help further refine the technology, he said. “We’re training it and it’s training us,” Mr. Martin said.

Write to Melanie Evans at Melanie.Evans@wsj.com

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-clears-path-for-alexas-use-as-health-service-11554669234

2019-04-07 22:26:00Z
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After fleeing to France, wife of ex-Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn says she 'felt in danger' in Japan - The Japan Times

PARIS - The wife of former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn says she hastily left Japan after her husband’s latest arrest because she feared for her own safety.

France’s weekly Journal du Dimanche quoted Carole Ghosn saying in an interview published Sunday that she saw police take her husband back into custody and “felt in danger” when officers confiscated her Lebanese passport.

Carole Ghosn told the newspaper she left for France on Friday using a different passport.

She said that since Carlos Ghosn was accused of financial misconduct, the former auto industry star has been “dropped by everyone” because of “cowardice” despite saving Nissan and Renault.

Ghosn previously was jailed in Tokyo from November until March for allegedly falsifying securities documents and having Nissan shoulder personal investment losses. He says he is innocent.

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https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/04/08/business/fleeing-france-wife-ex-nissan-chief-carlos-ghosn-says-felt-danger-japan/

2019-04-07 18:14:00Z
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Fiat Chrysler will pay Tesla to avoid EU emissions fines - Engadget

Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Environmental regulations can create strange bedfellows, it seems. The Financial Times has learned that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will pay Tesla hundreds of millions of euros (specific numbers aren't available) to pool the EV brand's cars with its own fleet and avoid fines for violating stricter EU emissions rules in 2020. The move should help FCA meet the EU's CO2 emissions target of 95g per kilometer by lowering its average from a higher-than-usual 123g. Fiat Chrysler has been relatively slow to adopt electric and hybrid cars -- this buys it time to catch up without having to take many (if any) radical steps.

It was expected that car makers would pool their own sub-brands together. VW can use improving emissions with its regular brands to offset exotic brands like Porsche and Lamborghini, for example. However, this (along with a deal between Mazda and Toyota) is the first time two wholly separate car companies have agreed to pool their emissions in Europe, and shows the pressure on companies to electrify their lineups.

This sort of deal isn't completely unusual for Tesla. In 2018 alone it made $103.4 million by selling zero-emissions credits, and it made $279.7 million the year before that. The EU pact could significantly pad Tesla's bottom line, though, and it's coming at a good time. Tesla's sales fell sharply in early 2019 as reduced EV tax credits and the typical early-year slowdown took their toll. While the company isn't facing a crisis, it probably won't mind an influx of cash while it tries to improve sales and gears up for future cars like the Model Y.

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https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/07/fiat-chrysler-to-pay-tesla-to-avoid-eu-fines/

2019-04-07 17:27:12Z
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Lyft stock: How valuation compares to other tech names at IPO - Business Insider

High-profile tech valuations at time of IPO.High-profile tech valuations at time of IPO.Business Insider/Andy Kiersz

  • Investors expect 2019 to turn into a hectic year for initial public offerings as technology unicorns and decacorns like Uber, Slack, and Pinterest are expected to hit the public market.
  • When Lyft priced its IPO last week at $72 a share, it was valued at around $24 billion. Its chief rival, Uber, is expected to go public at a $120 billion valuation later this year.
  • Some analysts are having a hard time assessing Lyft's true value since it's the first of its kind on a public exchange, facing various risks as it lost hundreds of millions of dollars in 2018.
  • Markets Insider has compiled a list of other high-profile IPOs and their valuations — from the dot-com era and into the future
  • Visit Markets Insider's homepage for more stories.

This year is expected to turn up a shiny freshman class of high-profile public technology companies, from Uber and Slack, to Airbnb and Pinterest.

Lyft kicked off the wave of unicorn offerings last week, going public at a valuation of around $24 billion, after a bit of a slow start to the year for listings due to the partial federal government shutdown. 

The unicorns, or companies valued at $1 billion or more, next in line to debut carry massive valuations. Uber is expected to fetch a valuation of around $120 billion, Palantir $41 billion, and Airbnb $31 billion. Slack, which has announced it will go public through a direct listing, was most recently valued at $7 billion, and Pinterest, which officially filed its S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission last month, is worth about $12.3 billion.

But assessing a company's worth in the private and public markets are two very different animals. Some young technology firms like Lyft are not yet profitable — a trait not uncommon among startups — making it difficult to assess their earnings history. And other "disruptor"-type companies like Airbnb are the first of their kind to list on the public market, making comparisons tough.

Some Wall Street analysts who cover Lyft say it's a tall task to properly value the ride-hailing company since so many fundamental unknowns still surround it: How will it achieve profitability? How would Lyft fare in an economic downturn? How will its rival Uber affect its business?

"In our view, valuation is the toughest task with LYFT," Michael Ward, an analyst at Seaport Global Securities, wrote to clients this week. "While we believe the ridesharing market will continue to grow and expect LYFT to be a prime competitor, in our view, current valuations reflect an overly optimistic view of consumer behavior in the US."

To compare Lyft's current valuation with the technology giants of yore, Markets Insider has compiled the valuations, annual revenue, and price-to-sales ratios of some of the more popular tech IPOs over the last two decades. A portion of the data in the slides below is from a recent report distributed by Daniel Morgan, a portfolio manager with Synovus Trust Company.

His conclusion from analyzing the price-to-sales ratios of companies like Netscape, Yahoo, and eBay is that the valuations of some of today's unicorn valuations pale in comparison.

Morgan told clients that the valuations of recent unicorns "appear extremely low compared to the 'Go-Go' Days in Technology investing from 1995-1999, before the Tech Bubble Burst, when companies like Yahoo and Netscape went public at 'Monster Size' multiples of 238x and 171x Revenues!!!" 

See how the popular tech IPOs compare.

Of the companies analyzed, Morgan disclosed Synovus Trust Company owns shares in Facebook, Amazon, Alibaba, and Twitter. Morgan personally owns shares of Facebook and Amazon.

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https://www.businessinsider.com/lyft-stock-how-valuation-compares-to-other-tech-names-at-ipo-2019-4

2019-04-07 13:06:42Z
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Wife of ex-Nissan boss Ghosn appeals to French government for help - Investing.com

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Former Nissan Motor Chairman Carlos Ghosn accompanied by his wife Carole Ghosn, arrives at his place of residence in Tokyo © Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Former Nissan Motor Chairman Carlos Ghosn accompanied by his wife Carole Ghosn, arrives at his place of residence in Tokyo

TOKYO/PARIS (Reuters) - The wife of former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn has left Japan and flown to Paris to appeal to the French government to do more to help him.

Japanese prosecutors arrested Ghosn for a fourth time on Thursday on suspicion he had tried to enrich himself at the automaker's expense, in another dramatic twist that his lawyers said was an attempt to muzzle him.

"I think the French government should do more for him. I don't think he's had enough support and he's calling for assistance. As a French citizen, it should be a right," Carole Ghosn told the Financial Times in an interview before boarding a flight out of Japan late on Friday.

Carlos Ghosn, who holds French, Lebanese and Brazilian citizenship, has denied charges against him and also called on the French government for help.

France, which holds a 15 percent stake in Nissan's alliance partner Renault (PA:), said it was monitoring the situation.

"We fully exercise consular protection. The French ambassador is in regular contact," an official from French President Emmanuel Macron's office said on Sunday.

"The wife of Carlos Ghosn has been received by the (Elysee) Secretary General during his (Ghosn) previous incarceration," the official added.

"A DIFFERENT PERSON"

Carole Ghosn said her husband's previous 108-day imprisonment had left him "a different person" and that normal life under bail conditions had been impossible.

Tokyo prosecutors, Ghosn's lawyer and his spokesperson were not immediately available for comment.

Public broadcaster NHK said on Sunday that prosecutors suspected Ghosn siphoned off payments through a company where his wife is an executive to purchase a yacht and a boat.

The prosecutors asked her to meet them for voluntary questioning as an unsworn witness, but the request was turned down, which prompted them to ask judges to question her on their behalf, the broadcaster said.

Such a request gives judges the power to question on a mandatory basis witnesses who refuse to testify, according to NHK.

Ghosn's lead lawyer, Junichiro Hironaka, said on Thursday prosecutors confiscated Ghosn's mobile phone, documents, notebooks and diaries, along with his wife's passport and mobile phone.

The FT said prosecutors had confiscated his wife's Lebanese passport in a dawn raid on their apartment in central Tokyo on Thursday morning, but did not discover her U.S. passport.

"I'm all alone here. It's traumatising what happened,” she was quoted as saying while awaiting her flight.

Under Japanese law, prosecutors will be able to hold Ghosn for up to 22 days without charging him. The fresh arrest opens up the possibility that he will be interrogated again without his lawyer present, as is the norm in Japan.

The additional charge would likely prolong Ghosn's trial, which is expected to begin later this year, his lawyer has said, adding that loss of access to Ghosn's trial-related documents could put his client at a disadvantage in fighting his case.

Ghosn faces charges of financial misconduct and aggravated breach of trust over allegedly failing to report around $82 million in salary and temporarily transferring personal financial losses on to Nissan's books during the financial crisis.

Released on $9 million bail on March 6, the executive says he is the victim of a boardroom coup.

The scandal has rocked the global auto industry and shone a harsh light on Japan's judicial system.

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https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/wife-of-exnissan-boss-ghosn-leaves-japan-to-appeal-to-french-government-ft-1829335

2019-04-07 12:30:00Z
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China's March forex reserves rise to seven-month high - Investing.com

© Reuters. Illustration photo of U.S. Dollar and China Yuan notes © Reuters. Illustration photo of U.S. Dollar and China Yuan notes

BEIJING/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - China's foreign exchange reserves rose for a fifth straight month in March, with the increase exceeding expectations, as growing optimism about the prospects for a U.S.-China trade deal offset concerns over slowing economic growth.

Chinese reserves, the world's largest, rose by nearly $9 billion in March to $3.099 trillion, its highest since August last year, central bank data showed on Sunday.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected reserves would rise $5 billion to $3.095 trillion.

"The strengthened slightly in March due to China-U.S. trade talks, the revised policy outlooks of central banks in Europe and America as well as uncertainty over Brexit...China's forex reserves expanded marginally," China's forex regulator said after the data release.

The State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) added that with the economy expected to maintain reasonable growth and improved flexibility in the yuan exchange rate, the country's forex reserves will remain stable.

The yuan fell 5.3 percent against the dollar last year as trade relations with the United States deteriorated and the Chinese economy slowed. But it has rebounded over 2 percent so far in 2019 on hopes Washington and Beijing will reach an agreement to end their bruising trade war

In March, the yuan fell 0.3 percent against the dollar due to the strength of the greenback. The dollar was up 1 percent against a basket of major currencies.

U.S. and Chinese negotiators wrapped up their latest round of trade talks on Friday and were scheduled to resume discussions this week to try to secure a pact that would end a tit-for-tat tariff battle that has roiled global markets.

But the outlook for the dollar is expected to remain soft after the Federal Reserve last month abandoned projections for further interest rate hikes this year on signs of an economic slowdown in the United States.

Assuming continued dollar weakness and progress in trade talks, the yuan will likely hold on to its recent gains and appreciate modestly over the coming year, according to analysts in a new Reuters poll. It last traded around 6.72 to the dollar.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that a trade deal could be announced in the next four weeks. But the U.S. trade office said on Saturday that significant work remains to be done. Discussions are set to resume this week.

The value of China's gold reserves fell slightly to $78.525 billion from $79.498 billion at the end of February.

REVERSAL OF FORTUNES?

For much of last year, global investors worried about the risk of capital flight from China as the economy cooled, and debated how much yuan weakness Beijing would allow, though strict capital controls kept outflows in check.

More recently, with the dollar on the backfoot, attention has turned to how much upward pressure Chinese policymakers will be comfortable with, as foreign inflows into the country's financial markets look set to boost the currency.

Chinese stocks have rallied more than 20 percent this year on trade deal hopes, while some Chinese bonds were added on April 1 to the Bloomberg Barclays (LON:) Global Aggregate Index, one of the most widely tracked fixed income benchmarks.

UBS Asset Management estimated this phase of bond inclusion will introduce $250-$500 billion of passive money alone, and possibly trillions of dollars if active money is counted.

The tide may also be turning for China's economy, with business surveys showing March manufacturing activity returned to growth, suggesting months of government stimulus measures are starting to take hold.

If sustained, improving economic data could prompt markets to scale back expectations of further policy easing, though analysts still expect several more cuts in banks' reserve requirements this year, possibly as soon as next week.

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https://www.investing.com/news/economic-indicators/chinas-march-forex-reserves-rise-to-3099-trillion-1829370

2019-04-07 11:21:00Z
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