The First Quieter Megacity, Thanks to Electric Vehicles
Shenzhen, China is now packed with more than 20 million people and hundreds of factories turning out high-tech hardware. The new Shenzhen has a mix of electric buses, electric bikes and scooters, electric taxis, and even electric dump trucks. The shift to EVs that China has been pushing more than any other country has put Shenzhen at the leading edge of something unprecedented: the quieter city.
BYD, Inc. is the new Ford of China’s electrified-motor city. The electric-vehicle maker, backed by big Chinese subsidies and a $232 million investment from Warren Buffett in 2008, has eclipsed Tesla Inc as the leading maker of plug-in EVs. BYD almost singlehandedly electrified Shenzhen’s fleet of 16,000 buses and is now at work on the full-scale replacement of the city’s taxis and trucks.
Read the article at Bloomberg.
Ford Scrapping Plans to Sell New Focus Active Crossover in the U.S.
Ford's China-built Focus Active crossover vehicle, will not be arriving in the United States. Recent tariffs imposed on Chinese imports by the Trump administration - and those expected to be levied on imported vehicles - would have trimmed profits on an already low-margin vehicle.
"Given the negative financial impact of the new tariffs, we've decided not to import this vehicle from China," Kumar Galhotra, Ford president of North America, said Friday. "The significant thing that moved was the tariffs going up substantially higher. We're choosing to deploy resources elsewhere."
Read the article at The Detroit Bureau.
Car Prices Projected to Jump With Trump’s Trade Agreement With Mexico
A president who prides himself on reducing bureaucracy has, in some ways, increased bureaucracy for companies that may just decide to go elsewhere.
Although it may be too early to predict the full impact of Trump’s tentative trade agreement with Mexico, there’s one thing you can count on: New car prices will probably rise.
“The new agreement will push production costs higher on Mexican products — parts and vehicles — which, eventually, will be paid by American consumers," said Michelle Krebs, executive analyst at Autotrader, the car-shopping website owned by Cox Automotive.
Read the article at USA Today.
4 Strategies for Overcoming Distraction
The average person is distracted or interrupted every 40 seconds when working in front of their computer. In other words, we can’t work for even a single minute before we focus on something else.
Sure, sometimes it’s easy to get back on track. But when our attention is completely derailed, research shows, it can take more than 20 minutes to refocus.
So how can you gain back control?
Here are 4 strategies: Create a distraction-free ritual; Set three daily intentions; Work on hard stuff, and do more of it; Set an artificial project deadline.
Read the article at Harvard Business Review.
EVs Account for More Than 10 Percent of New Vehicle Sales in California
A new California bill requiring the state to get 100 percent of its electricity from carbon-free sources by the year 2045, will need a transformation of the state’s energy system. Currently, 29 percent of its electricity is derived from zero-carbon wind, solar, biomass and geothermal energy. Statewide greenhouse gas emissions have been reduced to 1990 levels.
In the first half of the year, vehicles with a battery were more than 10 percent of new vehicle sales in California. The model mix includes hybrids like the Toyota Prius that have no electric charging plugs, as well as plug-in hybrids and pure electric cars with no combustion engine at all.
Read the article at Bloomberg.
