🍁🇨🇦🥞 Ford's investment plan is heading north to Canada, or depending on which part of Michigan you are in, south-east to Canada. The company will invest $1.3B in converting its Oakville Assembly Plant into a new EV hub.
Introducing. When originally announced, Ford's Canadian investment was attached to five new model EVs to be introduced over the next few years. They scaled that plan back, but rumors suggest the Canadian plant will produce Explorer SUV EVs for the North American market by 2026. 🚙
🔨 Open concept. The plant renovations include merging multiple body shops and adding battery pack assembly using cells produced in Kentucky. 👷♀️
🧐💰 Thinkin' 'bout them taxes. While Canada is totally covered by the North American part of the Inflation Reduction Act, Ford's partnership with Chinese material firms may have to find loopier holes to pass through. Investments in Indonesia will go without tax credit eligibility unless used to produce commercial vehicles, which are immune to restrictions and qualify for even larger subsidies. Regardless of material origin, commercial vehicles over 14K lbs can qualify for tax credits up to $40K.
If all else fails, you could just ship a couple thousand tons of North American soil anywhere in the world and build a factory on it. #CheckmateCongress
Tesla also has news about factories and China. No Canada this time though, sorry, eh. 🇨🇳
To the lifted eyebrows of US policymakers, the EV leader says its second megafactory will be in Shanghai, China. When completed, the facility will produce 10K Megapack battery storage units annually. 🔋🏠
Megafactory vs. Gigafactiory? Currently, gigafactories produce Tesla cars and home/commercial energy products. Megafactories will exclusively produce home and business energy storage batteries, allowing Tesla to venture further into its solar power aspirations and plans for a widescale shift to renewable energy for businesses. ☀️🚗
Got too much shade for a solar set up? Way ahead of you. Muck’s Boring company’s Flamethrower clears any pesky flora… or fauna if the need arises. #FireSolvesLotsOfProblems 🔥🔥🔥
🚛 Truck maker AB Volvo had a Q1 as big as its trucks.
🙋 Why tho? Volvo predicted the supply bottleneck to play a disturbing role in the quarter and did not explain the surprisingly good period OR set any new full-year expectations.
🙋♂️🙋♀️ But for real, why tho?? One analyst with JPMorgan says price increases and a much better supply chain situation allowed the company to do better than expected.
🤖⚠️ Robots are not above the law! A major US transportation union is opposing a joint application by Waymo and Aurora to exempt its driverless semi trucks from the use of crash prevention measures in case the truck is stopped.
If the application is accepted, the driverless trucks will not need flairs or reflective triangles around stopped trucks for at least five years. An idea safety and transportation workers say should be rejected with vigor. 👎