ReportWire

Tag: Automotive

  • Elon Musk Has a Very Bad Surprise for Tesla Shareholders

    Elon Musk Has a Very Bad Surprise for Tesla Shareholders

    The fears of Tesla  (TSLA) – Get Free Report shareholders and fans are confirmed. 

    Elon Musk, the CEO of the famous manufacturer of premium electric vehicles, is paying a hefty price for his acquisition of Twitter  (TWTR) – Get Free Report. 

    And unsurprisingly, Tesla is paying the price. The billionaire has just sold 19.5 million shares of Tesla for a total amount of $3.95 billion, according to regulatory documents filed on November 8 in the evening.

    The sale was completed in 38 transactions on November 4, 7 and 8, just days after the Twitter acquisition was completed. The tech tycoon had taken control of the social network on October 27 after a six-month battle marked by twists and turns and a stop in the courts.

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  • Latest US Drone Transfer to Ukraine Signals Shift in ‘Character of War’

    Latest US Drone Transfer to Ukraine Signals Shift in ‘Character of War’

    Newswise — General Atomics, the U.S.-based manufacturer of the most advanced armed and networked drone in the world – the MQ-9 Reaper – announced it intends to deliver the capability to Ukraine as part of a broader U.S. defense aid package.

    Paul Lushenko is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army and senior policy fellow at Cornell University’s Tech Policy Lab, as well as a doctoral student and co-editor of “Drones and Global Order: Implications of Remote Warfare for International Society.”

    Lushenko says:

    “While the exact timing of the transfer is unclear, the announcement is significant. It signals that U.S. officials have updated their belief for the escalatory potential of providing armed and networked drones to Ukraine, which previously stalled a decision for a potential arms transfer.

    “It suggests that U.S. officials now believe that armed and networked drones have an important role to play in large-scale war, and not just counterterrorism. It also implies U.S. officials are now willing to assume risk for the potential loss of armed and networked drones in Ukraine – an unacceptable prospect weeks ago. 

    “Congressional approval for the sale of armed and networked drones to Ukraine seems to indicate that U.S. officials believe that the conflict has moved into a new phase where drones may play an increasingly important – perhaps the decisive – role. It also suggests that the U.S. is now embroiled in an ‘arms race’ for drones. While this may not change the nature of war, or why it’s fought, it will have important implications for the character of war, or how it’s fought, going forward.”

     -30-

    Cornell University

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  • WyoTech to Unveil 90,000-Square-Foot Expansion in November

    WyoTech to Unveil 90,000-Square-Foot Expansion in November

    The $16 million expansion will allow the school to increase its capacity up to 1,200 students to accommodate a rapidly growing enrollment.

    Press Release
    –

    Nov 1, 2022 07:00 MDT


    LARAMIE, Wyo., November 1, 2022 (Newswire.com)
    –
    WyoTech, a leading U.S. automotive, diesel, and collision trade school, announces it will host an open house on Nov. 19 to unveil the much anticipated 90,000-square-foot expansion to its Laramie, Wyoming campus. The $16 million expansion will allow the school to increase its capacity to 1,200 students to accommodate a rapidly growing enrollment.

    The expansion is a key asset in WyoTech’s vision to provide the best training, the best experience and the best outcomes in the automotive and diesel industry. It will help the school better serve its growing student population. Between 2018 and 2021, enrollment at WyoTech increased by 2,300%. And so far in 2022, the school has grown 6,817% since 2018. 

    The new building includes eight new classrooms, capable of having up to 44 students each. Most of the building will be committed to shop space, creating a state-of-the-art training center for students to get hands-on training across its six specialty programs, including Street Rod, High-Performance Power Trains, Applied Service Management, Chassis Fabrication, Advanced Diesel, and Trim and Upholstery.

    “This expansion allows WyoTech to grow and offer students the best automotive and diesel technician training in the country,” said Jim Mathis, WyoTech President. “WyoTech has proven to be a leader in preparing students for life after WyoTech, and this expansion only further expands its capacity to help more students.

    “We welcome all interested in seeing our campus in Laramie, Wyoming, to our ribbon cutting on Nov. 19 at 11 a.m. Visit www.WyoTech.edu/RSVP to see our new space and partake in some Wyoming hospitality.” 

    According to a 2022 report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, bachelor’s degree seekers decreased by 3% this year, and have fallen by 3.9% since 2019 — a two-year decline of 333,900. This comes at the same time enrollment in trade programs is swelling, with the number of trade school students nearly doubling between 1999 to 2014, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

    WyoTech is accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC), an agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.

    For more information, please visit https://www.wyotech.edu. 

    About WyoTech

    WyoTech, formerly known as Wyoming Technical Institute, is a for-profit technical college founded in Laramie, Wyoming, in 1966. WyoTech provides training programs that prepare students for careers as technicians in the automotive and diesel industry with nine-month training programs that focus on hands-on experience.

    Source: WyoTech

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  • How Scientist Designed the Trajectory of Microsatellite Swarm From the Macro-Micro Perspective?

    How Scientist Designed the Trajectory of Microsatellite Swarm From the Macro-Micro Perspective?

    Newswise — As an emerging multi-satellite cooperative flight mode, microsatellite swarm has become an important future research issue for distributed space systems due to their advantages of low cost, rapid response, and collaborative decision-making. To address the coordination of swarms for autonomous agents, a probabilistic guidance approach has been investigated, which contained sub-swarms with different mission objectives. Probabilistic swarm guidance enables autonomous microsatellites to generate their individual trajectories independently so that the entire swarm converges to the desired distribution shape. However, it is essential to avoid crowding for reducing the possibility of collisions between microsatellites, which brings challenges to the design of the collision avoidance algorithm. In a research paper recently published in Space: Science & Technology, Bing Xiao, from School of Automation, Northwestern Polytechnical University, proposed a Centroidal Voronoi tessellation (CVT) and Model Predictive Control (MPC) based synthesis method, aiming to achieve macro-micro trajectory optimization of microsatellite swarm.

    First of all, the author formulated the transfer model of swarm microsatellites in 3D space and introduced the probabilistic swarm guidance law. Afterwards, since it was essential to avoid crowding for reducing the possibility of collisions between microsatellites, the safety analysis of collision avoidance wad conducted based on finding the lower bound of the minimum distance between all microsatellites at any time. To determine the collision-free guidance trajectory of each microsatellite from the current position to the target space, a collision avoidance algorithm was necessary. However, with high-level coordination that used the macroscopic models, collision-free trajectories were very hard to generate. Hence, the author presented a synthesis method, where the trajectory planning was divided into macro-planning and micro-planning.

    Then, the author presented the details of macro-planning and micro-planning of microsatellite swarm, respectively. In the Macro-planning of microsatellite swarm, the target position of each microsatellite was determined by the centroid generated through CVT algorithm, and all microsatellites moved to the corresponding centroid until the algorithm converges. According to the location of the centroid, the final distribution of the microsatellite swarm in the space was obtained. In the Micro-planning of microsatellite swarm, MPC was adopted to generate the optimal trajectories for each step and finally reached the specified position in the target cube. Specifically, the author established the orbital dynamics model considering J2 perturbation and implemented the convexification of collision avoidance constraints in the process of swarm reconfiguration. To achieve the real-time trajectory planning, model predictive control was introduced, which used a receding horizon to update the optimal trajectories based on the current state information. Significantly, the proposed method can not only realize collision avoidance of microsatellite swarm maneuvering at the macrolevel, but also provided optimal trajectories for each microsatellite of swarm individuals at the micro-level.

    Finally, the numerical simulation was carried out to verify the proposed macro-micro trajectory planning method of microsatellite swarm. The author gave a virtual central microsatellite and designed a large-scale (300) microsatellite swarm with an omnidirectional flight configuration. The CVT algorithm was used to divide regions, and so as to determine the position of the microsatellites to be transferred at the next moment. Then, one of the cubes was selected in the transfer process and performed CVT on it to determine the transfer position of the microsatellite. After 50 iterations, a stable configuration was obtained, and the position where the microsatellite moved at the next moment was determined. Due to the large scale of the microsatellite swarm, the process of achieving the final configuration required many transitions. To verify the proposed trajectory optimization based on model predictive control, one of the microsatellites was selected from the initial point to the next desired target point at a certain moment. The individual microsatellites can reach the desired point well. After the desired point was reached, the next iteration would be carried out, and due to the influence of orbital dynamics, the microsatellite may not remain the target point without control constraints. To make the mission of microsatellite swarm more practical, MPC was used in micro-planning to improve the performance of microsatellite swarm in terms of fuel consumption and resource utilization. Thus, simulation results about the collision-free guidance trajectory of microsatellites verified the benefits of the planning scheme, which accorded well with engineering practice.

     

    Reference

    Author: Xiwei Wu , Bing Xiao , Cihang Wu , and Yiming Guo

    Title of original paper: Centroidal Voronoi Tessellation and Model Predictive Control–Based Macro-Micro Trajectory Optimization of Microsatellite Swarm

    Beijing Institute of Technology

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  • Tesla Stock Could Rebound in 3 Months. Here’s What it Would Take.

    Tesla Stock Could Rebound in 3 Months. Here’s What it Would Take.

    Elon Musk says that


    Tesla


    could someday be worth more than


    Apple


    and Saudi Aramco, combined. First, it needs to get through the next few months.

    Before Tesla (ticker: TSLA) reported third-quarter earnings this past week, investors had been hoping they would allay concerns that had been growing since the company released second-quarter numbers three months earlier. They did no such thing. While earnings topped expectations, third-quarter deliveries, sales, and profit margins all fell short of Street projections. Tesla shares slumped 6.7% following the release, putting them down 22% since the end of September, their second-worst start to a quarter since the first few weeks of 2016.

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  • United Airlines says travel demand is stronger than recession pressures; shares rally

    United Airlines says travel demand is stronger than recession pressures; shares rally

    United Airlines Holdings Inc. stock rallied after hours Tuesday after the airline said it expected the travel rebound to weather a shakier economy in the months ahead and reported third-quarter results that beat expectations.

    “Looking forward through the end of the year, the airline expects the strong COVID recovery trends to continue to overcome the recessionary pressures in the macroeconomic environment,” company executives said in a statement.

    That backdrop — along with tighter flight networks and changes in how people work — helped justify the airline’s more upbeat forecast for the fourth quarter. United Airlines
    UAL,
    +3.19%
    said it expected adjusted fourth-quarter operating margin of around 10%, the first time the figure would end above pre-pandemic 2019 levels.

    United also forecast adjusted fourth-quarter earnings per share of between $2.00 and $2.25, well above FactSet forecasts for 98 cents per share. The carrier also said it expected a 24% to 25% gain in total fourth-quarter unit revenue — a much-watched industry metric that measures sales as spread out across an airline’s flight capacity — when compared to the same period in 2019.

    Adjusted fourth-quarter unit costs were seen up between 11% and 12%, and roughly 15% for the full year, when compared to the respective periods in 2019.

    For the third quarter, United reported net income of $942 million, or $2.86 per share, compared with $473 million, or $1.44 per share, in the prior-year quarter.

    On an adjusted basis, the company earned $2.81 per share, compared with a $1.02 per-share loss in the quarter a year ago and $4.07 in 2019. Revenue was $12.877 billion, compared with $7.75 billion a year ago and $11.38 billion in 2019.

    Analysts polled by FactSet expected adjusted earnings of $2.28 per share, on revenue of $12.743 billion.

    Shares jumped 7% after the market’s close. American Airlines Group Inc.
    AAL,
    +3.79%    ,
    which reports earnings on Thursday, rose 3.6% after hours.

    United, in its earnings release, also called out three demand trends that it said were “more than fully offsetting any economic headwinds.” It said that “Air travel is still in the COVID recovery phase, hybrid work gives customers the freedom and flexibility to travel for leisure more often, and external supply challenges will limit industry supply for years to come.”

    The carrier said it expected total flight capacity, a measure of available seats on flights, to be down between 9% and 10% for the fourth quarter and down around 13% for the full year, when compared to 2019 levels.

    United reported as analysts look for cracks in the travel industry’s rebound and holiday demand, after eager travelers this summer ran into flight delays and cancellations, insufficient staffing and severe weather. Airfares and fuel costs are more expensive — a function of strong demand and thinner supplies. Aircraft supply is tight, some executives have said. Airlines have also tried to bulk up flight crews, particularly pilots, after encouraging buyouts in 2020, as the pandemic left the industry without passengers and burning through cash.

    Delta Air Lines Inc.
    DAL,
    +3.34%
    last week said it expected fourth-quarter sales to grow from pre-pandemic levels, as demand for travel, after two years of pandemic-related restraint, holds up against rising prices.

    “The travel recovery continues as consumer spend shifts to experiences and demand improves in corporate and international,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in its earnings release.

    Raymond James analyst Savanthi Syth, in a research note last week, said she expected United to see similar momentum, helped by corporate travel and international demand.

    She said American and JetBlue Airways Corp.
    JBLU,
    +1.90%
    should benefit to a lesser degree, “due to large corp and transatlantic exposure at the former and large coastal-city exposure at the latter.” JetBlue reports earnings on Oct. 25.

    Delta’s international-unit revenue growth outpaced that in its domestic business for the first time since the pandemic started. Leisure travel to Europe helped propel results, as did strong demand for Delta’s premium-class seats. Bastian said he expected Delta’s flight network to be fully restored by summer next year.

    “Demand has not come close to being quenched by a hectic summer travel season,” he said on Delta’s earnings call. “At the same time, industry supply is constrained by aircraft availability, regional pilot shortages and hiring and training needs.” 

    Delta rose 3% after the bell on Tuesday.

    United Airlines stock is down 15% so far this year. By comparison, the S&P 500 Index
    SPX,
    +1.14%
    is down 22% over that time.

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  • A Tesla stock plunge could destroy ‘zombie stocks’ such as GameStop and Peloton, warns equity research firm New Constructs

    A Tesla stock plunge could destroy ‘zombie stocks’ such as GameStop and Peloton, warns equity research firm New Constructs

    Tesla shares could decline dramatically — and that could mean disaster for a number of stocks that have already seen deep share-price cuts, according to equity research firm New Constructs.

    The research firm, which uses machine learning and natural language processing to parse corporate filings and model economic earnings, called the stocks in danger “zombie stocks,” and defined them as companies with poor business models that are burning cash at an alarming rate and are at risk of seeing their stock decline to $0 per share.

    The research firm estimates there could be some 300 zombie companies across the marketplace.

    “The Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate hikes so far in 2022 have ended the era of free money and exposed a worrisome dynamic throughout capital markets: zombie stocks,” wrote New Constructs CEO David Trainer, in a note.

    See Now: Tesla earnings are coming, but do record deliveries mask a demand problem?

    New Constructs does not define Tesla Inc.
    TSLA,
    +7.01%
    as a “zombie stock,” citing CEO Elon Musk’s ability to raise capital, but does see the electric car manufacturer as a bellwether for the sector. “It shares many of the common characteristics of a zombie stock, such as an outrageous valuation and high cash burn,” wrote Trainer. “We believe Tesla’s unrelenting share price rise over the past three years – where investors completely ignored company fundamentals – inspired the birth of many of today’s zombie stocks.” 

    Tesla reports its third-quarter results after the closing bell on Oct. 19.

    The company’s stock was trading around $220 on Monday, an increase of over 1,000% compared to three years ago. But Trainer feels that Tesla is at risk of falling more than 80% to $25 a share.

    Tesla’s Optimus bot: ‘High school science project’ or robotics game changer?

    Tesla’s stock has fallen 37.6% in 2022, outpacing the S&P 500 Index’s
    SPX,
    +2.65%
    decline of 22.7%.

    “Its valuation remains nosebleed high because the cash flow expectations baked into the stock price are unreasonably optimistic,” Trainer wrote. “Our message to investors is to take profits in Tesla and avoid zombie stocks at all costs.”

    New Constructs recently added cloud-based communication company RingCentral Inc.
    RNG,
    +6.49%
    to its list of “zombie” stocks. Other companies on the list are Freshpet Inc.
    FRPT,
    -2.03%    ,
     Peloton Interactive Inc.
    PTON,
    +7.04%    ,
     Carvana Co.
    CVNA,
    +6.30%    ,
     Snap Inc.
    SNAP,
    +6.01%    ,
     Beyond Meat Inc.
    BYND,
    +0.64%    ,
     Rivian Automotive Inc.
    RIVN,
    +6.93%    ,
     DoorDash Inc.
    DASH,
    +6.15%    ,
     Shake Shack Inc.
    SHAK,
    +4.01%    ,
     Chewy Inc.
    CHWY,
    +10.76%    ,
     Uber Technologies Inc.
    UBER,
    +4.98%    ,
     Robinhood Markets Inc.
    HOOD,
    +3.24%    ,
     Tilray Brands Inc.
    TLRY,
    +7.32%    ,
     Affirm Holdings Inc.
    AFRM,
    +6.72%    ,
     SunRun Inc.
    RUN,
    +1.70%    ,
     Blue Apron Holdings Inc.
    APRN,
    +3.26%    ,
     and meme stocks AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. 
    AMC,
    +6.00%
    and GameStop Corp.
    GME,
    +5.40%    .

    See Now: RingCentral added to ‘zombie’ stocks list by equity research firm New Constructs

    “Investors are now fed up with these kinds of companies, especially amid this year’s stock market volatility,” wrote New Constructs’ Trainer. “If investors start to give up on Tesla and take profits on the stock, which is up over 1,000% over the past three years, that spells terrible news for all of the other zombie stocks that don’t have the cash-raising luxury that Tesla has.”  

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  • WyoTech Works with Jessi Combs Foundation on Drawing Women to the Trades

    WyoTech Works with Jessi Combs Foundation on Drawing Women to the Trades

    Three WyoTech students were recipients of the Jessi Combs Foundation (JCF) scholarship, which empowers young women to pursue careers in trades and other male-dominated fields.

    Press Release
    –

    Oct 17, 2022


    LARAMIE, Wyo., October 17, 2022 (Newswire.com)
    –
    WyoTech, a leading U.S. automotive, diesel, and collision trade school, announces that three of its students—Maggie Daskam, Jade Bovee, and Kaygen Bogle—were recipients of the Jessi Combs Foundation (JCF) scholarship. The scholarship program is one of many ways JCF fulfills its mission to educate, inspire and empower the next generation of trailblazing and stereotype-breaking women.

    Maggie Daskam is a member of the Women of WyoTech group, which she describes as very special as it “brings the few females here at school together and helps us get to know each other better.” 

    Daskam adds: “From a very young age, my grandpa would always talk to me about the cars he used to have, which made me want a car of my own. So I just started working till I could afford to get a goal car for me. And once I did, it seems I’ve been fixing things on it ever since. Not only did I learn a lot from it right away, but it also helped me realize I liked working on vehicles. Deciding to go to WyoTech was a lot of things for me. I learned lots through my diesel core classes and have been loving my specialty classes—High Performance Power Trains and Chassis Fabrication.” 

    “I feel honored receiving the support from a very inspirational and well-known name,” said Jade Bovee, who enrolled in WyoTech in September 2021 and began classes in October. “The Jessi Combs Foundation thrills me and very much inspires me to explore and get my name known the same way Jessi did with ‘the fastest woman on four wheels.’”

    According to Bovee, her creativity sparked her interest in the automotive field and to seek out WyoTech to pursue her interests. “Especially going into the auto body field, I can show and express my own creative ways with cars. I chose to attend WyoTech because their curriculum stands out from other trade schools and programs for my specialty,” she added.

    Kaygen Bogle said she was excited about the recognition and ready to work with women like herself. “My family has always worked on cars, and we spend Sunday mornings watching car-building shows like the ones Jessi starred in. WyoTech offers everything I want in a school. This is a hands-on learning environment, and I didn’t want the ‘normal’ college experience. I wanted to be with students like me,” she added.

    The trades have seen a modest but steady increase in diversity among men and women in the past few years. According to a 2018 study by the Center for American Progress, 7.3% of people who completed apprenticeship programs were women. According to data from the U.S. Department of Labor, the number is up roughly 4% in two years, with women making up 11.6% of those who completed apprenticeship programs in the 2020 fiscal year.

    The Jessi Combs Foundation was founded in 2019 in honor of the late Jessi Combs, a renowned race car driver and WyoTech graduate.

    For more information, please visit https://www.wyotech.edu.

    To learn more about the Jessi Combs Foundation, please visit www.thejessicombsfoundation.com.

    About WyoTech

    WyoTech, formerly known as Wyoming Technical Institute, is a for-profit technical college founded in Laramie, Wyoming, in 1966. WyoTech provides training programs that prepare students for careers as technicians in the automotive and diesel industry with nine-month training programs that focus on hands-on experience.

    Source: WyoTech

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  • Nikola founder Trevor Milton found guilty of securities fraud over misleading statements

    Nikola founder Trevor Milton found guilty of securities fraud over misleading statements

    A federal jury in New York convicted Nikola Corp. founder Trevor Milton of securities fraud for what prosecutors said were his repeated lies about the development of the company’s zero-emissions trucks and technology.

    The guilty verdict caps the downfall of Milton, who founded Nikola
    NKLA,
    -1.29%
    in his basement in 2015 and took it public in 2020 at a valuation of $3.3 billion, when the company hadn’t sold a single truck. The company’s market valuation briefly exceeded that of industry giants such as Ford Motor Co.
    F,
    -0.85%

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  • The world’s first successful integrated measurement of exhaust and non-exhaust particulate matter (PM) emissions of various vehicle types

    The world’s first successful integrated measurement of exhaust and non-exhaust particulate matter (PM) emissions of various vehicle types

    Newswise — The world’s first attempt to measure particulate matter (PM) emissions generated by not only engine combustion but wear-down of brake and tire is complete.

    The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (President Sang Jin Park, hereinafter referred to as KIMM), an institute under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Science and ICT, announced that it has succeeded in integrated experimental measurement of exhaust (engine combustion) and non-exhaust (tire and brake wear, road wear, and re-suspended road dust) emissions from the internal combustion engine and electric vehicles.

    Until now, research on measuring the amount of non-exhaust PM emissions or identifying the phenomenon has rarely conducted except for brake wear PM emissions. When estimating total PM emissions, superficial methods have been used using emission factors correspondent to each emission source listed in the national emission inventory.

    It is the world’s first attempt by KIMM to measure the total PM emissions according to vehicle type and sources through integrated experimental measurement. The result of this study will be used to identify the cause of the non-exhaust emissions from internal combustion engine and electric vehicles and to develop guidelines for government policies to mitigate traffic-related PM emissions.

    Seokhwan Lee and his research team in the Department of Mobility Power Research at the KIMM Institute of Carbon Neutral Energy Machinery conducted an integrated experiment and measurement of PM emissions according to the powertrain type for compact SUVs using an in-house developed tire wear simulator, brake wear simulator, and a mobile road dust measurement vehicle. The results for gasoline, diesel, and electric vehicles were as follows. PM10 emissions were 42.3 mg/km for gasoline vehicles, 43.2 mg/km for diesel vehicles, and 47.7 mg/km for electric vehicles. PM2.5 emissions were 14.5 mg/km for gasoline vehicles, 14.1 mg/km for diesel vehicles, and 13.9 mg/km for electric vehicles.

    In case of the latest internal combustion engine vehicles, the current technological advancement of engine combustion and after-treatment devices have evolved considerably to reduce particulate matter emission, as a result, the share of non-exhaust PM in the total PM emissions has been increased to more than 90%.

    According to Dr. Lee, “Electric vehicles do not emit toxic exhaust gases and greenhouse gases at all. Nevertheless, our results show that they do emit a significant amount of non-exhaust emissions.” He added, “To improve urban air quality, the government should parallely implement various policies to mitigate non-exhaust emissions, rather than only focusing uptake of the electric vehicles.”

     

    ###

     

    The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) is a non-profit government-funded research institute under the Ministry of Science and ICT. Since its foundation in 1976, KIMM is contributing to economic growth of the nation by performing R&D on key technologies in machinery and materials, conducting reliability test evaluation, and commercializing the developed products and technologies.

    The research was conducted with the support from a project under the Ministry of Science and ICT, titled “Investigation of Physicochemical Characteristics of Traffic-related Particulate Matters”. The result of this study was published in the SCI journal Science of the Total Environment.

    According to Dr. Lee, “Electric vehicles do not emit toxic exhaust gases and greenhouse gases at all. Nevertheless, our results show that they do emit a significant amount of non-exhaust emissions.” He added, “To improve urban air quality, the government should parallely implement various policies to mitigate non-exhaust emissions, rather than only focusing uptake of the electric vehicles.”

    National Research Council of Science and Technology

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  • Ford stock is now a ‘sell’ at UBS as an oversupply problem looms

    Ford stock is now a ‘sell’ at UBS as an oversupply problem looms

    Shares of Ford Motor Co. were hit hard Monday by UBS analyst Patrick Hummel’s recommendation that investors sell, as the auto industry is facing a worrisome U-turn from undersupply to oversupply.

    Hummel also cut his ratings on several other global auto makers, including General Motors Co.
    GM,
    -5.59%    ,
    saying that as a recession concerns grow, “demand destruction is no longer a vague risk.”

    In addition to all of the data suggesting the economy is slowing, Hummel said growing U.S. dealer inventories, weak used-car pricing, used-car dealer profit warnings and signs indicating deteriorating orders and shorter delivery times make him more cautious on the overall auto industry.

    Don’t miss: CarMax stock suffered biggest selloff since the year 2000, as inflation, low consumer confidence lead to big profit miss.

    “We think it will only take 3-6 months for the auto industry to end up in oversupply, which will put an abrupt end to a 3-year phase of unprecedented OEM [original equipment manufacturer] pricing power and margins,” Hummel wrote in a note to clients.

    As part of his negative industry outlook, he cut his rating on Ford
    F,
    -7.38%
    to sell from neutral and his stock price target to $10 from $13, with the new target implying about 11% downside from current levels.

    Ford’s stock sank 7.6% in morning trading. It was trading up just 0.6% month to date, after plunging 26.5% in September to suffer its worst monthly performance since it plummeted 30.6% during pandemic-stricken March 2020.

    Hummel noted that Ford has already warned about having more vehicles in inventory than expected, and above payments to suppliers running about $1 billion higher than projected, so he sees little margin left for negative surprises in terms of fourth-quarter deliveries and supply costs.

    Hummel cut his 2023 adjusted earnings-per-share estimate by 61% to 52 cents a share, to reflect a $6.5 billion drop in price and sales mix. The compares with the current 2023 FactSet EPS consensus of $1.87.

    “This sounds very negative, but Ford gains $19 billion in price alone since the beginning of 2020,” Hummel wrote.

    Also read: Ford again raises price of F-150 Lightning electric pickup.

    Read more: Ford September sales fall as drop in trucks offsets near tripling in EVs.

    Meanwhile, GM’s stock dove 6.9% in morning trading toward a three-month low, and shares have shed 2.5% so far this month after tumbling 16% last month.

    Hummel downgraded GM to neutral from buy, and dropped his price target by 32%, to $38 from $56.

    The rating remains above Ford’s, because unlike its rival, Hummel noted that GM has had “no hiccups” in its third-quarter production schedule and therefore a “solid” quarterly report is expected. However, the downgrade reflects the fact that GM is “not immune” to a downturn in the industry.

    Separately, Hummel also cut his stock-price target on Tesla Inc.
    TSLA,
    -0.16%
    to $350 from $367, saying that following a third-quarter volume report that was below expectations, it will be “more challenging” for the electric-vehicle maker to meet its 2022 delivery growth target.

    However, Hummel reiterated his buy rating on Tesla, as he believes the EV maker is best positioned to use pricing as the tool to fill its factories.

    “Overall, the recession outlook should result in moderately lower margins for Tesla than previously expected, but we’re highly confident that by keeping the top line [revenue] momentum, Tesla will even widen the gap vs. competitors in terms of profitability,” Hummel wrote.

    Ford’s stock has fallen 3% over the past three months, while GM shares have lost 3.1% and Tesla’s stock has dropped 11.8%. In comparison, the S&P 500 index
    SPX,
    -1.08%
    has declined 7.5% the past three months.

    Among other auto makers, he also downgraded both Renault SA
    RNO,
    +2.41%

    RNLSY,
    +1.17%
    and Volkswagen AG
    VOW,
    -3.29%
    to neutral from buy. He also downgraded auto parts makers Continental AG
    CON,
    +0.10%
    and Faurecia SE
    EO,
    -3.77%

    FURCF,
    -3.67%
    to neutral from buy.

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  • Elon Musk’s Private Messages with Billionaire Pals

    Elon Musk’s Private Messages with Billionaire Pals

    In Musk v. Twitter, a part of the business life of the richest man in the world is revealed. 

    Private messages exchanged with his inner circle immerse us into his process when he conceives an idea.

    The messages were released by the Delaware Chancery Court as part of the proceedings between the two parties. 

    The revelation of these private messages is undoubtedly one of the reasons which led the billionaire to put back on the table his offer to acquire the platform for $44 billion. And to demand that Twitter  (TWTR)  drop its legal action in exchange.

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  • Rivian Recalling Nearly All of Its Vehicles

    Rivian Recalling Nearly All of Its Vehicles

    Rivian Automotive is recalling nearly all of its vehicles to address a potential problem that could cause customers to lose steering control, the company said Friday.

    The electric truck and SUV maker said the recall was made after it discovered a fastener connecting the upper control arm and steering knuckle may have been improperly installed. In rare cases, the problem could lead to a loss of steering control, the company said.

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  • Scientists design electrolyte for lithium metal anodes for use in lithium metal batteries

    Scientists design electrolyte for lithium metal anodes for use in lithium metal batteries

    Newswise — With the growing demand for electric vehicles, the need for high-safety, long-life batteries also rises. Yet the electric vehicles’ demand for high energy density batteries outpaces the capabilities of the current lithium-ion batteries. Scientists are looking to develop lithium metal batteries with lithium metal as the anode because these batteries have a much higher charging capacity. However, there are safety issues with lithium-metal batteries because dendrites—spiky, metallic microstructures—form during the charging process.

    A team of Chinese researchers set out to solve the problem of the lithium dendrite formation and to build high-safety, long-life lithium metal batteries. The team has successfully designed an electrolyte that suppresses the formation of the dendrites. This electrolyte delivers excellent performance in lithium metal batteries and offers solutions in the research toward building high-safety, long-life lithium metal batteries.

    The team’s findings are published in the journal Nano Research on October 3, 2022.

    While lithium metal anodes hold great potential for high-energy storage batteries, the uncontrollable lithium dendrite growth raises significant concerns. The dendrite growth occurs when the lithium ions move and convert to one specific location on the lithium metal surface. The dendrites cause poor cycling efficiency in the battery and are a severe safety issue.

    The team tackled the dendrite problem by combining the advantages of conventional electrolytes and high-concentration electrolytes. The high-concentration electrolytes overcome some of the shortcomings of conventional electrolytes, and hold strong promise for use in next-generation batteries. The electrolyte the team created delivers excellent electrochemical performance in lithium metal batteries and suppresses formation of dendrites. “Its unique structure not only promotes the uniform conversion of ions on the electrode surface but also ensures the rapid movement of ions in the electrolyte,” said Chunpeng Yang, a professor at Tianjin University.

    The researchers began their work by running numerical simulations to explore the effect of a negatively charged coating to induce the interfacial high-concentration electrolyte. Then as a proof-of-concept material, the researchers coated nitrogen- and oxygen-doped carbon nanosheets, that have surface negative charges, with nickel foam to create the electrode. The positively charged lithium ions are concentrated near the nitrogen- and oxygen-doped carbon electrode that is coated with nickel. This concentration of lithium ions promotes the charge transfer reactions on the electrode contribute to outstanding electrochemical cycling performances. The researchers conducted half-cell and full-cell tests on the electrode with excellent results. Their electrode performs much better than other electrodes based on pure nickel foam.

    “This provides a simple principle for suppressing the lithium dendrites by simultaneously taking into account the advantages of conventional electrolyte and high-concentration electrolyte for stable Li metal anode, which may be applied to other substrates for practical metal batteries,” said Yang.

    Beyond coating negatively surface-charged materials on the electrode to guide the formation of interfacial high-concentrated electrolytes, the team plans to look for other ways to obtain this unique electrolyte structure as means to achieving high-performance batteries. The researchers hope to achieve the commercial application of Li metal batteries with high energy density, high safety and long life, by systematically optimizing the battery components. “Our study results could be extended to more metal-battery systems, such as sodium, zinc and magnesium metal batteries, which will contribute to the realization of large-scale energy storage for sustainable energy supply,” said Yang

    The research team includes Haotian Lu, Feifei Wang, and Lu Wang from Tianjin University, the Haihe Laboratory of Sustainable Chemical Transformations, and the National University of Singapore; Chunpeng Yang, from Tianjin University and the Haihe Laboratory of Sustainable Chemical Transformations; Jinghong Zhou, from East China University of Science and Technology; Wei Chen, from  National University of Singapore; and Quan-Hong Yang from Tianjin University and the Haihe Laboratory of Sustainable Chemical Transformations.

    This research is funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China, the Haihe Laboratory of Sustainable Chemical Transformations, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

     

    ##

     

    About Nano Research 

    Nano Research is a peer-reviewed, international and interdisciplinary research journal, publishes all aspects of nano science and technology, featured in rapid review and fast publishing, sponsored by Tsinghua University and the Chinese Chemical Society. It offers readers an attractive mix of authoritative and comprehensive reviews and original cutting-edge research papers. After 15 years of development, it has become one of the most influential academic journals in the nano field. In 2022 InCites Journal Citation Reports, Nano Research has an Impact Factor of 10.269 (9.136, 5 years), the total cites reached 29620, ranking first in China’s international academic journals, and the number of highly cited papers reached 120, ranked among the top 2.8% of over 9000 academic journals.

     

    About Tsinghua University Press

    Established in 1980, belonging to Tsinghua University, Tsinghua University Press (TUP) is a leading comprehensive higher education and professional publisher in China. Committed to building a top-level global cultural brand, after 41 years of development, TUP has established an outstanding managerial system and enterprise structure, and delivered multimedia and multi-dimensional publications covering books, audio, video, electronic products, journals and digital publications. In addition, TUP actively carries out its strategic transformation from educational publishing to content development and service for teaching & learning and was named First-class National Publisher for achieving remarkable results.

    Tsinghua University Press

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  • Twitter stock surges 22% after Elon Musk gives up bot battle and commits to $44 billion deal

    Twitter stock surges 22% after Elon Musk gives up bot battle and commits to $44 billion deal

    Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk now plans to close his proposed $44 billion deal for Twitter Inc., according to a Tuesday filing that arrived less than two weeks before a judge was scheduled to hear a case on the disputed acquisition.

    Musk’s lawyers sent a letter to Twitter’s management team indicating that he was proposing to move forward with the original acquisition terms late Monday, and that letter was released as a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday afternoon. A Twitter spokesperson later confirmed to MarketWatch that the company intended to proceed with the deal for $54.20 a share.

    Twitter
    TWTR,
    +22.24%
    shares jumped 22.2% to $52 in Tuesday’s session, after an hours-long trading halt that started after Bloomberg News first reported the move around noon Eastern time, suggesting a possible end to the legal saga between the two parties. The increase is the second best daily percentage gain on record for Twitter stock, behind only the 27.1% gain experienced when Musk disclosed his initial ownership stake in Twitter in April. Twitter was the best performing stock Tuesday in the S&P 500 index
    SPX,
    +3.06%    ,
    and is now up 20.3% on the year.

    The two sides have been locked in a legal battle for months, and a Delaware Chancery Court judge was expected to hear from both sides in a five-day trial slated to begin Oct. 17. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the Delaware judge asked the two sides to come up with a plan by the end of the day that could bring about an end to the litigation.

    “Musk could see the writing on the wall that he was going to lose the trial,” said Josh White, an assistant finance professor at Vanderbilt University, in an email to MarketWatch. “By doing this, he can save legal costs, time and ultimately losing in a very public trial.”

    See also: Here’s how Twitter’s users reacted to Musk agreeing to buy the platform

    Musk agreed in April to buy Twitter in a deal that valued the company at roughly $44 billion, but he later said that he was terminating the deal. The Tesla
    TSLA,
    +2.90%
    CEO cited concerns about bot activity on Twitter and said he believed the company’s management team wasn’t accurate in its public disclosures about the extent of spam activity on the platform.

    White noted that text messages released in conjunction with the case showed that Musk was aware of Twitter’s bot issue before going forward with his original deal offer, and he doubted that Musk would be able to show that “something really changed” after that point.

    “If he offered less than $54.20, Twitter might have proceeded with the trial, and he would be deposed,” White continued. “By offering the original price, he maximizes the chance that Twitter accepts and the trial ends. I expect Twitter’s board to accept the deal and for it to close rather quickly.”

    Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives agreed that the Tesla leader’s latest move marked a “clear sign that Musk recognized heading into Delaware Court that the chances of winning vs. Twitter board was highly unlikely and this $44 billion deal was going to be completed one way or another,” he wrote in a note to clients. “Being forced to do the deal after a long and ugly court battle in Delaware was not an ideal scenario and instead accepting this path and moving forward with the deal will save a massive legal headache.”

    Opinion: Twitter stood up to Elon Musk and won, but will it feel like a win once he owns it?

    Vanderbilt’s White noted that a deal at the original price would be a “big” win for Twitter shareholders.

    “The stock price of Snap
    SNAP,
    +8.42%
    and Twitter seemed to trade around the same price level before the offer,” he told MarketWatch. “Snap is now a ~$10 stock with a $17 billion market cap. So Twitter’s shareholders win by getting $54.20 rather than having the price drop to $10-20 per share.”

    Additionally, he deemed Delaware business law another winner: “This deal shows that even the richest man in the world cannot overcome well-written contracts enforced in a neutral and fair way by the Delaware courts.”

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  • Tesla’s Deliveries Missed the Mark. Why Analysts Aren’t Worried.

    Tesla’s Deliveries Missed the Mark. Why Analysts Aren’t Worried.



    Tesla


    stock dropped on Monday after the electric-vehicle company disclosed delivery figures that fell short of Wall Street forecasts, but at least some analysts see reason for optimism.

    On Sunday,


    Tesla


    (ticker: TSLA) reported that it delivered 343,830 cars and produced 365,923 in the third quarter. The deliveries were a jump compared with the 254,695 vehicles


    Tesla


    handed over to customers in the second quarter, but still below Wall Street estimates. The company said that deliveries have historically been skewed toward the end of each quarter, and that as “production volumes continue to grow, it is becoming increasingly challenging to secure vehicle transportation capacity and at a reasonable cost during these peak logistics weeks.”

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  • Elon Musk Sends Scathing Message to Tesla Investors

    Elon Musk Sends Scathing Message to Tesla Investors

    Elon Musk is not a Chief Executive Officer like the others. 

    Tesla’s  (TSLA)  boss is atypical. 

    He refuses to obey the rules often imposed on executives of public companies.

    The billionaire did not hesitate to relaunch the showdown with the U.S Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) despite a 2018 settlement with the regulator.

    In September 2018, the two sides agreed to end an investigation into a tweet from Musk, posted on August 7, 2019, that caused the price of Tesla shares to fall.

    “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured,” the billionaire wrote at the time.

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  • Intel files for Mobileye IPO, creating a share structure that will keep the chipmaker in control

    Intel files for Mobileye IPO, creating a share structure that will keep the chipmaker in control

    After nearly a year’s wait, Mobileye is on the highway to Wall Street.

    Intel Corp.
    INTC,
    -2.31%
    -owned Mobileye Global Inc. launched its drive to an initial public offering in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing late Friday, leaving the size of the offering blank for now on what is expected to be one of the largest IPOs of the year.

    Intel executives were targeting mid-2022 as of late last year, and filed confidentially with the SEC in March for the IPO of its self-driving-car unit, but the IPO market has been dry amid a decline for stocks, especially those that went public in a 2021 rush.

    Mobileye plans to trade Class A shares of common stock on the Nasdaq exchange under the symbol “MBLY,” the same symbol the company had before Intel acquired Mobileye in 2017 for $15.3 billion in cash. While selling shares in Mobileye, Intel will retain official control of the company, keeping class B shares that carry 10 votes apiece while selling class A shares that have only one vote.

    Mobileye also plans to have four Intel-affiliated members on its board, including Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger serving as chairman of Mobileye’s board.

    Intel will also get paid from the offering: Mobileye issued Intel a dividend note for $3.5 billion, and expects to pay that off with proceeds from the sale, according to the filing; there was an initial payment of $336 million, leaving more than $3 billion still owed to Intel. Earlier reporting suggested Intel would seek a $30 billion valuation for Mobileye in the IPO, though the initial filing Friday did not include targeted prices for the shares.

    The filing did include financial information, though: Mobileye reported revenue of $1.39 billion in 2021, well ahead of Nvidia Corp.
    NVDA,
    -0.66%    ,
    which reported fiscal-year revenue of $566 million in auto chip sales in January. Mobileye reported a loss of $70 million last year, compared with a $196 million loss in 2020 and $328 million in 2019. Revenue in the first half of this year hit $854 million, growing 41% in the second quarter from the year before.

    The filing lists a whopping 24 underwriters for the deal including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Evercore ISI, Barclays, Citigroup, and B of A Securities.

    Shares of Intel were up 0.5% after hours Friday, following a 2.3% decline in the regular session to close at $25.77.

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  • Want to buy Porsche stock in the U.S.? It’s complicated.

    Want to buy Porsche stock in the U.S.? It’s complicated.

    Porsche shares
    P911,

    have traded higher on Thursday after a well-received initial public offering in Germany’s biggest new issue in decades.

    If you’re a U.S.-based investor interested in purchasing shares of the German automobile maker, the bad news is that there’s no offering on the New York Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq.

    But U.S.-based brokerages do offer the ability for investors to buy stocks on foreign exchanges, such as the Frankfurt exchange, where Porsche shares trade. These trades are harder to place and typically carry extra fees.

    Charles Schwab, for example, doesn’t allow such trades online but does permit them through a broker. Fidelity doesn’t allow U.S. investors to buy foreign stocks on margin, bars short sales and limits order instructions.

    Also, there is an over-the-counter offer of Porsche Automobil Holding
    POAHY,
    -13.72%    .
    That investment vehicle now holds a 25% stake in Porsche, plus some 53% of Volkswagen
    VOW3,
    -6.85%

    VWAPY,
    -8.57%    .

    Also read: Here’s what to know about the Porsche IPO

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  • WyoTech Highlights Programs Supporting the Next Generation of Trade Instructors

    WyoTech Highlights Programs Supporting the Next Generation of Trade Instructors

    WyoTech’s quarterly instructor visitation and annual summer seminar programs help educators better prepare future technicians pursuing full-time training in automotive, diesel, and collision and refinishing.

    Press Release
    –

    Aug 15, 2022


    LARAMIE, Wyo., August 15, 2022 (Newswire.com)
    –
    WyoTech, a leading automotive, diesel, and collision trade school in the United States, continues to prepare trade school instructors with its programs. Through its quarterly instructor visitation and annual summer seminar programs, WyoTech is actively closing the training gap that has caused the lack of trade-focused courses in high school curriculums across the country.

    Traditionally, aspiring teachers will pursue college degrees and obtain certifications to teach subjects such as English, mathematics, history, and science, among others. Because there are so few formal training programs for trade-based concepts, very few high schools can find teachers who can teach courses that cover concepts related to the automotive, diesel, and collision and refinishing industries.

    In an effort to enhance trade education across the country and increase student exposure to new career paths, WyoTech is offering 100% paid-in-full supplemental training programs. These programs can help administrators learn how to implement trade-focused courses into existing curriculums and provide teachers with the latest industry trends, standards, and updates that can be brought back to students in the classroom. WyoTech covers the majority of costs related to travel, stipends, and hotel accommodations.

    Today, the future still looks bleak for most high schools in the U.S. In July 2022, the New York Times reported that a Manhattan judge put a hold on more than $200 million of cuts that would impact roughly 1,200 city public schools. Outraged parents have begun suing the district over the proposed budget slashing that would be extremely detrimental to the quality of education in the five boroughs if they were to go into effect. 

    “The value trade and vocational education programs have on a student cannot be underestimated,” said WyoTech president Jim Mathis. “We at WyoTech want to do our part to keep trade programs in high schools, and to do so, instructors need to be armed with the best possible programs and education.”

    For more information regarding WyoTech’s teacher education programs, please visit https://www.wyotech.edu.

    About WyoTech

    WyoTech, formerly known as Wyoming Technical Institute, is a for-profit technical college founded in Laramie, Wyoming, in 1966. WyoTech provides training programs that prepare students for careers as technicians in the automotive and diesel industry with nine-month training programs that focus on hands-on experience.

    Media Contact:

    Mike Albanese
    mike.albanese@newswire.com 

    Source: WyoTech

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