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General Motors to take stake in Nikola electric truck company
By John BIERS
New York (AFP) Sept 8, 2020

Uber says will be 'zero emissions' by 2040
Washington (AFP) Sept 8, 2020 - Uber said Tuesday it intends to become a "zero emission platform" by 2040 and will seek to have all its rides by electric vehicles by 2030 in the United States, Canada and Europe.

The global ride-hailing giant said it was taking the initiative to help fight global climate change by reducing automobile emissions.

"The world is at a critical juncture, and we all have a role to play. Uber is aiming high," chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi said in a statement.

"We'll seek to build the most efficient, decarbonized, and multimodal platform in the world for on-demand mobility. While we're not the first to set ambitious goals in transitioning to EVs, we intend to be the first to make it happen."

Khosrowshahi said the San Francisco company is committed to a zero-emission policy by 2040 with all rides booked on the platform on nonpolluting vehicles, public transit or micromobility.

Uber, which does not own the vehicles used for its rides, said it would expand its Uber Green option to make it easier for riders to choose hybrid or electric cars.

It is also pledging to spend $800 million "to help hundreds of thousands of drivers transition to EVs by 2025," according to Khosrowshahi.

He added that despite the dip in emissions due to the coronavirus pandemic, this is expected to rise with the economic recovery.

"Instead of going back to business as usual, Uber is taking this moment as an opportunity to reduce our environmental impact," he said.

"It's our responsibility as the largest mobility platform in the world to more aggressively tackle the challenge of climate change."

Uber's move follows an announcement in June from US rival Lyft to transition to 100 percent electric vehicles by 2030.

General Motors drove further into the world of electric vehicles on Tuesday, announcing a manufacturing partnership with electric truck company Nikola in the latest cost-sharing venture.

As more automakers join forces to work on ambitious advances, the old-school auto giant will help the Arizona-based startup with battery and fuel cell technologies initially for the Nikola Badger pickup truck, and later for its larger commercial vehicles, the companies said in a joint statement.

In exchange, GM will receive an 11 percent stake and a seat on the board of Nikola, which plans to start producing the Badger by the end of 2022.

The announcement produced an immediate windfall for investors in Nikola, worth $2 billion, whose shares surged by around 40 percent. GM shares also advanced solidly on a down day for Wall Street.

GM and other US automakers are spending billions to develop new electric vehicles at the same time the industry is also investing heavily in autonomous technologies.

GM will provide "in-kind" services to the electric truck startup and will "engineer, homologate, validate and manufacturer the Nikola Badger battery electric and fuel cell versions," the companies said.

Nikola Founder and Executive Chairman Trevor Milton said Tuesday the partnership would save his company $4 billion in batteries alone.

GM has already "spent billions of dollars developing their electric vehicle power train... their batteries and their fuel cells," Milton said on a conference call with analysts.

"Rather than letting their asset sit there and try to build it organically, one of the things they've been able to do is jumpstart this growth internally at GM with Nikola."

Milton launched Nikola in 2015, and the company went public in June, announcing plans to build hydrogen fueling stations, in additional to zero-emission vehicles.

The company, which has drawn comparisons to electric car company Tesla, has broken ground on a manufacturing facility in Arizona, in addition to a facility still under construction in Germany.

With the GM partnership, Nikola "immediately gets decades of supplier and manufacturing knowledge, validated and tested production-ready EV propulsion, world-class engineering and investor confidence," Milton said in a news release.

"Most importantly, General Motors has a vested interest to see Nikola succeed."

- Building on Honda deal -

GM Chief Executive Mary Barra said the partnership showed the potential of the Detroit giant's technologies to be used in environmentally progressive autos.

"We are growing our presence in multiple high-volume EV segments while building scale to lower battery and fuel cell costs and increase profitability," Barra said.

And using the company's technology on Nikola's "heavy-duty class of commercial vehicles is another important step in fulfilling our vision of a zero-emissions future," she said.

The Nikola announcement comes on the heels of GM's announcement last week that it is deepening its collaboration with Japanese automaker Honda to share vehicle platforms and development costs.

GM's US rival Ford has teamed up with German giant Volkswagen to jointly develop electric and self-driving vehicles, and a pending merger between Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot also aims to hold costs down.

Analysts expect more of these partnerships and joint ventures.

"What's becoming clear is that no single company has enough resources to go it alone towards a future that is electrified, connected and autonomous," said Michelle Krebs, executive analyst at Cox Automotive.

"Like the Honda alliance announced last week, GM's arrangement with startup Nikola will help proliferate GM's newly developed Ultium battery systems. Higher volume theoretically means lower cost, and the premium cost has been an obstacle to EV adoption in the US."

Krebs said the venture also could spur along developments of fuel cell technologies, which is at a much earlier stage of commercialization compared with electric cars.

Shares of Nikola surged 40.8 percent to $50.05, while GM jumped 8.0 percent to $32.38.


Related Links
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Demand for new cars falls in Germany as virus cases rebound
Frankfurt Am Main (AFP) Sept 3, 2020
The German car market deepened its slump in August as a jump in coronavirus cases caused consumers to hold back on new purchases, industry figures indicated Thursday. Registrations fell 20 percent compared with August 2019, a large drop compared to July, when registrations were down only 5.4 percent year-on-year, data published by the Federal Motor Transport Authority showed. Germany recently reported its highest case numbers since April, and is starting to tighten restrictions again. Chance ... read more

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