If you want to understand modern business, in particular EV, new energy and tech companies, you had better understand what a SPAC is. The world of finance used to be relatively simple. There were just three kinds of ownership structures: Sole proprietors One person running a company Partnerships Small group of people running a company Privately held companies Usually a small group of people running a company with many (i.e. 40) shareholders that is not publicly traded so their shares…
Like millions of people, thousands of companies and dozens of countries, staff at our sister site URTech.ca are closely following Googles’ Antitrust case. There is much talk about how this process will take years to play out and how Google may or may not be broken up as a result. However, there is little attention paid to how Google will involuntarily react during the process. We found a small part of a Bloomberg interview with Zillow co-founder and SuperNova founder…
In recent months there has been much talk of so called solid state batteries for use in electric vehicles (EV’s). However, most Solid State Battery engineering is not being done by the big automobile manufacturers like VW, Toyota and GM; mostly SSB’s are being developed by small design houses you likely have never hear of like QuantumScape, Fisker and Solid Power. WHAT IS A SOLID STATE BATTERY? When we think of solid state batteries, we think of electronic circuits with…
A new and little known agency of the United States federal government just invested USD$25 million into a Brazilian cobalt and nickel mine. Who is the US DFC? The United States Development Finance Corporation US DFC was formed in December 2019 as a replacement for several agencies including Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and Development Credit Authority (DCA) of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). As you might expect from the name of these groups, US DFC is…
In todays apparently super polarized world more and more people are rejecting the left right axis as their measure of political positioning. Personally I gave up on political parties and the left right designation in the late 2000’s. Many times have I had to argue that their “I’m a Conservative” or “I’m a Democrat” branding is likely no longer accurate or even particularly meaningful. In his recent book, Do Something, Preston Manning, explains that he and his Manning Centre for Building…
In this short clip from cnn.com/gps Fareed Zakaria explains that recent polls indicate a massively uneven split between the Democratic and Republican Parties mail in ballots. This could easily lead to excessively partisan State Governors changing the laws to effectively invalidate election results and unilaterally support sitting President Trump.
If you have heard the nonsense put out by blind Tesla fanboys that Range Anxiety is a thing of the past, watch this video to get the real information. I recently had to do a loop from Calgary to Lethbridge, Alberta and back. Because Lethbridge has only 1 charger and it is only a 220 volt tied to the Holiday Inn, I had to go through a small town named Fort Macleod, Alberta which has a very nice set of…
What is the “best” electric vehicle? That is a subjective question for sure, but using mass market proven components combined with a price regular people can actually afford are to of the most important parts of the formula. The Fisker Ocean EV will be the least expensive, highest quality electric drive SUV on the planet. According to the founder, Henrik Fisker, designing your own parts and assembling your own vehicle is an expensive fools game. Using the Volkswagen MEB electric…
Tesla fan boys will tell you that the Model S, 3 and X are the greatest vehicles ever put into production and that “…none of the brain dead dino-juice legacy car companies will ever catch…” (actual quote from a Telsa buddy of mine). In this video we discuss more than a dozen Tesla problems or shortcomings, many of which are quite unexpected. From excessive road noise, to a lack of basic radio management tools (like mute and reordering favorites), to…
The thread of China’s new National Security Law for Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) being vigorously enforced by the Chinese Communist Party Government in Beijing has had the desired chilling effect on political protests in Hong Kong that have been active for the last year. Here is the time line of that law: Date Description Oct 31 2019 Communist Party of China issues communique indicating the safe-guarding of national security needed improvement May 22 2020 First public draft of…
All countries need and have national security laws that put bounds on the conduct of its citizens and visitors so why if China’s so different? There is an excellent book titled “The Dictators Handbook” which explains in the decades and centuries past, dictators would simply round up and kill the people they did not like, but through the last half of the 20th century increased communication and public scrutiny made those techniques for control dangerous. One only has to think…
It should not have come as a surprise to us that several people have made snide comments about our review of General Motors new Ultium batteries but it did. So let us quickly clarify a few things. There is no suggestion that the GM’s Ultium EV battery packs will leap frog GM or any other company into market domination. Low cost, flexible packaged, high capacity, fast charging, EV battery packs are a necessary but NOT sufficient element for domination. So…
This fantastic spoof by our friends at “22 Minutes” shows how the Federal Government controls everything, Quebec takes everything and Alberta pays for everything. The only way this would be more funny, is if it were less true 🙁
As word spread last week that Tesla is likely to change to hexagonal from the cylindrical batteries it has used for a decade, GM that usurped the whole efficiency debate by showing off their innovative new flat pack batteries they call “Ultium”. They are higher density at a much lower cost than any other companies battery pack and can be charged at a massive 800V providing a 100 miles of range in just 10 minutes. It appears that GM will…
To say that the Tesla CyberTruck is unorthodox is like saying cheese is not metal; it’s a bit of an obvious understatement. Most people think that the CyberTruck is incredibly ugly but others see it as bold step.However, a business analysis of Elon Musks latest creation went something like this: Tesla cannot afford to further erode profit margins by producing mass market priced vehicles Tesla cannot be distracted by another complex and expensive assembly line Tesla has now proven they…
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