Tesla fan boys and some other industry observers claim that plug-in hybrid vehicles are a needlessly complex and expensive technology and more importantly that consumers will not buy PHEV’s because full battery electric’s (BEV’s) are so much better. In this video Volvo US CEO Anders Gustafsson explains there is a bright future for Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles (PHEV), at least in the short run. Volvo will double down on electrification under his leadership and they will promote PHEV’s to most of…
Over the years we have considered several counterintuitive psychological conditions that cause citizens and politicians to act in ways others see as irrational: Why Good People, Including Politicians, Give Into Strongmen & Support Blatant Lies VIDEO: Prius or Pickup – The Psychology of Deep Political Division in 2 Minutes VIDEO: The Biology of Why Facts Don’t Win Fights and here is one more we think you will find interesting. In 2014 Yale Law school professor known for cultural cognition theory,…
In what appears to be a shocking result to many, former President Trump actually increased his support in areas of the United States hit hardest by COVID-19. In this 90 second clip from Fareed Zakaria’s show GPS broadcast on CNN, he uses articles from Bloomberg and The Atlantic to show that while Trump may have been a very dark figure in American and global politics, he was the “hope” candidate for those in local politics. As the saying goes ‘In…
“A huge shock to the system: Our assessment is that global energy demand is set to drop by 5% in 2020, energy-related CO2 emissions by 7%, and energy investment by 18%. The impacts vary by fuel. The estimated falls of 8% in oil demand and 7% in coal use stand in sharp contrast to a slight rise in the contribution of renewables… “IEA World Energy Report So began the latest large scale report on the energy industry. When combing through the…
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…
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…
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…
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…
On June 12 2020, a historic request was made by Trevor Noah’s Daily Show team “Please Invade us!”. Check out the DailyShow.com/InvadeUs
Are black Americans really that different from other minorities? Yes, they are. In this short clip Fareed Zakaria explains the how a history of white supremacy and domination of those forced to come to the United States has shaped last 300 years of black development. The piece finishes with a fantastic snippet of Dr. Martin Luther King in 1967, explaining that it is not possible for a bootless man to pick himself up by his own bootstraps. [00:00:00.000] – Fareed…
The American system of government relies on those in Congress, the President, the Courts, the military and the media to take often difficult principled stands. When people are elected or appointed to positions of power they know this to be true and expect to make difficult decisions, so why do they so often give into to aggressors? It turns out that this is just human nature. This is a fascinating look into human physche in which Fareed Zakaria describes Ann…
Headlines like Yes, oil is dead. Just read the writing on the wall. , The coronavirus pandemic may have one silver lining: the potential collapse of big oil. and Green Party declares that “oil is dead” are not only misleading and inaccurate, but also dangerous. Unfortunately, these types of headlines are always from those in the first world. Often with the best of intentions (though not always), they look around their regional environments and see decreased consumption. They then…
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