Despite more than a million riders, Paris may ban rental e-scooters
Paris is considering an all-out ban on the insanely popular rental electric scooters in the coming weeks, with backers of the plan saying that they clog up the streets and sidewalks, freak out pedestrians, and aren’t even that green due to their “very short life.”
The capital city is home to a fleet of 15,000 rental e-scooters, with 1.2 million riders last year, most of them residents of Paris. Yet the city’s three electric scooter operators, Lime, Dott, and Tier, are all up for license renewal in February 2023. But whether or not that will happen is yet to be determined, with Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo expected to announce her decision in the coming weeks.
The big concern is, of course, safety. Paris had 337 registered accidents tied to e-scooters in the first eight months of this year, from 247 over the same period last year. Last year, an Italian woman walking along the Seine died tragically when an e-scooter carrying two women struck her. Another high-profile case involved the death of two teenagers on an e-scooter in Lyon in August of this year, which led to that city banning e-scooter use for riders under 18.
The operators, however, argue that Paris is already the strictest, most regulated city in the world in regards to their business, with only three operators allowed in the city under three-year contracts, with automatic tracking and speed limits as low as 10 km in some areas, and down to zero as you wheel into a public park. Paris allows e-scooters on bike lanes only, and only one person can legally ride at a time – although this isn’t often adhered to.
Plus Lime, Dott, and Tier say that pointing the finger at them isn’t fair, since rental e-scooters only account for a small proportion of accidents, and represent fewer fatal accidents on a per-ride basis compared to mopeds or cars. France also accounts for Europe’s largest market in e-scooters purchased for personal use, with more than 900,000 e-scooters sold last year – so eliminating rental e-scooters won’t solve the problem.
A supporter of the ban, David Belliard, the Green deputy mayor in charge of transport and public spaces, told Le Parisien that “there has been progress, but it’s still complicated: for example, in parking spots, you can find electric scooters strewn across the ground and people obliged to climb over them, including elderly people.”
While, as a longtime resident of Paris, anecdotally, it’s hard to argue with this observation, but companies say that they are doing more and better every day thanks to geo-tracking software – they cite that 96% of their devices are parked where they belong, and company patrol operators cruise the city to reposition e-scooters gone astray, or that have tumbled over in their parking spots. In addition, Paris scooter companies are exploring ways to prevent more than one person from riding a scooter at a time, including using sensors and ID checks.
What about the short shelf-life of a rental scooter? Paris, like most major European cities, was a very early adopter of rental e-scooters, and early versions were more easily broken and discarded, with the bottom of the Seine River being a popular destination for unused e-scooters in Paris. But times have changed, say the e-scooter operators, with devices now weighing around 30 kg compared to 10 kg. Still, companies say they still pay professional divers to fish e-scooters out of the Seine once a month.
Hopefully Hidalgo, too, will not discount how popular e-scooters are, especially among younger Parisians, with one trip being taken every four seconds in Paris. A recent Ipsos survey, commissioned by Dott, Lime, and Tier, found that 88% of city residents have considered e-scooters a part of their daily transport, with more than half saying they’d already used one, with 82% of this group being aged 18-34.
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A Tesla Cybertruck body has been spotted being worked on ahead of the electric pickup truck’s upcoming start of production in Texas.
There are about 1.5 million people interested in the Tesla Cybertruck and they have starved of information for a while.
An update on the production version with final specs and pricing has been expected for the past year, but the automaker has decided to stay quiet about the electric truck, which already had some delays.
When Tesla unveiled the Cybertruck back in 2019, Tesla said that the electric pickup truck would make it to market by the end of 2021. As the deadline was approaching, the automaker confirmed that production slipped to 2022.
CEO Elon Musk later said that Tesla was targeting a start of production for the electric pickup truck in “late 2022” at Gigafactory Texas. With the focus clearly on bringing the Model Y to production at the factory, and that being delayed as well, it appeared likely that the Cybertruck production timeline could also slip.
In March 2022, it was confirmed that Tesla aims to complete Cybertruck development this year for production in 2023, and in June, Musk said that Tesla is aiming for production to start in mid-2023.
In its communications, Tesla has stuck to a mid-2023 timeline over the last few months, and it is starting to become more real than just words with actual production equipment specific to Cybertruck coming to Gigafactory Texas.
Now the image of what appears to be a Tesla Cybertruck body has leaked through the Youtube channel Kim Java without much more information than the image itself:
The image appears to reveal the body of the Cybertruck that we have seen arrived at Gigafactory Texas two months ago.
It shows large casting parts in the back of the truck. It’s hard to tell how many parts make up the entire back of the body since it appears to be partially coated.
The automaker appears to be using both aluminum casted parts and steel for parts of the frame.
Tesla originally talked about the Cybertruck being equipped with an exoskeleton:
Although some dispute Tesla’s use of the word “exoskeleton” since it’s not clear that parts of the external body are structural.
Here’s how Tesla describes it on its website:
Cybertruck is built with an exterior shell made for ultimate durability and passenger protection. Starting with a nearly impenetrable exoskeleton, every component is designed for superior strength and endurance, from Ultra-Hard 30X Cold-Rolled stainless-steel structural skin to Tesla armor glass.
The picture of the body also doesn’t make any external structural parts clear.
Any body-in-white expert out there who wants to share their opinion on the Cybertruck body picture? Let us know in the comment section below.
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Gas prices are displayed at an Exxon gas station on July 29, 2022 in Houston, Texas. Exxon and Chevron posted record high earnings during the second quarter of 2022 as energy stocks have faltered in recent months.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images
A pair of Democratic lawmakers on Friday accused the largest oil companies in the United States of “greenwashing” their public image and not doing enough to decarbonize fast enough to meet climate change targets.
Carolyn B. Maloney, chair of the U.S. House of Representatives’ main investigative committee, the Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Ro Khanna, a member of the same committee and the chair of the Oversight Environmental Subcommittee, sent a 31-page letter on Friday to the rest of the members of the committee with the latest findings from their ongoing investigation into the fossil fuel industry.
Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and causes global warming. The Oversight Committee began its investigation into what it calls a “climate disinformation” campaign in Sept. 2021 and held a hearing with top executives from oil and gas giants on Oct. 28 of that year.
The letter is the latest installment in the committee’s bid to demonstrate that oil companies are not trying to reduce their CO2 emissions quickly enough, while obscuring their lack of participation.
“These documents demonstrate how the fossil fuel industry ‘greenwashed’ its public image with promises and actions that oil and gas executives knew would not meaningfully reduce emissions, even as the industry moved aggressively to lock in continued fossil fuel production for decades to come — actions that could doom global efforts to prevent catastrophic climate change,” the letter reads.
These efforts are particularly offensive, Maloney and Khanna said, because of the amount of money the biggest oil companies are making right now.
“The fossil fuel industry’s failure to make meaningful investments in a long-term transition to cleaner energy is particularly outrageous in light of the enormous profits these companies are raking in at the expense of consumers — including nearly $100 billion in combined profits for Exxon, Chevron, Shell, and BP in just the last two quarters,” the letter reads.
The letter also details ways in which the oil companies have made insufficient efforts to decarbonize their businesses, and points to internal documents that show how the companies are continuing to invest in fossil fuel production and increase output.
“Each of the companies has publicly pledged to reach ‘net zero’ greenhouse gas emissions by 2050,” the letter reads. “However, experts have found that not one of the net zero pledges from BP, Shell, Exxon, or Chevron are aligned with the pace and scope of cuts necessary to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and avert catastrophic climate change.”
The letter also points to documents that show how the industry is pushing natural gas as a long-term climate solution.
“In 2021, natural gas contributed to 34% of U.S. energy-related emissions and 22% of emissions globally,” the letter reads. “Documents obtained by the Committee show fossil fuel companies and lobbying groups seek to publicly position natural gas as a clean source of energy and part of the transition to renewables, even as the industry is privately planning for expanded natural gas production over the long term.”
Burning natural gas results in fewer greenhouse gas emissions than burning coal or other kinds of fossil fuels for the same amount of energy, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, but it still releases greenhouse gas emissions. Burning natural gas produces about 117 pounds of carbon dioxide per million British thermal units (a measure of heat). That’s compared with 200 pounds for coal and 160 pounds for fuel oil.
Equally critically, the production of natural gas results in leaks of methane all throughout the production process and methane is a greenhouse gas, too. It’s a different greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but still contributes to global warming.
Oil companies stand firm and deny allegations
The oil companies targeted in this investigation categorically deny the allegations made by the House Committee.
“The Committee’s fourteen month investigation, which included several hours of executive testimony and nearly a half-million pages of documents, failed on all fronts to uncover evidence of a climate disinformation campaign,” Curtis Smith, the media lead for Shell North America, told CNBC. “In fact, the handful of subpoenaed documents the Committee chose to highlight from Shell are evidence of the company’s extensive efforts to set aggressive targets, transform its portfolio and meaningfully participate in the ongoing energy transition.”
Exxon claims the House Committee lawmakers have been disingenuous in their representation of the oil company’s engagement.
“Our CEO has testified under oath on this subject during two all-day Congressional hearings before two separate committees, we’ve been in regular communication with the committee for over a year, and have provided staff with more than one million pages of documents, including board materials and internal communications,” Todd Spitler, corporate media relations senior advisor for Exxon, told CNBC.
“The House Oversight Committee report has sought to misrepresent ExxonMobil’s position on climate science, and its support for effective policy solutions, by recasting well intended, internal policy debates as an attempted company disinformation campaign. If specific members of the committee are so certain they’re right, why did they have to take so many things out of context to prove their point?”
The industry trade group, the American Petroleum Institute, says it is focused on both providing secure sources of energy and addressing climate change at the same time.
“Our industry is focused on continuing to produce affordable, reliable energy while tackling the climate challenge, and any allegations to the contrary are false. The U.S. natural gas and oil industry has contributed to the significant progress the U.S. has made in reducing America’s CO2 emissions to near generational lows with the increased use of natural gas,” Megan Bloomgren, senior vice president of the American Petroleum Institute, told CNBC.
The API also pointed to the industry’s focus on developing carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) and hydrogen technologies.
“We are poised to be a leader in the next generation of low carbon technologies, including CCUS and Hydrogen — technologies widely recognized to be critical to meet the world’s emissions reduction targets. API will continue to work with policymakers on both sides of the aisle for policies that support industry innovation and further the progress we’ve made on emissions reductions,” Bloomgren said.
Chevron declined to comment. In June, Chevron CEO Mike Wirth wrote an open letter to President Joe Biden saying that the oil company had produced the highest volume of oil and gas in its 143-year history in 2021. And Wirth pointed out that carbon emissions associated with segments of its oil and gas production was lower than global averages.
“At roughly 15 kg of CO2-equivalent per barrel, Chevron’s Permian Basin carbon intensity is some two-thirds lower than the global industry average. U.S. Gulf of Mexico production has carbon intensity just a fraction of the global industry average,” Wirth wrote. In the letter Wirth also said the oil company was investing $10 billion to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, scale carbon capture and hydrogen technologies, and grow its renewable liquid fuels production.
BP did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
GM’s first Ultium battery plant in Lordstown, Ohio has voted to join the United Auto Workers, with 98% of workers voting in favor of union representation.
Ultium is GM’s battery joint venture with LG Energy. GM will establish at least four factories in the US to build the batteries for their upcoming EVs. Just today, GM announced an additional $275 million investment in the second plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee.
The Lordstown/Warren plant in Ohio is already up and running, though, and producing batteries for GM’s current and upcoming EVs. The Hummer EV already uses Ultium batteries, and the Ultium-powered Equinox, Blazer, Silverado and Cadillac Lyriq are all expected in the next year. GM’s other current EV, the Chevy Bolt – which we just named Electrek’s EV of the year – does not use Ultium cells as it came out before Ultium was developed.
While US companies have largely relied on foreign-supplied batteries until now, the recently-passed Inflation Reduction Act included measures to encourage onshoring of US EV production, which has led several companies to announce battery factories in the US. An early draft of the bill included an additional tax credit for union-built EVs, but that credit didn’t make it to the final bill.
Labor has been experiencing somewhat of a renaissance in the US in the past year or two, as COVID-related supply disruptions and general levels of discontent among the populace have led workers to demand better treatment from employers. Several industries have seen surges in unionization efforts, which have also been aided by pro-union comments from President Joe Biden.
But US battery production has heretofore mainly been non-unionized, as the largest US battery producer, Tesla, does not have a union either for battery manufacturing or for auto production. There have been a few spurts of unionization efforts at Tesla’s plants, though they met retaliation from Tesla CEO Elon Musk and were not successful.
So today’s union vote at GM’s first battery plant was closely watched, as it could set the tone not only for GM’s electrification efforts, but labor in the US battery supply industry as a whole. A positive vote was expected, though perhaps not as near-unanimous as today’s 98% result.
UAW is eyeing battery factories as the industry transitions to electric vehicles, which have fewer parts and take less labor to build than traditional gas vehicles. This would lead to fewer workers required to build cars, though targeting battery workers could help buoy union membership.
The UAW released a short statement about the vote, stating:
Our entire union welcomes our latest members from Ultium. As the auto industry transitions to electric vehicles, new workers entering the auto sector at plants like Ultium are thinking about their value and worth. This vote shows that they want to be a part of maintaining the high standards and wages that UAW members have built in the auto industry.
Ray Curry, UAW President
One potential sticking point in today’s union deal relates to pay. Previously, GM has held the position that battery suppliers should command similar pay to other auto supply factories, around $20/hr, which is what Ultium hourly workers currently make. But mainline auto workers can be paid closer to $30/hour, and battery workers may argue that due to how integral the battery is to an EV, that they should be paid closer to final assembly line workers.
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