This morning at CES in Las Vegas, Global EV charging network Blink announced five new charging products for businesses and consumers. Blink’s latest charging tech includes everything from a residential charging cable to DC fast chargers designed to offer EV charging across global markets. Have a look.
Blink Charging Co. ($BLNK) is an EV charging network operating over 30,000 ports across the world. In addition to charging hardware and services, Blink’s network uses proprietary, cloud-based software that operates and tracks connected charging stations and gathers the charging data each provides.
In addition to North America, Blink has a global presence in over 25 countries around the world, including South American territories such as Colombia, Chile, and Aruba. In Europe, Blink has an established charging presence in Greece and Belgium, and recently acquired EB Charging as its first entry into the UK.
At last year’s CES event, Blink introduced a slew of new charging products, including its HQ 200 home charger, MQ 200 fleet charger, and plans for a “Vision” version of its IQ 200 charger, complete with two 30″ LCD screens.
During this year’s event, Blink is back debuting another group of new charging products, including a new standalone Vision charger.
EQ 200 / Source: Blink
Series 3
Series 9
Vision
A look at Blink’s new chargers debuting at CES
Blink debuted the five new products during a press release in Las Vegas this morning. As you can see above, they vary in size and utility, and as you’ll read below, they also vary in the respective markets they will cater to EVs in. Blink Charging chairman and CEO Michael D. Farkas spoke during the event:
With the launch of these new state-of-the-art products, Blink is expanding our offerings to meet the needs of customers across the entire EV ecosystem as adoption accelerates around the world. We are excited to continue our growth into new markets and help lead the transition to clean, reliable and accessible mobility powered by electricity.
Here’s how the five new Blink chargers break down:
Vision – A two-in-one solution that attracts and entertains EV drivers while providing site hosts and advertisers a media display solution.
Newly designed 55” LCD screen
2 x 80 amp, 19.2kW ports that can charge simultaneously
Payment via RFID, Apple Pay, Google Wallet, and all major credit cards
Cloud connectivity via built-in 4G LTE signal
EQ 200 – A scalable charging solution designed for European and South American markets.
Offers up to 22 kW of power
Supports technologies like ISO-15118, OCPP 2.0 and Vehicle- to-Grid (V2G)
Series 3 – EV charging solution designed for both two- and three-wheeled EVs for the APAC and Latin American markets.
Provides up to 15 amps of output in a compact form
Up to 45 charging points can be connected with a single communication gateway
PQ 150 (featured image above) – A smart charging cable designed for residential charging in European markets.
Offers up to 22 kW of power plus Bluetooth, WiFi and optional SIM/GSM & GPS functionality
Series 9 DC Fast Charger – A small footprint charging station designed for speed and flexibility across global markets.
Provides up to 30 kW of power (100 amps and 1,000 volts of output)
7-inch LCD touchscreen display
Wi-fi, ethernet, or 4G connection capability
The products above will be on display at the Blink Charging booth on the CES floor.
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David Sacks, U.S. President Donald Trump’s “AI and Crypto Czar”, speaks to President Trump as he signs a series of executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House on Jan. 23, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images
The Trump-tech alliance is showing its first real sign of distress. And it’s because of crypto.
President Donald Trump counted on crypto execs and investors for a hefty portion of his 2024 campaign funds. He promised to reward them handsomely if elected by slashing regulations and by turning the U.S. into “the crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world.”
The president got off to a quick start, signing an executive order calling for the establishment of a working group on digital assets and pardoning Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht. The SEC also dropped its years-long probe into Coinbase.
While those moves were lauded by the most vocal techies who backed Trump’s candidacy, over the weekend the president took it a step too far in their view. In a post on Truth Social on Sunday, Trump announced the creation of a strategic crypto reserve for the U.S. that would include not just bitcoin but several other digital currencies — ether, XRP, Solana’sSOL token and Cardano’s ADA.
For the most part, Trump’s crypto backers all wanted a strategic bitcoin reserve. Such a move would entail using cash to buy bitcoin, which is widely viewed by crypto enthusiasts as a smart way to deploy capital into a decentralized currency that’s an alternative to hard money. As Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wrote on X, bitcoin offers a “clear story as successor to gold.”
By going well beyond bitcoin, the critics say, Trump would be using U.S. taxpayer money to buy much riskier assets that have unproven value and have the potential to bolster the net worth of a select few investors who own the coins. That’s all the more problematic to those who want to axe government spending by trillions of dollars, in support of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting mission at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
“Taxation is theft,” wrote Joe Lonsdale, founder of venture firm 8VC and a vocal Trump supporter, in a post on X. “It should be kept to a minimum. It’s wrong to steal my money for grift on the left; it’s also wrong to tax me for crypto bro schemes.”
David Sacks, the venture capitalist who was tapped by Trump to be the “White House AI and crypto czar,” took exception to Lonsdale’s comment, suggesting it’s premature to jump to any conclusions. Sacks and Lonsdale are part of the same conservative circle in the tech world, with Musk and Peter Thiel at the center.
“Nobody announced a tax or a spending program,” Sacks wrote, in response to Lonsdale’s post. “Maybe you should wait to find out what’s actually being proposed.”
The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.
But Lonsdale was far from alone.
Naval Ravikant, a longtime tech investor and early crypto evangelist, wrote after the announcement that, “The US taxpayer should not be exit liquidity for cryptocurrencies that are decentralized in name only.” And Vinny Lingham, creator of blockchain startup Civic and a big crypto influencer, wrote, “Call me old fashioned but I don’t think the government should be pumping our crypto bags with taxpayer money while we are running a near $2trn deficit.”
Agreement across the industry
A major Trump supporter and big name in crypto joined the chorus on Monday. Billionaire bitcoin investor Tyler Winklevoss, who wrote just before the November election that you should vote for Trump “if you care about the future of crypto, free speech, justice, liberty, and democracy,” came out against the president’s crypto reserve plan.
“I have nothing against XRP, SOL, or ADA but I do not think they are suitable for a Strategic Reserve,” Winklevoss wrote. “Only one digital asset in the world right now meets the bar and that digital asset is bitcoin.”
David Marcus, the former head of Facebook’s failed crypto project, suggested that the majority of his peers in the crypto community have the same view.
“Most—if not all—of the non-conflicted industry leaders are agreeing about this,” Marcus wrote, in reposting Winklevoss’ comment.
Marcus, who’s now CEO of payments infrastructure startup Lightspark, declared in July that he was “crossing the Rubicon” and shifting his support to Trump and away from Democrats.
Anthony Pompliano, a loud pro-Trump voice in crypto investing, committed over 1,500 words in his newsletter on Monday to the topic. He says Trump is willing to propose an agenda of buying risky tokens on behalf of the U.S. because the wrong people got to him.
“We watched crypto projects, lobbyists, and special interest groups co-opt the President of the United States,” Pompliano wrote. “They told the President that any crypto-related reserve should hold tokens that were ‘made in America.’ This pitch was the perfect trap for a President who ran on the America First agenda.”
Some of the wrath online was directed specifically at Sacks, who touted and backed various cryptocurrencies as a VC prior to joining the Trump administration, and whose firm, Craft Ventures, is an investor in crypto index fund manager Bitwise.
A cartoon image of US President-elect Donald Trump with cryptocurrency tokens, depicted in front of the White House to mark his inauguration, displayed at a Coinhero store in Hong Kong, China, on Monday, Jan. 20, 2025.
Paul Yeung | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Sacks wrote in a post on X that he sold all of his crypto, including bitcoin, ether and SOL, before taking on his new role and “will provide an update at the end of the ethics process.”
By late afternoon Monday, crypto prices had staged a dramatic reversal from their weekend rally that followed Trump’s announcement. Bitcoin fell about 9%, while ether slid 15%. XRP and SOL dropped even more.
The slide appeared tied to President Trump’s confirmation of forthcoming tariffs, which hammered risky assets across the board and sent the Nasdaq down almost 3% at the close of trading.
There were some voices in crypto who were less willing to publicly slam Trump’s reserve plan.
Michael Saylor, the chairman of Strategy, which has effectively emerged as a bitcoin proxy due to its roughly $43 billion stash, told CNBC on Monday that he wasn’t surprised about Trump’s decision to include additional cryptocurrencies.
“There’s no way to interpret this other than this is bullish for bitcoin and bullish for the entire U.S. crypto industry,” Saylor said. “I believe the best thing for the country is to move forward with an enlightened progressive policy toward digital assets.”
Jonathan Jachym, global head of policy and government relations at Kraken, told CNBC that the crypto exchange is “encouraged to see that announcement” and that it shows the president is “staying true to commitments.”
Even among the skeptics, Trump doesn’t appear to be losing broader support for his agenda just because of this one announcement. Backers like Lonsdale have been quick to post about other matters, complimenting actions taken by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Trump for pressuring Mexican drug cartels.
But coming just six weeks into Trump’s second administration, the reaction shows how quickly the outrage machine can activate when a proposal touches the nerve of a critical group of supporters. The debate adds interest to Trump’s first White House Crypto Summit on Friday, when investors will eagerly be awaiting more details.
As Sacks wrote on March 2, in his first post about the announcement of the strategic reserve, “More to come at the Summit.”
Members of media chat before the start of a press conference by Aramco at the Plaza Conference Center in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia November 3, 2019.
Hamad I Mohammed | Reuters
Saudi state oil producer Aramco reported on Tuesday a decline in net profit to $106.2 billion in 2024, down from $121.3 billion in 2023.
The company said it expects total dividends for 2025 of $85.4 billion — a significant fall from 2024’s total of $124.2 billion.
This comes as it cut its total payout for the fourth quarter. The oil giant said its base dividend for the final three months of the year would be increased to $21.1 billion, but its performance-linked payout would be just $200 million. This compares to a third-quarter base dividend of $20.3 billion and a performance-linked dividend of $10.8 billion.
Lower oil prices hit the company’s net profit last year as crude production around the world increased and demand slowed. The price of global benchmark Brent crude futures averaged $80 per barrel in 2024, $2 less than the 2023 average, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Aramco’s revenue fell to $436.6 billion in 2024, compared to $440.8 billion the year before.
Full-year total borrowings at the company were up, rising to $319.3 billion in 2024 from $290.14 billion during the previous year. The company’s net debt, however, decreased from $102.7 billion in 2023 to $78 billion in 2024.
A dozen Tesla vehicles burned at a store in Toulouse, France. Arson is suspected amid global protests and vandalism attacks against Tesla and Elon Musk.
Last night, a dozen Tesla vehicles burned down at Tesla’s retail and service location in Plaisance-du-Touch near Toulouse, France.
Firefighters arrived on the scene at around 4 a.m. and contained the fire to the vehicles. Eight of them were completely destroyed, and four were greatly damaged. The damages are estimated at over 700,000 euros.
According to the local news (translated from French), the police suspected arson as a hole was found in a fence, and threats had been made over the last few weeks. The Tesla location remained closed all day.
In France, there were a few protests planned, but some extremist groups are calling for widespread arson against Tesla stores:
I won’t share the link to the article since it gives step-by-step instructions on how to burn down Tesla stores without getting caught, but the manifesto explains that they are going after Tesla as a “symbol of capitalism,” although they also list a dozen other reasons including the fact that they think it’s “doable and cheap.”
Electrek’s Take
This is getting nuts. It’s not only dangerous, but it’s also not super effective in achieving the goal they claim to want to achieve.
Have they never heard of insurance? Tesla is having issues selling cars right now. You are burning unsold inventory that they can then claim to their insurance.
Sure, it disrupts their operations for a short period of time, but it’s not worth it.
Their manifesto does say to avoid violence and not to target vehicles owned by individuals – though it doesn’t sound like a strict rule for them, but I think these people are likely going to end up in jail for having achieved nothing.
The protests and boycotts are going strong. You don’t need to burn cars to make yourself heard.
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