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Despite a disappointing start for General Motors’ electric vehicle sales, the automaker is vowing to build more this year. GM says it’s overcoming battery supply chain issues and expects “a lot more EVs being built in the second half of this year.”

Ultium battery production hurdles

After EV sales reached over 20K for the first time in a three-month period in Q1 2023, GM’s momentum slipped in the second quarter.

GM sold 15,652 EVs in the second quarter, down over 20% from Q1. To make matters worse, nearly 14K were Chevy Bolt EV or EUV models, which the automaker is discontinuing later this year (although a next-gen Bolt EV is still in play).

The slowdown comes as the automaker focuses on new electric models built on its Ultium EV platform. Although the flexible platform is designed to optimize production, GM is still working out the supply chain kinks.

Its first Ultium-based EV, the GMC Hummer EV, introduced in late 2021, had two sales in the first quarter of the year and another 47 in Q2 (-83% YOY).

GM new EVs this year
2023 Hummer EV pickup and SUV versions (Source: GM)

The Cadillac Lyriq, GMs second Ultium EV, saw only modest progress. GM sold 968 in the first three months of the year and 1,348 in Q2.

Furthermore, due to the battery shortage, GM has shut down its CAMI assembly plant for the month, where the BrightDrop electric delivery van is built in Canada.

GM’s CEO, Mary Barra, explained during an interview last month that battery production was the bottleneck holding them back. She said as battery capacity comes online, “it will be dramatically different next year.” Now, another executive is echoing the leader’s statement.

GM new EVs this year
2024 Cadillac Lyriq models (Source: GM)

GM plans to build more Ultium-based EVs this year

According to the Detroit Free Press, GM’s president of North America, Rory Harvey, said battery capacity will pick up in the second half of this year.

On a call with other GM executives, Harvey said the automaker is coming “up to speed on battery capacity and building momentum.” He added:

I anticipate a lot more EVs being built in the second half of this year than the first half of this year.

GM began building the 2023 Hummer EV at its Factory Zero EV assembly plant this spring. But, a source told the Detroit Free Press, although some have shipped, “some need updates on the software. It’s moving very slow.” The person, who asked to remain anonymous, said:

We’ve had supply issues — anything in the supply chain — could be the drive units, anything … you get one part and suddenly it’s a different one that’s needed.

Harvey acknowledged the slow EV ramp-up so far this year but suggested battery module capacity as the only supply chain hurdle.

GM gets its battery cells from its first battery plant in Warren, OH, which began manufacturing them last fall. With three more planned, one in TN, expected to come online later this year, another in Michigan in 2024, and a fourth in Indiana, GM expects over 160 GWh battery cell capacity when all plants are fully operational.

As the report notes, another hurdle GM is facing has been logistics; a shortage of rail cars is impacting the industry. On Monday, Chevrolet’s VP Scott Bell said it remains the company’s biggest challenge.

The company will need to figure the situation out soon with plans to launch three new high-volume Ultium EVs from Chevy by the end of the year, including the Silverado EV, Equinox EV, and Blazer EV.

Earlier this month, GM’s Ramos Arizpe plant in Mexico announced the first Chevy Blazer EV left the facility and is on its way to the US.

Electrek’s Take

GM has failed to deliver on numerous promises over the past several years, so several executives vowing to build more EVs this year isn’t a guarantee.

On the other hand, the automaker is in the midst of building more battery capacity, but it can’t happen overnight. Until then, GM seems content with filling in the demand gap with its ICE vehicles.

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‘Bitcoin Family’ hides crypto codes etched onto metal cards on four continents after recent kidnappings

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'Bitcoin Family' hides crypto codes etched onto metal cards on four continents after recent kidnappings

The Taihuttus on a ski trip to Sierra Nevada in southern Spain. They sold everything they owned in 2017 to bet on bitcoin — and now travel full-time as a family of five.

Didi Taihuttu

A wave of high-profile kidnappings targeting cryptocurrency executives has rattled the industry — and prompted a quiet security revolution among some of its most visible evangelists.

Didi Taihuttu, patriarch of the so-called “Bitcoin Family,” said he overhauled the family’s entire security setup after a string of threats.

The Taihuttus — who sold everything they owned in 2017, from their house to their shoes, to go all-in on bitcoin when it was trading around $900 — have long lived on the outer edge of crypto ideology. They travel full-time with their three daughters and remain entirely unbanked.

Over the past eight months, he said, the family ditched hardware wallets in favor of a hybrid system: Part analog, part digital, with seed phrases encrypted, split, and stored either through blockchain-based encryption services or hidden across four continents.

“We have changed everything,” Taihuttu told CNBC on a call from Phuket, Thailand. “Even if someone held me at gunpoint, I can’t give them more than what’s on my wallet on my phone. And that’s not a lot.”

CNBC first reported on the family’s unconventional storage system in 2022, when Taihuttu described hiding hardware wallets across multiple continents — in places ranging from rental apartments in Europe to self-storage units in South America.

The Taihuttu family dressed up for Halloween in Phuket, Thailand, where they recently moved homes after receiving disturbing messages pinpointing their location from YouTube videos.

Didi Taihuttu

As physical attacks on crypto holders become more frequent, even they are rethinking their exposure.

This week, Moroccan police arrested a 24-year-old suspected of orchestrating a series of brutal kidnappings targeting crypto executives.

One victim, the father of a crypto millionaire, was allegedly held for days in a house south of Paris — and reportedly had a finger severed during the ordeal.

In a separate case earlier this year, a co-founder of French wallet firm Ledger and his wife were abducted from their home in central France in a ransom scheme that also targeted another Ledger executive.

Last month in New York, authorities said, a 28-year-old Italian tourist was kidnapped and tortured for 17 days in a Manhattan apartment by attackers trying to extract his bitcoin password — shocking him with wires, beating him with a gun, and strapping an Apple AirTag around his neck to track his movements.

The common thread: The pursuit of crypto credentials that enable instant, irreversible transfers of virtual assets.

Exodus CEO: U.S. buying bitcoin would be a global signal — but taxpayers shouldn’t foot the bill

“It is definitely frightening to see a lot of these kidnappings happen,” said JP Richardson, CEO of crypto wallet company Exodus. He urged users to take security into their own hands by choosing self-custody, storing larger sums on hardware wallets, and — for those holding significant assets — exploring multi-signature wallets, a setup typically used by institutions.

Richardson also recommended spreading funds across different wallet types and avoiding large balances in hot wallets to reduce risk without sacrificing flexibility.

That rising sense of vulnerability is fueling a new demand for physical protection with insurance firms now racing to offer kidnap and ransom (K&R) policies tailored to crypto holders.

But Taihuttu isn’t waiting for corporate solutions. He’s opted for complete decentralization — of not just his finances, but his personal risk profile.

As the family prepares to return to Europe from Thailand, safety has become a constant topic of conversation.

“We’ve been talking about it a lot as a family,” Taihuttu said. “My kids read the news, too — especially that story in France, where the daughter of a CEO was almost kidnapped on the street.”

Now, he said, his daughters are asking difficult questions: What if someone tries to kidnap us? What’s the plan?

One of the steel plates the Taihuttu family uses to store part of their bitcoin seed phrase. Didi etched it by hand using a hammer and letter punch — part of a decentralized storage system spread across four continents.

Didi Taihuttu

Though the girls carry only small amounts of crypto in their personal wallets, the family has decided to avoid France entirely.

“We got a little bit famous in a niche market — but that niche is becoming a really big market now,” Taihuttu said. “And I think we’ll see more and more of these robberies. So yeah, we’re definitely going to skip France.”

Even in Thailand, Taihuttu recently stopped posting travel updates and filming at home after receiving disturbing messages from strangers who claimed to have identified his location from YouTube vlogs.

“We stayed in a very beautiful house for six months — then I started getting emails from people who figured out which house it was. They warned me to be careful, told me not to leave my kids alone,” he said. “So we moved. And now we don’t film anything at all.”

“It’s a strange world at the moment,” he said. “So we’re taking our own precautions — and when it comes to wallets, we’re now completely hardware wallet-less. We don’t use any hardware wallets anymore.”

To throw off would-be attackers, Didi Taihuttu encrypts select words from each 24-word seed phrase — then splits the phrases into four sets of six and hides them around the world.

Didi Taihuttu

The family’s new system involves splitting a single 24-word bitcoin seed phrase — the cryptographic key that unlocks access to their crypto holdings — into four sets of six words, each stored in a different geographic location. Some are kept digitally through blockchain-based encryption platforms, while others are etched by hand into fireproof steel plates using a hammer and letter punch, then hidden in physical locations across four continents.

“Even if someone finds 18 of the 24 words, they can’t do anything,” Taihuttu explained.

On top of that, he’s added a layer of personal encryption, swapping out select words to throw off would-be attackers. The method is simple, but effective.

“You only need to remember which ones you changed,” he said.

Part of the reason for ditching hardware wallets, Taihuttu said, was a growing mistrust of third-party devices. Concerns about backdoors and remote access features — including a controversial update by Ledger in 2023 — prompted the family to abandon physical hardware altogether in favor of encrypted paper and steel backups.

While the family still holds some crypto in “hot” wallets — for daily spending or to run their algorithmic trading strategy — those funds are protected by multi-signature approvals, which require multiple parties to sign off before a transaction can be executed.

The Taihuttus use Safe — formerly Gnosis Safe — for ether and other altcoins, and similarly layered setups for bitcoin stored on centralized platforms like Bybit.

Didi Taihuttu during a recent visit to Sierra Nevada, Spain. The family’s lifestyle — unbanked, nomadic, and all-in on bitcoin — makes them outliers even in the crypto world.

Didi Taihuttu

About 65% of the family’s crypto is locked in cold storage across four continents — a decentralized system Taihuttu prefers to centralized vaults like the Swiss Alps bunker used by Coinbase-owned Xapo. Those facilities may offer physical protection and inheritance services, but Taihuttu said they require too much trust.

“What happens if one of those companies goes bankrupt? Will I still have access?” he said. “You’re putting your capital back in someone else’s hands.”

Instead, Taihuttu holds his own keys — hidden across the globe. He can top up the wallets remotely with new deposits, but accessing them would require at least one international trip, depending on which fragments of the seed phrase are needed. The funds, he added, are intended as a long-term pension to be accessed only if bitcoin hits $1 million — a milestone he’s targeting for 2033.

The shift toward multiparty protections extends beyond just multi-signature. Multi-party computation, or MPC, is gaining traction as a more advanced security model.

Didi, Romaine, and their three daughters live largely off-grid, managing crypto through decentralized exchanges, algorithmic trading bots, and a globally distributed cold storage system.

Didi Taihuttu

Instead of storing private keys in one place — a vulnerability known as a “single point of compromise” — MPC splits a key into encrypted shares distributed across multiple parties. Transactions can only go through when a threshold number of those parties approve, sharply reducing the risk of theft or unauthorized access.

Multi-signature wallets require several parties to approve a transaction. MPC takes that further by cryptographically splitting the private key itself, ensuring that no single individual ever holds the full key — not even their own complete share.

The shift comes amid renewed scrutiny of centralized crypto platforms like Coinbase, which recently disclosed a data breach affecting tens of thousands of customers.

Taihuttu, for his part, says 80% of his trading now happens on decentralized exchanges like Apex — a peer-to-peer platform that allows users to set buy and sell orders without relinquishing custody of their funds, marking a return to crypto’s original ethos.

While he declined to reveal his total holdings, Taihuttu did share his goal for the current bull cycle: a $100 million net worth, with 60% still held in bitcoin. The rest is a mix of ether, layer-1 tokens like solana, link, sui, and a growing number of AI and education-focused startups — including his own platform offering blockchain and life-skills courses for kids.

Lately, he’s also considering stepping back from the spotlight.

“It’s really my passion to create content. It’s really what I love to do every day,” he said. “But if it’s not safe anymore for my daughters … I really need to think about them.”

WATCH: ‘Bitcoin Family’ tracks moon cycles to make crypto investment decisions

'Bitcoin Family' tracks moon cycles to make crypto investment decisions

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Morgan Stanley upgrades this mining stock as best pick to play rare earths

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Morgan Stanley upgrades this mining stock as best pick to play rare earths

A wheel loader operator fills a truck with ore at the MP Materials rare earth mine in Mountain Pass, California, January 30, 2020.

Steve Marcus | Reuters

The rare-earth miner MP Materials will enjoy growing strategic value to the U.S., as geopolitical tensions with China make the supply of critical minerals more uncertain, according to Morgan Stanley.

The investment bank upgraded MP Materials to the equivalent of a buy rating with a stock price target of $34 per share, implying 32% upside from Friday’s close.

MP Materials owns the only operating rare earth mine in the U.S. at Mountain Pass, California. China dominates the global market for rare earth refining and processing, according to Morgan Stanley.

“Geopolitical and trade tensions are finally pushing critical mineral supply chains to top of mind,” analysts led by Carlos De Alba told clients in a Thursday note. “MP is the most vertically integrated rare earths company ex-China.”

Beijing imposed export restrictions on seven rare earth elements in April in response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs. It has kept those restrictions in place despite trade talks with U.S.

Trump removed some restrictions Wednesday on the Defense Production Act, which could allow the federal government to offer an above market price for rare earths. MP Materials is the best positioned company to benefit from this, according to Morgan Stanley. Its shares rose more than 5% on Thursday.

MP Materials is developing fully domestic rare earth supply chain in the U.S. and plans to begin commercial production of magnets used in most electric vehicle motors, offshore wind wind turbines, and the future market for humanoid robots, according to Morgan Stanley.

The investment bank expects MP Materials to post negative free cash flow this year and in 2026, but the company has a strong balance sheet should accelerate positive free cash flow from 2027 onward.

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Tesla’s head of Optimus humanoid robot leaves the ‘$25 trillion’ product behind

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Tesla's head of Optimus humanoid robot leaves the ' trillion' product behind

Tesla’s head of Optimus humanoid robot, Milan Kovac, announced that he is leaving the automaker after 9 years.

It leaves just as CEO Elon Musk claimed that the humanoid robot is going to make Tesla a”$25 trillion company.”

Electrek first reported on Tesla hiring Kovac back in 2016 to work on the early Autopilot program. At the time, we noted that the young engineer had an interesting background in machine learning.

He quickly rose through the ranks and ended up leading Autopilot software engineering from 2019 to 2022.

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In 2022, he started working on Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot program.

Late last year, he was promoted to Vice President in charge of the complete Optimus program, as CEO Elon Musk began to tout the program as critical to Tesla’s future.

Musk claimed that Optimus could generate $10 trillion in revenue per year and make Tesla a $25 trillion company. These claims are largely unsubstantiated as the humanoid robot market is still in its infancy.

Most market research firms currently estimate the size of the humanoid robot market to be in the low single-digit billions of dollars, with growth projections through 2032 ranging from $15 billion to $80 billion.

That would represent impressive growth, but nowhere near what Musk is touting to investors.

Today, Kovac announced that he is leaving Tesla for personal reasons:

This week, I’ve had to make the most difficult decision of my life and will be moving out of my position. I’ve been far away from home for too long, and will need to spend more time with family abroad. I want to make it clear that this is the only reason, and has absolutely nothing to do with anything else. My support for Elon Musk and the team is ironclad – Tesla team forever.

Kovac has been regarded as one of the top new technical executives at Tesla, which has seen a significant talent exodus of top engineers.

The company has made progress with the Optimus program over the last year. Still, many have been skeptical, as Tesla has been less than forthcoming about using teleoperation in previous demonstrations.

Kovac is not the only Optimus engineer to leave Tesla recently.

Figure, another company developing humanoid robots, has recently poached Zackary Bernholtz, a 7-year veteran at Tesla and most recently a Staff Technical Program Manager.

Electrek’s Take

This is a significant loss for Tesla. Kovac was one of Musk’s top technical guys and literally the head of the program he claimed would bring Tesla to the next level – although I think most people have been understandably skeptical about these claims.

I’ve been bullish on humanoid robots, and I could see Tesla being a player in the field, but it’s nowhere near the opportunity that Musk is claiming, and there’s also plenty of competition with no clear evidence that Tesla has any significant lead, if any.

In China, Unitree has been making impressive progress, and it is already selling a humanoid robot.

In the US, Figure has also been making a lot of progress lately:

I think it’s a smart space to invest in for manufacturing companies like Tesla, but there’s going to be a lot of competition.

It’s too early to say who will come out on top.

As for Kovac leaving, I’m sure his personal reason is correct. However, we often see people claim that and then they quickly turn up at another company.

If he believed that his product would soon become a multi-trillion-dollar opportunity, I doubt he would be leaving, but you never know. 9 years at Tesla is some hard work and it’s impressive for anyone. Congrats.

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