‘Race to Hong Kong’: E1 series confirms 2024 calendar racing electric boats around the globe

Published

11 months ago

December 20, 2023

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The teams are set, and the race locations are now locked. Infant electric boat racing league, E1, sits a month and a half away from its inaugural season and has shared the 2024 race calendar that begins in Saudi Arabia en route to a finale in a newly announced location – Hong Kong.

It’s been a busy week for the UIM E1 World Championship as it moves into 2024, a mere 40-something days from its first-ever electric boat racing grand prix. Originally planned to begin in 2023 with eight co-ed racing teams, E1 founders Rodi Basso and Alejandro Agag announced the season start would be pushed to January 2024 when it shared the initial race calendar this past June.

While there were some “TBDs” on the schedule, E1 had confirmed the inaugural race season would kick off in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with additional grand prix events planned for Venice, Italy, Monaco, and Rotterdam, Netherlands – an area the league has previously used to showcase its all-electric RaceBird technology.

At the time, E1 had only confirmed four teams – well short of the eight promised, which should eventually expand to a 12-team bracket in future seasons. Since then, we saw E1 add new teams led by owners Tom Brady and Steve Aoki before delaying the start of season 1 yet again to February 2024.

Cricket superstar Virat Kohli signed on as an E1 owner in October, and just this week, musician Marc Anthony was announced as the owner of Team Miami, rounding out the competitors for the 2024 season.

With eight teams locked in, E1 has shared its official race calendar for season 1.

E1 adds Hong Kong to 2024 race calendar as the finale

Per a release today, UIM’s E1 World Championship is set to begin in Jeddah on February 2, with grand prix events to follow in six additional countries throughout 2024. Here’s the official E1 race calendar:

February 2-4 – Jeddah Grand Prix
May 11-12 – Venice Grand Prix
June 1-2 – Puerto Banús Grand Prix
June 29-30 – Geneva Grand Prix
July 26-27 – Monaco Grand Prix
September 7-8 – Rotterdam Grand Prix
November 9-10 – Hong King Grand Prix (Finale)

New to the calendar compared to what was shared over the summer are new GP events in Puerto Banús, Geneva, Monaco, and Hong Kong. The league shared that Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong will host the finale of the first three seasons of the E1 World Championship through 2026. E1 co-founder and CEO Rodi Basso spoke:

I share the pride of everyone at E1 as we announce this spectacular calendar of events for our first season. These cities are all world renowned for their cultural, touristic and sporting offerings and will each provide our fans with a unique and unforgettable experience. Our race locations not only will provide a stunning backdrop for our RaceBirds, but they align with our goals of improving the ecosystems in which we race and accelerating marine electrification.

Season one of E1 is shaping up to be a global event as its race calendar will showcase electric boats competing across Europe, the Middle East, and now Asia. More is also in the works, as the league has already shared plans for its first US-based race event in Miami during season two.

Although the league has previously said the eight confirmed teams will be the only ones competing, E1’s latest release says up to ten teams of male and female RaceBird pilots will compete in season one. Perhaps we’ll see another owner or two announced before February 2? We shall see.

In the meantime, we can expect to see the first-ever electric boat racing action from Jeddah in 2024.

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Environment

Elon Musk Tapped to Lead New ‘DOGE’ Department—Despite the Government Already Having One for Efficiency

Published

4 hours ago

November 13, 2024

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Elon Musk Tapped to Lead New ‘DOGE’ Department—Despite the Government Already Having One for Efficiency

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is to officially join Trump’s administration as the co-head of the new US Department of Government Efficiency – a second federal department with the goal of making government spending more efficient.

You can’t get more ironic than that.

Throughout the elections, Musk, who is already CEO of Tesla, and SpaceX, a well as the defacto head of X, xAI, Neuralink, and the Boring Company, has been floating the idea to add to his workload by joining the Trump’s administration to lead a new department aimed at making the federal government more efficient.

He has been calling it the “Department of Government Efficiency”, which spells out ‘DOGE’, a meme that Musk appears to enjoy.

Well, now Trump appears to want to be going through with this idea.

He announced the new department and Musk as head, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, in a statement today:

I am pleased to announce that the Great Elon Musk, working in conjunction with American Patriot Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”). Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies – Essential to the “Save America” Movement. “This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!” stated Mr. Musk.

What’s most ironic is that there’s already a federal department with the goal of cutting government waste and ensuring efficiency: the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The GAO’s main objectives are:

auditing agency operations to determine whether federal funds are being spent efficiently and effectively;
investigating allegations of illegal and improper activities;
reporting on how well government programs and policies are meeting their objectives;
performing policy analyses and outlining options for congressional consideration;
issuing legal decisions and opinions;
advising Congress and the heads of executive agencies about ways to make government more efficient and effective

It sounds similar to what Musk described when talking about his DOGE, but Trump hasn’t gone into many details other than it will “cut waste.”

He also has a confusing message as he compares the initiative, which is supposed to cut government spending, to “The Manhattan project”, a massive and expensive government project.

Trump said that DOGE will help the government “drive large scale structural reform”:

It will become, potentially, “The Manhattan Project” of our time. Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of “DOGE” for a very long time. To drive this kind of drastic change, the Department of Government Efficiency will provide advice and guidance from outside of Government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before.

The statement also noted that DOGE will only operate until July 4, 2026.

Musk has previously claimed that he could cut at least $2 trillion dollars of the $6.5 trillion dollar US federal budget.

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Environment

Oil could plunge to $40 in 2025 if OPEC unwinds voluntary production cuts, analysts say

Published

4 hours ago

November 13, 2024

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Oil could plunge to in 2025 if OPEC unwinds voluntary production cuts, analysts say

A pump jack in Midland, Texas, US, on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024.

Anthony Prieto | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Oil prices may see a drastic fall in the event that oil alliance OPEC+ unwinds its existing output cuts, said market watchers who are predicting a bearish year ahead for crude.

“There is more fear about 2025’s oil prices than there has been since years — any year I can remember, since the Arab Spring,” said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at OPIS, an oil price reporting agency.

“You could get down to $30 or $40 a barrel if OPEC unwound and didn’t have any kind of real agreement to rein in production. They’ve seen their market share really dwindle through the years,” Kloza added.

A decline to $40 a barrel would mean around a 40% erasure of current crude prices. Global benchmark Brent is currently trading at $72 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures are around $68 per barrel.

Oil prices year-to-date

Given that oil demand growth next year probably won’t be much more than 1 million barrels a day, a full unwinding of OPEC+ supply cuts in 2025 would “undoubtedly see a very steep slide in crude prices, possibly toward $40 a barrel,” Henning Gloystein, head of energy, climate and resources at Eurasia Group, told CNBC.

Similarly, MST Marquee’s senior energy analyst Saul Kavonic posited that should OPEC+ unwind cuts without regard to demand, it would “effectively amount to a price war over market share that could send oil to lows not seen since Covid.”

However, the alliance is more likely to opt for a gradual unwinding early next year, compared to a full scale and immediate one, the analysts said.

Should the producers group proceed with their production plan, the market surplus could nearly double.

Martoccia Francesco

Energy strategist at Citi

The oil cartel has been exercising discipline in maintaining its voluntary output cuts, to the point of extending them.

In September, OPEC+ postponed plans to begin gradually rolling back on the 2.2 million barrels per day of voluntary cuts by two months in an effort to stem the slide of oil prices. The 2.2 million bpd cut, which was implemented over the second and third quarters, had been due to expire at the end of September.

At the start of this month, the oil cartel again decided to delay the planned oil output increase by another month to the end of December.

Oil prices have been weighed by a sluggish post-Covid recovery in demand from China, the world’s second-largest economy and leading crude oil importer. In its monthly report released Tuesday, OPEC lowered its 2025 global oil demand growth forecast from 1.6 million barrels per day to 1.5 million barrels per day.

The pressured prices were also conflagrated by a perceivably oversupplied market, especially as key oil producers outside the OPEC alliance like the U.S., Canada, Guyana and Brazil are also planning to add supply, Gloystein highlighted.

Bearish year ahead for oil

The market consensus is that there’ll be a “substantial” oil stock build next year, said Citibank energy strategist Martoccia Francesco.

“Should the producers group proceed with their production plan, the market surplus could nearly double… reaching as much as 1.6 million barrels per day,” said Francesco.

Even if OPEC+ doesn’t unwind the cuts, the future ofl prices is still looking break. Citi analysts expect Brent price to average $60 per barrel next year.

Further fueling the bearish outlook is the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, whose return is associated by some with a potential trade war, said analysts who spoke to CNBC.

“If we do get a trade war — and a lot of economists think that a trade war is possible, and particularly against China — we could see much, much lower prices,” said OPIS’ Kloza.

Trump has also touted a “drill baby drill” policy for U.S. producers, vowing to cut energy prices in half.

For that to happen to retail gasoline prices, oil would need to drop to “below $40” per barrel, said Matt Smith, Kpler’s lead oil analyst.

Right now, retail gasoline prices are at a “sweet spot” at $3 per gallon, where consumers do not feel the pinch and input prices are still sufficiently high for producers, Smith added.