PayPal brings many of its brands under a single umbrella, but Venmo remains a stand-alone
A PayPal sign is seen at its headquarters in San Jose, California, on Jan. 30, 2024.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images News | Getty Images
For Frank Keller, it’s a pivotal moment at PayPal. After two years, two CEOs and endless brand strategy meetings, the company is, in his view, ready to redefine the world of business payments.
With the launch this week of PayPal Open, Keller, who is executive vice president for the enterprise merchant group, and his team are consolidating many of the company’s offerings — Braintree, Zettle, Hyperwallet, Chargehound — into a single brand.
Speaking from Germany, Keller told CNBC that the strategy was set in motion after a customer mentioned, “You have all this amazing stuff, but we don’t know about it.”
“I’ve been working, actually for two years now, on this launch, in terms of how do we establish a PayPal as a B2B business,” Keller said.
PayPal, founded in 1998, was synonymous with its consumer-facing checkout button, but its business-to-business solutions have amounted to an assortment of homegrown technologies and acquired companies with little cohesion. With PayPal Open, those names will fade into the background, and PayPal can focus its centralized effort to become more important to businesses.
Keller likens the effort to other consumer brands that successfully expanded into B2B, pointing to Amazon Web Services as a prime example. Meanwhile, much of CEO Alex Chriss’ early success has stemmed from boosting transaction margins and better monetizing key acquisitions like Braintree, which handles credit card processing for Meta and processed nearly $600 billion in total payment volume last year.
Landing on the name Open took months of market research, internal deliberations and some last-minute strategic pivots. There was even a debate over whether to focus more on Braintree.
“PayPal is one of the most trusted brands” in the world, Keller said, explaining the logic to the decision.
The pressure is on Chriss, who took over as CEO in September 2023 to orchestrate a turnaround after a brutal few years for PayPal.
The company’s branded checkout business — historically its most profitable segment — faces mounting competition. Apple Pay, Google Pay and Shopify’s Shop Pay have all eaten into PayPal’s dominance, particularly among younger consumers who prefer mobile-first payment solutions. Branded checkout accounts for 30% of PayPal’s total payment volume.
PayPal Open is designed to do much more than handle B2B payments. Businesses, developers and partners will also be able to integrate financial services and AI-powered business insights – all through a single connection. For merchants, that means easier access to fraud protection, buy now, pay later options, global transactions in 140 currencies, and lending solutions.
There’s one notable brand that’s not joining the consolidation: Venmo.
The popular peer-to-peer payment app has more than 90 million active users, all in the U.S., and is practically ubiquitous among younger audiences.
“People say, ‘Venmo me,'” Keller said. “It’s such a distinct consumer brand.”
The rollout of PayPal Open begins this week, with a phased transition of brands starting in April, meaning Braintree and Hyperwallet won’t disappear overnight.
Keller said businesses “don’t have to rip and replace their Braintree” or other integrations, but instead gain seamless access to all of PayPal’s offerings. Keller says it’s all about showing that PayPal can be a true enterprise powerhouse.
“We want to be an open platform where businesses, developers and partners can build upon our solutions,” Keller said.
Greenlane is firing up its second commercial EV truck charging corridor – this time connecting Southern California to Phoenix along Interstate 10. The move targets a major gap in electric freight infrastructure on one of the busiest shipping routes in the US.
Greenlane’s new electric truck corridor is backed by a strategic partnership with electric truck maker Windrose Technology, which has already proved the route’s viability. Its R700 Class 8 electric semi pulled off single-charge trips from Greenlane’s flagship Colton, California, site to Phoenix – nearly 300 miles – with a gross combined weight of 74,420 pounds and still had 12% battery left.
That’s no small feat for long-haul freight. Windrose also completed a Colton-to-Las Vegas run on I-15 under similar conditions. The trucks can charge fast, too – the R700 hit a peak 772 kW using dual-gun charging at Colton, cutting downtime for heavy-duty operations.
Windrose plans to build 2,000 electric trucks in 2026 and ramp up to 10,000 in 2027 worldwide. “Electric long-haul trucking isn’t just theory – it’s proven real-world performance,” said Windrose founder and CEO Wen Han.
The I-10 corridor will link Greenlane’s Colton hub to new sites in Blythe, California, and Greater Phoenix, Arizona. It’s part of the company’s larger plan to create a nationwide public charging network for medium- and heavy-duty fleets.
Electric trucking carrier Nevoya will be among the first customers to run the corridor. The company will use the Colton site as a charging and driver support base while operating battery-electric trucks along both I-10 and I-15.
Greenlane’s Colton flagship opened in April and packs over 40 high-speed chargers, including 12 pull-through bays for semis and 29 bobtail lanes. The site also has restrooms, Wi-Fi, 24/7 security, carports, office space, and parking – the kind of amenities long-haul drivers need on the road.
Read more: Greenlane’s flagship electric charging truck stop is now online
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Rivian has posted a job listing for a steering engineer, specifically mentioning work on a future steer-by-wire system for the company.
Update, Aug 11: Rivian has now specifically mentioned rear-wheel steering in a job posting.
Steer-by-wire is an automotive concept that has been around for a long time, but hasn’t yet reached mass adoption. The idea is to replace (or supplement) mechanical linkages between the steering wheel and the wheels with electronic actuators instead.
There are a number of potential benefits to this, like allowing more customizability or adaptability to a steering system, reducing mechanical complexity, or adding speed-sensitive variable steering ratios.
Although there are also disadvantages, like a reduction in steering feel (although, since most cars are moving to electronic power steering, that was already gone anyway).
But few cars have implemented steer-by-wire systems, or at least not fully committed to them, given that mechanical steering racks are a relatively solved problem and the general inertia of the car industry which would rather stick with a solution they know than switch to something better (haven’t we here, at this EV publication, heard *that* one before…). There’s also the matter of regulations, which have often been written to require mechanical steering systems, and may need updating to allow for steer by wire.
But, steer by wire made it into mass production with the release of the Tesla Cybertruck. This was big news when Tesla committed to this – at the time, it was the only thing on the road to exclusively use a steer by wire system, though there are other cars with partial steer by wire (for example, mechanical front wheel steering, and steer by wire rear-wheel steering).
But it seems to have opened the floodgates, as a number of other companies are working on or have since released steer by wire systems (Lexus, for example).
And now, it looks like Rivian is one of those companies – though we don’t know if it’s for the front or rear. (Update: Well, now we know, it looks like they are at the very least developing a rear-wheel steering system, according to another job listing. Though the company might still be working on steer-by-wire for the whole vehicle, too)
The company posted a job listing for “Sr. Staff Technical Program Manager, Steering Actuator System,” based at its Irvine, CA headquarters (spotted by Rivianforums). This wouldn’t be so exceptional, except that the job posting also specifically points out that “you’ll have full cradle-to-grave ownership of the SBW subsystem.”
So – we know they’re working on steer by wire, to some extent.
But a few other EVs, particularly large EVs like the Rivian R1 platform is, use steer by wire just for the rear wheels – for example the Hummer EV and Rolls-Royce Spectre. These systems are particularly helpful for giant vehicles, because it allows them to be more nimble and make turns that otherwise would require a lot more… negotiation in a giant land yacht.
So it’s possible that Rivian is only working on rear wheel steer by wire here, but we’d like to think there’s a chance it’s working on steer by wire for the full vehicle.
We also don’t know if this would show up on all of Rivian’s vehicles, or only on certain models – the R2 and R3 are in development, with R2 in pretty late stages, and the R1 just got a big refresh. But, perhaps even more interestingly (and very speculatively), VW has invested heavily in Rivian for technology help, so we wonder if we might end up seeing this in VW group vehicles, or Scout vehicles eventually…
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Automakers are scrambling to push their EVs out the door before the $7,500 Federal tax incentive for EVs disappears — and BMW is no different, offering aggressive cash back, owner loyalty, and special financing rates on its just-released 2026 model year EVs.
BMW has a history of offering solid loyalty incentive programs on its EVs in early summer to clear the tail-end of the model year and make room for the incoming builds, but CarsDirect is reporting some unusual loyalty deals from the brand that seem to suggest BMW is keen to capitalize on a spike in EV sales ahead of the Federal tax incentive’s looming cancellation in September.
BMW dealers now have the choice of adding an additional $1,000 loyalty contribution on select 2026 EVs. The i5 and i7 are offered with $1,000 and $4,000 loyalty bonuses, respectively, meaning if you drive a BMW and your dealer opts to tack on the extra bonus, you could save $5,000 on a 2026 i7. These loyalty programs are good when buying or leasing.
There’s also a $1,000 conquest bonus available for drivers of eligible EVs and PHEVs from other brands. This program is stackable with other offers.
Like other EV brands offering huge lease incentives, BMW customers will see the largest rebates on new BMWs when leasing. Now through September 30th, 2026 BMW i5, i7, and iX models are available with a stout $9,900 lease credit, while the bigger BMW XM comes in with a slightly lower, but still substantial $7,500 lease incentive.
Big deals on big BMW i7 sedan
People who prefer to own their vehicles once the payments are up can still score a great deal on an objectively excellent 2026 BMW i7 luxo-cruiser, thanks to the previously mentioned loyalty bonus if they’re previous customers plus a $7,500 Loan Credit that anyone can get when financing their new i7 with the brand’s captive financing company. BMW Bank offers financing rates as low a 3.99% for up to 60 months on the 2026 i5 and i7 sedans, as well as the iX crossover, as well as 4.99% APR 60-month rate on the high-performance XM plug-in hybrid.
The BMW iX, of course, snatched the top spot in J.D. Power’s EV Satisfaction Survey last year, having taken the crown from its BMW i4 stablemate. You can find out what’s behind that score here, or experience it for yourself at a local BMW dealer near you. Click the link(s) below to get a uniquely tailored offer on the exact BMW you want (trusted affiliate links).
SOURCES: CarsDirect, J.D. Power; images via BMW.
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