In an industry where startups are booming, some are failing to meet their funding goals. Car2Go, a Seattle-based start-up that operates car-sharing services, is facing financial trouble after raising millions of dollars from investors to expand its services. Car2Go invested $100 million in its business in the past few years, including $52.7 million in April, according to the company’s online filing and an analysis of public records. Now, the company appears to be in danger of defaulting on its debts.
A start-up electric vehicle company’s funding outlook has taken a hit, as the company’s inability to raise new capital has prevented it from moving forward with some of its plans, according to reports.
Bolt is one of the more interesting start-ups to emerge in the electric vehicle (EV) market in recent years. The company has sold more than 14,000 vehicles in Europe and 6,000 in the U.S. and is hoping to sell over 10,000 more this year. It’s easy to see why the company is successful: It has nearly 6,000 employees, a proven vehicle design, and an established distribution network in Europe. However, recent interviews with Bolt’s executives reveal that the company is running out of cash.. Read more about biggest electric car companies and let us know what you think.
Here’s what you need to know:
Lordstown’s main selling point to investors was that the company had placed thousands of pre-orders for its Endurance truck.Credit…Megan Jelinger/Agence France-Presse – Getty Images
Shares of Lordstown Motors, an electric pickup truck startup, fell 13 percent in pre-market trading Tuesday after the company said it would produce at best 50 percent of the vehicles it initially hoped to produce this year unless it could raise additional capital.
If we don’t get the funding, we’re probably only doing half of what we hoped to do, Lordstown CEO Steve Burns said Monday during a conference call.
Burns said the company is still on track to start producing trucks in September.
He said Lordstown was in talks with some strategic investors who might invest in the company and was considering borrowing money with the factory or other assets as collateral.
He also said the company is considering a loan from a federal government program designed to help develop electric vehicles, but it’s unclear if it has any funds left.
Lordstown will be able to produce up to 2,200 trucks by the end of the year if it gets funding, Burns said. Without additional capital, it will likely produce less than 1,000 units.
Burns had hoped Lordstown would be the first to launch an electric pickup for commercial fleets such as large construction and mining companies, but it will soon face serious competition. Last week, Ford Motor Company unveiled an electric version of its F-150 pickup truck, which is expected to go on sale next spring.
Lordstown came to prominence when it bought a car plant in Lordstown, Ohio, that had been closed by General Motors. Former President Donald J. Trump at one point praised him for saving jobs in the industry.
Last year, it became a publicly traded company through a merger with a special purpose vehicle, a company created with money from investors. In recent months, several other electric car and related companies have gone public in similar mergers, capitalizing on investors’ desire to find the next Tesla.
Lordstown, which is under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, said it suffered a loss of $125 million in the first quarter of 2021, but ended the period with $587 million in cash.
A Ryanair plane was diverted to Minsk, the capital of Belarus, forcing the airline to suspend its flights in Belarusian airspace.
On Tuesday, more airlines reacted to Belarus’ president’s bold decision to land a commercial flight over the weekend to arrest a journalist who criticized the regime.
The devastation came quickly as the country’s president, Alexander G. Lukashenko, was reprimanded and banned from flying by countries and airlines around the world.
The European Union on Monday asked EU-based airlines to stop flying over Belarus and also sought to ban Belarusian airlines from flying over EU airspace. Britain has imposed similar restrictions and several major airlines have said they will no longer fly through the country, cutting off direct air links between Belarus and Western Europe.
Here’s the latest response from the airlines as of Tuesday:
- Air France and KLM later announced that they would also suspend flights through Belarusian airspace, Reuters reported.
- Finnair has announced that it will do the same. Due to the change, flight times will be slightly longer, Finland’s national airline announced in a message on Twitter.
- Due to the current dynamic situation, we will temporarily suspend our flight operations in Belarusian airspace, Lufthansa spokesman Tal Mascal said in a statement Monday.
- The German airline has been joined by Austrian Airlines, which has suspended services to Belarus.
Although the Belarusian capital Minsk is not a major European hub, it is served by several international airlines, including Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines and Turkish Airlines. American airlines such as American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines offer flights to Minsk in cooperation with European airlines and Belavia, the Belarusian airline.
Shares Global
- Share prices continued to rise on Tuesday. The S&P 500 Index rose 0.3% in early trading on strength in Asian markets and growing confidence in Europe’s economic recovery.
- The Stoxx Europe 600 Index rose 0.3%, marking its fourth consecutive day of gains. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index closed 1.8 percent higher and China’s CSI 300 index rose 3.2 percent, its biggest daily gain since July.
Other markets
- After a tumultuous weekend, the price of bitcoin passed the $37,000 mark Tuesday morning. The cryptocurrency has dropped to around $31,000. Ray Dalio, founder of hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, said bitcoin’s biggest risk is its success. In a video released Monday at the CoinDesk conference, Dalio said that as bitcoin becomes a bigger business and a bigger threat, it could become an existential risk to other financial markets and governments that can’t control it. He added that he would rather own bitcoin than government bonds.
- Lordstown Motors, a startup that makes electric pickup trucks, fell more than 14 percent after announcing Monday that it would at best produce half the vehicles it hoped to produce this year unless it could raise additional capital.
- The improvement in the outlook for the German economy continues at an accelerated pace. A survey of German entrepreneurs on their expectations for the economy in the next six months showed that optimism increased in May. The ifo institute’s index reached 102.9 points, its highest level since 2011. In addition, the National Bureau of Statistics confirmed that gross domestic product fell 1.8% in the first quarter compared to the previous quarter.
Mushroom, a poodle, is examined at the Modern Animal Clinic. Morgan Stanley predicts the pet care industry will be worth $275 billion by 2030. linked to credit Rozette Rago for The New York Times
According to the American Pet Products Association, more than 12.6 million families adopted a pet between March and December of last year, which has contributed to an increase in visits and revenue at veterinary clinics as new owners bring their pets in for their first checkup.
Increased demand for veterinary services has lured investors and others to the market, Jane Margolis reports for the New York Times. Landlords who previously refused tenants associated with unpleasant odors and noise became more receptive to leases with clinics after a year in which the vets paid their rent while other businesses did not. And architectural firms that specialize in designing veterinary facilities have more work than ever.
Tech-savvy start-ups promise to reinvent the experience: Phone apps, 24-hour telemedicine, and shops selling LaCroix refreshments (for pet owners) and cold brews.
In New York, Small Door Veterinary recently announced that it has raised $20 million and plans to grow from one to 25 locations by 2025. Bond Vet, another New York company inspired by CityMD clinics; it recently raised $17 million and now has six offices.
And in Los Angeles, another membership-based company, Modern Animal, has opened an office in the upscale West Hollywood shopping district. By the end of the year, there will be three more clinics in the city and another dozen in California by 2022, said founder and CEO Steven Eidelman.
The pet grooming industry is booming: Morgan Stanley predicts the sector will be worth $275 billion by 2030, up from $100 billion in 2019, with veterinary medicine being the fastest growing segment over the next decade.
Ten years ago, there was a baby boom, says Arash Danialifar, CEO of California-based GD Realty Group, which leased space to a veterinary startup, about the proliferation of children’s fashion stores. Now it’s all about the pets.
President Biden is under pressure to redirect aid to state, local and tribal governments as part of a possible bipartisan deal to improve America’s infrastructure.Credit…Stephanie Reynolds for The New York Times
President Biden and Democrats in Congress worked hard this winter to secure $350 billion in aid for state and local governments as part of a $1.9 trillion stimulus package. This assistance should help them re-hire laid-off civil servants, invest in infrastructure projects and rebuild balance sheets damaged by the pandemic.
But it increasingly seems that many states – especially those run by Democrats, with relatively high taxes on high-income citizens – don’t need the money. California officials are forecasting a $15 billion surplus for this fiscal year. Virginia received nearly $2 billion in windfalls. In Oregon, economists recently raised the state revenue estimate from a deficit to a surplus.
Tax revenues have come from a recovering economy and a rising stock market, putting pressure on Mr… Biden to reschedule hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending approved earlier this year, Jim Tankersley and Alan Rappeport of The New York Times report.
Republicans in Congress are urging Biden to use aid to state, local and tribal governments to fund roads, bridges and other elements of a possible bipartisan deal to modernize America’s infrastructure. Some economists and budget experts support this idea. White House officials have not said whether they are willing to redirect that spending because some states, such as Hawaii, which depends on tourism, are still facing large budget deficits.
Popular products are out of stock and prices are even higher than we’d like, said Jeff Brown, executive director of the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission.Credit…Mohamed Sadek for The New York Times
The advent of the legalization of marijuana for adult use in New York and New Jersey is every business owner’s dream. According to some estimates, the potential market in this densely populated region will exceed $6 billion within five years.
The rush to get plants in the ground, however, underscores another underlying reality in the New York metropolitan area: There is already a shortage of legal marijuana, reports Tracy Tully of the New York Times.
According to industry lobbyists and state officials, the supply of dried cannabis flowers, the most potent part of the female plant, rarely meets demand in New Jersey’s decades-old medical marijuana market. According to patients and business owners, it became even rarer at the beginning of the pandemic as demand increased.
The supply shortage has narrowed: stocks of flowers and products based on the oils extracted from the plant more than doubled between March last year and this spring. However, patients and owners say that the most popular varieties are often no longer available in pharmacies.
Because marijuana is illegal under federal law and cannot be transported across state lines, marijuana products sold in each state must be grown and manufactured there.
Federal banking laws make it nearly impossible for cannabis-related businesses to get conventional financing, which is a major obstacle for small startups and a built-in advantage for multinationals and international companies with deep pockets.
Oregon, which has issued thousands of cultivation licenses since marijuana was legalized six years ago, is struggling with an oversupply of cannabis. However, in many of the other 16 states where non-medical marijuana is now legal, there are similar shortages to those in New York and New Jersey, as production has been slow to meet demand.
linked to the Shira Inbar credit
After years of hype, billion-dollar investments and promises that people would already be driving to work in autonomous cars, the quest for autonomous cars is now getting a fresh start.
The tech and car giants are expected to be able to work on their projects for years to come. Pitchbook, a financial research firm, estimates that they will each spend another $6 billion to $10 billion before the technology becomes mainstream by the end of the decade. But even that prediction may be too optimistic, reports Cade Metz of the New York Times.
So what went wrong? Some researchers will say nothing – that’s how science works. You can’t quite predict what will happen during the experiment. The self-driving car project has become one of the most startling technological experiments of this century. It takes place on roads across the country and is run by some of the leading companies.
Companies like Uber and Lyft, concerned about spending their money on autonomous technology, have shut down. Only the richest companies, like Waymo, which is a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, the auto industry giants and a handful of startups manage to stay in the game.
Late last month, Lyft sold its autonomous car division to a Toyota subsidiary called Woven Planet in a deal worth $550 million. In December, Uber sold its autonomous car division to another competitor. In the past year, three major self-driving car startups have been sold to companies with much larger budgets.
Related Tags:
biggest electric car companiesev markethow do electric cars workev vehicles 2021,People also search for,Privacy settings,How Search works,biggest electric car companies,ev market,how do electric cars work,ev vehicles 2021
