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- #33. ⚤Climate & gender equality | 📈EV battery prices climb | 🎖️Kodiak Robotics Pentagon AV contract
#33. ⚤Climate & gender equality | 📈EV battery prices climb | 🎖️Kodiak Robotics Pentagon AV contract
Plus: Climate change investing | Limiting Big Tech | Czech Republic's H2 trains | GM & Flo rural EV charging | Tesla Semi deep dive | WPI AV Mobility Institute
🌡 CLIMATE CHANGE
This is a fairly decent overview on a strategic approach to climate change-focused investment provide by Morgan Stanley spanning a 3-pronged framework: (1) the intentionality of the investment process; (2) the influence by shareholders on corporate behavior; (3) the advancement of inclusion especially with respect to gender and race.
This is a report studying the impact of climate change on women in the Asia-Pacific region who are often hit hardest by natural disasters due to their employment in agriculture and tourism. Furthermore, when women lose their employment, they are often subjected to increased gender-based violence. Thus, a vicious feedback loop ensues: girls and women in Asia and the Pacific suffer hardest from climate change which then exaggerates the underlying gender inequalities.
A new report from international environmental non-profit Global Action Plan says that attempts to curb global greenhouse gas emissions will fail unless more is done to address the role of Big Tech in contributing to climate change. The report warns that the biggest tech firms amplify conspiracy theories, misinformation and have a huge energy footprint, which hinders climate action, drives unsustainable consumerism and increases political division.
🔋 CLEAN ENERGY
A manufacturer of locomotives in the Czech Republic, Alstom, is introducing hydrogen trains in partnership with Air Products to help free the country of Russian oil dependence. While hydrogen production has until now been produced using (Russian-sourced) natural gas, henceforth, H2 production will be from clean energy-powered electrolysis.
Surging demand and increased material and transport costs have caused lithium-ion batteries to increase in price for the first time in a decade just as they were teasing the $100/kWh price point, a milestone often considered to bring EVs to price parity with ICE vehicles.
GM is determined to build out a network of 40,000 Level 2 EV chargers in underserved communities, and it has partnered with Flo to accomplish this goal. The Flo (Crunchbase) “CoRe+ MAX” chargers will offer 19.1 kW of power resulting in a 2.7x faster charging rate than standard Level 2 chargers. For comparison, Tesla Superchargers top out at 250 kW.
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🚗 AUTONOMOUS & ELECTRIC VEHICLES
This is a remarkably deep dive on everything known — and not officially known, but mathematically extrapolated — about the Tesla Semi.
California-based start-up Kodiak Robotics (Crunchbase) has won a $49.9m contract from the US Department of Defense (DoD) to help create and deploy autonomous vehicles for "high-risk" missions. The company, which has previously developed self-driving trucks, will be working on autonomous reconnaissance vehicles for the DoD, which it says could reduce the risks to soldiers.
Just a week or so after UC-Irvine’s launch of a similar institute, the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Massachusetts has established an Autonomous Vehicle Mobility Institute (AVMI) to expand its interdisciplinary research into autonomous vehicle technologies and educational opportunities for students.
🎉 THAT’S ALL FOR TODAY!
Thank you so much for reading, see you tomorrow!-Marc
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