Hasta La Gadget!

In 2021, Hertz announced that it was going to order 100,000 electric vehicles from Tesla by the end of 2022. Turns out the car rental company is far from being able to reach that number still, and it may take a while to get to 100,000, if it even gets there, because it’s slowing down its plans to electrify its fleet. During the company’s third-quarter earnings call (PDF), CEO Stephen Scherr said Hertz’s “in-fleeting of EVs will be slower than [its] prior expectations.”

Hertz reported a 13 percent margin for the quarter, which Scherr said would’ve been “several points higher” if not for the cost challenges associated with EVs. One of the factors that affected the company’s margins was depreciation, compounded by the one-third drop in retail prices of the electric cars in its fleet. Tesla had implemented several price cuts over the past year, slashing the Model S and X prices by nearly 20 percent in September.

In addition, the CEO said that EVs are costing Hertz “about twice in terms of damage cost repair than a conventional internal combustion engine vehicle.” He said the company is working directly with Tesla to look at its cars’ performance and lower the risk of damage, as well when it comes parts procurement and labor. The company disclosed in its earnings report that 80 percent of its EVs is made up of Tesla vehicles, which means it has 35,000 Tesla in its fleet out of 50,000. As CNBC explains, EVs come with their own set of maintenance challenges, potentially brought about by their heavier weight. Aside from those two factors, moving a portion of its EV fleet from ridesharing use to leisure had affected its margins, as well. Hertz rents Tesla EVs to Uber and Lyft drivers, and it’s now planning to move the vehicles it removed from the pool back to its ridesharing business.

Scherr said Hertz remains committed to its long-term plan to electrify its fleet, but it’s going to pace itself while it looks for solutions to its EV-related issues. The CEO talked about how taking on EVs by other manufacturers like GM could address some of the problems it’s facing. He expects Hertz to be able to purchase them at an “appreciably lower price point” than the prices it paid for its Tesla vehicles. He also thinks that those cars “will likely speak to lower incidence of damage,” as well as to “a lower cost of parts and labor.” GM and other traditional automakers have a broad parts supply network nationwide established over the decades, which will make it easier — and potentially cheaper due to aftermarket availability — to procure components.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/hertz-decides-to-slow-down-its-ev-expansion-094012885.html?src=rss

Police across Maine were alerted just last month about “veiled threats” by the man who authorities say would go on to carry out the worst mass shooting in the state’s history.

Threads was missing a lot of features users would expect from a service similar to Twitter’s (now X’s) when it launched. Over the past few months, however, it has been been rolling out more and more new features to give users a more robust experience, including polls, an easy way to post GIFs and the ability to quote posts on the web. Still, since it doesn’t have an API, third-party developers can’t conjure features specific to their services that would make the social network a more integral part of people’s everyday lives. An example of that is local transportation agencies being able to automatically post service alerts when a train is delayed. According to Instagram chief Adam Mosseri, though, Threads is working on an API for developers — he just has concerns about how it’s going to be used. 

As first reported by TechCrunch, Mosseri responded to a conversation on the platform about having a TweetDeck-like experience for Threads. In a response to a user saying that Threads has no API yet, the executive said: “We’re working on it.” He added that he’s concerned that the API’s launch could mean “a lot more publisher content and not much more creator content,” but he’s aware that it “seems like something [the company needs] to get done.”

Mosseri previously said that Threads won’t amplify news, which may have been disappointing to hear for publishers and readers looking to leave X. Instead, he said, Threads wants to “empower creators in general.” More recently, in an AMA he posted on the platform, Mosseri said that that his team’s long-term aspiration is for Threads to become “the de facto platform for public conversations online,” which means being both culturally relevant and big in terms of user size. He said he believes Threads has a chance of surpassing X, but he knows that his service has a long way to go. For now, he keeps his team focused on making people’s experience better week by week. 

Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that Threads has “just under” 100 million monthly active users. Like Mosseri, he is optimistic about its future and said that there’s a “good chance” it could reach 1 billion users over the next couple of years.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/instagram-head-says-threads-is-working-on-an-api-for-developers-140049094.html?src=rss

The former New York governor was previously accused by 11 different women of nonconsensual kissing, touching and sexual remarks.

Jeep maker Stellantis has reached a tentative contract agreement with the United Auto Workers union that follows a template set earlier this week by Ford.