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Steve Mollman

Steve Mollman

Quartz

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China's EV competition is so fierce that Volkswagen ‘cannot keep up’ and should avoid ‘utopian expectations,’ says CEO

The intense competition in China’s EV space is having ripple effects both within and outside the country, as VW can attest to.

06.04.2024 2

Fortune

Steve Mollman

AI startup Cognition Labs, founded in November, seeks $2B valuation amid investor frenzy, warnings of bubble

As more and more AI ventures snag improbably large sums from investors, the sense of a bubble increases.

01.04.2024 8

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Hyundai mulls adding fast-selling hybrids to its EV 'metaplant' in Georgia as state reels from Tesla rival Rivian delaying $5B manufacturing facility

"We will adjust to the market demand," said a company leader. “You’re going to see an increase in the mix of hybrids."

31.03.2024 5

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Smartphone maker Xiaomi switches from Apple to Tesla challenger as its first EV racks up 120,000 orders in 36 hours

"Many people ask me who the Xiaomi SU7 is built for. My answer is, isn't it time for Tesla Model 3 users to upgrade?"

31.03.2024 4

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Stellantis uses ‘mandatory remote work day’ to cut 400 white-collar jobs

Affected Stellantis employees were “expected to work from home unless otherwise instructed by your manager."

25.03.2024 80

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Electric vehicles are creating a ‘halo effect’ for hybrids—and losing prospective customers to them

"Hybrids are killing it," said Michelle Krebs, executive analyst at Cox Automotive. "They're just tearing it up."

24.03.2024 20

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Canopy Growth shares—predicted to hit zero last year—surge as Germany decriminalizes cannabis

One analyst warned last summer that Canopy "may not be able to continue operations and meet its financial obligations."

23.03.2024 10

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Tesla challenger Fisker, flirting with bankruptcy, gets design award and scathing review in same week

Designing cars is not nearly as difficult as producing them profitably at a large scale, as Tesla CEO Elon Musk has often noted.

22.03.2024 8

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Ex-Ford CEO warns of ‘real financial trouble’ for EV startups as adoption takes longer than expected

The transition to electric vehicles will happen, says Mark Fields, but will take longer than anticipated—hurting today's EV startups.

17.03.2024 4

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Tesla has chance to ‘grow their market share even more’ thanks to EV startups faltering and legacy automakers focusing on hybrids

Elon Musk’s carmaker is sitting pretty despite a slump, believes one industry observer, as the EV sector hits a rough patch.

17.03.2024 4

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Hertz’s electric vehicle and CEO about-face is the latest twist after a COVID bankruptcy filing and a deep relationship with Carl Icahn

The rental-car giant is replacing its CEO after a disastrous quarter involving Teslas, but the saga goes back further.

16.03.2024 10

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Jeff Bezos's investment in Google challenger Perplexity AI has nearly doubled in a few months as startup nears $1 billion unicorn status

The Amazon founder joined a funding round in January that valued the AI search startup at over $500 million.

10.03.2024 3

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Tesla rival Rivian's market value jumps by over $1.7B after it unveils R2 and halts $5B factory—cutting costs 'massively' as Elon Musk suggested

Musk had suggested Rivian would go bankrupt in six quarters without a drastic change.

10.03.2024 7

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Jack Dorsey tells Block employees Tuesday is a 'no meeting day.' Here’s why that lifts the spirits of 'makers'

"I am unbelievably pumped," rejoiced one Block employee. "Less talk about the work. More work. Here for it.” 

09.03.2024 4

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Eco-terrorists strike $1 billion blow against Tesla plant in Germany and Rivian halts $5 billion Georgia factory as activists cheer

"Our water is more important than anybody’s electric vehicle."

09.03.2024 40

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Australia is showing us what happens when Tesla-beating BYD faces no tariffs and is free to grow 

China’s top carmaker, backed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, watched its sales in Australia grow sixfold last year to over 12,000...

07.03.2024 5

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Apple buying Rivian? Nissan with Fisker? Tesla rivals’ woes spark speculation

The EV sector faces a growth slowdown, and pressure is mounting for the likes of Rivian, Lucid, and Fisker.

03.03.2024 5

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Frank Slootman, who saw his CEO role as ‘insanely confrontational’ and was likened to Elon Musk, has stepped down at Berkshire-backed Snowflake

His hard-charging leadership style has garnered perhaps as much attention as his track record.

02.03.2024 4

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Black bakery owner jilted by Tesla credits Elon Musk effect with surge in business: ‘You either love him or hate him’

"When people saw that it was Tesla," Voahangy Rasetarinera told Fox Business, "I think it stirred strong emotions."

01.03.2024 20

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Tesla-beating BYD unveils $230,000 supercar and $14,000 hatchback in same week 

China's top EV maker BYD, backed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, is more versatile than many might realize.

26.02.2024 6

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Tesla-beating BYD and other Chinese carmakers using Mexico as back door poses ‘extinction-level’ threat to U.S. auto sector, warns trade group

The Alliance for American Manufacturing sounded the alarm in a report issued Friday.

25.02.2024 30

Fortune

Steve Mollman

'Part older brother, part loving father': Warren Buffett insists his departed vice chair, Charlie Munger, was the 'architect' of Berkshire Hathaway all along

In his first annual letter to shareholders since Munger’s death, Buffett said his late partner played a bigger role than many realized.

24.02.2024 8

Fortune

Steve Mollman

The BYD of Vietnam just reported a huge loss for 2023—a whopping $2.4 billion

VinFast is plowing money into factories in India, Indonesia, and North Carolina as EV sales slow in major markets.

24.02.2024 10

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Tyler Perry is so shocked by OpenAI's video generator Sora that he's pausing an $800 million studio expansion: ‘A lot of jobs are going to be lost’

The project is “is currently and indefinitely on hold because of Sora,” the TV and movie mogul told the Hollywood Reporter.

23.02.2024 4

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Elon Musk says Rivian needs to 'cut costs massively' and its execs should 'live in the factory' or the Tesla rival will die

“They need to cut costs massively and the exec team needs to live in the factory or they will die,” said the billionaire Tesla CEO.

23.02.2024 10

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Mark Zuckerberg says his daughter 'thought that I was a cattle rancher' for a while thanks to his unusual hobby in Hawaii

The tech billionaire is trying to "create some of the highest quality beef in the world" on his ranch in Hawaii, but just for fun.

19.02.2024 6

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Former YouTube CEO’s son found dead in UC Berkeley dorm, leaving prominent Silicon Valley family 'devastated beyond comprehension’

Susan Wojcicki's 19-year-old son Marco Troper was a freshman at the University of California at Berkeley.

18.02.2024 2

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Stellantis CEO says Chinese EVs are ‘possibly the biggest risk’ facing his carmaker and Elon Musk’s Tesla

The owner of the Dodge, Jeep, and Chrysler brands aims to take on Chinese EVs while avoiding a “race to the bottom.”

18.02.2024 20

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Elon Musk said it was 'time to move on' from hybrids years ago—but a windfall from them will help Japanese carmakers challenge Tesla in EVs

Toyota, Honda, and Mazda all see surging hybrid sales, and it will just help with their big EV plans.

17.02.2024 20

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Ford CEO, who's been worrying about China's EV dominance for years, says 'the world has changed' and he'd work with rivals on a cheaper battery

Jim Farley has a Tesla veteran heading up a Ford “skunkworks” team to develop low-cost EVs, but he’s open to cooperation with rivals on...

16.02.2024 2

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Chinese EVs seen as status symbols are being bought new in countries where they aren’t officially sold yet thanks to a loophole

Some of the nicer electric vehicles made in China are generating interest among well-heeled car buyers in smaller nations.

12.02.2024 5

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Videos show San Francisco crowd destroying Waymo robotaxi months after rival Cruise forced off roads by accident injuring pedestrian

A crowd surrounded the autonomous vehicle, broke its windows, and set off fireworks inside it, setting it ablaze.

11.02.2024 3

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Sam Altman and Elon Musk are 'playing a game of one-upmanship' in an era of 'absurdist capitalism,' says ex-Facebook exec

The OpenAI CEO is reportedly seeking up to $7 trillion for an AI chipmaking project.

10.02.2024 9

Fortune

Steve Mollman

The world’s top carmaker got mocked for rejecting EV hype—not anymore. ‘I want to congratulate Toyota’ 

Toyota shared a stellar outlook this week thanks to higher sales of hybrid vehicles across all its major markets.

09.02.2024 40

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Uber's Super Bowl ad with Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, the Beckhams and Usher is worth $14M for 60 seconds because of apps like Instagram, CEO says

“Stars using their Instagram accounts” make big-budget Super Bowl commercials “worth the investment,” says Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.

08.02.2024 3

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Toyota is crushing it with hybrid vehicles as Tesla's rough start to year hits net worth of Elon Musk, who dismissed them as a 'phase'

Toyota doesn't need price cuts to prop up demand for its hybrids, which it can't make quickly enough.

05.02.2024 8

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Mark Zuckerberg's combat sports prompt Meta to warn investors of 'adverse impact' if he were to 'become unavailable for any reason'

Meta noted its CEO engages in combat sports that "carry the risk of serious injury and death" in its annual report this week.

03.02.2024 3

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Range Rover CEO, reeling from his vehicles being too easy to steal, calls for ‘national conversation’ about organized vehicle crime in the UK

Jaguar Land Rover is “partly funding” police operations at ports, CEO Adrian Mardell says. It’s such a big issue for him he says tax cuts should...

03.02.2024 10

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Warren Buffett said Ferrari is ‘in a special place’ 8 months ago. Now it’s nearing a $100B market value

Buffett usually steers clear of automakers but has praised Ferrari, which reported surging profits Thursday.

01.02.2024 5

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Elon Musk says his religion is ‘one of curiosity’ and it’s why he believes ‘we need more humans’ in space

Talking to Ben Shapiro, the SpaceX CEO said “you can’t be, like, a nihilist or something,” then explained why he cares so much about people...

25.01.2024 5

Fortune

Steve Mollman

As Tesla-beating BYD and other Chinese EV makers rise, German auto suppliers struggle: ‘Who is the winner and who is the loser is changing’

Chinese rivals and the EV switch have German auto suppliers "double spending on double platforms—everything is double, except for growth or profit."

21.01.2024 7

Fortune

Steve Mollman

With Germany in recession and Detroit reeling over ultra-cheap Chinese EVs, Beijing vows to crack down on ‘blind’ construction of new EV projects

China said it will take “forceful measures” to address electric-vehicle projects that are not justified by demand.

19.01.2024 10

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Elon Musk predicts Vivek Ramaswamy will 'far exceed the polls' in Iowa caucuses despite Trump's late attacks

The Tesla and SpaceX billionaire agreed that the GOP presidential candidate is poised to "shock the world."

15.01.2024 4

Fortune

Steve Mollman

With carmakers in a ‘state of shock’ over Tesla-beating BYD’s prices, EU investigators will visit China’s EV giants as part of an anti-subsidy probe

The visits will help determine whether the bloc imposes higher tariffs on Chinese EVs priced so low they're "distorting" the market.

14.01.2024 4

Fortune

Steve Mollman

After AI-generated ‘George Carlin’ routine, late comedian’s daughter warns other entertainers: ‘They’re coming for you next’

Carlin made “14 specials that you can find anywhere,” noted his daughter, adding, "No machine will ever replace his genius."

12.01.2024 20

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Bill Ackman suggests AI-powered plagiarism checks will cause ‘incredible embarrassment’ in academia

"Every faculty member knows that once their work is targeted by AI, they will be outed," wrote the billionaire investor.

08.01.2024 4

Fortune

Steve Mollman

China’s Tesla-beating EV maker BYD has carmakers around the world ‘in a state of shock’ over its prices

BYD owns its entire EV battery supply chain and its CEO is both a relentless cost-cutter and "natural engineer," as Charlie Munger put it.

07.01.2024 20

Fortune

Steve Mollman

After Boeing 737 Max planes crashed and killed hundreds of people about five years ago, one just lost a chunk of its fuselage in midair

A terrifying Alaska Airlines incident Friday is rekindling memories of disasters involving the 737 Max in 2018 and 2019.

06.01.2024 4

Fortune

Steve Mollman

Jeff Bezos–backed AI search startup’s CEO says ‘Google is going to be viewed as something that's legacy and old’

Bezos isn’t alone in rating (and valuing) Perplexity highly. $1.2 trillion AI chip titan Nvidia is along for the ride, too.

06.01.2024 20

Fortune

Steve Mollman

In billionaires’ brawl over DEI, Bill Ackman knocks Mark Cuban’s rebuttal to Elon Musk: ‘I fell for the same trap’ 

The billionaires debated diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts following the resignation of Harvard’s Claudine Gay.

05.01.2024 10

Fortune

Steve Mollman

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