🎮 Playstation on Wheels

Good Morning, this is your Electric Daily. The email that gives you a daily jolt of electric vehicle trends, insights, and predictions, in 5 minutes or less.

In Today's Email:

• 🎮 Playstation on Wheels

• 💳 Your Car as Your Creditcard

• 🚀 Tesla Stock to the Moon

• 🥃 Four Shots

—Riz Nwosu

Playstation on Wheels

Sony is really jumping into the EV race.

The tech world has never been short of surprises, and the latest one is Sony taking concrete steps into the EV space for real this time. Yes, the same Sony that makes your PlayStation gaming console will soon be making EVs, hopefully with a Playstation inside them.

Apple is the other electronic equipment maker that has long been suspected of making an electric car. However, Sony appears set to bring a pair of battery-powered vehicles to the market much sooner than Apple. In a presentation at CES 2022, Sony chairman, president, and CEO of Sony global, Kenichiro Yoshida, revealed two concept electric cars, the Vision-S 01 EV and the Vision-S 02 SUV.

We saw the Vision S EV concept car last year during a reveal at CES. However, this year at CES, Sony brought it back but this time with a sibling.

While the cars on display were only concepts, they look so close to production-ready that Sony doesn’t need to change much in order to begin sell them.

Sony is so serious about this new venture that it already went ahead and registered a new company, Sony Mobility, to potentially bring these cars to the market. The company even has a working prototype that is not very far from a production version.

If that is not enough proof that Sony is committed to electric cars, the CEO pretty much admitted in his CES keynote that that Sony is actively seeking opportunities to launch its own EVs.

Sony is already posting marketing videos for the Vision S 01 & Vision S 02, and it is clear the company is targeting customers at the luxury end of the automobile spectrum. The videos also showcase the features of the cars. For example, one clip shows a prototype driving about in Tokyo with nobody behind the steering wheel. The vehicle is actually being controlled remotely from Germany through a 5G connection. Think remote-controlled driverless cars.

The Vision-S EV and Vision-S 02 are full of sensors both inside and outside, including CMOS imagers and LiDAR for autonomous operation. You can also use voice commands in the interior.

The cars are stylish enough to appeal to a broad customer base, with Sony refraining from weird styling like other companies with their first forays into electric vehicles.

If Sony decides to start manufacturing these electric cars right away, it will face the global chip shortage on yet another front. It has already reported the difficulty of sourcing chips for its electronics business, hence why I had to score my PS5 in a dark alley for a few hundred dollars over sticker price 😤 

But if anyone asks, you can tell them this is how my PS5 came into my possession.

Perhaps, upon seeing learning of Sony's EV plans, Apple will be forced to step up its own EV efforts. Speaking of Apple, I was also able to obtain (in an dark alley) some footage of their new EV at the parking lot of Apple's HQ: 

Your Car as Your Creditcard

Vodafone has announced a collaboration with MasterCard and Energy Web, a non-profit organization dedicated to decarbonizing energy networks, to launch the Economy of Things pilot, in which devices may communicate with one another to pay for various services.

Electric vehicles may now automatically pay for their own charging by utilizing Vodafone's Internet of Things (IoT) technology. Instead of using multiple apps for each charging point network that they use, motorists will be able to use a single app on their smartphone that will automatically communicate with any charging point which that accept Mastercard payments.

This techno-wizardry is all thanks to the company's new global platform, Digital Asset Broker (DAB). We caught a glimpse of the prototype being tested 😂 

On a serious note, if this tech can be effectively combined with Tesla's automatic charging connector, this will truly be revolutionary.

Digital Asset Broker technology can also enable electric vehicles to discover and pay for parking spots, rental cars to charge for pay-as-you-go usage, toll fees, and smart energy meters to settle payments instantly via direct debit.

How long before a customer calls up their credit card company to contest a charge made by their EV but was not authorized by them? I can just imagine the phone call going like this:

CC Company: Sir, are you the owner of a Blue Ford Mustang Mach-e?

Customer: Uh...yes.

CC Company: Then the charges are yours. Goodbye!

Tesla Stock to the Moon

Tesla shares popped more than 7% to $870.43 on Monday, following rumors out of Germany that the firm is close to gaining permission to begin commercial production at its new facility outside of Berlin.

According to Tagesspiegel and Der Spiegel, Tesla plans to build at least 500,000 automobiles per year in its "Gigafactory Berlin" (near Grünheide, Brandenburg), as well as batteries for those cars and will employ at least 12,000 people.

Employees at the facility also elected a "working council," according to Der Spiegel, quoting Birgit Dietze, the chairwoman of the Berlin-Brandenburg-Saxony IG Metall area. IG Metall is regarded as one of the world's most powerful labor unions.

Now we all know that Tesla CEO, Elon Musk has clashed with unions and workers wanting to organize at Tesla factories in the United States. However, in Germany, organized labor is more common and much more powerful.

Side Dish: The NLRB determined that Tesla violated labor rules when it dismissed a union activist and when Musk tweeted in 2018: "Nothing is stopping Tesla team at our vehicle plant from voting union." They could do so tomorrow if they wished. "However, why pay union dues and forego stock options for nothing?"

🥃4 Shots

• VW halts EV production in Germany as Ukraine crisis hits supplies - [Read more here]

• Panasonic will start making Tesla's higher-capacity EV batteries by March 2024 - [Read more here]

• Toyota gears up to launch its first EV bZ4X with safer, longer-lasting battery - [Read more here]

• Putting EV Valuations Into Perspective - [Read more here]

Thanks, bartender!

Consider yourself 80% charged. Why 80%? Well, according to legend, charging your battery to 100% repeatedly will damage it faster than you can say...[Insert clever saying here]. See ya tomorrow!

What'd you think about today's email?

• ⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡ Fully charged

• ⚡⚡ Meh - was ok

• ⚡ Not even close

Written by Riz Nwosu

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