Nikola Corp.'s stock plummeted yesterday on the news that GM was no longer taking an equity stake in the electric and fuel cell truck company or planning to build its now-kaput Badger pickup.
Yes, but: Nikola will still use GM tech for their planned semitrucks under the scaled-back deal, and some analysts still see an upside.
There doesn't seem to be an oil major that's got it all figured out between the pandemic, cloudy demand and price outlooks, and the unknown path through a world getting a bit more serious about climate.
Driving the news: ExxonMobil yesterday afternoon showed the latest signs of its struggle to position itself as it announced large write-offs and a big rethink of long-term spending.
The Lion Electric, an electric truck and bus company, is going public via a merger with the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Northern Genesis Acquisition.
Why it matters: It's the latest in what's becoming a big collection of EV and EV-adjacent companies forgoing traditional IPOs and instead going the SPAC route.
Investors will be able to see what impact a warming world and the transition to cleaner energy sources could have on their portfolios in a tool BlackRock unveiled Tuesday.
Why it matters: The move by BlackRock, the world's biggest money manager, is one of the most concrete signs investors are getting more serious about acting on risks they’ve been saying for years they’re worried about.
Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest has accelerated under President Jair Bolsonaro's presidency and reached a 12-year high in 2020, data from Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE) released Monday shows.
Why it matters: The Amazon plays a huge role in slowing global warming as the world's largest and most biodiverse rainforest. The Brazilian region lost 2.7 million acres to logging, land clearing and fires from August 2019 to July 2020 — a 9.5% rise on the previous period. Bolsonaro said last year, "Deforestation and fires will never end. It's cultural."
News emerged Sunday night that President-elect Joe Biden plans to tap Brian Deese to direct the National Economic Council inside the White House.
Catch up fast: He was a senior climate aide late in the Obama era, helping to craft the Paris climate deal, and held senior roles at White House Office of Management and Budget and the NEC.
A group aimed at helping startups bring climate-friendly tech to market announced this morning its first funding recipients and partnership with venture capital firms and corporate giants including Microsoft and BP.
Why it matters:Third Derivative, an accelerator from New Energy Nexus and Rocky Mountain Institute unveiled months ago, aims to speed the timeline from lab innovation to real commercial deployment — and avoid problems that thwart many researchers, especially in hardware.
General Motors will no longer take an equity stake in Nikola Corp. or build its pickup truck, under a revised deal that still envisions GM as a key tech supplier for Nikola's planned line of electric and fuel cell heavy trucks.
Driving the news: The revised agreement Monday is smaller in scope than a draft partnership rolled out in September that had included a $2 billion stake in the startup and an agreement to build its Badger pickup.
