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National

Data: NewsWhip; Chart: Andrew Witherspoon/Axios

While TV ratings for the impeachment hearings peaked on the first day of testimony from Bill Taylor and George Kent, none drew as much online attention as former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, according to data from NewsWhip.

Why it matters: Democrats hoped to sway public opinion with revelations about a smoking gun of Trump's involvement in a quid pro quo, but the numbers highlight the power of an emotional appeal.

Yovanovitch became a sympathetic figure to many over perceptions that she was wrongfully removed from her post.

Yes, but: Since she had been removed from her post by May, Yovanovitch couldn't speak to central details around the impeachment inquiry focused on events in July.

The big picture: TV ratings steadily declined over the course of the 5 days of hearings, according to Nielsen data.

The first day of testimony pulled in 13.8 million viewers and Yovanovitch got 12.7 million.

Tuesday and Wednesday of this week both got 11.4 million viewers. Thursday's hearing pulled in 11.3 million.

By comparison to other big Trump-era television events:

Christine Blasey Ford/Brett Kavanaugh: 20 million

The 5 biggest stories of the impeachment hearings, per NewsWhip:

"Yovanovitch gets standing ovation at the end of 5-hour hearing" (The Week) - 675k interactions

"Flashback: Obama Fired All Of Bush’s Politically Appointed Ambassadors In 2008" (The Daily Caller) - 490k

"Alexander Vindman has reached out to Army about his family's safety amid attacks by Trump and GOP lawmakers" (CNN) - 229k

"Marie Yovanovitch admits Obama admin prepped her on Hunter Biden before her confirmation" (New York Post) - 203k

"The Army is prepared to move Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and his family to a safe location if necessary" (Business Insider) - 162k

Go deeper: The highlights from all of the public impeachment hearings

Yovanovitch testimony was the most viral impeachment hearing

Highlighting the power of an emotional appeal for viewers.

Politics

Donald Trump impeachment

Media

Social Media

Whats Next

Axios What's Next

The once monolithic automotive industry is splintering over a range of issues, as companies scramble to cope with unprecedented technological disruption and business challenges.

The big picture: Although fiercely competitive in the showroom, automakers have long presented a united front on shared interests like trade policy, government regulations and labor relations. That's all gone out the window lately; now it's every man for himself.

What's happening: General Motors' unprecedented racketeering lawsuit this week against Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is the latest example of automakers turning on one another.

GM accuses its crosstown rival of inflicting billions of dollars in damages by bribing United Automobile Workers leaders for competitive advantages that the union denied to GM.

They say the injuries compounded between 2009 and 2015 in the form of higher labor costs and lost investment initiatives.

GM said former FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne, who died in 2018, conspired with former UAW president Dennis Williams to try to weaken GM and force it into a merger with FCA in 2015.

FCA vigorously denies the charges, and says GM is trying to undermine current merger negotiations with Peugeot parent Groupe PSA and ongoing labor talks with the UAW.

"If arguments both sides are making against each other are true — that Marchionne was using the UAW to bully GM's Mary Barra, and that she's now trying to undercut Fiat Chrysler's combination with PSA — the chess moves will go down as among the most dramatic by Detroit executives in decades," writes Bloomberg.

On Thursday, JPMorgan analysts estimated that GM is likely to seek at least $6 billion in damages, and as much as $15 billion.

Another big split occurred recently in the war over tailpipe emissions rules.

Ford, Volkswagen, BMW and Honda have lined up behind California, whose right to set its own pollution standards was revoked by the Trump administration.

GM, FCA, Toyota and others, meanwhile, are siding with Trump, who wants to roll back tough Obama-era standards.

Where they line up depends mostly on their sunk investments in future powertrains and how they think consumer demand will evolve.

Two decades ago, Detroit automakers fought shoulder-to-shoulder against California's clean car initiatives.

What to watch: Shifts in trade policy could further divide the industry as the interests of foreign and domestic automakers diverge.

The bottom line: Faced with falling global sales and a potential transformation of the business, "the always-competitive auto industry has become even more dog-eat-dog," says Cox Automotive analyst Michelle Krebs.

UAW president resigns amid corruption probe

California won't buy from automakers who side with Trump on emissions

It's every carmaker for itself

The industry had long presented a united front on shared interests.

Illustration of car on a three-way street sign.

Transportation

Automakers

Business

Pro Rata

Axios Pro Rata

This week there was a pair of lower-level government roadblocks for the gig economy's path to profitability.

Driving the news: New Jersey fined Uber $649 million for years of back-taxes, including $119 million in interest, for allegedly misclassifying its drivers as independent contractors instead of as employees.

This is different from the situation in California, where state legislators are seeking to codify gig economy "employment." In New Jersey, the state's labor department believes Uber skirted existing law.

It's the first such state lawsuit ever against Uber, which plans to challenge NJ's determination.

If N.J. is successful, many other states could pursue similar claims against Uber and other gig economy companies — the sort of thing that even the best-capitalized of them would struggle to handle.

Also happening: Washington, D.C. is suing DoorDash for allegedly misleading customers about how tips factored into delivery worker pay.

Again, the contractor vs. employee dichotomy is at issue. D.C. allows "tipped wages," meaning that businesses can pay certain workers like restaurant servers less than standard minimum wage, so long as tips fill the gap.

But, the D.C. attorney general's office tells Axios that it views DoorDash as different because a restaurant server is an employee, not a contractor.

DoorDash recently decided to change its tipping policy. But it could be on the hook for costly penalties in D.C., let alone in other jurisdictions that follow suit. And it's hardly the only gig economy company to have used a similar tipping process.

The gig economy is distorting U.S. economic data

The gig economy hits roadblocks from state-level regulators

Uber is staring down a $649 million fine from New Jersey.

illustration of a finge rpointing at a phone

Gig economy

Jobs

Top stories & latest news on the Federal Reserve, real-time data, plus the biggest shifts happening in the U.S. and global economy.

Economy

After a record economic expansion, the coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy into a recession as unemployment soared to staggering heights. The country now faces urgent questions about how much stimulus is needed for reeling consumers and businesses, and what a recovery might look like.

Economy & Business

Generate

Axios Generate

Tesla unveiled its futuristic "Cybertruck" at an L.A. event  on Thursday that was heavy on light shows, yet analysts remain in the dark about the future of electric pickups — and Tesla's role in it.

Why it matters: The event was the splashiest sign yesterday that automakers are moving closer to bringing electric models to the huge pickup market.

But it wasn't the only one. Thursday, GM CEO Mary Barra said its planned electric pickup will go on sale in the fall of 2021.

More broadly, the startup Rivian is also bringing an EV pickup to market, while Ford is electrifying the popular F-150 model (though its timeline is unclear).

Driving the news: Tesla's unveiling showed how the automaker's strategy is bringing something radically new to the scene and betting there's a market for it.

"Trucks have been the same for a very long time, like a hundred years," CEO Elon Musk said on stage. "We want to try something different."

Our thought bubble, via Axios' Joann Muller: Those are famous last words for anyone trying to enter the pickup truck market. There's a reason pickups are designed the way they are; people use them as tools for work. 

Even Toyota, with deep enough pockets to reinvent the truck market if it wanted, hasn't been able to dent any of the top-selling pickups with its Tundra after 20 years.

The big picture: Tesla says production is slated to begin in late 2021, and a year later for the high-end version. There are three models:

A base single-motor, rear-wheel-drive model starting at $39,900 with a 250-mile range; a dual-motor all-wheel-drive version with a 300-mile range that starts at $49,000; and a top-end "tri-motor" all-wheel-drive version that starts at $69,900 that can travel 500 miles on a full charge.

The high-end model goes from 0-60 in 2.9 seconds and has a towing capacity north of 14,000 pounds, Tesla said. The base model tows at least 7,500 pounds and goes from 0-60 in 6.5 seconds.

What they're saying: "The looks are polarizing, but the performance and pricing specs are undeniable," Kelley Blue Book executive publisher Karl Brauer said in remarks circulated to reporters.

Brauer sees plenty of demand among current Tesla owners, but predicts that "current pickup truck buyers will find its exterior design and electric drivetrain too far of a leap for most of them to make."

But he sees a chance for the truck to move into the traditional consumer market if Tesla can build a lot of them and early adopters are "fully satisfied."

"It misses the core truck buyer," Gene Munster of Loup Ventures tells Bloomberg. "A contractor is not going to show up to a worksite in this truck. That said, Tesla will still sell some of them."

Data: Wards Intelligence; Chart: Andrew Witherspoon/Axios

The bottom line: In theory, the market for electric pickups is huge.

Light-duty pickup sales are often in the 2-3 million per year range, sometimes accounting for nearly a fifth of overall light-duty vehicle sales.

Maintaining or tapping into that market is an attractive thing for automakers.

Tesla ushers in the electric pickup moment

Analysts remain in the dark about the future of the vehicles.

Tesla's Cybertruck. Photo: Courtesy of Tesla

Electric vehicles

Energy

Elon Musk

From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

Technology

Breaking climate science and policy coverage as extreme weather events reshape communities. Keep tabs on the race to a low carbon economy, which may be bumpy as governments, climate tech startups and major oil and gas companies race to find their niche amid the changing energy landscape.

Energy & Climate

President Trump spent 53 minutes of his Friday morning on the phone with the hosts of "Fox & Friends" — his latest call-in to one of his favorite TV shows.

Driving the news: President Trump spent a chunk of the interview repeating a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 presidential election. "That's what the word is," he claimed without evidence.

The debunked conspiracy theory — frequently referred to as CrowdStrike, the security firm at its center — is based on the idea that Ukraine was complicit in the 2016 hacking of the Democratic National Committee to create false electronic records that Russia was behind the hacking.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the National Security Council's top Ukraine expert, said during his impeachment hearing that the Crowdstrike conspiracy theory is "a Russian narrative that President Putin has promoted."

Fiona Hill, Trump's former top Russia adviser, said during her impeachment hearing that the conspiracy theory is "a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves."

Worth noting: Trump also said that Crowdstrike is owned by "a very wealthy Ukrainian," but it's actually a publicly-traded company. Its largest outside shareholder is Warburg Pincus, a New York City private equity firm from which Trump plucked one of his top economic advisors.

Fox And Friends-8 08 41 Am - 8 09 59 Am-2019-11-22 (1)

The president once again slammed former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, claiming she was "not an angel." During her impeachment testimony , she agreed that it was Trump's prerogative to fire ambassadors at will, but asked, "What I do wonder is why was it necessary to smear my reputation also?"

Axios

Friday's top stories

Yovanovitch testimony was the most viral impeachment hearing

It's every carmaker for itself

The gig economy hits roadblocks from state-level regulators

Tesla ushers in the electric pickup moment

Trump repeats Ukraine conspiracy theory on 53-minute "Fox & Friends" call

Tech's new labor unrest

What's next for impeachment

2020 Democrats love Obama, but are ready to move on

Big retailers are pushing tariff costs on to smaller merchants

Getting patients to price shop is hard

Tesla debuts its first electric pickup truck

Belief in American exceptionalism on the decline: poll

Netanyahu's fight for survival: "Witch hunt" claims and a stain on his legacy