Robotaxi company Cruise drives residents in San Francisco
For the past few weeks, Cruise employees have been testing the San Francisco city transit service — now the service is available to the general public (pictured January 2019).
(dpa) After years of testing, General Motors subsidiary Cruise is launching a robotaxi service in San Francisco. The cars are completely autonomous without a safety driver. It’s a milestone, but also a cautious launch: operations are set to begin with just a few users until self-driving cars scale up. Anyone interested could first put themselves on a waiting list, Cruise wrote in a blog entry on Tuesday (February 1).
For the time being, the robotic taxis should only be on the road with passengers in some parts of the city and at night from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., as a spokesman for the technology blog “Techcrunch” said. Cruise’s test cars, on the other hand, drive across San Francisco at all times of the day. The company uses converted GM Chevy Bolt electric cars while working on a special robotaxi vehicle without steering wheel and pedals. The Robotaxi service is initially free until Cruise gets approval for commercial operation.
San Francisco is thus increasingly becoming a test case for autonomous mobility in the big city. The Google sister company Waymo has been testing a robotaxi service in the Californian metropolis for the past year, but initially with a security driver at the wheel and only with selected users. In the city of Phoenix, Arizona, Waymo also leaves the driver’s seat partially empty. In Germany, the Intel subsidiary Mobileye wants to start a robotaxi service in Munich by the end of the year.
Launching a public service gives Cruise more financial leeway. With the move, the company will receive an additional $1.35 billion from Softbank’s vision investment fund. That was what was agreed when the Softbank fund joined Cruise in 2018 with $900 million. The Robotaxi company has already raised billions more dollars from various investors.
Starbucks significantly increases profits and revenues
A customer shops at a Starbucks store in Philadelphia on April 26. The American group earns well despite the pandemic.
(dpa) The world’s largest café chain, Starbucks, earned significantly better earnings at the end of the year despite exposure to the omicron virus variant. In the three months to early January, profits increased 31 percent year-on-year to $816 million, Starbucks said on Tuesday after the US market closed. Sales rose 19 percent to $8.1 billion.
Despite the strong gains, the share fell significantly in the after-hours trading. Even higher proceeds had been expected on Wall Street. In addition, the business outlook was cautious. CEO Kevin Johnson warned of higher costs from inflationary pressures due to Omicron and the difficult labor market where workers are currently hard to find.
Paypal with a slump in profits – disappointing business outlook
A passer-by walks past the PayPal branch in Berlin (photo from March 5, 2019).
(dpa) The payment service PayPal earned significantly less at the end of the year. In the final quarter, profits fell by 49 percent compared to the previous year to 801 million dollars (710.5 million euros), as PayPal announced on Tuesday (February 1) after the US stock market closed. Revenue increased 13 percent to $6.9 billion. A year ago, however, growth was still more than 20 percent.
Paypal benefited greatly from the online shopping boom at the beginning of the pandemic, but the company is struggling with the return of many customers to traditional retail. In addition, the detachment of the ex-parent company Ebay from Paypal further burdens the payment service. The business outlook for 2022 was cautious. Investors dropped the stock by more than 15 percent in after-hours trading.
Intel competitor AMD with strong quarterly numbers
AMD logos grace the booth at the China Digital Entertainment Expo and Conference (“ChinaJoy”) in Shanghai on July 30.
(dpa) The chip group AMD is trumping in the midst of the global semiconductor bottlenecks with record numbers. The smaller competitor of the industry giant Intel increased sales in the past quarter by 49 percent to 4.8 billion dollars. Analysts had rather expected $4.5 billion. For the current quarter, AMD announced revenues of five billion dollars on Tuesday thanks to sales of server and PC processors.
In addition, AMD is already forecasting a 31 percent increase in sales to $21.5 billion for the year that has just begun. The stock jumped more than 9 percent in after-hours trading.
Bottom line, profit for the past quarter fell to $974 million from $1.78 billion a year earlier. AMD pointed out that a tax credit of $1.3 billion improved the surplus last year.
AMD has been able to catch up with Intel in recent years, among other things after the market launch of new processor generations from its big rival was delayed due to problems with production techniques.
There are currently bottlenecks in various types of chips. The trigger was, among other things, the increased demand for laptops with increased working and learning from home during the corona pandemic. Experts expect that the shortage could continue into 2023.
General Motors suffers profit slump in fourth quarter
US President Joe Biden visiting a General Motors factory in Detroit in November.
(dpa) The chip shortage also weighed heavily on the largest American car manufacturer, General Motors (GM), at the end of the year. In the three months to the end of December, profits fell by 1.1 billion to 1.7 billion dollars (1.5 billion euros) compared to the previous year, as the company announced on Tuesday after the US stock market closed in Detroit. Sales fell by a good ten percent to $33.6 billion.
Even if the quarterly figures were in line with market expectations, the share initially reacted with price reductions in the after-hours trading. The car company announced an adjusted operating profit of between 13 billion and 15 billion dollars for 2022 and thus gave a rather cautious business outlook. Last year, that result was $14.3 billion.
$590 million: US drug companies accept opioid comparison
(dpa) Four major American pharmaceutical companies have agreed to another settlement in the legal dispute over addictive painkillers. Drug maker Johnson & Johnson, drug distributors McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen are accepting payments totaling approximately $590 million to settle lawsuits from more than 400 Native American tribes. This emerged on Tuesday (February 1) from documents from the competent court in Cleveland. Accordingly, the plaintiffs represent about 85 percent of all Tribesmen of America. The indigenous people are considered to have suffered particularly badly from the opioid crisis.
The four companies were accused of having contributed to the rampant drug addiction and drug epidemic in the USA with painkillers. States and local governments have been reclaiming billions of dollars from pharmaceutical companies that they have spent fighting opiate addiction and overdose. There have already been some settlements, and numerous American lawsuits are still being negotiated. The focus of the conflict was initially the manufacturer of the painkiller Oxycontin, Purdue Pharma, which is now in bankruptcy proceedings.
The American drug dealers and manufacturers are accused of having marketed painkillers with ruthless and aggressive methods while concealing the dangers of addiction. According to the plaintiffs, this laid an important foundation for the devastating opioid epidemic in the United States, which, according to American authorities, has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths from overdoses in recent years. Opioids are drugs with, among other things, pain-relieving properties, but they also have enormous risks of dependency and a high potential for abuse.