Tag: car

Categories
Business

China deliveries slide in January for electrical automobile start-up Li Auto

China deliveries slide in January for electric car start-up Li Auto

A Li Xiang One Hybrid SUV is on display at the China Import and Export Fair Complex, China, during the 18th Guangzhou International Auto Show on November 23, 2020.

Li Zhihao | Visual China Group | Getty Images

BEIJING – At the beginning of 2021, Chinese automaker Li Auto is in third place behind its start-up competitors Nio and Xpeng with a drop in deliveries in January.

Li Auto, listed on Nasdaq, said late Monday, Eastern Time, it shipped 5,379 Li One SUVs in January. That is less than 6,126 deliveries in December and less than Nios 7,225 and Xpeng’s 6,015 deliveries in January.

Li Auto also announced that it will establish a new research and development center in Shanghai for autonomous driving and other technologies related to electric vehicles.

Li Auto’s shares fell the hardest among competitors in US trading on Tuesday, down 5.7% from losses of about 4.6% for Xpeng and 2.1% for Nio. Tesla shares rose 3.9%.

Competition for high-end electric SUVs increased in January, and Tesla announced it would soon begin shipping its China-made Model Y at a price close to that of Nio and Li Auto cars. Tesla delivered 180,570 electric cars worldwide in the last three months of 2020 alone.

The Li One SUV is the first and so far only model from Li Auto. According to China’s Passenger Car Association, it was the best-selling high-end electric SUV in 2020 and even made it into the top 10 list of high-end SUVs overall along with Nio.

According to Morgan Stanley analysts, the Li One SUV is characterized by its fuel tank that can charge the battery and extend the range by 620 kilometers to a total of 800 kilometers.

One of the biggest concerns Chinese consumers have when buying an electric car is whether the battery will run out too quickly, with no charging station nearby, or with long charging times.

Deliveries of 5,379 Li One SUVs in January still quadrupled from the same period last year, and cumulative deliveries have exceeded 38,900 since the vehicle launched in December 2019, according to Li Auto.

That is less than half of the over 82,800 vehicles that Nio delivered cumulatively at the end of January. Nio has three SUV models on the market and plans to start delivering a sedan next year.

Categories
Business

How Wealthy Hospitals Revenue From Sufferers in Automobile Crashes

How Rich Hospitals Profit From Patients in Car Crashes

As part of the check-in process, an Oklahoma Catholic hospital is offering some accident victims a waiver of signing that they do not want their health plan to be billed for care. One patient received the waiver shortly after a car accident in which her head hit the windshield. She said she had no reminder of signing the document but had a pledge of $ 34,106.

“The way they turn it, you don’t want to get your health insurance because someone else caused it,” said Loren Toombs, an Oklahoma trial attorney who represented the patient. “It’s clearly a business tactic and a major problem, but it’s not always illegal.”

Hospitals have been scrutinized in recent years as they increasingly turned to the courts to get back patient bills even amid the coronavirus pandemic. Hospitals, many of which have received substantial bailouts over the past year, have used these court rulings to garnish patients’ wages and move into their homes.

However, less attention was paid to hospital lien laws, which many states passed early in the 20th century when less than 10 percent of Americans had health insurance. Laws should protect hospitals from the burden of caring for uninsured patients and give them an incentive to treat those who could not prepay.

A century later, hospital liens are most commonly used to track debts of victims of car accidents. The practice can be as lucrative as documents and interviews show that some hospitals use outside debt collection companies to search police records for recent accidents to make sure they determine which of their patients may have been in a wreck to pursue can mortgage liens.

Some laws limit the amount of a patient’s agreement that a hospital can claim, and others only allow nonprofit hospitals to collect debts in this way. Certain states require hospitals to bill accident victims for health plans instead of using a lien. This approach is seen as more consumer friendly as patients benefit from the discounts health plans negotiated on their behalf.

“If there is a patient who has viable coverage from multiple sources, it would be a reasonable position to require payment from anyone who will pay more,” said Joe Fifer, executive director of the Healthcare Financial Management Association, a trading group of Hospitals tax officials.

Categories
Politics

Democrats ask resort, rental automobile chains to assist discover Capitol rioters and forestall extra assaults

Democrats ask hotel, rental car chains to help find Capitol rioters and prevent more attacks

Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump board a bus for an overnight trip to Washington, DC, in Newton, Massachusetts, on January 5, 2021.

Joseph Prezioso | AFP | Getty Images

House Democrats on Friday asked more than two dozen private companies to take action to prevent domestic terrorist threats after President Donald Trump’s supporters fatally entered the U.S. Capitol last week.

Companies have been asked to step up their screening efforts and keep any service requests and reservation records made in January that could be used as evidence to identify those involved in the mob.

“While the instigators and attackers bear direct responsibility and fully accountable for the siege of the Capitol, they relied on a number of companies and services to get them there and house them upon their arrival,” said Carolyn Maloney, Chair of the House Oversight Committee. DN.Y. wrote in their letters to the companies.

The oversight committee sent the letters as law enforcement agencies prepare for potentially more violence ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration next Wednesday. Officials fear extremists are targeting state houses across the country as people try to organize pro-Trump rallies online.

Legislators from both parties have called for an investigation into the Capitol siege, which forced a joint congressional session to go into hiding and left five dead, including a Capitol police officer.

Maloney sent letters to 27 hotel, bus, and rental car companies, including the Hyatt and Hilton hotel chains and the online travel company Expedia.

The other companies are Greyhound, Megabus, BoltBus, Lux Bus America, Vamoose, Jefferson Lines, Peter Pan, Flixbus, RedCoach, Enterprise, Hertz, Avis, National, Alamo, Budget, Dollar, Thrifty, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Accor Group, Choice Hotels, Marriott, Best Western International, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts and Extended Stay America.

A local resident looks at a billboard with pictures of supporters of US President Donald Trump who were wanted by the FBI and who were involved in the storming of the US Capitol. Congress had to postpone a session that confirmed the results of the 2020 US presidential election in Washington on January 13th. 2021.

Carlos Barria | Reuters

Maloney also urged companies to submit to their committee by January 29 any “policies and procedures currently in place or under development to ensure that their services are not being used to facilitate violence or domestic terrorism”.

Maloney’s letters indicated that Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser urged Americans to stay out of their city during the inauguration. National Guard troops are deployed to the nation’s capital to ward off possible violence.

The letters also cited measures already in place by some companies, including Airbnb, which canceled all reservations in the DC area during housewarming week and blocked all new bookings during that time.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said Thursday that more than 100 arrests were made in connection with the Capitol riot.

Among the arrests are a Delaware resident and his father, who was photographed with a Confederate flag in the building, and a retired firefighter accused of throwing a fire extinguisher at police officers.

“We know you’re out there and FBI agents are coming to find you,” Wray said.

JW Marriott Hotel guests look out from their rooms as a pro-Trump rally takes place in Freedom Plaza on January 5, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Samuel Corum | Getty Images

Categories
Business

Chinese language electrical automotive start-up Xpeng will get $2 billion in credit score

Chinese electric car start-up Xpeng gets $2 billion in credit

He Xiaopeng, CEO of Xpeng, stands next to the company’s P7 electric sedan speaking to the media at the 2020 Beijing Auto Show.

Evelyn Cheng | CNBC

In July 2020, local branches of four of the “Big Five” banks granted Nio 10.4 billion yuan in loans for the startup’s China activities in Hefei near Shanghai. Participants in this deal included China Construction Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China and Agricultural Bank of China, according to an announcement by Nio.

In China’s state-dominated system, banks prefer to lend to state-owned companies. This makes it difficult for private companies to obtain funding unless they can convince state banks of their ability to repay loans.

Xpeng’s credit line announcement comes after the company raised more than $ 4 billion last year from its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in August and a follow-up offering in December.

Shares have risen more than 195% since going public.

Where is the money going?

The start-up did not reveal details of the loan terms on Tuesday. The agreement will help the Guangzhou-based company expand its manufacturing, sales, service and other activities, according to a press release.

Xpeng said it started building a second factory in November. The company opened 116 retail stores and 50 service centers as of September 30. Xpeng announced in September that it was investing in the development of flying vehicles.

Deliveries totaled 27,041 last year, with more than half coming from a new P7 sedan that began mass deliveries in late June. The company added that it shipped 100 units of its G3 SUV to customers in Norway in December.

Although total deliveries have more than doubled compared to the previous year, Xpeng’s numbers fell short of Nio’s more than 43,700 deliveries. Nio’s vehicles have hit the high end of the market while Xpeng’s price range has been lower.

In the past two weeks, both companies have announced plans for new sedans. Nio’s is expected to arrive in the first quarter of next year. Xpeng claims its sedan will be delivered later this year.