Tag: operations

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World News

VW by chance leaks new identify for its U.S. operations: Voltswagen

VW expects half of U.S. sales to be electric vehicles by 2030

Volkswagen ID Buzz vehicle.

Aeva

Volkswagen inadvertently posted a press release on its website a month earlier Monday, announcing a new name for its US business, Voltwagen of America, highlighting the German automaker’s efforts to promote electric vehicles.

A company spokesman declined to comment on the release, which was dated April 29 and has since been abolished.

A person familiar with the company’s plans confirmed the authenticity of the release to CNBC. They asked to remain anonymous as the plans shouldn’t be public yet.

The press release referred to the change as a “public statement on the company’s future investment in electric mobility”. It is said that all EV models with gas vehicles bearing only the company’s iconic VW emblem are said to be used as the exterior badge.

To “preserve elements of Volkswagen’s legacy,” the company planned to keep the dark blue color of the VW logo for gas-powered vehicles and use light blue to differentiate “the new, EV-centric branding”.

The press release states that Voltwagen of America will remain an operating unit of the Volkswagen Group of America and a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG, headquartered in Herndon, Virginia.

Volts are the derived units of electrical potential, also known as electromotive force, between two points. General Motors previously used Volt for a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle between 2010 and 2019.

The VW press release was incomplete, highlighting the need for an additional listing and photograph from the automaker’s facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

One name change would be the latest EV news from Volkswagen, which held a “Power Day” earlier this month to discuss their EV technologies. Targets were also announced to significantly increase sales of electric vehicles by the end of the decade. It is expected that more than 70% of the Volkswagen brand’s European sales will be generated in electric vehicles by 2030, compared to an earlier target of 35%. In the United States and China, half of all sales are expected to come from electric vehicles by then.

GM didn’t go as far as to change its name earlier this year, but instead announced a new logo and advertising campaign focused on electric vehicles. The Detroit automaker’s new logo includes its gm initials in lower case, with the “m” underlined as a nod to the Ultium battery cell platform that underpins the new electric vehicles. The blue letters are in a rounded box of the same color. It replaced a white GM that was underlined in a darker blue block.

Categories
Politics

Biden halts U.S. help for offensive navy operations in Yemen

Biden halts U.S. support for offensive military operations in Yemen

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden on Thursday announced the end of US support for offensive operations in Yemen and appointed a new envoy to oversee the nation’s diplomatic mission to end the civil war there. This is part of a broader foreign policy address that highlights greater US engagement in the world.

“This war has to end,” said Biden during his first foreign policy address as president. “We are ending all American support for offensive operations in the Yemen war, including arms sales.”

“At the same time, Saudi Arabia is facing rocket attacks, UAV strikes and other threats from Iranian forces in several countries,” said Biden. “We will continue to help Saudi Arabia defend its sovereignty, territorial integrity and people.”

The President appointed Tim Lenderking, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iran, Iraq and Regional Multilateral Affairs, to oversee the US diplomatic mission to end the war in Yemen.

“I have asked my Middle East team to ensure our support for the United Nations initiative to impose a ceasefire, open humanitarian channels and re-establish long dormant peace talks,” said Biden.

“Tim’s diplomacy is strengthened by USAID, which is committed to ensuring that humanitarian aid reaches the Yemeni people who are suffering from unbearable devastation,” said Biden.

The US will continue to target al-Qaeda

Biden’s policies of ending support for offensive operations, however, will not extend to US military action against al-Qaeda’s subsidiary known as AQAP in the region.

“It does not extend to measures against AQAP that we are taking to protect the homeland and American interests in the region, as well as our allies and partners,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters at a news conference at the White House earlier Thursday.

“It extends to the types of offensive operations that perpetuated a civil war in Yemen that has turned into a humanitarian crisis,” Sullivan said.

The US has informed Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates of its decision, Sullivan said.

He added that the Biden government has stopped selling precision-guided ammunition to Saudi Arabia in order to assess possible human rights violations.

The civil war in Yemen escalated in 2014 when the Houthi forces, allied with former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, took over the country’s capital.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been carrying out attacks against the Houthis in Yemen since March 2015. The Saudi-led intervention in Yemen was previously supported by the administration of former President Donald Trump.

Trump vetoed a measure in 2019 aimed at ending U.S. military aid and engagement in Yemen. At the time, Trump said the Congressional resolution was “unnecessary” and “threatened the lives of American citizens and courageous members of the service both now and in the future.”

The legislature, which backed the measure, criticized Saudi Arabia for a series of bombing attacks that contributed to the deaths of civilians in Yemen.

The United Nations previously said that the ongoing armed conflict in Yemen has caused the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. The US provided more than $ 630 million in humanitarian aid to Yemen in fiscal 2020, according to the State Department.

– CNBC’s Christian Nunley contributed to this report from Virginia.

Categories
Business

NBC Sports activities Community will stop operations in 2021

NBC Sports Network will cease operations in 2021

Ivan Provorov # 9 of the Philadelphia Flyers plays the puck against Brad Marchand # 63 of the Boston Bruins during the first period in a round robin game during the 2020 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at Scotiabank Arena on August 2, 2020 in Toronto, Ontario.

Mark Blinch | National Hockey League | Getty Images

The NBC Sports Network will be closed.

The network will cease operations through the end of 2021, a person familiar with the CNBC’s familiar plan. NBC will transfer its sports media rights, including the National Hockey League, to USA Network. The person spoke to CNBC on condition of anonymity as the person is not allowed to comment publicly on the matter. Both networks are owned by CNBC’s parent company NBCUniversal.

The plan to cease operations will allow NBC to gain more coverage for its sports content. The USA network is available in 86 million households, while NBCSN has an estimated reach of 80 million households.

NBCUniversal initially hoped that NBC Sports Network would be its answer to Disney’s ESPN – a cable sports network that could justify high fees from pay-TV retailers for its popular sports content. Twenty-first Century Fox developed Fox Sports 1 and CBS introduced CBS Sports Network for similar reasons.

But none of the cable sports networks has ever seriously threatened ESPN, and the media industry’s move to streaming video has made linear sports networks anachronistic. NBCUniversal is considering shutting down multiple networks, CNBC reported in October, in an attempt to consolidate its best assets into fewer networks. By shutting down poorly performing cable networks, older media companies could keep the shrinking bundle of cables afloat while maintaining subscription income by increasing the fees for the existing networks.

The network began as the Outdoor Life Network in the 1990s and was renamed Versus in 2006. Comcast owned the network when it acquired NBCUniversal in 2011, at which time it was renamed NBC Sports Network.

NHL playoff games, a selection of NASCAR races and Premier League content will be broadcast to USA Network upon completion of NBCSN.

The Stamford, Connecticut-based network acquired the NHL rights in 2011 with a 10-year package worth $ 2 billion. The agreement runs for the current 2020-21 season.

NBCSN also has a $ 4.4 billion rights package with NASCAR that expires in 2024 and has the prospect of its extension option with rights to the European Football Premier League (valued at around $ 1 billion). The network moved some of those games to NBC’s streaming service, Peacock, last year.

Back to the Future

Longtime sports media rights advisor Lee Berke said the move was “back to the future” for the USA Network, which broadcasts sports content. The channel was originally a national distribution arm for the Madison Square Garden Sports Network and broadcast sports content including the National Basketball Association until 1984.

“The fact that the sport is returning to the US is not a new concept,” Berke said in an interview with CNBC on Friday. “Certainly the distribution helps, but this move reflects some things – the pay-TV package is shrinking. The subscriber base is shrinking. So it justifies having fewer networks on air and the other part of that is the growth of streaming.”

Berke, the CEO of LHB Sports, a sports consultancy, said streaming trends are forcing the network to reinvent itself “when consumer viewing behavior changes. This has been a migration of sport from broadcast to cable in the past 20 years , 30 years ago, when pay-TV got bigger and bigger, and now you’re seeing sports that are moving to streaming.

“I think it’s a sensible move given current trends,” said Berke of NBCSN’s closure. “They try to always be one step ahead of the wave. They don’t want to stand behind it and miss it. But that makes sense, given where the pay-TV is going and where the streaming is going.”

Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.