In October 2021, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sent his trillion-dollar social media company into a new direction. Facebook changed its name to Meta and Zuckerberg set his sights on a new horizon, the metaverse. “There was genuinely a need and a desire at the time for Facebook, the company, to rebrand into something else,” said … Read more
Elon Musk’s business empire is sprawling. It includes electric vehicle maker Tesla, social media company X, artificial intelligence startup xAI, computer interface company Neuralink, tunneling venture Boring Company and aerospace firm SpaceX. Some of his ventures already benefit tremendously from federal contracts. SpaceX has received more than $19 billion from contracts with the federal government, … Read more
Honda is the world’s largest engine manufacturer, powering about 27 million cars, motorcycles, generators, yard tools, airplanes, and other items. The vast majority of those are powered by internal combustion engines. The company is a supplier of engines to successful Formula 1 teams, maker of some of the most popular cars in the U.S. and … Read more
Toyota and Honda have at times been called boring: Honda by its own engineers, Toyota more famously by a chairman descended from the company’s founder. But while they may not have the luster of, say, European sports cars, these two Japanese brands have enviably high resale values. That means they retain more of their purchase … Read more
Cars once represented a pillar of the American dream — mobility and independence. But they’ve become something of a luxury product, and customers and auto dealers are growing frustrated. The average price for a car in the U.S. is nearly $50,000, an increase of close to 30% in the past five years, according to Kelley … Read more
Chinese companies are aggressively developing autonomous vehicles. In August, China announced that it had issued 16,000 test licenses for driverless cars and opened up about 20,000 miles of roads nationwide for autonomous vehicle testing. But Chinese autonomous vehicle companies have also quietly been testing their technology on U.S. streets. Baidu, Didi, WeRide, Pony.ai and AutoX … Read more
In 2018, police showed up at a nondescript industrial warehouse in New York’s Brooklyn Navy Yard to investigate reported counterfeits. Federal agents were looking for knockoff military gear as part of an investigation into a distributor, called California Surplus, that had secured a $20 million contract to supply the U.S. military with specialized uniforms. They’d … Read more
U.S. adults make about 1.3 billion visits to shopping centers each month, or roughly 62 trips per person annually, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. More of those consumers are going to strip malls. While some outlets like traditional malls have struggled to retain shoppers, foot traffic to strip malls is booming. Annual … Read more
In 2012, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was asked by TV host Charlie Rose whether his e-commerce company would ever venture into brick-and-mortar stores. Bezos said shoppers were well-served by existing physical retailers and that Amazon wasn’t interested in launching a “me-too” product. “We want to do something that’s uniquely Amazon,” Bezos said. “If we can … Read more
For a decade, Elon Musk has championed the idea that one day Tesla cars will drive themselves as robotaxis. Next week, the company will unveil the design of its autonomous cabs. Despite years of bold predictions and missed deadlines, fans of the company are holding out hope that Musk will finally deliver at an Oct. … Read more
