Month: April 2019

Enlarge (credit: Chris Potter)

Despite what the world’s least-interesting talking gecko would have you believe, no one likes handing over payments for car insurance. But there’s one thing everyone likes even less: suddenly paying for expensive repairs not covered by your insurance.

Similarly, opponents of action on climate change like to complain about the costs of eliminating fossil fuel emissions. Typically, this implies that the alternative—ignoring climate change—is free. It is not.

A new study by Jeremy Martinich and Allison Crimmins of the US Environmental Protection Agency provides the most detailed estimate yet of the economic costs of climate change in the United States. They found that taking action to reduce emissions could save us at least $200 billion per year by the end of the century.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Onfokus)

YouTube launched its competitor to cable TV two years ago, charging $35 a month, but it's now over 40 percent more expensive.

Google raised the price of YouTube TV to $40 in March 2018, and yesterday announced it's raising the price again, this time to $49.99. In both cases, the Google-owned streaming TV service paired the price hike with extra channels, but subscribers have to pay the new, higher price whether they want the new channels or not.

"To keep bringing you the best service possible, we are also updating our membership pricing," YouTube TV told subscribers in an email yesterday. "The price for new and existing members will be $49.99/month."

Enlarge / Illinois' Senate had a bill that would ban devices from eavesdropping without telling you. But the Internet Alliance made sure the bill as passed would have no teeth. (credit: NBCUniversal via Getty Images)

On April 10, the Illinois State Senate passed the "Keep Internet Devices Safe Act," a bill that would ban Internet device manufacturers from collecting audio from Internet-connected devices without disclosing it to consumers. But the bill was substantially neutered after a fierce lobbying effort by an industry association backed by Amazon and Google.

The bill passed on the heels of Amazon's admission that the company sometimes sends copies of audio clips captured by its Echo devices to offices around the world for transcription by employees—something not mentioned in Echo's terms of service or FAQ pages.

The bill as passed by the Senate states:

Enlarge / The Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada, as seen in 2017. (credit: Tesla)

On Thursday morning, Japan's Nikkei Asian Review reported that Panasonic has decided to stop its planned investments in Tesla's Gigafactories. The two companies had planned on boosting production capacity at the US Gigafactory from 35GWh to 54GWh by 2020; that now seems unlikely. Additionally, the Japanese company has cancelled plans to invest in Tesla's Chinese production facility, which is currently under construction in Shanghai.

The news represents a real reversal of Panasonic's plans; it recently expanded the US Gigafactory from 10 to 13 production lines to help the car maker grow. The problem is, the growth didn't happen as Tesla's sales slumped. Although the company sells more EVs than any other OEM, its deliveries for Q1 2019 were significantly lower than the previous three months. For Panasonic, that's a real problem; even when Tesla sales were booming, it failed to see any financial benefit. By the end of Panasonic's financial year, the company made a loss of more than $180 million (¥20 billion) from battery production.

A Tesla spokesperson told Nikkei that "We will of course continue to make new investments in Gigafactory 1, as needed." Tesla further elaborated to Electrek that the company believes "there is far more output to be gained from improving existing production equipment than was previously estimated."