After the new coronavirus shattered communities around the world and left a path of economic devastation and public health, many sectors are still struggling to recover. Compared to last year, the unemployment rate in the United States has doubled, the long-term unemployment rate has risen and more than 8 million US residents have fallen below the poverty line since last summer. But despite all the signs of economic distress on the ground and in our communities, the stock market has gone strong, really strong. In fact, at a time when many were falling into poverty, a stock market that was going to gangbusters created a new club of one hundred billionaires, with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos at the helm.
2020 was, in fact, a year for Musk’s record books, which even briefly surpassed Jeff Bezos as the richest man on Earth after the stock market value of Tesla Inc. gained more than 700% in a single year and then received an additional boost thanks to the buzz of the market created by the electric vehicle company’s admission to the S&P 500. Although Tesla has had a bit of a volatile ride in recent months, Tesla shares appear to be back and hotter than ever. And it’s likely that this bubble isn’t about to explode as electric vehicle markets expect a huge boom in the coming months and years.
Stocks of green energy and electric vehicles have already been experienced record investment figures as investment in Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) becomes increasingly important. And now electric vehicles have received a major boost from President Joe Biden’s massive new infrastructure initiative. $ 174 billion $ 2 trillion infrastructure and jobs proposal presented last week will go directly to electric support vehicles. “This money will help pay for 500,000 electric vehicle chargers over the next decade,” Vox reported this week. “It also covers the modification of factories to build electric vehicles (EVs), subsidies and tax incentives to encourage buyers and the promotion of a national supply chain to manufacture electric cars and trucks.”
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The writing is on the wall: the EV boom coming down the hake is so important that it has been speculated if the world even produces enough energy to support it. Therefore, it makes sense for anyone who wants to participate in the EV game. Chinese technology companies, including Huawei and Xiaomi, are working on their own battery-powered electric vehicles, and now the latest proposal to enter the electric vehicle market has been this week from none other than Tim Cook, who left tips on the highly anticipated Apple Car in a recent episode of Kara Swisher’s Sway podcast for the New York Times.
For some time now, Apple has been working on an electric car with highly advanced autonomous technology thanks to patent leaks, but now Apple’s CEO has finally publicly acknowledged the project. Although Cook chose not to specify whether Apple is working on developing its own electric vehicle or technology inside a car, he remarked in the interview that he has a great “admiration and respect” for Tesla, although he never has spoken personally with Elon Musk.
What we do know, according to Car Buzz, is that “having reached an agreement with Hyundai and Nissan to make the car, it appears Apple is now in talks with Magna, a Canadian-based auto parts supplier that is building the Fisker Ocean.” We also know that the Apple Car will be very technologically advanced. In his interview with Sway, Cook compared the next car to a robot, highlighting the importance of vehicle autonomy technology. “We love to integrate hardware, software and services and find the intersections of these because we believe this is where the magic happens,” he said. “And we love having the core technology that’s around.”
While we still have some light on the details, it seems clear that Apple will not settle for entering the already booming electric vehicle market with a car that doesn’t stand out from the rest. When the Apple Car is finally unveiled, it will be a futuristic vehicle designed to compete in a league of its own.
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com
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