Tesla's second-quarter profit fell 32% from record levels in the first quarter as supply chain issues and pandemic lockdowns in China slowed production of its electric vehicles. But the Austin, Texas, company still surprised analysts Wednesday with a better-than-expected $2.26 billion net profit for the quarter. Tesla stuck with a prediction of 50% annual vehicle sales growth over the next few years, but said that depends on the supply chain, equipment capacity and other issues. The company made a record $3.32 billion in this year's first quarter. Tesla's sales from April through June fell to 254,000 vehicles, their lowest quarterly level since last fall. But the company predicted record-breaking production in the second half and said that in June it had the highest production month in its history. Industry analysts had been expecting lower earnings after the lower sales figures and tweets by CEO Elon Musk about laying off 10% of the company's work force due to fears of a recession. In an interview, Musk described new factories in Austin and Berlin as “money furnaces” that were losing billions of dollars because supply chain breakdowns were limiting the number of cars they can produce. Read: Musk sells $4B in Tesla shares, presumably for Twitter deal But Tesla exceeded Wall Street expectations from April through June with adjusted earnings of $2.27 per share. Analysts polled by FactSet expected $1.81. Revenue was $16.93 billion, beating estimates of $16.54 billion. Edward Jones analyst Jeff Windau said the earnings were better than expected. He noted that the decrease in automobile revenues from the first quarter was offset by stronger energy storage, solar and services performance. Musk reiterated the 50% annual vehicle sales growth forecast but said it depends a lot on circumstances that the company might not be able to control. Windau said the forecast “shows the confidence they have in their ability to grow the electric vehicle market.” Tesla shares rose 1.5% to $753.40 in extended trading Wednesday. The company said it converted 75% of its bitcoin investment to government currency during the quarter, adding $936 million in cash to its balance sheet. It spent $1.5 billion on the investment last year. Overall, it booked a $106 million cost for bitcoin, plus added costs for employee reductions. CEO Elon Musk said the bitcoin holdings were sold to raise cash because of uncertainty over how long pandemic lockdowns would last in China. He said Tesla is open to increasing bitcoin holdings in the future. The price of bitcoin has fallen about 50% so far this year. Musk also said Tesla is seeing indications that inflation may be declining as prices for most commodities drop. He cautioned against making economic predictions but said commodity prices, such as steel and aluminum, are trending down. Musk said Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” beta test software is on track to be released before the end of this year to all North American customers who want to buy it. And with regulatory approval, it will be released in Europe and other parts of the world, he said. Despite its name, “Full Self-Driving” cannot drive itself, and Tesla warns that drivers have to pay attention all the time. Chief Financial Officer Zachary Kirkhorn said the company is seeing “maybe a little” impact on demand due to macroeconomic issues. Musk reiterated that Tesla has a vehicle supply problem, not a demand problem, and said it now takes six months to a year to get a new vehicle. He said the company has increased prices to “embarrassing levels” due to inflation, but he hopes to reduce prices a bit.

Members of Parliament now can import duty free hybrid electric vehicles, according to the NBR. The duty free concessions have been declared for import of 2,000 CC hybrid motor car or micro-bus, or up to 4,500 CC hybrid jeep or one electric motor-run vehicle or other vehicles with only electric motor propulsion. The national board of revenue (NBR) issued a Statutory Regulatory Order (SRO) on this on Wednesday signed by its Chairman Abu Hena Md Rahmatul Muneem. This is in addtion to existing benefits allowing MPs to import duty free 1,650 CC petrol or gasoline-run motor vehicle or up to 1,800 CC diesel-run motor vehicle or up to 2,000 CC microbus, up to 3000 cc petrol or gasoline-run jeep, 4,500 cc diesel-run jeep. Read: Bangabandhu's portrait hung at DCAB Lounge first time in 24 yrs An MP can import one vehicle during his/her tenure without having to pay customs duty, sales tax, development surcharge and import permit fee. Meanwhile almost all MPs have imported vehicles under this facility. The duty-free benefit on import of vehicles was introduced during HM Ershad's rule on May 24, 1987. The MPs got back the privilege of importing duty-free vehicles that was scrapped in June 2007 by the caretaker government following allegations of gross abuse of the duty-free facility.  

Nissan said Monday it is investing 2 trillion yen ($17.6 billion) over the next five years and developing a cheaper, more powerful battery to boost its electric vehicle lineup. The Japanese automaker’s chief executive, Makoto Uchida, said 15 new electric vehicles will be available by fiscal 2030. Nissan Motor Co. is aiming for a 50% “electrification” of the company’s model lineup, under what Uchida called the “Nissan Ambition 2030” long-term plan. Electrified vehicles include hybrids and other kinds of environmentally friendly models other than just electric vehicles. Read: Elon Musk tweets to ask if he should sell some Tesla stock The effort is focused mainly on electric vehicles to cut emissions and meet various customers’ needs, said Uchida. Nissan also will reduce carbon emissions at its factories, he added. The company has been struggling to put the scandal of its former Chairman Carlos Ghosn behind it. Ghosn, who led Nissan for two decades, after he was sent to Japan by French alliance partner Renault, was arrested in Tokyo in 2018 on various financial misconduct charges. Uchida made no mention of the scandal but referred to “past mistakes” he promised won’t be repeated at Nissan. Nissan’s “electrification” rests on developing a new ASSB, or all solid state battery, that it categorized as “a breakthrough” for being cheaper and generating more power than batteries now in use. That means electric powertrains can be more easily used in trucks, vans and other heavier vehicles because the batteries can be smaller. The ASSB will be in mass production by 2028, according to Nissan. The costs of electric vehicles will also fall thanks to the battery innovation to levels comparable with regular gasoline cars, Uchida said. Read: Dutch court orders former Nissan boss Ghosn to repay salary “Nissan has emerged from a crisis and is ready to make a new start,” he said. All top automakers, including Nissan’s Japanese rival Toyota Motor Corp., are working on electric vehicles, amid growing concern over climate change and sustainability. Global consumers are also demanding more safety features. Uchida said Nissan was hiring 3,000 engineers to strengthen its research, including digital technology for vehicles. Nissan, based in Yokohama, Japan, has suffered recently from the computer chips shortage that’s slammed all automakers because of lockdowns and other measures at chip factories to combat the coronavirus pandemic. The maker of the Infiniti luxury models, Leaf electric vehicle and Z sportscar is projecting a return to profitability for the fiscal year through March 2022 after racking up two straight years of losses.

Ford and a partner company say they plan to build three major electric-vehicle battery factories and an auto assembly plant by 2025 — a dramatic investment in the future of EV technology that will create an estimated 10,800 jobs and shift the automaker’s future manufacturing footprint toward the South. The factories, to be built on sites in Kentucky and Tennessee, will make batteries for the next generation of Ford and Lincoln electric vehicles that will be produced in North America. Combined, they mark the single largest manufacturing investment the 118-year-old company has ever made and are among the largest factory outlays in the world. Notably, the new factories will provide a vast new supply of jobs that will likely pay solid wages. Most of the new jobs will be full time, with a relatively small percentage having temporary status to fill in for vacations and absent workers. Together with its battery partner, SK Innovation of South Korea, Ford says it will spend $5.6 billion in rural Stanton, Tennessee, where it will build a factory to produce electric F-Series pickups. A joint venture called BlueOvalSK will construct a battery factory on the same site near Memphis, plus twin battery plants in Glendale, Kentucky, near Louisville. Ford estimated the Kentucky investment at $5.8 billion and that the company’s share of the total would be $7 billion. Read:India will become hub for automobile manufacturing in next 5 yrs With the new spending, Ford is making a significant bet on a future that envisions most drivers eventually making the shift to battery power from internal combustion engines, which have powered vehicles in the United States for more than a century. Should that transition run into disruptions or delays, the gamble could hit the company’s bottom line. Ford predicts 40% to 50% of its U.S. sales will be electric by 2030. For now, only about 1% of vehicles on America’s roads are powered by electricity. In an interview Monday, CEO Jim Farley said it would be up to the workers at the new plants to decide whether to be represented by the United Auto Workers union. That question could set up an epic battle with union leaders, who want employees of the future to join the union and earn top UAW production wages of around $32 per hour. It represents a high-stakes test for the UAW, which will need jobs for thousands of members who will lose work in the transition away engines and transmissions for petroleum-powered vehicles. Ford’s move also could put the company at odds with President Joe Biden’s quest to create “good-paying union jobs” in a new, greener economy. Farley said it’s too early to talk about pay or unionization at the new factories. He stressed that Ford will maintain a geographic manufacturing balance when the company’s investments in Ohio and Michigan are included. Ford and General Motors have UAW-represented plants in Kentucky and Tennessee, states where it is common for political leaders to actively campaign against unionization. “We love our UAW partners,” Farley said. “They’ve been incredible on this journey of electrification so far. But it’s up to the employees to decide.” Just four months ago, Ford said it would build two new battery plants in North America. But Farley said demand for the electric Mustang Mach E SUV and over 150,000 orders for the F-150 electric pickup convinced the company to increase battery output. Farley said Ford intends to lead the world in electric vehicles, a title now held by upstart Tesla Inc., which is adding jobs at a third factory now under construction near Austin, Texas. Ford picked the Kentucky and Tennessee sites in part because of lower electricity costs, Farley said, as well being less exposed to flooding and hurricanes than other states. Battery factories use five times the electricity of a typical assembly plant to make cells and assemble them into packs, so energy costs were a big factor, Farley said. The company also needed huge tracts of land for the plants that weren’t available in other states, Farley said. Both Southern states also have skilled labor forces and are willing to train workers for the new jobs, he said. “These jobs are very different than the jobs we’ve had in the past,” Farley said. “We want to work with states who are really excited about doing that training and giving you access to that low energy cost.” Read:Motorola expects India business to grow at least in triple digits The Tennessee Valley Authority, which serves the Memphis-area site, sells industrial electricity at a price that’s lower than 93% of competitors nationwide, said CEO Jeff Lyash. Rates have stayed flat for the past decade and are planned to stay flat for the next 10 years, he said. Combined, the three new battery plants will be able to supply enough batteries to power 1 million vehicles per year, about 129 gigawatts of power, Ford Chief Operating Officer Lisa Drake said. Shares of Ford Motor Co., which is based in Dearborn, Michigan, rose more than 4% in extended trading after the new factories were announced late Monday. Reaction from the union was tempered Monday, with officials seemingly optimistic about organizing the factories. “We look forward to reaching out and helping develop this new workforce to build these world-class vehicles and battery components,” union President Ray Curry said in a statement. Kristin Dziczek, a senior vice president at the Center for Automotive Research who follows labor issues, said the union’s future depends largely on organizing the new plants. “It’s imperative that the UAW organize these if they’re going to have a stake in the electrification of this industry,” she said. Union representation of the plants could become a contentious issue in the next round of national contract talks with the union in two years. When General Motors first announced joint venture battery factories over the past few years, its executives said workers would decide on unionization. UAW officials howled in protest. In May, GM said it would support union organizing at the plants. The Kentucky site is only about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Louisville, where Ford has plants that make SUVs and trucks now powered by internal combustion engines. Ford wouldn’t comment on whether those plants eventually would make electric vehicles, but Dziczek said converting at least one would make sense. One plant makes the Ford Escape small SUV, in the most popular segment of the U.S market, she said. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said in an interview that Ford’s 5,000 jobs at the Glendale battery plants is the largest single employment announcement in state history. And he said it will also bring jobs with suppliers that make components for the plants. Earlier this month state legislators approved $410 million worth of economic development incentives. Read:Adidas to sell Reebok to ABG for $2.5 billion Beshear said Ford would get a loan of up to $250 million to draw on through construction. It’s forgivable if the company hits completion milestones. The package also includes the cost of the Glendale land, plus up to $36 million in training incentives, he said. Ford will formally announce the plants with ceremonies on Tuesday at both sites. In Glendale’s one-block downtown on Monday evening, there were no signs of pending dramatic changes in the economy from the new jobs. All was quiet in the town where the primary businesses are antique shops and corn and soybean fields that stretch in all directions. The Tennessee assembly plant is to be built on a site about 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of Memphis that’s almost six square miles (15.5 square kilometers). Combined, the assembly plant, to be run by Ford, and the battery factory, would employ about 5,800 workers. State officials have been trying to develop the site for years without success. Gov. Bill Lee said Tennessee offered Ford $500 million in incentives to win a contest with 15 other states. Lee said he is confident legislators will approve the spending.

A drive to reduce dependence on imported materials and technology, especially from China, is pushing India to invest in a battery technology that uses aluminum rather than lithium as the key ingredient. Indian Oil Corp., the nation’s largest oil refiner, has teamed up with startup Phinergy Ltd. to develop the Israeli company’s aluminum-air battery. India has few exploitable options to produce lithium, the key metal for the current generation of electric-vehicle batteries, but its eastern jungles hold large reserves of bauxite, the ore used to make aluminum. “Lithium is scarce in the country and we started scouting for an element which is abundantly available as a natural resource,” said Indian Oil R&D Director S.S.V. Ramakumar. Read: Volkswagen triples electric car sales ahead of climate rules India is among the top 10 bauxite producers. It has some 600 million tons of the ore in proven reserves, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, though India’s mining ministry estimates that untapped resources may be many times that amount. Moreover, the country has invested heavily in production of aluminum over the years to become the world’s second-biggest smelter of aluminum. “Clearly the special consideration here is that aluminum is in better supply than lithium,” said James Frith, Head of Energy Storage at BNEF in London. “But with the ever-falling prices of lithium-based systems, developers will be under pressure to find niche applications where Aluminum-Oxygen can gain a foothold.” An aluminum-air battery could win advantages over its lithium-ion rival in three other crucial ways, Ramakumar said: It’s potentially cheaper, vehicles using it would have a longer range, and it’s safer. Read MPs now can import duty free electric vehicles Swapping Batteries The battery works by tapping electricity generated when aluminum plates react with oxygen in the air. It has one of the highest energy densities for a battery. But the system has a number of drawbacks that have kept it from wide-scale use since it was first proposed in the 1960s. Chief among them is the cost of materials that need to be added to the battery to prevent the power from dropping and the fact that the cells can’t be recharged. Instead, Phinergy’s plan is for users to be able to quickly swap in a new battery and send the used one to a recycling facility. It takes just three minutes to replace the battery, about the time it takes to fill up at a gas station, Ramakumar said. The fuel retailer plans to use its network of filling stations as swapping points. Read: 'Irrigation, EV sectors should be focus areas of solar energy' In comparison, lithium-ion batteries often contain hazardous materials that can be toxic if not disposed of correctly, making them harder to recycle. By 2035, the world will have accumulated about 4 millions tons of Li-ion batteries that have reached the end of their lives, according to a BloombergNEF estimate. Lithium is already entrenched in the EV market and absorbs most of the research dollars, with many potential challengers based on sodium, magnesium or aluminum focused on smaller segments such as backup power systems, energy storage or low-power transport, like forklifts. Yet demand both from electric transport and renewable energy storage means India could provide a market big enough for aluminum-air batteries to find a role. Battery demand will rise to as much as 185 gigawatt hours by 2035, according to BNEF. Read Nissan investing in electric vehicles, battery development Amara Raja Batteries Ltd., India’s largest producer of lead-acid cells, is examining existing lithium-based technologies as a “next growth engine,” though also sees scope for alternatives to be developed, Vijayanand Samudrala, the firm’s president of new energy, told a BNEF summit on Tuesday. “I don’t think there’s a final word on the maturity of the technology, I can see at least two or three generations of technology shift happening in the batteries area in the next 10 years,” he said. Indian Oil made a strategic investment in Phinergy in early 2020, and the Indian firm’s 30,000 service stations can “serve as the infrastructure for the deployment of Phinergy’s technology,” the Israeli company said in an e-mail. Read Ford to add 10,800 jobs making electric vehicles, batteries Phinergy’s systems have been tested by telecoms companies for backup power at transmission towers and other sites. The company, which raised $60 million from an initial public offering in Tel Aviv earlier this year, has run a test car using an aluminum-air battery to keep the vehicle’s lithium-ion power pack charged that it says would have a range of 1,750 kilometers. To assess the viability of wide-scale use in India, automakers Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd NSE 0.40 %., Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. and Ashok Leyland Ltd. are carrying out vehicle tests that are expected to take almost a year. If there’s enough demand, Indian Oil and Phinergy plan to set up a gigawatt-scale facility to make the batteries in India, Ramakumar said. Success would help Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to tackle three urgent problems for the country: cutting pollution, reducing raw material imports and creating jobs. Read Introduce customer-friendly electric vehicle recharging policy: Nasrul India’s dependence on fossil fuels has made it the the world’s third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and its cities regularly top the rankings for polluted air, putting hundreds of millions of citizens at the risk of lung diseases and premature death. The government has also been pushing companies to reduce the imports bill and increase self-sufficiency. Indian Oil is the the nation’s biggest importer of crude oil. The refiner has joined major oil companies including Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP Plc in pivoting toward clean energy as governments tighten emission regulations. “We no longer see ourselves as merely an oil company. We want to emerge as an energy player, supplying all forms of energy,” Ramakumar said. “All future fuels have to have a common motive: make India self-sufficient.” Read Bangla Car: The First Car Made in Bangladesh This article was first published in The Economic Times