Archives for October 2021

WARREN, Mich. (AP) — General Motors plans to cash in as the world switches from combustion engines to battery power, promising to double its annual revenue by 2030 with an array of new electric vehicles, profitable gas-powered cars and trucks, and services such as an electronic driving system that can handle most tasks on the road.

In announcements Wednesday ahead of a two-day investor event in suburban Detroit, the company also pledged to unseat Tesla and become the electric vehicle market share leader in U.S., although no time frame was given.

The company also teased upcoming new electric vehicles including a Chevrolet small SUV that will cost around $30,000, as well as electric trucks from Chevrolet and GMC, SUVs from Buick, and luxury vehicles from Cadillac. An electric Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck that can go 400 miles (640 kilometers) per charge will be unveiled at the CES gadget show in January. A GMC electric pickup will follow.

The $30,000 Chevy SUV should bring serious sales to GM because it’s the size of the Equinox, GM’s second-best selling vehicle, President Mark Reuss said. He said the company is working on a Chevy Blazer electric SUV, as well as a smaller vehicle at a lower price point. He gave no details.

Reuss also said the company is going to create a dedicated factory to build electric trucks, from an existing facility.

The Detroit automaker plans to have more than half of its North American and China factories be capable of making electric vehicles by 2030.

GM also pledged to increase its investment in EV charging networks by nearly $750 million through 2025.

GM’s average annual revenue over the past five years is $140 billion, so doubling that would be about $280 billion. The company also pledged to raise pretax profit margins from the current 8% to at least 12%.

To get there, CEO Mary Barra said revenue would rise from selling internal combustion vehicles, with additional revenue from adding electric vehicles. GM also plans to raise cash from software and subscription services including insurance and its OnStar safety system, as well as its Cruise autonomous vehicle subsidiary. And executives said it should gain revenue from its defense and BrightDrop commercial vehicle businesses.

By the end of the decade, GM expects $90 billion in additional annual revenue from electric vehicles, and $80 billion from connected vehicles, new businesses, autonomous ride hailing, software and subscription services, and commercial electric vehicles. Annual revenue could be as high as $315 billion, the company said.

Cruise CEO Dan Ammann said it’s very close to offering a driverless ride-hailing service in San Francisco, but he gave no date. Once the rides start, Cruise will ramp up quickly and could reach $50 billion in annual revenue by 2030, he said.

Another revenue source will be Ultra Cruise, GM’s next generation of electronic hands-free driver-assist system that will be able to take on 95% of driving tasks. The company said the system will debut in some Cadillac vehicles in 2023.

It will use cameras, radar and laser sensors to follow navigation routes and speed limits, automatically change lanes, obey traffic signals and make turns on 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) of roads in the U.S. and Canada. Eventually it will learn all paved roads in both countries.

GM will still offer its less sophisticated “Super Cruise” driver assist system, and it’s coming in 22 vehicles by 2023, Barra said.

To capture U.S. electric vehicle market share leadership, GM plans to spend $35 billion to roll out more than 30 new battery vehicles globally by 2025. The company has set a goal of selling only electric passenger vehicles by 2035.

GM will have to overtake Tesla, which over the weekend reported record third-quarter sales of 241,300 electric vehicles, a 72% increase over the prior year.

GM wouldn’t say when it would take the lead, but Barra said GM would have a strong portfolio of affordable electric vehicles as well as an upcoming reliable charging infrastructure. The company also has existing factories that can efficiently be converted to built EVs, she said.

“That’s why we believe that we’re going to attract those customers,” Barra said. ”There’s a lot of things that we have that when we put our foot on the accelerator pedal, we can really move quite profitably.”

EV leader Tesla has had to spend billions to build huge new assembly plants from the ground up near Austin, Texas, and in Germany and China.

While GM has lofty visions of the future, it’s struggling in the present with the global shortage of computer chips. Third-quarter sales were down nearly 33%, and GM has lost nearly 2 percentage points of U.S. market share since 2019. The company’s share is 15.2% of the market so far this year, according to figures from Edmunds.com.

GM and other automakers have been forced to temporarily close factories due to a lack of chips. That has caused shortages of new vehicles across the globe and has driven up prices. GM’s average sales price hit a record of more than $48,000 so far this year, according to Edmunds.

Barra said GM is looking at options to get chips in the future, working internally and with partners. “We will work to have certainty around the supply we need,” she said.

She sees the situation improving this year into next year but concedes no one knows for certain.

Shares of GM closed Wednesday down about 1% to $53.93.

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A Facebook executive is pushing back on a whistleblower’s claims — supported by the company’s own internal research — that the social network’s products harm children and fuel polarization in the U.S.

Monika Bickert, Facebook’s head of global policy management, told The Associated Press Wednesday that “we do not and we have not prioritized engagement over safety.” Bickert said the reason Facebook researches teen well-being on Instagram is so that the company can build better products and features to support them.

Whistleblower Frances Haugen, however, testified before the Senate Tuesday that Facebook knows that vulnerable people are harmed by its systems and has not made meaningful changes to prevent it. The platform is designed to exploit negative emotions to keep people on the platform, she said.

“They are aware of the side effects of the choices they have made around amplification,” Haugen said. “They know that algorithmic-based rankings, or engagement-based rankings, keeps you on their sites longer. You have longer sessions, you show up more often, and that makes them more money.”

Bickert pointed to features and tools Facebook has introduced over the years, such as hiding “like counts” on Instagram “which means when you post something, if you’re a young person, you don’t have to worry about how many people are going to like your post and whether people will see that.”

But Facebook’s own researchers found that hiding like counts did not help make teenagers feel better.

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TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares rose Thursday, tracking a rally on Wall Street after signs of progress on resolving the standoff in Congress over the debt ceiling.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 gained 1.6% in morning trading to 27,972.58. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 0.8% to 7,262.30. South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.3% to 2,944.57. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng surged 2.2% to 24,491.36. Trading was closed in Shanghai for a Chinese national holiday.

Stephen Schwartz, a senior director at Fitch, said he believes the regional economy will start to recover with the growing vaccination efforts in Asia, which mean restrictions to curb the spread of the coronavirus will get lifted.

But southern and southeastern Asia, where vaccination rollouts have lagged, remain vulnerable to COVID-19 “pandemic-related setbacks.” Recent problems in China’s property sector are another risk, he added.

“Slower growth in China, together with the tapering we expect by the U.S. Fed, could have broader negative repercussions, especially for the region’s emerging and frontier markets,” he said.

Japan’s economic prospects also remain murky as new Prime Minister Fumio Kishida gives his first policy speech later this week. Although he has promised to boost incomes, he has not outlined specifics and is not widely perceived as a proponent of the regulatory and structural changes analysts have long said Japan sorely needs. Some skeptics worry that any new spending will merely push the country into deeper debt.

Kishida has also spooked investors by voicing support for a capital gains tax.

In the U.S., investors are hoping Congress may manage to temporarily extend the federal government’s debt ceiling and buy lawmakers time to reach a more permanent resolution. The market recovered from a morning loss shortly after Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell offered Democrats an emergency short-term extension to the federal debt ceiling into December.

Financial markets have mostly taken the debt-ceiling drama in stride, expecting yet another 11th hour solution, but some voices on Wall Street have warned investors recently to make preparations for a default, however unlikely, given how extremely damaging it would be for the economy and markets.

“People were nervous about the debt ceiling,” said Jay Hatfield, CEO of Infrastructure Capital Advisors.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4%, to 4,363.55. Gains in technology stocks, makers of household goods and communication companies helped offset losses in energy and other sectors. About 57% of stocks in the index rose.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3% to 34,416.99. The Nasdaq gained 0.5%, to 14,501.91. The tech-heavy index had been down 1.2% before the afternoon rally.

Small-company stocks, a gauge of confidence in economic growth, fell: The Russell 2000 index gave up 0.6% to 2,215.

If the nation’s debt ceiling, which caps the amount of money the federal government can borrow, isn’t raised by Oct. 18, the country “would likely face a financial crisis and economic recession,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Congress last week.

During a meeting Wednesday with bank executives, President Biden stressed the importance of Congress raising the debt limit.

“We haven’t failed to do that since our inception as a country. We need to act. These leaders know the need to act.”

The Senate went into recess late Wednesday so lawmakers could discuss McConnell’s proposal, delaying a procedural vote on a House-passed bill to suspend the debt cap.

The latest bout of market volatility comes as investors question the economy’s path forward, amid rising inflation and the ongoing impact from the virus pandemic. Bond yields have remained relatively stable since a sharp jump late last month that signaled concern that high inflation could linger longer than economists and investors had initially anticipated.

High on Wall Street’s list of concerns is the Federal Reserve’s timetable for raising interest rates. The Fed’s policymaking committee recently signaled the central bank could start raising rates late next year. Analysts have said that the Fed could act sooner than expected if high inflation persists.

Investors will get a closer look at how companies fared in the third quarter when quarterly financial results are released over the coming weeks. Wall Street is expecting solid profit growth of 27% for S&P 500 companies, but will also be listening for commentary on how supply chain problems and higher costs are crimping operations.

On Friday, the Labor Department will release its anticipated employment report for September. The labor market has been slow to fully recover from the pandemic and the summer surge in COVID-19 cases further impeded its progress.

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude slipped 45 cents to $76.98 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It gave up $1.50 to $77.43 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 21 cents to $80.87 a barrel.

In currency trading, the U.S. dollar inched up to $111.45 Japanese yen from 111.40 yen. The euro was little changed at $1.1557.

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AP Business Writers Damian J. Troise and Alex Veiga contributed.

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For many parents, revelations this week from whistleblower Frances Haugen showing internal Facebook studies of the harms of Instagram for teenagers only intensified concerns about the popular photo sharing app.

“The patterns that children establish as teenagers stay with them for the rest of their lives,” Haugen said in Senate testimony Tuesday.

“The kids who are bullied on Instagram, the bullying follows them home. It follows them into their bedrooms. The last thing they see before they go to bed at night is someone being cruel to them,” Haugen said. “Kids are learning that their own friends, people who they care about, are cruel to them.”

So, what can you do to protect your kids? Experts say open lines of communication, age limits and if necessary, activity monitoring are some of the steps parents can take to help kids navigate the dangers of social media while still allowing them to chat with peers on their own terms.

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IS 17 THE NEW 13?

Ever wonder why 13 is the age kids can be on Instagram and other social media apps? It’s because of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act that went into effect in 2000 — before today’s teenagers were even born (and when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was just a teen himself, for that matter).

The goal was to protect kids’ online privacy by requiring websites and online services to disclose clear privacy policies and get parents’ consent before gathering personal information on their kids, among other things. To comply, social media companies have generally banned kids under 13 from signing up for their services, although it’s been widely documented that kids sign up anyway, either with or without their parents’ permission.

But times have changed, and online privacy is no longer the only concern when it comes to kids being online. There’s bullying, harassment, and, as Facebook’s own research has shown, the risk of developing eating disorders, suicidal thoughts or worse.

In her testimony, Haugen suggested raising the age limit to 16 or even 18. There has been a push among some parents, educators and tech experts to wait to give children phones — and access to social media — until they are older, such as the “Wait Until 8th” pledge that has parents sign a pledge not to give their kids a smartphone until the 8th grade. But neither social media companies nor the government have done anything concrete to increase the age limit.

“There is not necessarily a magical age,” said Christine Elgersma, a social media expert at the nonprofit Common Sense Media. But, she added, “13 is probably not the best age for kids to get on social media.”

It’s still complicated. There’s no reliable way to verify a person’s age when they sign up for apps and online services. And the apps popular with teens today were created for adults first. Companies have added some safeguards over the years, Elgersma noted, but these are piecemeal changes, not fundamental rethinks of the services.

“Developers need to start building apps with kids in mind,” she said. And no, she doesn’t mean Instagram Kids, the project Facebook paused last week amid a widespread backlash. “We can’t trust a company that didn’t start with kids’ best interests in mind,” she said.

Facebook says it’s added a host of safeguards and features to improve teens’ well-being on Instagram over the years, such as mental-health support for people who search for common hashtags associated with eating disorders or self-harm. The company also tested hiding “like” counts, “which means when you post something, if you’re a young person, you don’t have to worry about how many people are going to like your post and whether people will see that,” said Monika Bickert, Facebook’s head of global policy management.

But Facebook’s own researchers found that hiding like counts did not help make teenagers feel better.

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TALK, TALK, TALK

Start early, earlier than you think. Elgersma suggests that parents go through their own social media feeds with their children before they are old enough to be online and have open discussions on what they see. How would your child handle a situation where a friend of a friend asks them to send a photo? Or if they see an article that makes them so angry they just want to share it right away?

For older kids, approach them with curiosity and interest.

“If teens are giving you the grunts or the single word answers, sometimes asking about what their friends are doing or just not asking direct questions like ‘what are you doing on Instagram?’ but ‘hey, I heard this influencer is really popular,’” she suggested. “And even if your kid rolled their eyes it could be a window.”

Don’t say things like “turn that thing off” when your kid has been scrolling for a long time, says Jean Rogers, the director of Fairplay, a nonprofit that advocates for kids to spend less time on digital devices.

“That’s not respectful,” Rogers said. “It doesn’t respect that they have a whole life and a whole world in that device.”

Instead, Rogers suggests asking them questions about what they do on their phone, and see what your child is willing to share.

Kids are also likely to respond to parents and educators “pulling back the curtains” on social media and the sometimes insidious tools companies use to keep people online and engaged, Elgersma said. Watch a documentary like ” The Social Dilemma ” that explores algorithms, dark patterns and dopamine feedback cycles of social media. Or read up with them how Facebook and TikTok make money.

“Kids love to be in the know about these things, and it will give them a sense of power,” she said.

Vicky Lacksonen, a 53-year-old mother in Mount Vernon, Ohio, says she just tries to talk with her son. She knows the passcodes to her son’s phone and sometimes nudges him to put his phone down if he’s been on it for a while. But as long as her 14-year-old keeps his grades up and is doing activities he enjoys, like soccer, she mostly lets him have privacy on his smartphone and apps like Instagram.

“You don’t really know what they’re looking at,” Lacksonen said. “Just having those conversations and talking to them is huge part … and don’t be afraid to ask questions.”

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SETTING LIMITS

Rogers says most parents have success with taking their kids’ phones overnight to limit their scrolling. Occasionally kids might try to sneak the phone back, but it’s a strategy that tends to work because kids need a break from the screen.

“They need to an excuse with their peers to not be on their phone at night,” Rogers said. “They can blame their parents.”

Parents may need their own limits on phone use. Rogers said it’s helpful to explain what you are doing when you do have a phone in hand around your child so they understand you are not aimlessly scrolling through sites like Instagram. Tell your child that you’re checking work email, looking up a recipe for dinner or paying a bill so they understand you’re not on there just for fun. Then tell them when you plan to put the phone down.

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YOU CAN’T DO IT ALONE

Parents should also realize that it’s not a fair fight. Social media apps like Instagram are designed to be addictive, says Roxana Marachi, a professor of education at San Jose State University who studies data harms. Without new laws that regulate how tech companies use our data and algorithms to push users toward harmful content, there is only so much parents can do, Marachi said.

“The companies are not interested in children’s well-being, they’re interested in eyes on the screen and maximizing the number of clicks.” Marachi said. “Period.”

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This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Facebook’s CEO’s name. It’s Mark Zuckerberg, not Zuckberg.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Camera lights glare. Outrage thunders from elected representatives. A brave industry whistleblower stands alone and takes the oath behind a table ringed by a photographers’ mosh pit.

The former Facebook product manager who has accused the social network giant of threatening children’s safety — and the integrity of democracy — is urging Congress to take action to rein in a largely unregulated company. The drama rings familiar, but will real change come out of it this time?

When Frances Haugen came before a Senate Commerce panel to lay out a far-reaching condemnation of Facebook, she had prescriptions for actions by Congress at the ready. Not a breakup of the tech giant as many lawmakers are calling for, but targeted legislative remedies.

They include new curbs on the long-standing legal protections for speech posted on social media platforms. Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have called for stripping away some of the protections granted by a 25-year-old law — generally known as “Section 230” — that shields internet companies from liability for what users post.

Haugen’s idea would be to remove the protections in cases where dominant content driven by computer algorithms favors massive engagement by users over public safety.

“Congressional action is needed,” Haugen told the senators in her testimony Tuesday. “(Facebook) won’t solve this crisis without your help.”

Democrats and Republicans have shown a rare unity around the revelations of Facebook’s handling of potential risks to teens from Instagram, and a bipartisan push toward meaningful legislation appears to be stirring.

“We’re going to propose legislation,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who heads the Senate subcommittee, told reporters. “And the days of Facebook evading oversight are over, because I think the American public is aroused about the importance of … (social media) preying on their own children.”

So it’s on the way, right? Not quite. This is still Congress.

“I think it will eventually result in legislation, but it won’t be right away,” said former congressional aide Phil Schiliro.

Schiliro was there. He fought the congressional Big Tobacco wars in the 1990s as chief of staff to Rep. Henry Waxman, the California Democrat who headed the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Congress enacted landmark legislation reining in the tobacco industry by giving the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate the manufacture, distribution and marketing of tobacco products. In the current Facebook scandal, critics of the company are pointing to it as a model for what Congress should do with the tech industry.

History, however, offers a cautionary note. In 1994, seven tobacco company executives gave electrifying testimony under oath before Waxman’s committee that they didn’t believe nicotine was addictive — assertions contradicted by internal documents from their companies. Still, Schiliro notes, tobacco legislation took another 15 years to get through Congress.

During that time, “public opinion really started to shift” toward a negative view of the tobacco industry, says Schiliro, who also worked in the Obama White House and is now a senior presidential fellow at Hofstra University. The public isn’t there yet with Big Tech, he suggested, and tech companies still make the argument that they bring products to millions of people that improve their lives — mostly for free.

That dynamic could be changing with Haugen’s revelations of internal company research indicating potential harm for some young users, especially girls, of Facebook’s Instagram photo-sharing platform. For some of the teen users, the peer pressure generated by Instagram led to mental health and body-image problems, and in some cases, eating disorders and suicidal thoughts, the research leaked by Haugen showed.

“Whenever you have Republicans and Democrats on the same page, you’re probably more likely to see something,” said Gautam Hans, a technology law and free-speech expert at Vanderbilt University. “Protecting children is something that many people agree with, and I think it’s easier to find consensus there.”

Given the closely divided Congress and deep political polarization, prospects for legislation to ensure safety on social media platforms may appear as far-off as with the tobacco legislation. Still, lawmakers from the two parties are rallying around the protection of young internet users. Their shared strident criticism of social media has come from divergent political views. Republicans have decried what they see as anti-conservative bias while Democrats denounce hate speech and incitement to violence.

“I think Congress was heading there and this adds momentum,” said Matt Stoller, research director at the American Economic Liberties Project, an organization that advocates for government action against business concentration. “We’re still a few years off really neutralizing the power of Big Tech.”

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Follow Marcy Gordon at https://twitter.com/mgordonap

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