Abigail Bassett | The Verge

The Strait of Hormuz blockade is causing a slow-moving food crisis

2026-04-13T08:11:04-04:00

A view of the vessels passing through Strait of Hormuz following the two-week temporary ceasefire reached between the United States and Iran, seen in Oman on April 8, 2026. | Shady Alassar/Anadolu via Getty Images

Farmers are very busy in the spring, under pressure to get crops into the ground just as the Northern Hemisphere begins to thaw. But this year has been different for many, thanks in large part to the escalating war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow channel, approximately 30 miles wide at its tightest point, between the Omani Musandam Peninsula and Iran. Roughly half of fertilizer feedstock exports — the various raw materials used to make fertilizer like urea, ammonia, sulfur, hydrogen, natural gas, and nitrogen — come through the Strait. And about roughly half of the world’s food production relies on fertilizer, according to Veronica Nigh, chief economist at The Fertilizer Institute. It’s vital to the food supply both in the US and around the globe.

Around a quarter of US farmers did not lock in fertilizer prices last fall, and many are now scrambling to cover costs stemming from a war they didn’t anticipate. Every day the Strait remains closed or restricted, it causes the five-plus-week crisis to extend further into the Northern Hemisphere’s vital spring planting season.

“This is a slow-moving food crisis in the making,” David Ortega, an agricultural economist and professor at Michigan State University, said. According to the International Fresh Produce Association, the fertilizer shock could cause everything from a 1- to 3-percent increase in grocery store food prices to fresh food shortages around the world.

A crop duster spreads a mixture of urea and ammonium sulfate fertilizer over a corn field in Glendora, Mississippi, on Wednesday, April 8, 2026. | Rory Doyle/Bloomberg via Getty Images" data-portal-copyright=" Rory Doyle/Bloomberg via Getty Images" />

The fertilizer cycle

Last week, the US and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire, contingent on Iran reopening the crucial waterway to shipping traffic. Within 24 hours, however, Iran closed the strait again, citing Israeli strikes on Lebanon that Tehran says violate the terms of the deal. As of April 9th, no ships are moving freely through the waterway, and the terms of the ceasefire are in active dispute.

This is leading to a growing anxiety among the nation’s farmers. “If you have a calendar that you have always followed for planting season, you just basically have to throw that thing out the window, because everything has just had a bomb dropped on it,” said Andy DeVries of DeVries Farm, one of the co-owners of a 1,200-acre soybean and corn farm in Iowa. “There’s just not much wiggle room, and you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

DeVries says he and his brother, a co-owner of the farm, order around 80 to 85 tons of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer each year, locking in prices in August, ahead of the spring. Today, he says that the price of nitrogen fertilizer has risen by more than 35 percent locally, while the price of phosphorus fertilizer has increased by 19 percent.

“If you have a calendar that you have always followed for planting season, you just basically have to throw that thing out the window.”
Andy DeVries, farmer

These decisions aren’t small either; they cost tens of thousands of dollars each, cutting deeply into farmers’ profits, which have already been significantly reduced by the rising cost of oil, immigration raids, climate change, and tariffs. DeVries says that if he had bought just his phosphorus fertilizer today, he’d have had to pay $35,000 more for it.

The Strait of Hormuz has been closed for more than a month, and the effects are already moving through the supply chain. Fertilizer prices in the US have risen 30 to 40 percent in the last four weeks, according to Jacqui Fatka, lead economist for farm supply and biofuels at CoBank.

As The Fertilizer Institute’s Nigh points out, the longer the closure and disruption of the Hormuz Strait lasts, the more likely it is that increased fertilizer prices will be passed on to food prices. “If the closure lasts a month or two, the impact will be minimal,” Nigh said, “If it’s three to six months, it overlaps the growing season in the Northern Hemisphere, and the increase will find its way into food prices and availability,” she continued. “March imports, April imports are more or less on target from where expectations were for demand. It’s the May imports that we’re starting to worry about.”

A cargo ship unloads imported fertilizers at the Lianyungang Port in Jiangsu Province, China, on April 8, 2026. | Costfoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images" data-portal-copyright="Costfoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images" />A mixture of urea and ammonium sulfate fertilizer is loaded into a hopper prior to being spread over a corn field in Glendora, Mississippi, US, on Wednesday, April 8, 2026. | Rory Doyle/Bloomberg via Getty Images" data-portal-copyright="Rory Doyle/Bloomberg via Getty Images" />

How fertilizer is made today

Nitrogen fertilizer is made using a 113-year old process that’s heavily dependent on liquified natural gas, or LNG. The Haber-Bosch process hasn’t really changed since 1913, when it was first developed, and it requires raw material inputs, including water, natural gas, and nitrogen. The reaction produces ammonia, which is then processed into urea, ammonium nitrate, and other nitrogen fertilizers.

Each year, the process consumes around 3-5 percent of the global natural gas stores. The process has been incrementally improved over the years, but crucially, it only really works efficiently when natural gas is cheap. Natural gas was already constrained by the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and since the war in Iran began a month ago, LNG futures in the US have risen 10 percent, while those in Europe and Asia have doubled.

Nitrogen-based fertilizer accounts for 59 percent of total global fertilizer use as of 2023, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and 45 percent of that nitrogen fertilizer is used to grow staple grain and cereal crops like wheat, rice, and maize around the world. That fertilizer is also used to grow corn and soybeans here in the US, which not only feeds humans but also goes into everything from animal feed to the ethanol in our gasoline.

Nitrogen fertilizer is made using a 113-year old process that’s heavily dependent on liquified natural gas, or LNG

While the US produces around 80 percent of its fertilizer domestically, it only accounts for about 10–15 percent of global fertilizer consumption, according to data from the University of Illinois. That gap matters because the countries that account for the other 85 to 90 percent of global consumption are less insulated.

As Lorenzo Rosa, principal investigator at Carnegie Science, and a researcher who studies the intersection of water, food, and energy, notes, the Haber-Bosch process requires economies of scale. There are around 400 facilities globally in the Global North with relatively few in the Global South that can produce fertilizer. While we have significant production in the US, according to Rosa, more than 1.8 billion people around the globe rely on imported natural gas and fertilizer to survive.

Researchers and policymakers have been trying to improve and change the chemical process, but progress has been stymied. The Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act funded production development of “green” and “blue” ammonia, cleaner alternatives to the Haber-Bosch process that would reduce dependence on natural gas. But those facilities are not online.

Under Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, the construction deadline for qualifying clean hydrogen and ammonia projects was moved up from 2033 to 2028, a compressed timeline that has already contributed to project cancellations and has raised concern among industry researchers about whether enough capacity can come online. The crisis unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz has arrived before any alternative is ready to absorb the shock.

“You can’t ramp production up and down, either,” Rosa said, noting that, similar to the time it takes for a natural gas train to come online, it can take months to years to get new fertilizer production online.

Fertilizer shocks tend to show up for consumers with a lag, because they essentially affect what farmers plant and how much they produce. That means the biggest impact is likely to appear later this year — late summer into fall — and become more visible in the winter of 2027, according to the International Fresh Produce Association’s global data.

“Food insecurity arises because of issues of access, and because of issues of affordability. Food is being produced, but it’s not where people need it,” Michigan State’s Ortega said.

An infographic titled “First ships pass through the Strait of Hormuz after the US-Iran ceasefire” created in Ankara, Turkiye, on April 8, 2026. | Elif Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images" data-portal-copyright="Elif Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images" />

Food insecurity for the globe

The biggest risk of this fertilizer shock isn’t just higher costs, it’s actually a longer-term behavioral response by farmers. If they use less fertilizer, that means lower yields, which in turn means they may switch crops (i.e., away from corn, which is nitrogen-intensive). They also may delay or reduce planting, which, according to IFPA research, triggers real food price inflation. Switching crops means lower output and even fresh food shortages, not just higher input costs, which pushes prices up for consumers, and leads to empty shelves at the grocery store.

Even if the US and Iran reach an updated ceasefire agreement in the next few days and agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz tomorrow, it will take months to fully reopen and provide safe and consistent passage for cargo ships.

“[The fact that] a third of the world’s fertilizer flows through a very specific area that’s subject to conflict is a vulnerability we can’t ignore.”
David Ortega, agricultural economist and professor at Michigan State University

On top of all this, fertilizer and its feedstocks don’t store well, mostly because they are highly combustible. As Nigh points out, most producers don’t keep more than a few weeks on hand before shipping it out, because it can be dangerous to store. Plants run year-round at full capacity, and as Nigh says, demand is “lumpy.”

“Right now facilities are reaching the point where they don’t have enough space, and they will be forced to shut down,” Nigh said, pointing out that once a plant shuts down, it takes anywhere from two weeks to a month to restart.

“This is an example of a shock where, when it comes to supply chains for agricultural inputs, we have to build resiliency into those systems,” Ortega said. “[The fact that] a third of the world’s fertilizer flows through a very specific area that’s subject to conflict is a vulnerability we can’t ignore.”

Most experts agree that restoring the Strait of Hormuz to its normal shipping capacity could take months, which would put the Northern Hemisphere deep into summer, when farmers have already made decisions about what to plant and what to forgo because of the shortage and conflict.

“You start to wonder what the new normal is,” DeVries said, noting that every time a politician tweets something, prices for everything from corn and soybeans to fertilizers and seeds fluctuate wildly. “Just be consistent, so we know what to expect,” he continued. “We’ve made it through worse times, we’ll figure it out and make it through this, but the shock creates arbitrary winners and losers. Is this just the new normal?”

An ICE raid at an EV factory raises fears about US instability

2025-09-20T08:36:00-04:00

A banner depicting an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer masquerading as President Donald Trump is held up in a crowd as South Korean workers, detained in an ICE raid at Hyundai’s Georgia EV plant, are expected to return. | Image: Getty

For years, foreign automakers have been sending their employees to the US to open advanced manufacturing and battery plants in states like South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. These plants eventually employ thousands of American workers who build vehicles for both the US market and overseas. And they pump billions of dollars into the state and federal economies, providing jobs for Americans in more rural areas.

So it didn’t raise any eyebrows when two South Korean companies, Hyundai and LG Energy Solutions, sent hundreds of their workers to Ellabell, Georgia, to oversee the construction of a $7.6 billion EV battery factory.

But then US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) came knocking. On September 4th, ICE officers raided the plant, detaining 475 people, mostly South Koreans. The workers, many of whom were here legally, were handcuffed and chained together, spurring calls from South Korea about possible human rights violations. But beyond that, it sent a chilling message to every foreign company looking to invest in the US.

“The US is now seen as very unstable,” says Arthur Wheaton, director of labor studies at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. When a company like Hyundai starts a plant in the US, it sends its best and brightest employees to get it up and running. To have those employees cuffed, chained, and detained, Wheaton says, “has a cooling effect on something that has been very normal and typical, particularly in the automotive sector for decades.”

A delayed plant opening

On the raid’s heels, Hyundai announced that the battery plant’s opening would be delayed by as much as three months. But in a surprise move, the automaker also committed an additional $2.7 billion to the factory to help fund the second phase of construction. But long-term damage may have already been done.

Wheaton says that the long-reaching impacts of the delay could be profound. Hyundai works with dozens of subcontractors and suppliers who build equipment, tooling, and parts on tight margins. Those companies could be devastated by the slowdown.

To have those employees cuffed, chained, and detained, Wheaton says, “has a cooling effect on something that has been very normal and typical, particularly in the automotive sector for decades.”

“If [an automaker] gets a cold, suppliers get sent to the emergency room with pneumonia,” says Wheaton, who has studied the auto industry for years. “A small hiccup that may not hurt Hyundai can have devastating effects on the supply chain.” A supplier that planned for 10,000 units may only sell three now that the plant is delayed, for example. “They don’t have the deep pockets and resources to absorb the delay,” he adds.

While Trump has expressed measured regrets about the ICE raid, the diplomatic damage is far-reaching. South Korea arranged a charter flight to bring the detained workers home (only to have to Trump try to delay it further with overtures) and is pushing Washington to create clearer visa pathways for the skilled technicians that are required to launch these high-tech factories and train American workers.

South Korea is one of America’s most vital EV partners. Companies like Hyundai and battery makers LG and SK have committed tens of billions of dollars to US battery and EV projects that are ongoing, and many are pulling their workers out of the US on the heels of the ICE raid in Georgia.

Wheaton says that the raid also comes at a relatively shaky point for the EV transition in the US, pointing to the Republicans’ rollback of the $7,500 EV credits, dismantling environmental and emissions laws, and generally denying and actively misrepresenting climate change. The Hyundai announcement also comes at a time when other automakers like GM and Ford are walking back plans for electric vehicles.

Instability in the US

It can take anywhere from five to 10 years for automakers to design and develop new vehicle models and site, build, and open new manufacturing plants. It also takes billions in investment.

“The industry wants stability. They really want to say, give me the rules and I’ll follow them,” Wheaton says. “Having rules that change on a daily basis, because someone doesn’t like what they’re doing, is really, really frustrating.”

Between shifting executive orders, daily tariff fights, and now, ICE raids, the US is becoming increasingly less reliable for international businesses like Hyundai. Trump has a little more than three years left in his term, and his policies and actions could have a long-term consequences for all international investment in the US, according to Wheaton.

“Once Trump leaves office and you have a change in leadership, it doesn’t mean that it couldn’t happen again,” Wheaton says, noting that the investments that companies make in the US are made for decades and generations.

“That causes this pendulum to go back and forth,” he says. “Our inability to have a stable law in place has impacted foreign investment, because we’re no longer able to predict years out.”

Why GM’s CEO is still betting on electric vehicles (and racing)

2025-07-11T13:37:29-04:00

GM was the first major US automaker to make the promise to go all-electric by 2035, just four years ago. Those promises have since turned into rough estimates under the second Donald Trump presidency, with the company softening language about its electrification goals. But GM is riding high on EV sales, and as CEO Mary Barra puts it, EVs are still the future — just on a delayed (and very flexible) timeline.

“We still believe in an all-electric future,” Barra told The Verge in an exclusive interview at the Le Mans race in France. “The regulations were getting in front of where the consumer demand was, largely because of charging infrastructure, which hasn’t happened as fast as anybody expected.” She continued, “We do believe in an all-EV future, but the customer is going to guide us there.”

GM is no stranger to political and financial headwinds, but this time is different. Although the company successfully navigated the massive auto bailouts in 2008, Barra faces new challenges due to shifting tariff policies, the elimination of pro-EV incentives thanks to Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, a shifting global economic picture, and a mercurial president who’s not afraid to single out companies that don’t kiss the ring.

A changing environment

Chevrolet Silverado electric pickup trucks at a GMC Chevrolet dealership in Laval, Quebec, Canada, on Thursday, April 3rd, 2025.

| Photo: Bloomberg via Getty Images" data-portal-copyright="Photo: Bloomberg via Getty Images" />

GM has been quietly scaling back its ambitious EV plans in response to these pressures, even as the company has seen growing profits from EV sales.

GM recently became the number two seller of EVs in the world, surpassing Ford, and closing the gap with Tesla amid that company’s spectacular fall from grace. Chevrolet became the fastest-growing US EV brand in the first quarter of 2025.

If Tesla continues on its downward spiral, it’s entirely possible that GM could soon become number one. Last week, during GM’s earnings, the company announced that it had increased EV sales by more than 111 percent, selling nearly 50,000 vehicles in the first quarter. It stands to reason that the elimination of the EV tax credit could throw a wrench in that progress.

There’s also the ongoing issue of looming tariffs. Barra recently came out in support of Trump’s automotive tariffs, thanking the president for his support of the US automotive industry, despite it costing her company an estimated $5 billion.

If Tesla continues on its downward spiral, it’s entirely possible that GM could soon become number one

Then there’s GM’s own plans to scale back EVs. This past spring, GM swapped a planned $300 million EV motor investment for a V8 engine in Tonawanda, New York. A few weeks ago, GM announced that it will be investing more than $4 billion to ramp up internal combustion vehicle production at three plants in Michigan, Kansas, and Tennessee. Most notably, the company has shifted production from EVs at its Orion plant to internal combustion, full-size SUVs, and light-duty pickup trucks. President Trump recently cited the move as proof that his tariffs were working, and has floated the idea of raising tariffs on the automotive industry even more.

“Some of the changes we just announced give us an opportunity to grow share, because there are vehicles we can’t build enough of right now,” Barra said. “So that’s the company strategy as we move forward from the ups and downs of tariffs.”

The $4 billion investment certainly buys them some time, she said. “I feel really good about what we’re doing because I think it’s balanced, but we’re addressing what the customer looks for, while we’re increasing our ability to live in this tariff world broadly.” She noted that she’s asked the administration for “clarity and consistency” on these matters.

Trump also recently gutted the California regulations that would have banned the sale of gasoline-powered cars by 2035 in the state. GM and other automakers have been lobbying to kill California’s regulations for years.

In response to the news, Barra said that when she looked at the marketplace data, it was the right move. She said that she believed that the EV market was “going to be a mess for the consumer,” and for dealers, arguing that it was going to be “so bad that people are going to start shopping by state to get the vehicle they want.”

“If you look at what the 2026 model year regulatory requirements are, it’s way ahead of where the consumer is. So we’d hope there was a change there,” Barra said, noting that she’d like to see a national standard for EV adoption rather than the state-by-state version we currently have.

While it’s a pragmatic hedge, it does mark a retreat from the lofty electrification promises of GM in previous years.

The Cadillac effect

The #311 Cadillac Whelan Cadillac V-Series.R of Jack Aitken, Felipe Drugovich, and Frederik Vesti exits the pits during the 24 Hours of Le Mans at the Circuit de la Sarthe on June 15th, 2025, in Le Mans, France.

| Photo: Getty Images" data-portal-copyright="Photo: Getty Images" />

Barra is trying to steer the massive GM ship through these tumultuous waters by bringing its luxury brand, Cadillac, back to global prominence — particularly in the form of its upcoming participation in Formula 1 starting in 2026.

Cadillac will be the first new team to enter F1 since 2016. “We think, with all the investments we’ve made in Cadillac, it’s time to take our place and hopefully compete well on both stages,” Barra said, referring to the endurance racing circuit like the 24-hour Le Mans race, where we met, and F1.

Barra said that GM is aiming to raise the luxury automaker back to its old moniker as the Standard of the World. “We’ve made the investment over the last decade now to truly have Cadillac be that standard,” Barra said. “This is the ultimate race from an endurance perspective, and that’s so important to every consumer. What we learn here from many aspects, we can put right into the production vehicle. So we think it’s a perfect stage where Cadillac can truly gain a place in the top luxury brands globally.”

Racing has seen a huge uptick in attendance and fandom over the last few years, thanks in large part to Netflix’s Formula 1: Drive to Survive, the popular show that goes behind the scenes (and the drama) in F1. The phenomenon is referred to by race drivers and marketers alike as the “Netflix effect.” Oliver Gavin, a five-time Le Mans 24-hour winner and race commentator, noted that all types of racing have seen a lift, and it all translates to marketing and earning gold for automotive brands.

Cadillac is trying to cash in on that gold, at the same time that it’s attempting to reestablish itself in markets where it has little consumer recognition — in places like France, where the company opened its first showroom in Paris, located directly across the street from L’Opéra Garnier, not far from the Louvre and Jardin des Tuileries.

France is GM’s largest EV market in Europe, according to the company; however, it remains relatively small, and Cadillac has limited EV brand recognition there. In 2024, GM sold just 2000 EVs in all of Europe. While Cadillac’s EVs, such as the Lyriq, are turning heads there, GM is facing backlash from climate groups over its investments in ICE vehicles in the United States, which some critics say run counter to the climate goals the company champions abroad.

Hiring difficulties

Barra and Trump during the president’s first term in office.

| Photo: AFP via Getty Images" data-portal-copyright="Photo: AFP via Getty Images" />

Beyond the uncertain business environment, Trump’s attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have also hindered hiring at American businesses like GM.

Under a president who isn’t afraid to publicly berate executives like Barra or exact revenge with executive orders and sanctions, CEOs and leaders alike have had to tread carefully. Barra herself is no stranger to Trump’s ire. In 2018, when GM closed five plants in Ohio and Michigan and laid off around 15,000 workers, Trump took to social media and called Barra “nasty.” Barra has said publicly that GM could have been better positioned during the first Trump administration, and she appears to be taking lessons from her first experience with the president, while continuing to support STEM education and an inclusive workforce.

“General Motors is a federal contractor, so we’re going to always comply with all the laws,” Barra said, but she takes a much more personal approach when it comes to navigating the issue inside of GM.

“How many times have you been at work and you felt like you weren’t valued or included? And I raise my hand, and then [employees] start raising their hands,” she said. “We don’t have to agree on everything. We can make sure the work people do is respected, their voice is heard, and they’re treated like part of the team.”

“We don’t have to agree on everything. We can make sure the work people do is respected, their voice is heard, and they’re treated like part of the team.”

Barra said she’s scared by the idea of communication breaking down. “That doesn’t make sense to me,” she said. “We want every single person to feel that they’re valued and the work they do matters, because I think that’s going to make them want to not only come to GM, but stay.”

Against these headwinds, Barra appears confident in staying the course with GM and Cadillac, especially as the brand steps onto the global stage with F1 next year. The race at Le Mans, where two of Cadillac’s teams finished fourth and seventh, is just the first step for the company back onto the global stage.

“You know, we have a brand people know, people trust. I think that matters a lot more than maybe what’s happening from a political perspective, or the many different things that are happening in the country right now,” Barra said. “So we think it’s a perfect stage, with where Cadillac is now, to truly gain a place in the top luxury brands globally.”

For GM, its luxury brand Cadillac, and personally for Barra, the stakes are much higher than just another pole position on the grid. Cadillac’s reentry into racing isn’t just about winning; it’s about proving that an American luxury brand can compete with viable (and variable) consumer products and technology, globally, while its leadership navigates an increasingly hostile domestic political and business environment.

A new cold war is brewing over rare earth minerals

2026-01-22T11:59:10-05:00

The future of everything from smartphones, to military equipment, to electric vehicles hangs on 17 rare earth minerals and the magnets that they’re made into. And China, the world’s largest refiner and producer, is tightening its grip and threatening the US’ largest automakers.

Over the last 30 years, China has methodically cornered the market on mining and refining rare earth minerals, which are used to produce a variety of common items like passenger vehicles and everyday electronics. In the wake of US President Donald Trump’s increasingly aggressive trade war, China is leveraging its position as the world’s largest producer, at the expense of the American auto industry.

“We’re within 90 days of this becoming a critical problem for everybody,” say Ambrose Conroy, founder of Seraph Consulting and a major investor in Democratic Republic of Congo mining operations.

“We’re within 90 days of this becoming a critical problem for everybody.”

According to analysts, more than 90 percent of the world’s supply of those 17 elements at the bottom of the periodic table are mined, refined, and turned into rare earth magnets in China. After Trump announced tariffs of up to 145 percent on Chinese imports, the country retaliated with a number of tariffs and export controls of its own. And, more importantly, it revised its export rules for rare earths.

As of early April, China requires companies to obtain special licenses to export rare earths, particularly neodymium, dysprosium, and terbium, as well as rare earth magnets, which are critical to nearly every technology on the market. They’re also vital to the automotive industry. Rare earth magnets are used in hybrid and EV motors, but they’re also used in internal combustion vehicles for catalytic converters, LiDAR and radar systems for advanced driving systems, audio systems, power steering, fuel and cooling systems, transmission components, and more.

As The New York Times recently reported, China has just started to set up the controls for these new export rules, which could cause stockpiles to run low. Companies like Tesla, GM and Ford have already said they are feeling the pinch as supplies tighten and prices spike, and the pain could get much worse, though some relief came about following the recent talks between the US and China.

On the heels of this agreement, the US should get access to the rare earth permits “more easily,” according to a Reuters report this week. Applications for export licenses should take 45 days to process and could include agreements for US exporters “soon.”

A piece of rare earth ore at a rare earth museum in Baotou, China.

| Image: Getty" data-portal-copyright="Image: Getty" />

The threat to EVs and automakers

While the name “rare earths” may make you think that these minerals are scarce, they aren’t. Rather, they’re found everywhere in very low concentrations. Rare earth ores are easy to extract. They’re available all over the world, but they are very difficult to separate, says Tim Worstall, an economist, freelance journalist, and former rare earth trader. He explains that refiners have to extract each rare earth mineral higher up in the periodic table to get to neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium — the minerals used in the strongest and most durable kinds of permanent magnets today.

“That costs about $20 per kilo of material, and the plants that do it — the billion-dollar refineries — are all in China,” he says.

Dysprosium is particularly crucial because it makes permanent magnets that are resistant to higher temperatures, like those you’d find in an EV motor. Dysprosium is also used in nuclear reactors to absorb excess neutrons and prevent the fission reactions from getting out of control.

“Magnets are so integral to the performance of motors and the conversion of energy into motion,” says Matt Sloustcher of MP Materials, the company working to revitalize the Mountain Pass rare earths mine in California. “It impacts performance, range — everything.”

“Magnets are so integral to the performance of motors and the conversion of energy into motion.”

And the supply chain is precariously situated. GM sold off the last rare earth magnet manufacturer in the US back in the mid-1990s, and the Chinese buyer shipped the specialized equipment back overseas. Rare earth refining and magnet production also create a lot of pollution, and Western nations are loath to get their hands dirty.

Automakers, who have been notably quiet about the tariffs hitting their bottom lines, are starting to speak out about the rare earths trade war. During an interview on Fox Business News, Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe called the export restrictions in China “really challenging.” And the company mentioned the issue in documents filed with the SEC as a potential risk to its future business.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has also been outspoken about the rare earth issue, stating that the new export rules hurt his company’s Optimus robot production. “We’re working through that with China. Hopefully we’ll get a license to use the rare earth magnets,” Musk said on Tesla’s earnings call last month. “China wants some assurances that these are not used for military purposes, which obviously they’re not. They’re just going into a humanoid robot, so it’s not a weapon system. But that is certainly an example of a challenge there.”

Ford also recently mentioned the significant impact that the rare earths restrictions will have on its on business, saying that the restrictions “could profoundly impact the auto sector as a whole.”

No overnight fix

While Trump touts his tariffs as a way to reshore manufacturing jobs, in truth, they’re creating a negative drag on both the global and the American economy. The heightened trade war with China will only make things worse for automakers, though some like GM have made efforts to reduce their exposure to supply shortages for rare earth materials since the pandemic. Companies like Niron Magnetics, backed by GM, are developing alternative magnet chemistries that use iron nitride instead of rare earths. Meanwhile, material scientists are aggressively researching how to “thrift” dysprosium out of old magnets without sacrificing performance.

Part of GM’s work to shore up its supply chain started back in 2021, when the company entered a partnership with MP Materials. That partnership is only just starting to bear fruit, four years later, as MP Materials is beginning to pilot automotive-grade magnets at a facility in Fort Worth, Texas. MP Materials and GM expect the facility to start mass production by the end of the year, according to spokespeople at both companies – but the refining process for the rare earth materials used in those magnets is still an issue. Just last week, MP Materials stopped shipping its raw rare earths to China for refining and it’s working to increase processing in California.

Companies like Niron Magnetics are developing alternative magnet chemistries that use iron nitride instead of rare earths.

An even bigger stumbling block is finding engineers and scientists who have experience in materials sciences, rare earths, and magnetic engineering here in the US, especially as the Trump administration wages war on science and makes America hostile for immigrants. As Conroy notes, finding materials scientists for overseas operations is much easier because of more friendly immigration policies in other countries.

“We haven’t made sintered magnets at scale in the US in decades,” Sloustcher says. “There aren’t many people who can say, ‘I’m a magnetic engineer,’ or ‘I’m a magnetics technician and I’m going to move over here.” There are very few American universities that offer programs in magnetic science and, according to a 2024 report by the National Academies of Science, the “strength of the US high magnetic field science is waning.”

The geopolitics at play

While the changes are making automakers nervous, there are even more significant issues at play in this new trade war. According to Worstall, China has designated rare earths and rare earth magnets as “dual use,” both for consumer (like those in your headphones) and military (like those you find in a fighter jet). Under this new designation, exporters have to disclose end-user data for any rare earth mineral or magnet they export.

“That means that your entire production chain has to be disclosed to the Chinese government,” Worstall says. “Somebody in my position who was wholesaling metals, that’s the thing you never want to tell anybody: who are you selling to and so on. You don’t want people to know this, because that’s how you make your living.”

The effect is chilling, especially when some of those rare earths are used in military equipment like planes and drones. Disclosing the information would mean disclosing to a foreign country how US military technology is made.

The US Department of Defense and Department of Commerce have repeatedly warned that rare earths and rare earth magnets are a national security problem for the US. In April, the Trump administration initiated a Section 232 investigation into rare earths in the US. More recently, a Center for Strategic and International Studies report noted that the US’ inability to replace China’s supply of rare earths poses a significant defense risk.

Just recently, the US and Ukraine signed an agreement for the future mining of critical minerals, including rare earths, after some testy negotiations. The deal still requires ratification by Ukraine’s parliament, but under the terms, Ukraine retains full ownership of its resources and profits from the mining, and the US gets preferential access (and rights) to extract rare earths and other critical minerals like titanium, lithium, and uranium.

We’ve been here before

This isn’t the first time that the US has faced this issue. Back in 2010, China restricted rare earth exports to Japan following a maritime dispute. The dispute caused a global panic and increased prices for materials and magnets. But, as Worstall points out, it didn’t matter much as Western nations built new factories and found new sources for rare earths.

This time is different. The global demand for rare earths and rare earth magnets is significantly higher than it was in 2010, according to the International Energy Agency. The US is much more dependent on China for rare earth minerals and magnets, and it currently lacks the equipment, infrastructure, and workforce to replace what comes from overseas and meet demand. The investment and massive environmental sacrifices required to onshore these kinds of processes is a hefty one, too.

According to Worstall, the US could produce and refine its own dysprosium with a $200 million investment from the government and if projects were permitted quickly, environmental regulations were scrapped, and the American public was willing to make the sacrifice — which feels nearly impossible in this political and cultural environment.

The US could produce and refine its own dysprosium with a $200 million investment from the government

Even if the US was willing to make that kind of investment and sacrifice, it could still take anywhere from seven to 10 years to study and then permit a new mine, according to a 2021 report from the National Mining Association. If a new mine came online today, it wouldn’t really matter, either. The US no longer possesses the equipment to turn rare earths into rare earth magnets — those largely are made in, and come from, China.

“China takes this 1,000-year view on things, and they have captured everything,” Conroy says. “They’ve vertically integrated, they’ve brought it all in. They’ve state subsidized everything, and they’ve created this marketplace where they control it, and they and the economy has shifted, and they’ve used what they have built, and they’ve optimized processes and products to use the the amazing materials that they have developed, but they make the machines that make it, they refine it, they manufacture it. So we in the West have a tremendous amount of work to do, to catch up.”

Conroy suggests that the impact, at least on the automotive industry, could be a shift back toward internal combustion vehicles while the supply chain works itself out. “We’ll move away from EVs for a short period of time,” he says. Conroy predicts that automakers (both ICE and EV makers) could face roughly 18 to 24 months of severe pain and restriction as a result of the Chinese export changes, but he warns that that’s only if the West is willing to make some big changes very quickly.

“We’re going to, as a country, as the West, have to make a decision that this is an absolute priority and treat it like the space program where we try to get a man on the moon,” Conroy says. “I think we’re going to have to figure it out, because from a national defense perspective, if you look at where these things are, that’s going to be the driver.”

Cadillac Celestiq first drive: the bespoke, $360,000 EV is here

2025-05-07T14:48:11-04:00

Cadillac is returning to its 1960s land yacht era with the Celestiq. | Image: Cadillac

The first hands-on experience I had with the $360,000, ultraluxury Cadillac Celestiq was as a backseat passenger. It was mid-April, and I was on the way to a dinner in West Hollywood. While GM insists most Celestiq buyers are drivers, the company wanted to create a vehicle that could be especially compelling for those who prefer to be chauffeured.

Once known for its behemoth, bespoke luxury vehicles, Cadillac is working to get its mojo back with the all-electric Celestiq. A 655-horsepower fastback that seats four, the Celestiq is perhaps the most extravagant vehicle Cadillac has ever released — and certainly its most customizable.

Cadillac is returning to its 1960s land yacht era with the Celestiq, which it thinks can rival offerings from Bentley and Rolls-Royce. The automaker is also hoping that the Celestiq can help the brand return to its 40-plus-year moniker as the “Standard of the World,” and offer high-end, American-made, luxury vehicles in a new era of electrification.

“The idea was to make the best looking car in the world, but just happen to make it an EV,” says Tony Roma, executive chief engineer for Celestiq.

A long time coming

The luxury is striking, even from the back seat.

The second row is large and luxurious with a pair of multiway adjustable seats, with massaging capabilities and an eight-inch central touchscreen where you can adjust everything from your own microclimate to the way that the massive glass roof is shaded.

That roof is something of a technological marvel. It’s not only one of the largest in the automotive world, it’s also made of Smart Glass, which allows each of the four occupants to set opacity in each quadrant using the touchscreens in the front and back seats. According to Roma, the glass travels around the world (starting in Peru and ending up in Michigan) because the technology and coatings are so specialized.

Even getting into and out of the Celestiq is a high-tech affair

Even getting into and out of the Celestiq is a high-tech affair — the doors are all powered (similar to those in the Escalade IQ), allowing you to use the touchscreen controls to open and close the doors from the front or back seats. That presented a new challenge for the electrical engineers, because translating a gesture on a touchscreen to the physical action of unlocking and opening heavy doors took a lot of work, according to Kelly Drexler, senior quality engineer at GM’s Electrical Integration Systems Lab in Warren.

In front is a massive pillar-to-pillar, 55-inch-diagonal advanced HD display that handles everything from infotainment (with Google built-in) to safety controls. The screens are remarkably clear and bright, even in the Southern California glare. Cadillac says that they have pixel density comparable to 8K resolution televisions.

The automaker worked closely with Dolby Atmos to bring cinematic sound to the interior, and the soundscape and quality are impressive thanks to the 38-speaker AKG system, complete with speakers in the headrests.

Outside, there are plenty of other hidden but remarkable features. The sensors and cameras used for GM’s hands-free driving system, Super Cruise, get an upgrade on the Celestiq. Call it “Ultra Cruise” or don’t, the system is powered by cameras and radar, as well as LiDAR, for use on secondary roads. While it’s not yet available, Celestiq gets the equipment to ensure it works in the future when GM gives it the green light. Sensors are hidden under carbon-fiber body panels that look like metal so they can “see” through them. The enormous clamshell frunk cover is also one huge piece of carbon fiber, which allowed designers to move the cut lines lower into the side panels and keep the Celestiq’s low-slung looks.

A head-turning fastback with GM power and engineering underneath

Roma isn’t only in charge of Celestiq. He’s also the executive chief engineer for Corvette and GM’s performance cars, and his decades of experience with this segment have largely informed the way that Celestiq drives on the road. Some of GM’s best engineering has come from the suspension and powertrain engineers that work on Corvette — like those that Roma oversees.

While the vehicle weighs more than a gas-powered Escalade (more than 6,000 lbs), it can do 0–60 in under four seconds. Even with all that weight, it corners surprisingly flat, and while it doesn’t “waft” over the rough roads like its German competitors, it feels a lot more connected than any other uberluxury four-seater on the market.

Part of the route took us up to Angeles Crest, one of the famed windy roads that Southern Californians frequently enjoy hooning. I expected the 18-foot-long vehicle (longer than an Escalade) to feel like a beluga whale swimming toward Big Tujunga Canyon, but the Celestiq ate up the curves at a blistering speed and nary a complaint from the special Michelin Pilot Sport EV tires.

I expected the 18-foot-long vehicle to feel like a beluga whale swimming toward Big Tujunga Canyon

It was comfortable when pushed, and the suspension absorbed every bit of the sun-bleached mountain roads thanks to GM’s Magnetic Ride Control system, pioneered in the Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing. It’s one of the fastest responding suspension tech on the market — and by far one of the best we’ve experienced. The system uses electromagnets and magnetorheological fluid inside the shock absorbers to adjust damping rates in response to road conditions, tech that exists on the Corvette today.

That set up gives you four drive modes: snow, sport, tour, and a customizable “my mode,” which allows you to set your steering, throttle, and suspension modes and save them for easy access.

The gigantic car also gets (much-needed) active rear steering up to 3.5 degrees, which makes it much easier to negotiate in small parking lots. The route took us down into downtown LA (during rush hour), where we had to make a U-turn across two lanes of traffic to arrive at a destination. To say that was a hairy experience in a $360,000 car is an understatement, but the Celestiq made the turn just fine, though its turning radius is still huge at 45 feet.

The Celestiq also turns heads on the streets of Los Angeles. During the event, we made a stop at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank to get a closer look at how Cadillac and their audio partner, Dolby Atmos, worked together to bring a very impressive sound to the vehicle. On the way out, a director in a golf cart spotted the vehicle and drove over to ask about it, commenting on how striking it looked gliding down the street.

A design and engineering challenge

What makes the Celestiq so striking belies a tremendous engineering challenge: The Celestiq was jointly designed by car designers and engineers who worked very closely together to cook up something unique.

Designers threw down the gauntlet for the engineering team, insisting on keeping Celestiq’s roofline low and long. At the same time, the engineers wanted the vehicle to get at least 300 miles of range, which requires a certain number of battery cells. Those batteries take up interior space for passengers, which poses a problem for design and passenger comfort.

To meet in the middle, engineers had to make some changes to the 111kWh Ultium-based battery pack that underpins the Celestiq. Most battery packs are completely flat and lay under the floor of the vehicle. Engineers initially thought they’d be able to use the Lyric battery layout to meet the range demands for the Celestiq — but it would have meant raising the roofline to keep rear passengers comfortable. On a flat floor, rear occupants would have had to sit with their knees up around their ears. The design and engineering teams compromised, and as a result, the engineers moved batteries from the floor to a “fake” transmission tunnel so that designers could lower the footwells in the back seat for comfort. The batteries stack from 9 to 12 cells high in the interior of the Celestiq.

Engineers had to make some changes to the 111kWh Ultium-based battery pack that underpins the Celestiq

Celestiq is also the first vehicle to be “hand made” at GM’s Artisan Center at the Warren Tech Center in Warren, Michigan. Six aluminum mega castings (whose forms are made of 3D-printed sand) make up the lower portion of the vehicle, representing the first time that the company has used the technique on a larger scale. There are more than 115 3D-printed parts on Celestiq.

A team of 12 artisans hand-assembles each Celestiq at six stations in the Artisan Center, and Roma says that at maximum output, the team can build two Celestiqs per day, with a total output of 400 per year. Currently, the Artisan Center has room for a second line if demand increases. If a customer requests everything stock (meaning the color, materials, etc, are all non-bespoke), Cadillac says it takes 12 weeks to fully assemble.

As bespoke as you want

The sky’s the limit when designing your own Celestiq. “The only limit is how much money you want to spend,” Roma says, noting that there are more than 350,000 different color and material combinations that you could opt for. According to the company, around 40 percent of the customers who have ordered Celestiqs have opted to go outside of those multiple combinations for full customization.

The concierge team at the Warren Tech Center’s Cadillac House, where high-end customers come in to design their Celestiqs, is one of the first entry points for these wealthy individuals. Concierges there say that customers can get as wild as they like with materials and colors, provided that the requests don’t impact the safety or engineering of the vehicle. Anything that raises safety or build concerns (for example, if you decided you wanted a ground-up meteorite in your paint, which could interfere with Celestiq’s safety sensors), the concierge team takes it back to the other teams to test before Cadillac agrees to the request.

The design team went so far as to customize bolts inside the vehicle. Each visible bolt is stamped with “Standard of the World,” and could conceivably be changed to an owner’s name or a special date, for example. The company uses techniques borrowed from jewelry making to customize these features.

The concierge team has already had some pretty wild requests, including one that they call the “Game of Thrones” car. While the vehicle may or may not go into production, it was currently being designed with red velvet seat covers (something the safety team would have had to test to ensure that airbags would work if deployed), and a dark exterior color. There were conversations about using stone in the interior as well.

That level of personalization isn’t just for show — it underscores Cadillac’s commitment to authenticity and craftsmanship at a price point that demands both.

“You can get in some of our competitors, and you can find the components that they reuse, and they’re very obvious, and I understand why they did it,” Roma says. “Cadillac is competing in a price segment and at a tier that we haven’t even tried in such a long time. So we really wanted to make sure that every single detail was authentic.”

That authenticity translates into a vehicle that costs nearly as much as the average house in the US.

Whether Celestiq will raise the company to the brand level of some of its German competitors is another question altogether. GM has been waging a decades-long battle to get back to its heyday as a luxury American brand, and it’s been slow going — the automaker revamped its image in 2018. It’s taken seven years for the Celestiq to make it to production, and customer deliveries are supposed to start in about a month.

Everything the company has thrown at Celestiq will trickle down to Cadillac’s other offerings. It’s clear that GM is doubling down on the high-end market and using engineering, technology, and design to continue to try to reestablish themselves as the new standard of the world.

Mercedes-Benz is hedging its bets with rebooted CLA sedan

2025-03-13T12:27:04-04:00

The Mercedes CLA will be the debut of the company’s new MMA platform. | Image: Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz’s electric vehicles aren’t exactly selling like hotcakes. The EQS, EQE, and EQB have largely flopped, forcing the company to make significant changes to its electrification plans.

While the automaker has scaled back its ambitions, it’s not abandoning them altogether. As Mercedes-Benz Group CEO Ola Källenius said during the company’s Tech Day in Stuttgart, Germany, last month, “The clock starts again” on the company’s EV plans. And that starts with a newly developed platform, called MMA, that will underpin both internal combustion, hybrid, and electric vehicles going forward.

“We’re in an era where we’re going towards electrification, but in the year 2025 obviously, we’re not 100 percent electrification. So for many years to come we will have a duality,” Källenius said.

An ‘electric-first’ platform

The MMA platform makes its debut on the company’s entry-level sedan, the CLA, which debuted as a sub $30,000 Mercedes in 2013. Typically, automakers introducing new platforms start with their priciest models, which would be the S- and G-Class models in Mercedes’ case. Since both of those vehicles were recently updated, it will be a while before they get the MMA treatment.

Mercedes is also bucking the traditional method of introducing a new platform as an ICE vehicle and then wedging the design into an EV platform. Instead, the company is going “EV first,” launching the CLA as an EV first and then later as an internal combustion with a mild hybrid in 2026.

The new platform makes both the hybrid and EV vehicles larger than the previous generation. The wheelbase is 6.1 cm longer (2.4 inches) to accommodate the battery pack and taller by 2.8 cm (1.1 inches), giving rear passengers slightly more legroom and height. Källenius acknowledged the old CLA was a tight fit in the rear, but at 6-foot-4, he was able to slide into the new CLA with ease. As Källenius said, “You’re buying what feels like a sports car, but at the same time you have a fully functional three-box sedan.”

‘This is the EQXX on the road’

The new CLA owes its design and tech to the EQXX, a concept car introduced by Mercedes in 2022 with an emphasis on efficiency that could roll for more than 1,000 miles on a single charge. Mercedes engineers spent three years leveraging what they learned from the EQXX to develop the revamped CLA.

However, the biggest deal about the new CLA is its massive range. There will be two battery options for the global market, a 58.4 kWh version and a larger 85.5 kWh battery. The US will only get the larger of the two, giving the CLA an estimated range of 792 km (492 miles) based on the generous WLTP standards. If the EPA-estimated range comes in around 350 miles, the CLA will rank among other long-range EVs like Lucid, Rivian, and Tesla.

The new CLA also gets a unique brake-by-wire setup called OneBox that calculates the right amount of braking power and recuperation to maximize efficiency. Like the technology BMW developed for its VDX test vehicle, most braking will primarily be handled by the regeneration system in normal conditions. The new system claims to recuperate up to 200 kW of power.

The new CLA’s 800-volt architecture will enable ultra-fast charging, adding 300 km (186 miles) of range in 10 minutes. The EV will come in front-wheel and all-wheel drive trims, with a 268-hp drive unit on the rear axle and a 107-hp drive unit on the front in the all-wheel drive version. The front motor can be disengaged automatically when it is not needed to help increase efficiency. As Källenius noted, “This is the EQXX on the road.”

A new OS and smarter driving

With the CLA, Mercedes is launching a new software stack called MB.OS. The infotainment MBUX system will run on MB.OS and offers a new “AI-enhanced” user experience that can control everything from the sensors to various actuators. The new MB.OS system will be connected to the cloud to enable over-the-air updates for everything from driver assistance features to semi-autonomous driving.

Källenius said the CLA will feature “Level 2 ++” driving – nearing Level 3 autonomy where the driver is still kept in the loop to take over when needed. (Mercedes already offers a Level 3 system in a handful of states called Drive Pilot.) Consumers can purchase or “unlock” these ADAS features as an upgrade after purchase, which will be delivered via OTA update.

“It will age like a good French wine,” Källenius said of the new software stack. “It will get better with age, because we will add capabilities to it. Some things we will give you for free, some things we may charge you for, depending on what it is, and depending on what the market allows.”

The new CLA gets Mercedes’ Superscreen, which stretches from pillar to pillar in the front. Under that glass sits a 10.25-inch gauge cluster and a 14-inch center display, with an optional 14-inch screen for passengers. That passenger screen can play movies from platforms like YouTube and RideVu by Sony. And if you’re worried about distracted driving, the passenger screen is not viewable from the driver’s position.

Google and Microsoft systems help power the AI, which can be used to determine a driver’s mood (which it then uses to change the color of the lighting in the car) or help find parking. I got a demonstration of the new Mercedes voice assistant, which is powered by Google Gemini, and found it to be much more conversational than the previous generation, handling basic requests like navigation or finding a nice restaurant. For general knowledge, the system uses OpenAI’s GPT-4o model, Microsoft’s Azure, and Bing. The system will remember previous conversations and recall context. All the predictive learning is done on board the vehicle, not in the cloud.

“It will age like a good French wine.”

Mercedes will launch the electric CLA (the base version is awkwardly named the CLA 250+ with EQ Technology) first in China and Europe, with the US launch in the fall. For an upgrade, customers can get the even more awkwardly named CLA 350 4MATIC with EQ Technology, with all-wheel drive. The 1.5-liter four-cylinder hybrid ICE version, which Mercedes didn’t share many details about in Stuttgart, won’t make its debut until sometime in 2026.

Mercedes hasn’t announced pricing yet, but in the current economic environment, it’s likely that the new CLA will be priced above that old $30,000 marker. With increased hostility toward EVs in the US and an administration that’s determined to roll back EV benefits, we’ll have to wait and see which version Mercedes customers choose for their future entry-level luxury sedan, and whether this new electric strategy will turn the company’s flagging sales around.

Images from Mercedes-Benz

The future of BMW is being built at a battery factory in Germany

2025-03-03T16:32:23-05:00

BMW is developing its Gen6 batteries at a factory in Landshut. | Image: BMW

While other automakers rethink their plans as the global appetite for EVs slows down, BMW is vowing to stay the course. The German automaker says it still plans to offer an EV in every vehicle segment across all of its brands, including Mini and Rolls-Royce. And most importantly, BMW is investing billions of dollars in new battery technology, including a new controller it calls the “Energy Master.”

As the political winds shift, BMW hopes doubling down on EV technology can allow it to take the lead from Tesla, fend off the coming tidal wave of Chinese EVs, and grow its market share.

Last March, BMW announced its Neue Klasse, the new all-electric architecture that will underpin its future EVs. As the company continues to trickle out details of the new technology, it invited a group of journalists to Munich last month to show off its newly developed battery cells, the Energy Master control module, and the Neue Klasse motors — all developed in-house.

The new powertrain promises better efficiency, more range, and more energy density. The cylindrical batteries alone offer 30 percent more range, 30 percent faster charging, and 20 percent more energy density, BMW claims.

The evolution of BMW’s batteries, from the prismatic cells to the round cells. | Image: BMW" data-portal-copyright="Image: BMW" />

Investing in the transition to electric

Developing all of those technologies is expensive work. The electrification investment that BMW has made alone represents “the project of the century, and the biggest investment in the history of the company,” BMW AG Group board member Joachim Post said. While BMW is giving itself some wiggle room on when future electrified vehicles will appear in various markets around the world, Post said that BMW is aiming to decarbonize the entire vehicle lifecycle by 40 percent by 2030.

“BMW is a leader in e-mobility,” Post said during a roundtable discussion, noting that the company sold 420,000 EVs worldwide in 2024, representing a 30.5 percent increase year over year. “Due to the wide portfolio, we have in every relevant segment at least one [battery-electric vehicle]. I think that’s a clear advantage. We’re technology open because markets and customers decide which technology to choose.”

The new powertrain promises better efficiency, more range, and more energy density

BMW is one of the smaller automotive manufacturers by volume in the world, and its investment and commitment to electrification is significant. The company has been investing in electrification since 2009, when the Mini E was launched. The company wouldn’t share a total investment figure, but back-of-the-envelope math indicates it’s well into the billions of dollars.

The company has developed new technology to make its EVs lighter, more efficient, and cheaper to manufacture, all while keeping production lines around the world working to turn out a wide variety of vehicles with different powertrains. While China’s EV innovation and the US’s growing hostility toward EVs pose significant headwinds, BMW seems unfazed and is continuing to move forward.

More efficient and affordable battery technology

BMW’s new so-called “Gen6” battery pack, which will underpin the Neue Klasse vehicles, will filter throughout the company’s brands. The previous Gen5 batteries are prismatic battery packs installed in the vehicle’s underbody. These rectangular CATL and Samsung SDI batteries are packaged together in large rectangular packs, used in vehicles like the BMW i3 and i4.

These in-house-developed Gen6 cylindrical battery cells offer 30 percent more range, up to 30 percent faster charging speeds, 20 percent more energy density, and are 50 percent cheaper to build.

BMW says its Gen5 batteries are reliable but can be difficult to replace if they fail. Gen5 battery cells can’t be individually repaired; instead, the entire battery pack that underpins the car has to be replaced, which can be costly and wasteful. The Gen6 batteries are lighter, smaller, and more efficient. And, since they are cylindrical, like Tesla’s batteries, they can be individually replaced if they fail.

The electrification investment that BMW has made alone represents “the project of the century, and the biggest investment in the history of the company”

The Gen6 batteries will be installed in the company’s Neue Klasse vehicles well before the rest of the car is built, at the stage where the vehicle is still a “body in white” skeletal frame. The new cell-to-pack model allows for the pack-to-open-body process to install the battery pack, with its control module situated under the rear seats. The battery pack becomes the structural floor of the vehicle rather than a bolted-on piece, adding rigidity and torsion strength, making it part of the 800-volt architecture rather than a platform that future vehicles sit on. There also isn’t any electronic packaging between the cells, making them easier to recycle and replace since the new battery packs are controlled by the new “Energy Master,” which sits atop the Gen6 pack. (More on that later.)

The cylindrical batteries are made of thin copper sheeting, covered in a slurry, then wound tightly, capped, and filled with electrolyte. They come in two formats: 4695 and 46120 (46mm in diameter, and either 95 or 120mm in height). The company says that the new pack can charge up to 300km (186 miles) in 10 minutes when plugged into a DC fast charger. The flatter battery pack design will make it easy to install in the company’s full line — even the lower-cost models — though BMW was reluctant to say if the technology will result in lower prices for consumers.

Moreover, BMW is teaming up with SK tes to recycle old EV batteries into high-quality metals that can be reused in new battery production. The aim is to create an entirely circular chain of production for the company’s batteries.

It’s unique for an automaker to develop its own battery chemistry and manufacturing processes in-house, and it’s even more unique that BMW has said it’s not looking to become a battery manufacturer. The company says it’s been approached about potentially manufacturing its battery technology for other industries like aerospace, but declined.

BMW plans to source the batteries from EVE Energy and CATL in China but will assemble the battery packs itself at manufacturing sites near where the vehicles will be built — something that BMW refers to as “local-for-local” manufacturing. One such facility is currently being built in Woodruff, South Carolina, near BMW’s plant in Spartanburg, where it manufactures the X3 both for the US market and for export to countries around the world. This local-for-local approach is partially to deal with the increasing regionalization that’s taking place in countries like the US, where President Donald Trump’s tariffs would deeply impact the automotive sector. It’s also to stabilize some of the supply chain issues that wreaked havoc during the covid-19 pandemic.

“Our philosophy is, the production follows the markets. The supply chain follows the production. We have a huge footprint in the US,” Post said in response to a question about Trump’s tariff threats. “When we talk about aluminum and steel or tariffs, the point is that we have a huge footprint. It makes us more independent with these things,” he continued.

A new battery controller

On top of these new Gen6 battery packs sits what BMW calls the “Energy Master.” This “penthouse” will sit under the rear seats in Neue Klasse vehicles and act both as a battery controller and power supply. The Energy Master offers power management for both the high voltage vehicle and drivetrain systems and the low voltage systems in the vehicle like windshield wipers and climate control.

The Energy Master can switch between 400 volts and 800 volts based on the charger output, which BMW argues is a more efficient and intelligent way to charge. It will also handle bidirectional charging, allowing the Neue Klasse models to handle vehicle-to-home (V2H), vehicle-to-load (V2L), and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) functions.

On top of these new Gen6 battery packs sits what BMW calls the “Energy Master”

BMW manufactures the Energy Master in-house at its retooled plant in Landshut, Germany, about an hour from Munich. The factory uses robots on a highly flexible and clean-room-style assembly line. It also relies heavily on AI-assisted image recognition to ensure that parts are installed correctly. The company is trying out dexterous robotics that can carefully grasp, manipulate, and plug in wiring harnesses on the Energy Master, a task currently done by human workers. Once an Energy Master is assembled and sealed, factory workers check the robots’ work and test the Energy Masters before shipping them out to BMW’s worldwide locations for installation on the new battery packs.

Drivetrain changes and plant upgrades

BMW is no stranger to making electric cars, but retooling for new products, training associates, and retrofitting old plants requires a massive investment in manufacturing locations around the world — including at the company’s oldest plant in the heart of Munich.

The three-story plant is currently in the process of being retrofitted, deconstructed, and rebuilt (all simultaneously), while still continuing to produce 1,000 vehicles with different powertrains (ICE vehicles and EVs), all on the same line. It’s a massive investment of €650 million ($682 million) that not only requires incredible logistics management but also the retraining of existing employees, some of whom have worked on the line for more than 20 years.

“Our philosophy is that production follows the markets, and the supply chain follows the production. We have a huge footprint in the US,” Post said. “We are the largest exporter by value from the US and Germany, and sometimes people forget these things.”

All of this work comes together to keep BMW’s products, supply chain, and manufacturing line flexible in a political world that is increasingly hostile toward electrification and green technology. BMW says it is unwavering in its commitment to the massive changes taking place in transportation and has put its money where its mouth is on the future of electrification.

BMW’s next-gen EVs depend on an unassuming black box called ‘Heart of Joy’

2025-02-17T13:29:53-05:00

BMW’s Vision Driving Experience is a test mule for its Neue Klasse platform. | Image: BMW

Last November, I strapped into the rear passenger seat of an all-electric, four-door sedan with BMW test driver and 24-hour racer Jens Klingmann behind the wheel. It was a cold day at BMW’s Performance Driving Center in Greer, SC, and beneath the five-point harnesses, roll cage, and heavily camouflaged body, Klingmann had an unexpected co-pilot: a tiny black box called the “Heart of Joy.”

It was an odd name for an interesting suite of tech features powering my brief three-lap stint on the 1.7-mile performance track. The Heart of Joy represents an interesting future for the German brand that still wants to be known as the “Ultimate Driving Machine” in the electrified future.

The VDX

The vehicle we rode in is called the Vision Driving Experience (VDX), a one-off built specifically for testing this supposedly magic black box, as well as more upcoming features for BMW’s Neue Klasse platform. The VDX uses fans to suck it down to the track for better traction at speed. Those fans are loud inside the vehicle, making it nearly impossible to hear much more than a roar while we’re hurtling around the track at speeds nearing 90 mph, even though the car itself is a mostly silent EV.

In the skilled hands of Klingmann, the tires whine as they approach the limit of their grip. There’s notably less BMW brake squeal as that little black box does a majority of the work as we hurtle around the track.

The Heart of Joy is an ECU that combines both driving dynamics and powertrain control into one computer. Approximately eight-inches by eight-inches, the box will serve as the control module for the upcoming Neue Klasse electrified vehicles that will start rolling out later this year.

It was developed in-house by BMW engineers, which is unique since most manufacturers cobble together hundreds of off-the-shelf components and write software code to make them all communicate seamlessly with one another. That results in a sort of homogeneity of driving experiences across different brands since most brands use the same suppliers. So BMW tasked its engineers with thinking about how to differentiate its EVs from the competition by coming up with a new, single computing system that could power a variety of driving dynamics across BMW’s lineup – from SUVs to sports cars.

“The question is, what does driving pleasure look like in an era of electrification?” Christian Thalmeer, BMW’s senior driving dynamics engineer, said. “It combines the sheer power and torque of electric motors, with the ability for those motors to slow and brake a vehicle, and the option to have more than one power source.”

On the track, the VDX is a rocketship, and even though we’re approaching 90 mph on the straight, Klingmann barely touches the brakes and simply lifts off the accelerator to bring the vehicle to a more sane speed for the sharp hairpins.

“The question is, what does driving pleasure look like in an era of electrification?”

BMW didn’t share all the specs of the VDX test vehicle, besides its insane 13,269 lb-ft of torque, and 25 percent increase in efficiency thanks to the integrated brake and energy recuperation. But they did share that the Heart of Joy is ten times faster than the strung-together ECUs on the market.

One of the major features that BMW focused on in the development was braking and stability control. The system can actively use regenerative braking to bring BMW vehicles to a full stop without the driver ever having to touch the pedal. The company says that that feature will lead to more stability at the limit since the system can brake each individual wheel to create better grip resulting in recuperation that is 60 percent more efficient.

Because a single computer system manages everything from driving dynamics to powertrain output to individual wheels, there will be less latency in the vehicle response, and you get less wear and tear on brakes and tires. Thalmeer said that the new ECU system can shift the power and deceleration from front to back and to each wheel to get the maximum recuperation and stability out of the vehicle, an event he calls the “joy of stopping.”

A new way to stand out

Heart of Joy was developed in just three short years and has currently been through more than 7,500 hours of testing, both at the hands of experienced engineers like Thalmeer and race drivers like Klingmann. The aim, of course, is to get future BMWs to drive more like BMWs, and not like, say, Kias, which uses the supplier-to-programming model for their EVs. The single computer also, conveniently, makes over-the-air updates much easier for BMW.

Bringing the development in-house is not new for BMW, but it is relatively unique in an industry that frequently looks to outside suppliers for everything from voice recognition to infotainment. ECUs tend to be outsourced to other companies like Magna Steyr, for example.

BMW CTO Frank Weber explained how the automaker’s near failure to launch the 7-series 25 years ago gave the company the ability and confidence to create the new Heart of Joy. “It was a nightmare,” Weber told me at CES earlier this year. “We almost didn’t make the launch of the car…Today, I can say, maybe this was the best thing that happened to BMW. Because it was so difficult, we had to develop more robust processes for those advanced digital technologies much earlier than the others, and then we just groomed it over time.”

“We almost didn’t make the launch of the car…Today, I can say, maybe this was the best thing that happened to BMW.”

This led the company to believe it could tackle the difficult task of bringing the ECU creation in-house. “Being able to work with the controllers is something that our driving dynamics people did already for a long time, but they did it with suppliers,” Weber said. “Here, we had the knowledge, and we developed the algorithms with suppliers… We have to own this, because what we can do with this new controller, when we look at everything, is just incredible.”

As Weber noted, there’s been an increasing push to regionalize everything from emissions requirements to supplier sources around the world. Auto manufacturer supply chains are deeply integrated across borders, and globalization like that is very difficult and costly to unwind. Look at the incredible amount of damage that President Trump’s proposed 25 percent tariffs could have on US automakers alone, with dire estimates that US automakers could shut down within a week should they go into place. As Weber noted, regionalization which is used to put up boundaries between countries, is something that threatens the entire automotive industry. By bringing part of the production of what makes a BMW, a BMW, in-house, the company can, at least in some ways, minimize that risk.

If the brief but thrilling experience I had in the VDX is any indicator, the new Heart of Joy, underlines BMW’s “Ultimate Driving Machine,” roots and promises a truly dynamic, all-electric driving future.

Zoox robotaxi hands-on: safe but lagging

2025-02-11T18:38:14-05:00

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A Zoox autonomous robotaxi in San Francisco, California, on Wednesday, December 4th, 2024. Zoox has started testing its electric robotaxis in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood. | Bloomberg via Getty Images; Photo by David Paul Morris

I’m standing outside a nondescript corporate office park in Las Vegas next to a box-shaped vehicle with no proper front or back. It’s got a set of sliding doors, no steering wheel, and touchpad controls. It’s bidirectional, meaning it can move in either direction without turning around. And to be completely frank, it looks more like an oversized toaster than an actual car.

This is the second-generation Zoox robotaxi, a purpose-built autonomous shuttle that has been testing in and around Las Vegas for the last year and a half. Zoox, a subsidiary of Amazon, has been working on it for over a decade, and during this year’s CES, it finally let a few journalists take a ride.

So far, the only robotaxis operating on public roads in the US are run by Alphabet’s Waymo. Others have tried but tend to run out of money or get sidelined by traffic mishaps (or, in the case of Cruise, both). Unlike Waymo, Zoox’s robotaxi service isn’t open to the public. It says it will go live in Las Vegas in 2025, but hasn’t communicated how long the waitlist period will last. And as Waymo eyes new cities and new partnerships, Zoox is still trying to get out of beta mode.

But it’s getting close. Inviting journalists to go for a ride is certainly a step toward a public launch.

“We’ve just tried to stay really steady, grounded, and focused on our mission, no matter what else is going on,” Zoox cofounder and CTO Jesse Levinson said during the ride. “We can certainly learn from our fellow travelers. We can be inspired when they’re doing well, and we feel like, hey, you know, this is possible. We should catch up here. And then, you know, if they make some missteps, we can learn from that and we do.”

Behind the curve

More than 10 years and a billion dollars in investments later, Zoox is currently only available to employees and their families in Foster City, San Francisco, and Las Vegas, with more locations coming soon. Its test fleet of retrofitted SUVs is currently in operation throughout the Bay Area, Las Vegas, Seattle, with more locations, including Austin and Miami, to come. While most people still won’t be able to hail a Zoox anytime soon, the company will open an invite-only Zoox “Explorer” program soon, much like what Waymo did with its Early Riders. But it hasn’t said when it expects to launch a commercial service publicly available to anyone who wants to use it.

But aside from Waymo, the broader robotaxi project seems on the verge of faltering, with companies like Cruise and Argo AI shutting down after funding dried up. China is ramping up its own efforts, alarming legislators and tech workers alike. Tesla’s Elon Musk recently vowed to launch his own robotaxi operation in June, but doubts remain about his approach to safety.

“We should catch up here. And then, you know, if they make some missteps, we can learn from that and we do.”

Zoox still feels like it’s behind the curve. Its business model relies on building completely bespoke autonomous vehicles, which is enormously expensive, labor-intensive, and relatively fraught, thanks to various rules and regulations. There are some questions about the company’s self-certification process for its vehicles. And its test vehicles are under investigation by NHTSA after two motorcyclists were struck last year.

To be sure, Zoox has its own fleet of retrofitted Toyota Highlander hybrids to test its software in places like San Francisco and Las Vegas. About 60 of the Highlander mules sat parked or idling in the nondescript warehouse in Las Vegas, alongside a handful of the company’s first-generation EVs in different states of disassembly.

But the Highlanders are old news. Zoox is betting all its chips on purpose-built AVs. And whether people embrace these funny-looking toasters-on-wheels will depend a lot on how they feel on the road.

Buckle up

The autonomous vehicles I’ve ridden in before have all had traditional controls or familiar steering wheel/brake pedal setups. They also had familiar car shapes and designs. Zoox doesn’t have any of these things.

One of the technicians opens the sliding doors of the low-floored electric vehicle using an iPad. I step inside, along with Levinson and a Zoox PR rep. The interior is spacious, resembling more the interior of a bus or a subway.

The seats are firm and covered in a woven industrial material for easy cleaning should anyone get sick or spill something. Levinson tells me that they recently updated the seats to be more comfortable based on feedback from the employees who’ve been testing them. Because the seats are facing each other, there’s not a ton of visibility out either end of the vehicle. If you easily get car sick, sitting backward may be a bad idea.

The sliding side doors offer a decent view of what’s happening off to the side of the vehicle, though the seats come up above shoulder height, blocking your direct view. There are custom airbags hidden throughout the vehicle in case of a crash, and of course, seatbelts.

Levinson and I sit next to each other while the PR rep sits across, and there’s enough space between us to cross one’s legs without bumping into anyone. We buckle up and start the ride by using one of the tablets near the door. These are the only controls in the vehicle: riders can control the temperature, ask the vehicle to pull over, check the duration of the ride, and control the audio. Presumably some of these functions will also be controllable through the app.

Road rules

The route we take is a pre-determined 30-minute loop to the very edge of the Las Vegas Strip and back. It’s all local roads, no freeways, with speed limits around 45 mph. As we wind past restaurants and strip malls, we encounter construction zones, pedestrians, and other normalcies.

The first challenge comes when we arrive at a construction site with a closed right lane ahead of an intersection. While the robotaxi navigates it fine, it still feels inorganic and slightly robotic. Instead of merging before coming to the lane closure like a human driver would, the Zoox drives right up to the sign blocking the lane, comes to a full stop, signals, and waits for a relatively large gap in the traffic to merge left. It takes a full minute before traffic lets up enough that the robotaxi feels confident enough to safely move over.

Later, we encounter a pedestrian waiting to cross with the light. No issues here: the Zoox waits patiently while the person crosses, and after the light changes, away we go.

If you easily get car sick, sitting backward may be a bad idea

Beyond those two real-world challenges, the ride is largely uneventful, with the exception of some random and rather sudden jerky braking at the last minute when it comes to a light or a stop sign. Overall, the experience feels safe but less fully realized than a Waymo ride.

While the company says that it’s made some upgrades to things like suspension, brakes, and the electric drive units, the ride is still a bit rough, and the braking occasionally feels abrupt. With the wheels at the outer corners of the vehicle, and the body so low to the ground, rough roads (like the construction zone) and potholes are felt acutely. And since the seats have minimal padding, those undulations travel directly through your seat and into your body. That could be a problem for folks more attuned to the high-riding comfort of most modern SUVs.

Pucker moments

Overall, the robotaxi did well, but it’s important to note that this wasn’t the first time that Zoox had driven the same route — nor was it the second or third time. There had already been at least 10 other journalists who had done the same route, not counting all the times Zoox ran the trip before inviting us aboard. Experts believe that the ability to route dynamically, without any pre-planning, is one of the most important tests of a driverless taxi service. With that in mind, Zoox still has a lot to prove.

And then there are those, for lack of a better term, pucker moments: when you cringe or brace because the autonomous vehicle is about to do something stupid. While there were a few unexpected braking moments along the way, and strangely conservative lane choices, the Zoox robotaxi never behaved in a way that made me feel unsafe.

Zoox is taking the slow and steady route to autonomy, while keeping a handle on its own design and proprietary software. Making the leap from a few test vehicles to wider success in places that aren’t always sunny with clear skies and moderate temperatures year-round is still a long way off for any robotaxi company. But Zoox thinks it has the winning formula.

“This experience that we’re having in this vehicle, there’s nothing like it now,” Levinson contends. “You can’t get that in a retrofitted car. You can’t get that in a Cybercab… We think we’re onto something.”

Update, February 11th: Zoox’s test fleet of retrofitted SUVs are being tested in the Bay Area, Seattle, and Las Vegas. This post has been updated to reflect that. It hasn’t said when it will launch a non-waitlisted, publicly available robotaxi service. This article has been updated to reflect that.

How Watch Duty’s wildfire tracking app became a crucial lifeline for LA

2025-01-11T15:33:31-05:00

If you live in Los Angeles, you are probably already intimately familiar with Watch Duty, the free app that shows active fires, mandatory evacuation zones, air quality indexes, wind direction, and a wealth of other information that everyone, from firefighters to regular people, have come to rely on during this week’s historic and devastating wildfires.

Watch Duty is unique in the tech world in that it doesn’t care about user engagement, time spent, or ad sales. The 501(c)(3) nonprofit behind it only cares about the accuracy of the information it provides and the speed with which the service can deliver that information. The app itself has taken off, rocketing to the top of Apple’s and Google’s app stores. Over 1 million people have downloaded it over the last few days alone.

The elegance of the app lies in its simplicity. It doesn’t scrape user data, show ads, require any kind of login, or track your information. Its simple tech stack and UI — most of which is maintained by volunteer engineers and reporters — has likely helped save countless lives. While Watch Duty is free to use, the app accepts tax-deductible donations and offers two tiers of membership that unlock additional features, like a firefighting flight tracker and the ability to set alerts for more than four counties.

With plans to expand the service across the United States, as well as overseas and into other emergency services, Watch Duty may eventually replace some of the slower and less reliable local government alert systems for millions of people.

An app born from fire

The idea for Watch Duty came to cofounder John Mills while he was trying to protect his off-grid Sonoma County home from the Walbridge fire in 2020. He realized there wasn’t a single source for all the information people needed to protect themselves from the blaze, which ultimately killed 33 people and destroyed 156 homes. John and his friend David Merritt, who is Watch Duty’s cofounder and CTO, decided to build an app to help.

“This came out of an idea that John had, and he talked to me about it four years ago,” Merritt tells The Verge. “We built the app in 60 days, and it was run completely by volunteers, no full-time staff. It was a side project for a lot of engineers, so the aim was to keep it as simple as possible.”

Fire reporting is piecemeal at best in fire-prone areas and frequently scattered across platforms like Facebook and X, where fire departments and counties have verified pages sharing relevant updates. But increasingly, social media platforms are putting automated access for alert services behind paywalls. Governments also use a wide variety of alert systems, causing delays that can cost lives, especially in fast-moving fires like the Palisades and Eaton fires that have forced evacuations for more than 180,000 people. And sometimes, these government-run alerts are sent out mistakenly, causing mass confusion.

Watch Duty simplifies all that for millions of people.

“We view what we are doing as a public service,” says Merritt. “It is a utility that everyone should have, which is timely, relevant information for their safety during emergencies. Right now, it’s very scattered. Even the agencies themselves, which have the best intentions, their hands are tied by bureaucracy or contracts. We partner with government sources with a focus on firefighting.”

“We view what we are doing as a public service.”

One of the biggest issues around fires, in particular, is that they can move quickly and consume large swaths of land and structures in minutes. For example, the winds that drove the Palisades fire to spread to more than 10,000 acres reached 90 miles per hour on Tuesday. When minutes matter, the piecemeal alert system that Watch Duty replaces can cause delays that cost lives.

“Some of the delivery systems for push notifications and text messages that government agencies use had a 15-minute delay, which is not good for fire,” says Merritt. “We shoot to have push notifications out in under a minute. Right now, 1.5 million people in LA are getting push notifications through the app. That’s a lot of messages to send out in 60 seconds. In general, people are getting it pretty much all at the same time.”

A simple tech stack

For Watch Duty, this kind of mass communication requires reliable technology as well as a group of dedicated staff and skilled volunteers. Merritt says that Watch Duty relies on a number of corporate partners with whom it has relationships and contracts to provide its service.

“We shoot to have push notifications out in under a minute.”

The app is built on a mix of technology, including Google’s cloud platform, Amazon Web Services, Firebase, Fastly, and Heroku. Merritt says the app uses some AI, but only for internal routing of alerts and emails. Reporters at Watch Duty — those who listen to scanners and update the app with push notifications about everything from air drops to evacuation updates — are mostly volunteers who coordinate coverage via Slack.

“All information is vetted for quality over quantity,” he says. “We have a code of conduct for reporters. For example, we never report on injuries or give specific addresses. It’s all tailored with a specific set of criteria. We don’t editorialize. We report on what we have heard on the scanners.”

According to Merritt, the app has 100 percent uptime. Even though it started with volunteer engineers, the nonprofit has slowly added more full-time people. “We still have volunteers helping us, but it’s becoming more on the internal paid staff as we grow, as things get more complex, and as we have more rigorous processes,” he says.

“All information is vetted for quality over quantity.”

He says there are no plans to ever charge for the app or scrape user data. The approach is kind of the Field of Dreams method to building a free app that saves people’s lives: if you build it well, the funding will come.

“It’s the antithesis of what a lot of tech does,” Merritt says. “We don’t want you to spend time in the app. You get information and get out. We have the option of adding more photos, but we limit those to the ones that provide different views of a fire we have been tracking. We don’t want people doom scrolling.”

Collecting information in the era of Trump

Watch Duty relies heavily on publicly available information from places like the National Weather Service and the Environmental Protection Agency. Should the incoming Trump administration decide to execute on threats to dismantle and disband the EPA (which monitors air quality) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the parent agency to the National Weather Service, such moves would impact Watch Duty’s ability to operate.

Even still, Merritt is optimistic. “We will be pretty well insulated from any change to policy,” he says. “We are either buying that information ourselves already or we are happy to buy it, and we will take that cost on. The fact that we’re soon going to be covering the entire US will defray the cost of anything that shifts from a policy perspective. Our operation costs are mostly salaries. We are trying to hire really good engineers and have a really solid platform. If we need to raise a grant to buy data from the National Weather Service, then we will.”

Regardless of what the next administration does, it’s clear that Watch Duty has become a critical and necessary app for those in Southern California right now. The app currently covers 22 states and plans to roll out nationwide soon.

“We got 1.4 million app downloads in the last few days,” according to Merritt. “I think we have only received 60 support tickets, so that shows that something is working there. We are really just focused on the delivery of this information.”