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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (160144)	7/15/2020 3:08:23 AM
From: TobagoJack	1 Recommendation Recommended By marcher Respond to of 217974

Free stuff ... free competition to TSLA bloomberg.com Electric-Car Subsidies Make Renaults Free in Germany Elisa Miebach Sign up to receive the Green Daily daily newsletter and follow us @climate. Car buyers in Europe can now get their hands on a brand-new electric vehicle for less than the typical cost of a mobile-phone contract. Thanks to newly generous subsidies, some are even free. Shoppers have swarmed virtual showrooms in Germany and France -- the region’s two largest passenger-car markets -- after their national governments boosted electric-vehicle incentives to stimulate demand. Their purchase subsidies are now among the most favorable in the world, according to BloombergNEF. The state support is allowing Autohaus Koenig, a dealership chain with more than 50 locations across Germany, to advertise a lease for the battery-powered Renault Zoe that is entirely covered by subsidies. In the 20 days since it put the offer online, roughly 3,000 people have inquired and about 300 have signed contracts. “If we had more sales staff, we would have sold even more,” said Wolfgang Huber, head of electric-car sales for the dealer in Berlin, who published a Facebook post asking customers to be patient. “We did expect an increase in sales with the subsidies, but this run really struck us.” Catching UpElectric-car sales are rising in Europe, bolstered by generous subsidies Source: BloombergNEF Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Emmanuel Macron have sought to soften the coronavirus pandemic’s blow to the badly hit car sector. Sales in Europe have recovered more slowly in Europe than in China or North America, pressuring policy makers to support major sources of employment and economic activity. In France, sales of Renault’s Zoe model are on track to double this year even as demand for gasoline vehicles has cratered. And in the Netherlands, where the city of Amsterdam is banning non-electric cars from 2030, a 10 million-euro ($11.4 million) fund to support EV purchases was used up in just eight days this month. “There are a lot of attractive offers right now because of higher subsidies, and that’s boosting demand,” said Aleksandra O’Donovan, an analyst with BloombergNEF. “The EU is pushing toward decarbonizing transport, and the coronavirus crisis has allowed them to accelerate that.” Generous AidEurope has among the largest purchase subsidies for electric cars Source: BloombergNEF Germany’s subsidies of as much as 9,000 euros per electric vehicle have boosted sales for Carfellows, a German auto-trading website, about tenfold. “This is a golden moment for us,” said Rainer Westdoerp, a spokesman for the Berlin-based startup, which on Wednesday will start offering leases of Daimler AG’s battery-powered Smart EQ for 9.90 euros a month. Carfellows took down a similar offer for the Smart model in June after about 1,000 customers reached out within three days and the automaker couldn’t supply cars fast enough, Westdoerp said. While the best deals -- including Carfellows’s Smart offering -- are usually for buyers of company cars because of perks including tax and risk rebates, private drivers in Germany can still lease an electric car from the site for as little as 39 euros a month. In France, where the government raised subsidies to 7,000 euros per car this year, customers can lease the Zoe from 79 euros a month. Buyers will have to read the fine print, as some offers come with additional one-time fees or down payments. And not everyone in Europe is spending more to speed up EV adoption, with the U.K. and Belgium recently cutting aid. China had planned to end its subsidies this year but extended them to 2022 in response to the pandemic. But in general, the picture looks attractive for European buyers as the continent is home to eight of the nine countries with the largest national purchasing-subsidies, according to BNEF. Governments will have to weigh carefully when to let those subsidies run out to avoid sales falling off a cliff. But there will come a time when that won’t be a concern anymore, O’Donovan said. “The decreasing price of batteries suggests that EVs should be cheaper to buy than gasoline cars from the mid-2020s,” she said. “Once that happens, the market will accelerate even without subsidies.” Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal. LEARN MORE Sent from my iPad

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (160144)	7/15/2020 4:28:54 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 217974

Saw the statue a few weeks ago, did not take pic, and now it has gone headless edition.cnn.com Statue of British colonialist Cecil Rhodes decapitated in South Africa (CNN) — A statue of British imperialist Cecil Rhodes has been decapitated in Cape Town, South African National Parks said on Wednesday. The statue, which sits on the northern slope of Table Mountain, a popular tourist attraction, was vandalized earlier this week, Rey Thakhuli from SANParks said in a statement. Thakhuli said that a Table Mountain National Park ranger had discovered that the statue's head had been gouged off while patrolling the area. "The head of the statue was cut from the bust with what seems to be an angle grinder somewhere between Sunday night or the early hours of Monday morning," he said. Rhodes, a businessman and politician, was a 19th century imperialist who sought more British control over Southern Africa. He ruled as Prime Minister of Cape Colony (now South Africa) in 1890. And as co-founder of diamond-mining company, De Beers, Rhodes also wanted to acquire more territory for mining. SANParks said it could not determine the motive for the vandalism, but it had reported the incident to the police. Etc etc