They’re All Tesla’s Charges

Plus: Is it man bites dog when a newspaper sues Google? ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

June 21, 2023

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TOGETHER WITH

Good morning.

Aux armes, Olympiens!

On Tuesday morning police raided the headquarters of the 2024 Paris Olympics as part of two separate investigations into favoritism and misappropriation of public funds. The raid isn’t a winning look for the organizers of the games, especially since the last Olympics were marred by a high-profile bribery scandal. Not that it’s a competition of course…

Morning Brief

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Tesla links up with another competitor.

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USA Today is not a fan of Google.

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Eli Lilly beefs up its autoimmune diseases wing.

EVs

Rivian Inks Deal to Use Tesla’s Charging Network

If the EV revolution is underway, Tesla wants to lead the charge. Literally.

On Tuesday, Rivian became the latest electric vehicle competitor to agree to incorporate Tesla’s charging ports and extensive charging network for its fleet of vehicles, following similar deals struck by Ford and General Motors earlier this summer.

For Rivian, which burned nearly $6.8 billion last year amid ongoing struggles to hit production goals, the move marks something of another slapdash effort to stay alive. For Tesla, it’s a way to stay dominant in the EV space as its technology edge shrinks and competitors rapidly invade the market.

Port of Call

Tesla has a network of some 17,700 fast chargers at more than 1,650 stations across the US, but that’s just a small sliver of the roughly 54,000 public charging stations nationwide, according to the Department of Energy. Roughly 32,000 of them are owned by now-SPAC-ified startup ChargePoint.

Tesla’s Supercharger ports, however, have one major advantage: they’re super quick.

Cross-country trips via EVs are doable, they just require a little more planning than rambling wannabe-Jack Kerouac road warriors would like. They also require turning recharge pit stops into potentially 8-hour-long layovers, should drivers rely on the standard slow-charging plugs offered by ChargePoint and most other competitors. Tesla’s stations, however, can juice a car to 200 miles worth of battery capacity in just 15 minutes, the company claims — just enough time to rush to the bathroom and grab a gas station snack.

It’s why even Tesla’s competitors — and the US government — have found it to be a favorite option:

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Rivian will include a Supercharger adapter for its R1T and R1S models starting in 2024, with future models incorporating the port from the get-go starting in 2025. GM models will be built with the charging hardware starting in 2025, while Ford will include the ports starting next year.

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When Tesla first granted third-party access to its chargers early this year, it was the White House that announced the news, as a part of the Inflation Reduction Act which sent billions in spending and tax credits toward complimenting private investment in EV infrastructure.

Access to the Supercharger network was once seen as a selling point for Tesla’s vehicles, but opening up the network has its perks too. Charging prices at Tesla stations can vary by location, and the company says accommodating non-Teslas brings additional costs. It is, however, introducing a $12.99 monthly membership to third-party car drivers for a reduced per-kilowatt-hour charging price.

Fork in the Road: Still, some critics are urging caution. Eleftheria Kontou, an assistant professor at the University of Illinois who studies EV infrastructure, told the Wall Street Journal that the push to promote Tesla’s charging network could bifurcate the EV industry, and “may, in the long run, disrupt efforts for a universal and equitable fast charging network with standardization, and may complicate interoperability for manufacturers.” It’s iPhones and Androids all over again.

– Brian Boyle

Media

Gannett Goes After Google in Antitrust Lawsuit

Newspapers aren’t dead. In fact, they’re as mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore.

Gannett, the media conglomerate that publishes more than 200 local newspapers under the USA Today banner, filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google and its parent company, Alphabet, Tuesday. It’s the latest threat to the world’s most-used search engine and its monopoly on the digital advertising sector.

This Doesn’t Ad Up

Throughout the 20th Century, newspapers earned the majority of their money through ad sales; circulation was secondary. Even after the dawn of the digital age, newspaper ad revenue continued to flourish in the US, reaching a peak of nearly $50 billion in 2006, according to the Pew Research Center. But right about that time is when Big Tech companies like Google and Facebook began to develop strangleholds on digital advertising markets.

Google’s $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick in 2007 and other purchases like YouTube, Nest, and AdMob made the search engine the de-facto owner of many of the tools for buying and selling online ads, leaving news publications in the dust. By 2020, newspaper ad revenue had fallen to roughly $9.6 billion, while subscription revenue surpassed it with $11 billion. Meanwhile, Google’s ad revenue hit nearly $150 billion that same year.

Now news publications are looking to reclaim revenues they feel were wrongfully taken from them for the past two decades by tech giants:

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Gannett is seeking unspecified but “very substantial” damages from Google and Alphabet. The media corporation argues that the pair force publishers to sell more ad space to Google at depressed prices, resulting in “dramatically less revenue for publishers and Google’s ad-tech rivals, while Google enjoys exorbitant monopoly profits.”

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This is far from Google’s first antitrust rodeo, and it likely won’t be its last. In 2021, more than 200 news outlets across the US filed a class action lawsuit against Google for essentially bogarting digital ad spaces and technologies. Earlier this year, the Department of Justice filed its own lawsuit against Google, specifically calling it a monopoly whose “anticompetitive conduct has suppressed alternative technologies, hindering their adoption by publishers, advertisers, and rivals.” And just last week, the European Commission voiced similar concerns.

Barely a Shakedown: In other Google hot water news, the company agreed to pay a $23 million settlement last week after it was found that the California company shared searches with third-party websites and companies without explicit user authorization. Like any settlement from a mega-corporation, Google maintains it did nothing wrong, the allegations were false, and it was all some big tech witch hunt, but that it’s willing to pay out some chump change (barely 0.01% of its yearly revenue) to make the headache go away. So if you clicked on a search result in the United States between Oct. 26, 2006, and Sept. 30, 2013, you might be entitled to a whopping $7.70.

– Griffin Kelly

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Pharmaceutical

Eli Lilly Acquires Biotech Firm Dice

(Photo credit: Hal Gatewood/Unsplash)

The pharmaceutical business isn’t all about weight-loss drugs.

Drug-making giant Eli Lilly announced on Tuesday it agreed to buy Dice, a firm that specializes in making oral treatments for autoimmune diseases, for $2.4 billion, representing a 40% premium on Dice’s shares.

Skin In The Game

Eli Lilly isn’t the only big pharma company forking over large sums for a biotech company with a specialty in autoimmune diseases. Merck announced in April it was buying biotech firm Prometheus Biosciences for $10.8 billion, a 75% premium on its share price at the time. Big pharma companies are also keeping a keen eye on European immunology biotech company Argenx, which is expected to release key data next month.

Dice’s leading treatment is for psoriasis, an autoimmune condition that affects the skin making it scaly and uncomfortable:

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An estimated 7.5 million Americans suffer from psoriasis according to the American Academy of Dermatology.

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Psoriasis is far from the only condition Dice’s technology is useful for. Autoimmune diseases comprise a wide-ranging variety of conditions including rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, and lupus.

Eli Lilly already has some autoimmune treatment chops as it produces a psoriasis drug called Taltz — the key difference however is that Dice specializes in making treatments in pill form, which are both easier to transport and administer than injections.

Weight and See: We said big pharma isn’t all about those buzzy weight-loss drugs you’ve heard so much about — but they sure do help. Eli Lilly, like Ozempic-maker Novo Nordisk, has discovered that its diabetes drug Mounjaro is an effective weight-loss drug and is in prime position to overtake Ozempic and its sister drug Wegovy as the dominant weight-loss treatment as results suggest it may help users lose more weight. That means Eli Lilly can afford to bide its time on other drugs in development.

– Isobel Asher Hamilton

Extra Upside

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Not Ghosn down without a fight: Carlos Ghosn filed a lawsuit against Nissan seeking over $1 billion.

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Holy mole: Taco restaurant to pay workers $140k after hiring fake priest to suss out confessions of workers’ sins.

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