Kia plans to build EVs in the US to comply with new federal tax credit
Photo by Roberto Baldwin for The VergeKia is planning to manufacture its electric vehicles in the US, according to South Korean media sources Maeil Business and SBS (via The EV Officials). The automaker currently builds its flagship electric car...
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/ Kia will have to play ball once the law goes into effect
Sep 21, 2022, 2:58 PM UTC|
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Photo by Roberto Baldwin for The Verge
Kia is planning to manufacture its electric vehicles in the US, according to South Korean media sources Maeil Business and SBS (via The EV Officials). The automaker currently builds its flagship electric car and North American sales hit, the Kia EV6, in South Korea at its Hwasung plant. But now, Kia will shift some of its EV assembly to the US by 2024, according to the report.
Manufacturing EVs in the US would allow Kia to qualify for new incentives that were included in the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, which requires automakers to build EVs in North America to qualify.
Kia and Hyundai combined hold the second-highest EV market share after Tesla
Kia and its parent company, Hyundai, had threatened legal action against the US over what they see as a “discriminatory” policy. Other provisions will exclude automakers from incentives if they use Chinese-sourced minerals and battery components, which could effectively cut off almost every domestic EV manufacturer once the law goes into effect.
Hyundai and Kia combined currently hold the second-highest market share for electric vehicles in the US, a position that could be at risk if customers can’t take advantage of the new federal incentives (and man, are EVs getting expensive).
Hyundai, specifically, is making state-side investments already by building electric vehicle and battery plants in Savannah, Georgia — though it won’t be ready to go until 2025.
It might be in Hyundai’s best interest to speed up that process and start building the Ioniq 5 and perhaps even help bring Kia’s EV6 manufacturing state-side. Both vehicles are based on a shared E-GMP EV platform. And by the time Kia and Hyundai get everything set up, the automakers hopefully will have their next-generation cars, like the Kia EV9 SUV and the Hyundai Ioniq 6, ready to go.
Republicans are not wild about antitrust enforcement.
The US government’s two biggest antitrust regulators — FTC chair Lina Khan and Justice Department antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter — appeared for a Senate Oversight hearing on Tuesday, and there were two quick takeaways:
1) Republicans still are eager to notch some kind of win against Khan and the Democratic FTC majority
2) They don’t really know how to do it yet.
Expect a lot of fireworks here if Republicans take back the Senate majority in November.
The Elon attrition is real.
“Hundreds of Twitter employees have fled since June,” according to Insider’s sources. That’s just over a month after Twitter agreed to sell the company to Musk — or, about as long as it’d take a highly qualified engineer to find a new job.
The company is down about 700 employees, according to the report, with many citing Musk and the acquisition as the reason why.
The PS VR2 has a new trailer, but no release date.
Maybe I’m just old fashioned, but it feels weird to release a slick trailer like this for a product without an official release date? Regardless, the ad offers a pretty nice summary of the headset’s key features, which you can also read about in our recent hands-on preview. The PS VR2 is currently scheduled for release in “early 2023.”
Here’s 3.5 hours of me and John Gruber talking about the iPhone 14.
Going on The Talk Show to dive deep on our iPhone reviews has become one of my favorite yearly traditions. A little bit of Apple Watch Ultra conversation in there too — and yes, I asked John what he thought of our redesign fonts.
David PierceTwo hours ago
YouTube’s former business chief will be Warner Music’s next CEO,
according to The Wall Street Journal. It’s a totally fascinating match: YouTube has always seen itself as a music service, even though nobody else really sees it that way, and talks a lot about how much it pays labels and artists. Warner needs to figure out how to get more money out of YouTube — and TikTok, and Fortnite, and the other platforms. Robert Kyncl’s going to be trying to improve the deals Robert Kyncl helped broker!
Andor, the latest Star Wars show, is now streaming.
Yet another Star Wars show is out, with the first three episodes of Andor — a prequel to Rogue One — available today on Disney Plus. My colleague Charles Pulliam-Moore calls it “a sobering reflection on the human costs of Star Wars’ never-ending conflicts.” My favorite part? There’s a sad droid named B2EMO.
This nifty AI lighting tool can give any selfie that ‘Golden Hour’ glow.
ClipDrop Relight is a free web app that allows you to apply artificial lighting to images in seconds. The tool is intended to be used with photos, but it’s taken the art community by storm as folks use it to add depth and funky lighting to their illustrations. Sure, it may not be able to replicate the real Golden Hour, but it saves you from relying on the sun’s schedule. AI = 1, sun = 0.
YouTuber smashes up car to test iPhone crash detection.
Spoiler: it works.
Pausing Starlink RV subscriptions is a great cost-saving feature.
Starlink can be expensive, but for me, paying an average price of €53/mth this year for fast internet from the remote beach where I work and play during the summer is totally worth it (read my review here). When my Starlink RV service is active, it costs €105 each month. But autumn is approaching so I’m closing my surf shack and pausing my subscription until April. With any luck, the price will be reduced again by the time I fire it back up.
Adobe has a $2.3 billion pot to keep Figma CEO and employees around for four years.
Forbes calls the retention package historic, with Figma CEO Dylan Field set to take home about half of the $2.3 billion earmarked as part of the acquisition by Adobe. Figma and Adobe would jointly decide what “subset of Figmates” would be entitled to the stock grants which vest in four years.
Neither Adobe nor Figma were available to speak to Forbes about the behemoth retention package, though we imagine those sharing in the riches would say “10/10, would be acquired by Adobe again.”
My Twitch streamer of the week is Reapz.
Hello, night Verge. The admins are asleep, so I’m going to post one of my favorite streams.
I spend a lot of time watching Twitch, and I’m constantly amazed by the creativity of variety streamers. Today I’m calling attention to Reapz: an Aussie who has one of the most creative technical setups I’ve seen. With a virtual soundstage and desk, he’s created the closest thing I’ve seen to a late night host on Twitch.
I want to interview the Sony party speaker team so badly.
This is like the fifth or sixth generation of these things. What are their meetings like? Do they go to frat parties to get feature ideas? Why did they go from “Mega Bass” to “Extra Bass” for the past few years back to “Mega Bass” for this one? Is this one team’s passion project or do they hire mercenary party speaker engineers? Please, someone contact me.
“You think Big Brother is watching you on the subways? You’re absolutely right.”
New York City is planning on adding two surveillance cameras to its subway cars, around 13,000 in total. The Gothamist pointed out governor Kathy Hochul’s (frankly incredible) remarks about the move.
She said the similarity to 1984’s Big Brother is intentional. “If you’re concerned about this, best answer is don’t commit any crimes on the subways.”
Control’s lead designer shared video of an early build of the game with in-development graphics.
Some have criticized GTA VI’s graphics seen in the videos that leaked this weekend. But this early footage of Control shows how even some of the best-looking games use placeholder assets during development that are improved upon for a game’s final release. I’m a big fan of the boxes with “THROW ME” printed on the sides.
Satellite-to-phone service is getting closer.
The FCC has given Lynk, one of the companies competing with SpaceX, T-Mobile, and Apple, a license to operate a commercial satellite-to-mobile communication service (though currently it’s only for coverage outside the US).
Lynk will still have to find a mobile carrier to work with and get FCC approval for that specific service, but it’s now cleared an important hurdle — plus, the company’s CEO told Fierce Wireless that it’s currently “working with testing” for two US carriers.
Crunchyroll looks ready to dump anime voice actors who push for union deals.
Kyle McCarley, the American voice of Shigeo “Mob” Kageyama in Mob Psycho 100, posted a video to YouTube, claiming Crunchyroll refused to even discuss a Netflix-like union contract ahead of S3.
According to Kotaku, the Sony-owned service confirmed it will “recast some roles.” McCarley’s voice fits the role of Mob so well it will be missed, but the consolidation of anime streaming rights leaves fewer companies to negotiate with — or watch.
