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Ford is looking to take some of the sting out of EV charging by offering a free home charger. The automaker will even send out a technician to install it at no cost to you if you buy or lease a retail Mustang Mach-E, F-150 Lightning or E-Transit between October 1 and January 2. However, Ford may opt to extend the program if it proves successful. (Ford Pro fleet customers will get a commercial charging cash incentive instead.) According to Joanna Stern of The Wall Street Journal, those who take up the offer will get a Level 2 charger at home. This should save Ford EV buyers and lessees a pretty penny, since the Ford Charge Station Pro costs $1,310 and the company typically charges $2,000 for installation. The charger comes with 80 feet of wire run and delivers up to 60 amps of power, Stern notes. Still, those who want to take up the deal may need to make sure their garage is wired up properly to fully take advantage of Level 2 charging. The EV side of Ford's business has been struggling as of late the company expects that division to lose as much as $5.5 billion this year. In January, it cut production of the F-150 Lightning due to lower than expected demand and shifted resources to make more Broncos and Rangers. A few months later, the company delayed some EV models, including a planned three-row SUV, and placed more focus on hybrids. But in August, the automaker killed the three-row SUV project entirely while further delaying some other EVs. Incentivizing EV purchases and leases with a free home charger and installation is smart and it could pay off for Ford. However, it may turn out to be little more than a Band-Aid for the division's deeper-set problems.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/ford-chucks-in-a-free-ev-home-charger-and-installation-with-some-models-160138994.html?src=rss
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As first reported by Reuters, ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, is planning to train and develop an AI model using chips from fellow Chinese company Huawei. Three anonymous sources approached Reuters with this information; a fourth source couldnt confirm that ByteDance was using Huawei chips but did say that a new AI model was in development. Previously, ByteDances AI projects used NVIDIAs H20 AI chips, which were designed for the Chinese market and avoided the trade restrictions the US government placed in 2022. Chinese customers were only allowed to purchase select models of AI chips, which was an attempt to slow down Chinese technological advancement. ByteDance has ordered 100,000 Ascend 910B chips from Huawei this year but only received 30,000 of them. Huaweis Ascend 910B chips are said to be superior to NVIDIAs A100 chips in GPU performance and computing power efficiency. Nevertheless, the chip shortage halted ByteDances AI model development project. The news isnt confirmed by ByteDance yet, but its not the only company to switch away from NVIDIA products. Many other Chinese companies are slowly transitioning to local chips. Even though ByteDance had previously used loopholes to get NVIDIA AI chips, the latest development shows how China is attempting to reduce its dependence on Western products.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/bytedance-will-reportedly-use-huawei-chips-to-train-a-new-ai-model-154846749.html?src=rss
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Its always beautiful when two lonely corporations find one another. DirecTV has reached an agreement to acquire Dish Network, according to reporting by The New York Times. This would create a global behemoth in the satellite TV space. It would also provide some financial armor for the struggling Dish Network. The companys in debt to the tune of billions of dollars because, well, satellite TV isnt exactly a growth industry anymore. Stream, baby, stream. All told, Dish has $2 billion in debt thats due in November and only $500 million in available cash. That math dont add up to anything but bankruptcy. The specifics of the deal are pretty dang convoluted. Its a multi-step transaction with a few players. First, the private equity firm TPG will acquire a majority stake in DirectTV from AT&T for $7.6 billion. Next, DirecTV will buy Dish Network for just a single dollar. However, itll also take on that $2 billion in debt. EchoStar, the parent company of Dish, will hold onto some parts of the business as part of the transaction, including over $30 billion in wireless spectrum investments. DirecTV will get the Sling TV video service as part of the deal. The acquisition would create a massive pay-TV provider, with a combined total of around 19 million subscribers. As a counterpoint, cable TV leader Comcast has 13.2 million subscribers. Netflix is creeping up on 300 million subscribers, to show the stark contrast between pay-TV and streaming. The companies say they expect the deal to close in the second half of 2025, though the whole thing is subject to regulatory approval. The Justice Department denied a similar merger back in 2002, but that was when the satellite TV industry was at its peak. More recently, the federal government side-eyed a potential merger between the two companies in 2020 on the grounds that it would deprive rural customers a viable alternative to Dish and DirecTV when looking to purchase 5G wireless service.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/directv-to-acquire-rival-dish-network-for-1-subject-to-regulatory-approval-152041300.html?src=rss
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