Happy Wednesday. We’re prepping for a few days off for the Thanksgiving holiday here in Emerging Tech Brew–land. You’ll still get issues of the newsletter this Friday and next Monday, but expect them to be a bit zippier than usual. That goes for today’s too.
On that note, we hope everyone celebrating has a wonderful, restful holiday.
In today’s edition:
🛻 Ford’s electric future
 Asteroid smash
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Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
Ford’s latest goal is unsurprising, if ambitious: It wants to become the largest EV producer in the world.
To that end, last Thursday Ford CEO Jim Farley announced plans to increase production to 600,000 EVs per year globally in 2023—more than double the company’s initial targets.
After selling virtually no all-electric vehicles in 2020, Ford is aggressively investing to try and catch up, with plans to spend more than $30 billion on electrification through 2025. The money could go a long way, but analysts warn the company will also face hurdles in the EV supply chain.
- Ford sold about 18,900 in the first three quarters of this year, compared to GM’s 24,800 sales for the same period. For its part, GM has set a goal to reach 1 million EV sales globally by 2025.
- But it’s Tesla the Detroit automaker will be chasing to take the top EV spot, and its updated 2023 target still lags even the 1 million vehicles Tesla is on track to produce by the end of this year.
The road ahead
Ford hopes its new EVs, like the F-150 Lightning expected to roll out in 2022, will help its sales push ahead, and the company has made big investments toward that goal.
In late September...South Korean battery maker SK Innovation and Ford will spend $11.4 billion to build four facilities in Kentucky and Tennessee, three focused on batteries and one on assembly, in a joint venture called BlueOval SK.
- These battery plants are slated to come online in 2025, adding 86 GWh of production capacity in Kentucky and 43 GWh in Tennessee, according to SK’s third-quarter earnings call.
- That’s enough to power more than 1 million EVs per year, Ford says.
In February...Ford announced a $1 billion investment in accelerating electrification in Europe. The company now plans to make its entire passenger-car lineup in Europe all-electric by 2030.
In September 2020...The company agreed to a $1.8 billion investment to manufacture five EVs at a factory in Ontario. Production there is expected to begin in 2025.
But some industry analysts have doubts about the company reaching its goals. Simon Moores, a battery expert from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, said Ford is on track to build about 900,000 EVs per year by 2030—lagging behind other automakers.
- A lack of EV battery production capacity and scarcity of raw materials like lithium, nickel, and cobalt could keep Ford from hitting its targets.
Looking (far) ahead...Ford—along with GM and a handful of other carmakers—signed a COP26 pledge to outright stop selling new vehicles that produce greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.
Click here to read the full story.—GD
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Attention, gentlemen: When it’s time to hit the hay, you might think no clothes is the MO. But there’s a more comfortable (and dare we say sexier) way to lounge—draped in Lahgo’s washable silk sleepwear.
It’s safe to say that the shut-eye gurus at Lahgo aren’t sleeping on the job. They just released their new Button-Up Short Set and Button-Up Long Set. Their silk is more than silky soft, it’s machine-washable, breathable, lightweight, and thermoregulating.
And unlike going commando, you can wear Lahgo’s button-up collection when the doorbell rings at 8am.
Featuring a single-point collar, chest pocket, exposed buttons, and relaxed straight leg, it’s a modern take on a classic look that works in the streets, between the sheets, and just about anywhere else.
Through Dec. 20, Brew readers get a special $20 off their first order of $100+ with code FOR-MORNINGBREW.
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NASA/Johns Hopkins APL
In the wee hours of the morning, NASA set out on a journey to crash into an asteroid.
The mission, dubbed the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), is simple. A satellite about the size of a fridge has been set on a collision course with Dimorphos, an asteroid with the diameter of the High Roller Ferris wheel in Las Vegas, and which can be found approximately 11 million kilometers from Earth.
NASA insists Dimorphos doesn’t pose a threat to Earth (and never will). It hopes to use this mission as a demonstration that if the time actually does come, we won’t have to send Bruce Willis and a team to blow up an asteroid.
Instead...We’ll have—in theory—a method for deflecting dangerous asteroids: The idea is that if the satellite hits the asteroid with enough impact, it could change its orbit. It’s the first real-world test of NASA’s planetary defense capabilities.
“The most important thing we want to learn is how we could use such a tool in the future, should the threat arise,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA, told Emerging Tech Brew.
- Zurbuchen said that scientists have only discovered 30%–40% of all asteroids in the solar system that could potentially be a threat to Earth, and further missions should be dedicated to identifying the remainder.
The satellite itself is the brainchild of researchers at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (APL), an R&D arm of Johns Hopkins University, but the project is a broad international, public-private effort.
“Designing and building a spacecraft, oftentimes, you’re not trying to crash it into something,” Betsy Congdon, a mechanical engineer at Johns Hopkins University APL and mechanical lead for the DART mission, told Emerging Tech Brew. “But a lot of the same principles that we do to build any other spacecraft apply."
Click here to read the full story.—JM
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Teamwork without the work. Keeping up with your team in this hybrid/flexible/“In office every third Wednesday” world can feel like a full-time job. That’s why Dialpad has pioneered the all-in-one workspace that unifies ALL your comms. We’re talking SMS + instant messages, voice, and meetings using one app on any device. This is the work-from-anywhere dream your team has been waiting for. Get a product tour of Dialpad here.
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Unsplash
Stat: Following China’s crackdown on crypto mining, 14 companies moved more than 2 million mining rigs to other countries—mostly Russia, the US, Kazakhstan, and Canada, according to the Financial Times.
Quote: “We face a certain tragedy of the commons—there will be orbits that will not be usable on our current path.”—Moriba Jah, professor of aerospace engineering and engineering mechanics at the University of Texas–Austin on the increasingly crowded cosmos
Read: How Facebook and Google reportedly send millions of dollars to global disinformation campaigns.
Video skillz: With Vimeo’s powerful video tools, you can create, edit, share, and stream your content, all from one platform. Customize quality content, and get it all for 25% off—but only until 11/30/21.*
*This is sponsored advertising content.
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Walmart made another drone delivery move in Northwest Arkansas, expanding its existing partnership with DroneUp, after formalizing one with Zipline last week.
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Jay Last, cofounder of the groundbreaking microchip company Fairchild Semiconductor, died at 92.
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Tile, which makes tracking tags, was purchased by Life360, a location-sharing company focused on families.
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Apple is suing the spyware firm NSO Group, which created a way to gain root access to iPhones that was used by governments to spy on journalists, activists, and politicians.
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NIST is seeking public input about eight emerging technologies: AI, IoT in manufacturing, quantum computing, blockchain, new and advanced materials, unmanned delivery services, IoT, and 3D printing.
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Last week, IBM announced it had reached a quantum computing milestone. This week, we’re testing your knowledge of quantum computing.
Click here to take the quiz.—DM
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Catch up with the Brew outside your inbox and check out what’s new on our YouTube Channel:
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Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions:
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Written by
Grace Donnelly and Jordan McDonald
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