9B Friday, April 19, 2024 myRGV.com POWER From Page 10B BENEFITS From Page 10B BOOM From Page 10B JCPENNEY From Page 10B Government electricity use estimates show a ware- house tucked in an industri- al area might be powered by about 50 kilowatts, mainly for lighting and air circula- tion. Setting up 100 chargers in the parking lot could require 10 to 20 times as much power. was different here was this was a new type of electric said Schefter, of the EEI. a really big power requirement in a parking That need could be met relatively quickly if the transmission lines in the area have spare capacity. In areas of the grid that upgrades can take years.
Amazon also learned how to be flexible and how to wait. The company prefers cookie-cutter processes that can be run like a production line. That breaks down in the physical world, where hundreds of last- mile delivery warehouses come in different designs or parking lot layouts, subject to differing local utility proto- cols. was a bit of a surprise, how long we would need to prepare for the lead time for said Chris Atkins, who leads logistics sustainability teams. In 2020, Amazon met with some of the large utilities, who probed the company on how much power it would need and where.
Representatives of Commonwealth Edison, largest power pro- vider, were there. The utility, which was struggling to secure some types of new equipment during the pan- demic, opted to repurpose old transformers for Amazon. were doing some pretty creative stuff internally to make sure that we had what they needed and that we could meet the timelines that they said Diana Sharpe, who deals with large customers at the Exelon com- pany. By the time Rivian began rolling out large quantities of vans during the spring of 2022, ComEd had routed additional power to an Amazon warehouse in Pullman neighbor- hood. CEO stopped by that July for a ribbon cut- ting to announce the vans were hitting the road.
Today, ComEd powers about 1,100 chargers at four Amazon warehouses in greater Chicago. Another lesson Amazon learned is one the company keen to talk about: going green can be expensive, at least initially. Based on the type of chargers Amazon deploys almost entirely mid-tier chargers called Level 2 in the industry the hard- ware likely cost between $50 million and $90 million, according to Bloomberg esti- mates based on cost esti- mates supplied by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Factoring in costs beyond the plugs and related hardware like digging through a parking lot to lay wires or set up electrical pan- els and cabinets could dou- ble that sum. Amazon declined to comment on how much it spent on its EV charging push.
In addition to the expense of the chargers, electric vehi- cle fleet operators are typi- cally on the hook for utility upgrades. When companies request the sort of increases to electrical capacity that Amazon has the Maple Valley warehouse has three megawatts of power for its chargers they tend to pay for them, making the utility whole for work done on behalf of a single customer. Amazon says it pays upgrade costs as determined by utili- ties, but that in some loca- tions the upgrades fit within the standard service power companies will handle out of their own pocket. When Amazon made the Rivian order, people who worked on the program expected that running an electric delivery fleet would eventually be cheaper than the convention- ally fueled fleet, a hodge- podge of bulk-ordered gaso- line and diesel vehicles built by the likes of Ford Motor Mercedes-Benz Group AG, and Stellantis NV. unclear if Amazon is there yet, though Chempananical said Amazon was happy with the price tag of the Rivian vehicles.
of those costs continue to scale he said. usage grows, there's more demand, there's more supply, it gets more efficient and continues to drive to a better Amazon also had to figure out the logistics of charger sharing. not an issue at the Maple Valley ware- house, where 77 electric vans have their pick from among a fleet of 307 level 2 chargers. But other sites have fewer chargers than available vans. Fully charg- ing a van can take several hours, and at first, that cre- ated some headaches.
Amazon initially required the subcontractors who manage van fleets and driv- ers to keep their own staff working overnight to rotate vans among available char- gers. Last fall Amazon brought that work in house, freeing subcontracted work- ers to drive, rather than bab- ysit chargers. need the drivers, at the end of the Chempananical said. contract drivers say they love the vans, which were built for the sometimes punishing, pack- age-every-90-seconds routes and frequent stops. The people who employ the driv- ers Delivery Service Partners have some complaints.
Two West Coast delivery service providers, who asked for anonymity to protect their relationship with Amazon, said body work can cost two or three times as much as conven- tional vehicles, because few body shops are authorized to work on Rivian vans. Spare parts can be hard to come by. Trucking presents a bigger challenge, for Amazon and the industry. Automakers are much farther along in elec- trifying cars and light-duty trucks than the tractors that haul shipping containers from ports and between warehouses (see semi truck, which is still in pilot production years after being unveiled). Bug-eyed Rivian electric vans are a common sight crisscrossing major cit- ies like Seattle, Los Angeles, New York and their suburbs.
But the communities that host the massive warehouses further up the supply chain, often poorer precincts in like northeast places Pennsylvania or Inland Empire, have yet to see the same benefits of elec- trification. In the post-pandemic cost cutting drives, Amazon has delayed and shelved some trucking- related and other so-called sustainability investments, according to a person familiar with the matter. David Zalubowski AP A Rivian electric van delivers packages for Amazon Prime Friday, Aug. 4, 2023, in Thornton, Colo. Mullen noted a few times during a briefing that the program is free.
Last week Target followed Amazon and Walmart with a new paid membership program called Target Circle 360 with perks such as free shipping and discount coupons instead of cash back. Target, Walmart and Amazon charge fees for their membership. $500 million cash back estimate is sepa- rate from the $1 billion spending program, Mullen said. So far, JCPenney has refreshed more than 100 stores and last week relo- cated a Wayne, N.J., store into the Willowbrook Mall, representing the first new store that JCPenney has opened in eight years. The retailer has also been speeding up its average delivery time to online shoppers.
It has a new point-of-sale system in stores. are pleased with the result we are seeing so Mullen said. Revenue at JCPenney declined in the nine months ended Oct. 28 to $4.85 billion. It swung to a loss of $12 million from a profit of $173 million during the same period in 2022, according to a filing by Copper Property, the liqui- dating trust led by Capital Partners that was established for debt holders during the Chapter 11 bankruptcy case.
Dallas-based Sixth Street Capital is also an owner of the trust. Since emerging from bankruptcy in December 2020, JCPenney has been paying rent of about $100 million per year on stores it used to own but were trans- ferred into the trust. Full-year results for fiscal 2024 ended in January been reported. For the year ended January 2023, JCPenney posted a 3.4% decline in revenue to $7.6 billion and a profit of $219 million. The operating company that runs JCPenney stores is now owned by its two largest landlords, Simon Property Group and Brookfield Asset Management.
Black entrepreneurs made up of new busi- ness owners in 2023, dou- ble the rate seen before the pandemic. Hispanic entrepreneurs made up of new owners, com- pared to last year. Meanwhile, more busi- nesses are being started as or business- es that supplement day jobs. Forty-four percent of entrepreneurs who started a new business in 2023 did so while working another job, either part time or full time, up from in 2022. Last month, U.S.
employ- ers added a surprising 303,000 jobs, yet another example of the U.S. econo- my's resilience in the face of high interest rates. The unemployment rate dipped from 3.9% to 3.8% and has now remained below for 26 straight months, the lon- gest such streak since the 1960s. Though layoffs remain at low levels, companies have been announcing more job cuts recently, mostly across technology and media. Google parent company Alphabet, Apple, eBay, TikTok, Snap, Amazon, Cisco Systems and the Los Angeles Times have all recently announced layoffs.
Outside of tech and media, UPS, Macy's, Tesla and Levi Strauss also have recently cut jobs. In total, 1.81 million Americans were collecting jobless benefits during the week that ended April 6, an increase of 2,000 from the previous week. BY DANA HULL AND ANDERS MELIN BLOOMBERG NEWS Tesla Inc. will ask share- holders to vote again on the same $56 billion compensa- tion package for Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk that was voided by a Delaware court early this year. In its proxy filing issued Wednesday, Tesla also said it will call a vote on moving the state of incorpo- ration to Texas from Delaware.
The carmaker will convene its annual meeting on June 13. Robyn Tesla Chair Denholm criticized the Delaware Chancery January decision, writing in the proxy that it had effec- tively second-guessed share- holders who approved performance-based award in 2018. Chief Judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick described the directors as servants of an overweening and said they looked out for the best interests of investors.
the Delaware Court second-guessed your decision, Elon has not been paid for any of his work for Tesla for the past six years that has helped to generate significant growth and stock- holder Denholm wrote to investors. The shareholder who sued Tesla over the com- pensation criticized it as excessive and opaque. Musk, who runs six companies, said early this year he preferred to work on artificial intelligence and robotics products else- where unless he owns a stake in Tesla. He currently owns about of the com- pany, according to data com- piled by Bloomberg. Tesla shares fell shortly after the start of regular trad- ing.
The stock has tumbled this year as an expected slowdown has given way to a surprise drop in vehicle deliveries. Earlier this week, the company announced plans to cut global head- count by more than and two senior executives left. Special Committee board formed a spe- cial committee this year con- sisting of director Kathleen Wilson-Thompson and a group of advisers to deter- mine two things: whether it should remain incorporated in Delaware, and whether to call another shareholder ref- erendum on pay con- currently with a vote on a possible reincorporation in a different state. In a written report, the committee said the votes ought to be done in parallel. Otherwise, the effort to move corporate domicile could be wrongly seen as a way to possibly grant Musk a new pay package that he get in Delaware.
Negotiating a new pay package would take time and lead to incurring billions of dollars in additional com- pensation expense, the filing said. Ratifying the 2018 pack- age will be faster and a prolonged period of uncer- tainty regarding most important The special report noted that Tesla and the other defendants in the Delaware case plan to appeal the ruling. The new referendum will let investors for themselves if they think compensation is fair, in light of what he achieved and its impact on $56B pay again Kirsty Wigglesworth WPA Pool Getty TNS Tesla and SpaceX's CEO Elon Musk during an in-conversation event with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at Lancaster House on Nov. 2, 2023, in London. BY ALEX VEIGA AP BUSINESS WRITER LOS ANGELES The spring homebuying sea- son is off to a sluggish start as home shoppers con- tend with elevated mort- gage rates and rising pric- es.
Sales of previously occu- pied U.S. homes fell 4.3% in March from the previ- ous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.19 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. That's the first monthly decline in sales since December and follows a nearly monthly sales jump in February. Existing home sales also fell 3.7% compared with March last year. The latest sales still came in slightly higher than the 4.16 mil- lion pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet.
A modest pullback in mortgage rates early this year helped lift home sales in January and February, but rates mostly ticked up in February and March, when many of the home sales that were finalized last month would have taken place. Mortgage rates have risen the past three weeks, with the average rate on a 30-year mortgage moving this week above to its highest level since late November, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. The trend is a setback for home shoppers this spring homebuying sea- son, traditionally the housing market's busiest time of the year. "Home sales essentially remain stuck because (the) mortgage rate has been stable and inventory is not really rising," said Lawrence Yun, the NAR's chief economist. Despite the pullback in sales, the national median home sales price climbed 4.8% from a year earlier to $393,500.
That's the high- est median sales price for any March on records going back to 1999 and marks the ninth month in a row that prices have risen compared to a year earlier. The latest surge in pric- es reflects the heightened competition many home shoppers are facing. Consider, of homes purchased in March sold within less than a month of hitting the market. And of homes sold above their initial list price, up from in March last year, Yun said. "Inventory is simply not there," he said.
While the supply of homes on the market remains below the histori- cal average, the typical increase in homes for sale that happens ahead of the spring homebuying sea- son gave home shoppers a wider selection of proper- ties to choose from. At the end of last month, there were 1.11 million unsold homes on the mar- ket, a 4.7% increase from February and up 14.4% from a year earlier, the NAR said. That's still well short of the 1.7 million homes on the market in March 2019, before the pandemic. The available inventory at the end of last month amounted to a 3.2-month supply, going by the cur- rent sales pace. That's up from a 2.9-month supply in February and a 2.7- month supply in March last year.
In a more bal- anced market between buyers and sellers, there is a 4- to 5-month supply. That shortage of homes on the market means home sellers generally having an edge on buyers, especially those vying for affordable the most homes, which often fetch multiple offers. The U.S. housing mar- ket is coming off a deep, 2-year sales slump trig- gered by a sharp rise in mortgage rates and a dearth of homes on the market. Tesla asks investors to approve Sluggish start for spring homebuying as home sales fall Gene J.
Puskar AP A housing development in Cranberry Township, is shown on March 29, 2024..
