Good day,
In line with its strategic shift towards the electric vehicle rhetoric, petrochemical giant Shell is installing ultrafast EV chargers across western Europe, in a bid to bolster the continent’s EV infrastructure. The first of these futuristic charging stations is now open for the public at the outskirts of Paris, with Shell planning to install 79 more across various European locations – eight of which are planned in the U.K.
The new charging points can add 150 kms to the driving range of the car in five minutes, and can fully charge the battery within 10 minutes, making it thrice as fast as the regular charging points commercially available today. However, quite ironically, a lot of the current EV models do not have the capability to charge that fast. Porsche’s Taycan, which is expected in the market by 2019, would be one of the first models that can tap into the ultrafast charging possibilities.
Did you know?
Venture-capital firms have invested $3.5 billion in food and grocery delivery services so far this year, more than triple the amount they invested in all of 2017, according to Pitchbook.
Quotable:
“When we look at these countries, on average they get more than 70% of their government revenues from oil and gas. Those are under pressure from prices, they are under pressure from the amount of oil they export and under pressure from population growth … We think it is very different from the past.”
– International Energy Agency (IEA) director Fatih Birol on the over reliance of certain OPEC countries on oil extraction in keeping their economy afloat
In other news:
Petro-states face extinction
The world is already transitioning away from oil as its primary source of energy, and petro-states will soon suffer consequences if they fail to diversify economically. (Oilprice)
Shipping line CMA CGM offers to buyout shareholders of logistics firm
Container shipping firm offers 33% premium for shares of Ceva Logistics. (Wall Street Journal)
Planning paves the way to a truly automated supply chain
Automation itself may not be enough to create a truly touchless supply chain without central planning. (Supply Chain Dive)
Amazon shares sink despite record profit of nearly $3bn
Company sees fourth quarter of profits greater than $1bn but revenue growth is lower than expected. (The Guardian)
U.S. seeks ‘pragmatic’ approach to new marine fuel standards
The United States will seek to develop a proposal with like-minded countries for the May 2019 meeting of the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) environmental body. (Reuters)
Final Thoughts:
As the holiday season beckons, shippers and logistics companies are gearing up to face the surge in freight volumes to avoid nightmarish logjams on its supply chain. Logistics major UPS has announced that it is planning to deliver 800 million packages between Thanksgiving and Christmas, up by 50 million compared to last year. This would mean that more than 30 million packages would pass through its supply chain every day on average.
To handle the swelling volume, UPS is in the process of setting up multiple automated sorting hubs around the U.S., with its capacity increasing seven-fold since 2017. To increase revenue, the company is also jacking up prices on domestic deliveries and adding surcharge on bulky packages – with a 4.8% growth in earnings per package in Q3 attesting to that. The company is working along with shipping behemoths like Amazon to avoid unexpected last minute volume surges and to predict it based on previous trends.
Hammer down, everyone!