Google's biggest buy ever, Tesla staffs back up, Huawei's chip center: Tech news roundup

General Motors’s goal of producing 1 million electric vehicles in North America by the end of next year is mired in doubt after comments from CEO Mary Barra on Monday.

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There was much fanfare at the turn of the decade when rental giant Hertz announced it was investing big to electrify its fleet. The firm and a whole host of other renters spent millions adding Tesla and Polestar models to their fleets, only to start selling them off cheap when the problems started mounting.

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One of China’s main competitors in the chip war has built a research and development center for chips in Shanghai as it faces pressure from U.S. sanctions aimed at curbing its advanced technology efforts. 

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Ohio Senator J.D. Vance introduced a bill during the 1st session of the 118th Congress that would, if passed, cost American taxpayers billions of dollars, run in the face of climate change, and would sell all of us out to the oil and gas industry. Vance, once a critic of Trump’s firebrand “America’s Hitler” image, has cozied up to him in dramatic fashion, reinventing himself from a Never Trumper to MAGA with direct help from Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk. A big part of that reinvention was a shift to climate denialism and Trump-style populism, both of which are on full view in his proposed Drive American Act.

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Tesla is looking to hire more than 800 workers in the U.S. to fill positions in everything from construction and manufacturing to artificial intelligence and robotics, some three months after it initiated a wave of mass layoffs.

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It might be slashing owners’ limbs, bricking in water and failing at basic truck tasks, but that isn’t stopping the Cybertruck’s meteoric rise. After being named the best-selling vehicle over $100,000 just last week, the electric behemoth has now been crowned best selling electric truck in America.

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A major fintech player could be cashing out early investors soon in a major deal. Axios reports that payment processor Stripe might be about to let people who bought into the company 15 years ago sell their shares to the venture capital fund Sequoia Capital in a deal valuing the firm at $70 billion. Though the offer is worth less than the $95 billion valuation that Stripe got in 2021, it’s much higher than the $50 billion valuation that Stripe received last year during a fundraising round.

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California officials are assuming that there will be millions of EVs on California’s roads in the 2030s, so the state needs to get on the ball when it comes to building chargers. However, Calmatters reports that California lofty EV charging goals don’t seem to have a basis in reality.

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As big tech companies from Microsoft to Apple face increasing antitrust scrutiny from the Biden administration, one tech giant is eyeing a major purchase.

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