Spy photos of the Mercedes-Benz EQS flagship EV were captured this week. The images are a reminder that Daimler is moving step by step toward an entire electric lineup – while the EV world fixates on the glittering Cybertruck. The Mercedes EQS large sedan (and EQC crossover before it) are paving the way to models that roughly line up against the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y.

Written By: Bradley Berman - Dec. 8th 2019 6:35 pm ET

The all-electric Mercedes EQS slots in size between an E-Class and S-Class. So the EQS theoretically competes against the Tesla Model S, which is dwindling in importance. But the Tesla model that’s eating everybody’s lunch in the US luxury car market is the Model 3.

The next wave of electric crossovers is unlikely to slow down the Model 3’s domination. Bloomberg reported last month:

In the U.S., Tesla’s sedan has taken over the luxury class, outselling the category-defining BMW 3 Series and Mercedes Benz C-Class combined. And it’s doing so at a higher price: The average Model 3 goes for around $50,000, which is more than any of the top 10 vehicles that buyers traded in from other brands, according to responses to Bloomberg’s Model 3 owners survey. No other sedan in America is generating more revenue.

Meanwhile, the Tesla Model 3 is beating out less costly EVs available across the globe, as seen by this chart from our friends at CleanTechnica:

The $67,900 Mercedes-Benz EQC SUV will arrive by mid-2020. Then the EQS full-size sedan arrives. Only then will the battle lines be drawn.

At that point, we’ll know better if Tesla will own the luxury EV market for many years to come – or if the likes of Mercedes-Benz will begin to even out the electric-car market between Tesla and legacy automakers.

Carscoops’s new spy shots revealed the EQS in production rather than concept form. Its instrumentation mimics the next-generation S-Class. Combine Mercedes’s top-notch interior appointments and build quality with a driving range around 300 miles. Two variants promise a choice between a base model granting 400 horsepower and an AMG version boosting the powertrain to 600 hp. But the EQS electric sedan is in a low-volume category of expensive limousines.

You can imagine that the EQS was probably first planned in response to the Model S. Since then, the EV market took a giant turn with the Model 3. Keep in mind that the EQS will be followed in the next year or two by the EQA hatch, EQB SUV, EQE sedan, and a full-size EQG 4×4.

Mercedes-Benz QA concept

The low-slung EQA hatch is the closest thing (although obviously not an exact match) to the Model 3 sedan in the Mercedes electric lineup. It will probably offer multiple battery-pack options, the largest of which could have about 250 miles on a charge.

So the importance of any news about the much larger EQS is how it reveals that Mercedes-Benz is getting warmed up with EVs. Daimler needs to move fast, produce in high volumes, and offer headline-grabbing price points. Or it could be too late to catch up to Tesla.

As we noted about the EQC, new lookalike electric crossovers from Audi, BMW, and Mercedes don’t get much love. Not when the Cybertruck dominates the conversation. Tesla masterfully owns the EV zeitgeist, making it similarly difficult for the EQS flagship to make even a small splash.

But let’s keep our eye on Mercedes, especially if it can execute on one vehicle after the next until it has an entire showroom full of luxury EVs.

Electrek’s Take

Car companies are competitive. They don’t let the competition take away sales without putting up a fight. Daimler is investing $11.8 billion in the brand’s electric fleet and $1.2 billion in battery-production.

The Model 3 has a massive lead. The Model Y could also be a hit. But Mercedes appears to be clawing its way into the EV market with an electric crossover followed by a powerful, long-range flagship sedan. Then the EQA arrives as a litmus test to see if luxury buyers might see the EQA and EQB as a worthwhile alternative to the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y. It might be tough considering the advantage represented by the Supercharger network.

Nonetheless, the EQ brand, and to a lesser extent BMW and Audi electrics, are the only thing standing in the way of Tesla’s long-term dominance in the luxury market.

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About the Author

Bradley Berman

Bradley writes about electric cars, autonomous vehicles, smart homes, and other tech that’s transforming society. He contributes to The New York Times, SAE International, Via magazine, Popular Mechanics, MIT Technology Review, and others. (READ MORE)

Regina King presents the award for Artist of the Year to Taylor Swift at 'The 2019 American Music Awards.' Watch performances and highlights from the 2019 AMAs on ABC.com and in the ABC app! (READ MORE)

By Mark Matousek Dec 5, 2019, 9:54 AM

TSLA TSLA 337.69 4.49 (1.30 %) Disclaimer

• Fulfilling customer orders and installing more solar products are Tesla CEO Elon Musk's two biggest priorities for the electric-car maker for the end of this year, Musk said Wednesday in an internal email obtained by Business Insider.
• "The first is making sure all cars are delivered to their customers before end of year," Musk said of his priorities for December. "The second, just as important, is that we immediately increase the rate of solar deployments by a significant degree."
• In October, Tesla said it expected to set another quarterly delivery record during the final three months of this year.
• Sales of Tesla's solar products, which include traditional solar panels and roof tiles with solar cells inside, have largely declined since the company acquired SolarCity in 2016, though they grew during the third quarter.
• Sign up for Business Insider's transportation newsletter, Shifting Gears, to get more stories like this in your inbox.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Fulfilling customer orders and installing more solar products are Tesla CEO Elon Musk's two biggest priorities for the electric-car maker for the end of this year, Musk said Wednesday in an internal email obtained by Business Insider. Electrek's Fred Lambert first reported the contents of the email.

"The first is making sure all cars are delivered to their customers before end of year," Musk said of his priorities for December. "The second, just as important, is that we immediately increase the rate of solar deployments by a significant degree."

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The company has tended to increase the rate of vehicle deliveries at the end of a quarter, sometimes seeking help from employees who work outside of its sales and delivery division. In its third-quarter earnings letter, published in October, Tesla said it expected to set another quarterly delivery record during the final three months of this year. The company delivered 97,000 vehicles during the third quarter.

Sales of Tesla's solar products, which include traditional solar panels and roof tiles with solar cells inside, have largely declined since Tesla acquired the solar company SolarCity in 2016, though they grew during the third quarter. The solar-roof tiles have been subject to significant delays during the past three years. Tesla introduced a standardized online ordering system for the solar panels this year, saying it would lower prices. (READ MORE)

By Alexandra Pauly, Hypebae 

Reebok

• Reebok has designed a vegan running shoe made with plant-based materials, such as eucalyptus tree, castor bean, and algae.
• The Forever Floatride GROW shoe is set to be available in Fall 2020.
• The Forever Floatride GROW follows two other designs of plant-based shoes previously released by Reebok.
• "With Forever Floatride GROW, we're replacing oil-based plastic with plants," Bill McInnis, the vice president of Reebok Future, said in a press release.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Reebok has announced an upcoming plant-based performance shoe, the Forever Floatride GROW, a major innovation in sustainable footwear. Following the brand's vegan Cotton + Corn collection, the forthcoming shoe updates Reebok's Forever Floatride Energy by replacing traditional materials with natural alternatives including castor bean oil, eucalyptus tree, algae, and natural rubber.

Reebok

Constructed of a white knit upper, the sneaker is rendered in a neutral color palette. Reebok's signature stripes in beige adorn the lateral, while a fabric Reebok-branded tab in mustard brown is attached to the tongue. Floatride branding appears at the medial heel. A white midsole, gum rubber outsole, and beige laces finish off the shoe.

Reebok's Forever Floatride GROW is set to launch Fall 2020. Stay tuned as more information emerges.

(READ MORE)

By SAL PIZARRO | spizarro@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group

After leading The Tech through a period of evolution and growth, President and CEO Tim Ritchie will be leaving the science center in January to take the helm at the prestigious Museum of Science in Boston.

Ritchie, 58, is wistful about leaving San Jose and the Bay Area, but he says that he’s proud of how far the Tech has come since he arrived in October 2011.

“When I came here, I knew that the mission to inspire the innovator in everyone was so full of potential. It was just a steady drum beat over these 8¼ years to help people express that on the exhibit floor and out in the community,” Ritchie said. “Whenever we could, we said the most important word in that mission statement is ‘everyone.’ ”

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, who was the downtown councilman when Ritchie came on board, said it’s a big loss for the community. “San Jose has been blessed to have such a creative and inspirational leader at the helm of the Tech Interactive, and while I hate seeing Tim go I know he’ll be a tremendous force for good in Boston and beyond,” he said.

  

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During Ritchie’s tenure, the Tech has undergone changes both subtle and dramatic, the most obvious — altering its name from the Tech Museum of Innovation to the Tech Interactive this past May. But the Tech also moved away from large traveling exhibits to refreshing the permanent exhibits at the distinctive mango-and-azure structure in downtown San Jose.

Gone are shows on Leonardo da Vinci and “Star Trek” — while popular with visitors, most of the shows ended up losing money for the Tech — and in are new interactive experiences like the BioDesign Studio, CyberDetectives, and Body Worlds Decoded. Under Ritchie, the annual Tech Awards transformed into the year-round Tech for Global Good program. (READ MORE)

By PYMNTS

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said the ride-hailing company could potentially offer courier services for retail businesses in the future, according to a report by Reuters.

Khosrowshahi was speaking at a meeting at the Economic Club of New York, and he talked about his tenure at the head of Uber, a position he took in 2017. When asked about the future of the business, he said he could see it expanding into the courier sector.

“We can extend that [food delivery] model to essentially every single local retailer, so that anything you want in New York City can be delivered to you, hopefully in under 30 minutes,” Khosrowshahi said.

In October, Uber bought a majority stake in Cornershop, a Chilean online grocery provider. The company wanted to expand its delivery service to include groceries and other goods, although it’s not known whether that model will work in other places.

In other Uber news, Uber and American Express have partnered to offer businesses rewards whenever they pay for rides using a corporate American Express Card.

Riders who use a business profile in the Uber app and pay with their corporate Amex card will earn 2 to 6 points per dollar.

Under the partnership, reward benefits will double, jumping to two times on Uber Pool, four times on Uber X, and six times on Uber Black. After hitting 500 points, users can choose a reward, like $5 in Uber cash or no Uber Eats delivery fees.

Amex corporate Gold and Platinum cardholders will also get priority pickups at most U.S. airports. Platinum cardholders get an additional benefit of getting the most highly-rated drivers available.

Businesses with more than one corporate cardholder can pool the points earned, or allow employees to keep the points.

Uber points earned with a corporate card are also counted toward earning an Uber Rewards status. Gold status starts at 500 points and maxes out with Diamond status, which requires 7,500 points. (READ MORE)

In the first half of 2020, the Alexa voice experience will be added to model year 2018 and newer cars, trucks and crossovers with compatible infotainment systems.

GM and Amazon have worked together to further integrate customers’ digital lives into their vehicles with the in-vehicle Amazon Alexa voice experience. Similar to Alexa assisting with tasks around your home, soon millions of Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac customers can use Alexa skills in their vehicles.

“GM’s updateable app framework and vehicle connectivity lets us provide customers with new technologies that enhance the ownership experience, even to customers with vehicles that are already on the road,” said Santiago Chamorro, vice president for Global Connected Services, GM.

 

Alexa Voice Experience Features

With the in-vehicle Alexa voice experience, customers can use voice commands to help complete tasks in several different categories:

• Navigation – Ask Alexa to get directions to a specific address or point of interest, such as a vehicle dealer, or just ask for nearby coffee shops. Alexa seamlessly integrates with compatible, embedded navigation systems in the vehicle or available OnStar Turn-by-Turn navigation using natural language.
• Media – Ask Alexa to play a specific song, artist, genre, or station, as well as audiobooks or podcasts. Alexa can fulfill the request by bringing up available streaming services.
• Calling – Drivers can ask Alexa to call friends and family using their voice when they pair their phone via Bluetooth and share their contacts with Amazon.

This collaboration represents the broadest rollout of an embedded Alexa Auto experience to date. In 2018, GM launched Key by Amazon In-Car Delivery and home-to-vehicle Amazon skills, available on millions of Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac vehicles.

On the heels of the company’s announcement to bring Google assistant technology to GM vehicles in 2021, the in-vehicle Alexa experience is another example of how GM is listening to customers’ feedback and offering them the voice technology of their choice. (READ MORE)

PUBLISHED TUE, DEC 3 20194:34 PM EST - By Lauren Feiner@LAUREN_FEINER

Alphabet CEO Larry Page announced Tuesday that he will step down from the position. Google CEO Sundar Pichai will take over as CEO of the parent company in addition to his current role. Co-founder Sergey Brin will also step down as president of Alphabet and the role will be eliminated.

Alphabet’s stock was up as much as 0.8% after hours.

“With Alphabet now well-established, and Google and the Other Bets operating effectively as independent companies, it’s the natural time to simplify our management structure,” Page and Brin wrote in a blog post announcing the change. “We’ve never been ones to hold on to management roles when we think there’s a better way to run the company. And Alphabet and Google no longer need two CEOs and a President.”

Page became CEO of Alphabet in 2015 when Google reorganized to form the new parent company to oversee its “Other Bets” outside of its main search and digital ads businesses. Page had previously served as CEO of Google. Under the new structure, Pichai became CEO of Google after effectively running much of the business as Page had taken a step back to focus on big picture endeavors. Pichai had previously led Android and Chrome at the company.

WATCH NOW VIDEO07:46 Larry Page to step down as Alphabet CEO, Pichai to take over

Both Page and Brin will remain “actively involved” as members of Alphabet’s board, according to the letter. The co-founders still have controlling voting shares of the company. Page holds about 5.8% of Alphabet shares, Brin controls about 5.6% and Pichai holds about 0.1%, ensuring the new CEO may still be challenged by the company’s founders. Google said its voting structure is not changing in light of the announcement.

Alphabet may need to lean more heavily on its other bets, which include companies like Waymo and Verily, as its core digital advertising business run by Google shows signs of slowing down. Google showed slowing ad revenue in its first quarter of 2019 and lower profit compared to the previous year during the third quarter. The company has still struggled to generate significant revenue in hardware, although its cloud business is growing. (READ MORE)

By Nalak Das Zacks December 4, 2019 Retail is the only major sector in which a few big corporates are yet to declare results this reporting cycle. Despite several microeconomic, macroeconomic and geopolitical headwinds, third-quarter earnings were not as weak as expected initially. However, overall earnings are still expected to dip.

At present, total third-quarter earnings for the S&P 500 Index are expected to be down 1.8% from the prior-year period while revenues are expected to increase 4.3%. This indicates improvement from an earnings decline of 5% on 4.2% higher revenues, expected at the beginning of the reporting cycle.

Retail Sales in Q3

Overall retail sales in the third quarter of 2019 were mixed. In the first two months of the period, retail sales grew 0.8% and 0.6%, respectively. However, in September, retail sales declined 0.3%. In fact, a decline was noted for the first time since February.

Core retail sales in September (excluding automobiles, gasoline, building materials and food service) decreased 0.1% against an increase of 0.2% in August. However, year over year, retail sales increased 4.1% in September.

Meanwhile, U.S. consumer spending remained firm and is driving the country's GDP. In the third quarter of 2019, the U.S. economy grew 2.1%, surpassing the consensus estimate of 1.6%, primarily buoyed by a 2.9% increase in consumer spending. Household spending rose a seasonally adjusted 0.2% in September from August.

Additionally, after a slump in September, retail sales picked up in October, rising 0.3% and beating the consensus estimate of growth of 0.2%.

4 Retailers Poised to Beat Earnings Estimates

Below are four stocks set to beat earnings estimates this time around. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) increases the chances of an earnings beat. Each of our picks carries either a Zacks Rank # 1 or 2 and has a positive Earnings ESP. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. (READ MORE)

By Odie Henderson

Jared, with the Three D’Artagnans. Photo: Eddy Chen/HBO

Greetings from Las Vegas, the perfect place from which to report on the penultimate episode of Silicon Valley! After all, Sin City has a role in perhaps the best sight gag in the show’s history. For this, we have writer Carrie Kemper to thank. Kemper wrote two of my favorite episodes of the series — season three’s “Bachman’s Earning’s Over-Ride” and season four’s love letter to fans, “Intellectual Property” — and “RussFest” not only finds her indulging her penchant for putting characters in hilariously ugly costumes, it also features yet another of her heart-wrenching monologues. Maybe it’s the Vegas booze talking, but I found myself getting a little misty-eyed this week. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, so let me tell you all about what’s going on a few hundred miles north of here at RussFest. We begin with the final Pied Piper implementation meeting. Russ interrupts, pointing out that his new logo contains his punctuation-based obsession, three commas. Also at the meeting is Michael from AT&T. “Crazy Town is gonna be there and so is Puddle of Mudd,” an enthusiastic Russ tells him, but his attempts to impress fall flat; the Ma Bell employee has no idea who Puddle of Mudd is. Full disclosure: Neither did I, but YouTube fixed that. In fact, I’m writing this paragraph while listening to this. After the meeting, Michael informs Richard that AT&T has signed with competitor YaoNet USA. Dinesh and Gilfoyle arrive just in time to hear this information. “Richard, people in there have been working themselves to death in there for weeks with no pay!” says Dinesh. While Gilfoyle looks at Richard with stoic ambivalence, Dinesh the coward adds, “I’m gonna wait out here while you go in there and tell them.” “I’m not gonna say anything,” says Richard. “If I do, we won’t make it to RussFest.” Once again, Richard has decided to walk the left-hand path, and as usual, dire consequences accompany his deception. “When this goes bad, I’ll cover your ass if you cover mine,”  says Dinesh to Gilfoyle. “No,” says Gilfoyle. When things go bad later in this episode, Dinesh won’t be able to cover his own ass. Attempting to boost company morale while hiding the AT&T outcome, Richard dresses in a hideous hoodie designed to look like knight armor and speaks to his employees as if he were at a Renaissance Fair. He engages Becky and Owen, who are in charge of cashless payments and authentication respectively. Queen Becky, as Richard calls her, is being driven mad by Russ’ bonkers ideas about festival currency. “Russ thinks everyone should be a billionaire,” she tells Richard. Every dollar spent will be represented by one billion Russ Bucks. “So a sandwich will cost $15 billion Russ Bucks?” asks Richard. Not exactly. Russ is charging $14,999,999,999.99 for a sandwich “because he thought that would sound cheaper.” Next, Richard addresses Gabe to determine the status of the ticketing system. “It’s gone,” says Dinesh’s least favorite co-worker. “For some reason, Gilfoyle deleted the whole thing.” The drone system has also been deleted, a fact Gilfoyle reveals he knows as soon as Richard confronts him. He informs Richard that he tasked Son of Anton, his A.I. component, with debugging code in order to save time. Faced with what it perceived was inferior code, Gilfoyle’s A.I. has gone full HAL. “It’s possible that Son of Anton thought the best way to get rid of all the bugs was to get rid of all the software, which is technically and statistically correct,” explains Gilfoyle. “But artificial neuronets are sort of a black box, so we’ll never know.” I need Son of Anton to deal with all the bugs in my code from now on! Alas, I don’t think I want S of A ordering lunch for me; when tasked with finding cheap hamburgers for lunch, the A.I. ordered 4,000 pounds of meat. Jared asks for a tête-à-tête while Richard makes space in the office fridge for all those burgers. We learn that Holden “acted like a bitch and quit” and that Gwart is now working for Professional Badass Laurie Bream at YaoNet, thereby making her “the enemy.” “I don’t think about her,” he assures Richard, which is clearly a lie. Their moment is interrupted by Russ, who wants approval for his hologram to very personally engage with the audience. “My hologram can 100 percent dry hump festival-goers from behind if they ask for it!” he yells to the programmer creating it. “Hashtag woke!” RussFest gets built in a very cool time-lapse sequence that segues into Festival Day. Richard checks all the computer systems while wearing a ridiculous floppy hat that bears a slight resemblance to the one Prince’s Christopher Tracy wore in Under the Cherry Moon. In addition to dealing with all the technical problems that will befall this endeavor, Richard will also deal with an increasingly neurotic Russ. Several times, Russ will interrupt the Pied Piper team in crisis to seek approval for his increasingly bonkers attire. Costume designer Christina Mongini easily earns this week’s MVP award for her contributions. While Russ freaks out about his couture, Jared keeps hallucinating Gwart in items shaped like her. Turns out Gwart is not only really there, she’s apparently a YaoNet spy. Competitor sabotage may explain why PiperNet is experiencing deterioration of service. Things get much worse when Maximo and Michael appear on TV to announce the AT&T–YaoNet deal, forcing Owen and Becky to resign over Richard’s lies. A pathetic Dinesh tries to side with the betrayed others, but only winds up embarrassing himself. In order to keep RussFest running, Richard, Gilfoyle, and Dinesh will have to stay up for 72 straight hours to man all the systems. Back at Pied Piper HQ, someone keeps calling reception to inquire about the “Pied Piper Girls Club.” “Ask Priyanka,” says Monica, “That sounds like her bag of bullshit.” But it’s not; the caller says Eric Bachmann referred her. “Whoa! T.J. Miller’s coming back?” I thought, despite the misnaming, but then I remembered that Jian-Yang is the new Erlich. Monica arrives at Hacker Hostel to discover a fake Amazon review farm staffed by underage girls. “Call your mothers!” Monica yells before shutting down the illegal operation. As Monica walks to her car, Richard calls Jian-Yang to see if the Pied Piper code he plagiarized for YaoNet had a backdoor mandated by the Chinese government. It does, but Jian-Yang refuses to offer up the SSH key for it. “Your white witch shut down my business!” he says. Richard calls that white witch (notice that both she and Jian-Yang have Richard listed under “Bitchard” in their phones), sending her back to negotiate. Monica tries sweet talking to no avail. Her next option is violence, but as she’s whipping Jian-Yang’s ass, he swallows the paper with the SSH key on it. But Big Head, who has been playing games of Simon the entire season, has seen the key and can sing it in its entirety. Richard hears Big Head’s song and enters the key, to no avail — the key unlocks a honey pot, that is, a false shell that does nothing. The team needs to find the exact port YaoNet is exploiting to shut them down, leading Jared to appeal to Gwart via her favorite lunch of raw artichoke and mayonnaise. “I need this information to save my sanity,” Jared tells her. “Because if I was wrong about who you are, then I don’t know who I am.” Gwart is unmoved until Laurie eats her artichoke! She sends the info to Richard, but it doesn’t help. PiperNet degrades even more once YaoNet’s kicked off. Richard confronts a hastily exiting Laurie, who tells him the awful truth: There was no sabotage, and the degradation is a tech problem. YaoNet does not scale, and neither will PiperNet. Hearing this, Richard does what every software developer has considered: He jumps up and down on his laptop while screaming obscenities. “Six fucking years we wasted building this worthless piece of shit!” he cries before locking himself in the bathroom. While Richard broods, Gilfoyle tries Russ’s Tres Comas Tequila brand and finds that it’s fantastic. Also fantastic is Richard’s bathroom coding expedition. He’s taken Gilfoyle’s computer and reengineered Son of Anton to serve his middle-out code, thereby creating another A.I. that learns how to optimize itself. Congratulations, Richard, you’ve invented SkyNet! Gilfoyle takes the laptop only to discover it isn’t his. It’s Dinesh’s! Turns out that Dinesh had fiddled with Son of Anton before this, and the collaboration of all three coders made PiperNet not only work but run stronger than ever. RussFest is a raging success! “You are like the Three Musketeers of code,” says Jared, “But you are all D’Artagnan!” (READ MORE)