According to transportation industry speakers at the Long Beach Port Pulse of the Port Seminar, last year’s peak shipping season fell 800,000 containers short of the expected volume, handling 5.6 million TEUs compared to the expected 6.4 million. Based on last year’s retail sales, an increase in imports of 7 percent would be expected, yet [...]
We picked up on a subtle change in the marketing strategy Apple used this weekend for deploying and launching the newest version of the iPad – with great, great success. We’ve all read about the successful launch of the iPad today and all over the world the iPad has sold extremely well. Apple didn’t launch [...]
There isn’t a lot of news to tell about the BDI, accept for the fact that it is “inching upward” of late. This is a three year chart of the BDI showing a bit of the volatility that we have seen. The latest reading on the BDI shows that it climbed to 812 points in [...]
U.S. auto sales posted an excellent month in February, showing the highest annual rate (15.1 million seasonally-adjusted) since February 2008—right before gas prices skyrocketed. Total sales were 1.15 million, up 16% year over year. Car sales were[This content is for MEMBERS ONLY. Please click Subscribe in the upper right corner to continue.]
Envia Systems, a startup with funding from GM’s venture capital segment and the Department of Energy, has created a battery that could drastically lower the cost of electric vehicles, while simultaneously increasing the amount of charge. To put it into a single-vehicle context, Envia estimates an EV with their battery would cost around $20,000 and [...]
Retail sales in Japan were up in 1.9% in January over the same month last year, in a much-needed sign of economic strength. Car sales in particular were up by 24%, and accounted for most of the retail growth as they account for 10% of the total retail sector in Japan. The improvement is notable [...]
The Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Alabama recently released an economic analysis of the state’s new, controversial immigration policies. The new laws went into effect in September and contained [This content is for MEMBERS ONLY. Please click Subscribe in the upper right corner to continue.]
Yesterday Italy announced that it would reduce its orders of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter from 131 to 90, reducing its spend by $6.6 billion. Recently the U.K. has said it will wait [This content is for MEMBERS ONLY. Please click Subscribe in the upper right corner to continue.]
It will become easier for online retailers to do business direct to consumer thanks to a move that UPS made overnight (pun intended). It was the acquisition of a firm in Europe called Kiala, a small company with only 120 employees. This one probably went unnoticed – but it’s significant. Let’s cover briefly a bit [...]
The price of lithium-ion batteries is the main driver of cost in electric vehicles and one the largest factors impacting adoption of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar (which require power storage to maintain a consistent supply during non-generating hours.) The price of the batteries appears to be dropping considerable. Just over two[This [...]
