Friday, May 30, 2014

México lidera exportación mundial de alimentos (Cámara de Uruguay)

Cerveza de malta, tomate fresco y aguacate son los tres principales productos alimenticios que México exportó en 2013. Le siguen el tequila, el azúcar de caña y las zarzamoras (berries), muestran datos del Sistema de Información Agroalimentaria y Pesquera (SIAP).


En total son 20 productos mexicanos de exportación los que se encuentran en alguno de los tres primeros lugares de consumo mundial, mismos que representan 80 por ciento de las ventas de agroproductos que se hacen al exterior.

De esta forma, México es el principal país exportador del sector agroalimentario del mundo en productos como cerveza, tomate, chiles y pimientos, además de sandía, pepino, limón, aguacate, cebolla, tequila y papaya, entre otros.

El país ocupa el segundo lugar en el orbe en venta de espárragos, garbanzo, nuez sin cáscara, artículos de confitería y col; y el tercero en berenjena, aceite de sésamo, miel, fresa, espinaca, jugo de naranja, apio y café descafeinado, detalla el organismo de análisis y recopilación de datos de la Secretaría de Agricultura, Ganadería, Desarrollo Rural, Pesca y Alimentación (Sagarpa).

Datos del SIAP especifican que sólo la cerveza de malta, el azúcar, el tomate y el aguacate, concentran uno de cada cuatro dólares generados por las exportaciones agropecuarias y agroindustriales.


Sólo de la cerveza, que capta uno de cada diez dólares provenientes de las ventas al extranjero, una quinta parte de su producción total se coloca en el exterior.

También destaca el tomate, de cuya producción total, nueve de cada diez kilos van a parar a los mercados internacionales. En cuanto a la producción de aguacate, que es uno de los más emblemáticos cultivos nacionales, se envía una tercera parte al extranjero, siendo México uno de los principales productores en todo el mundo.

Más de 20 mil mdd anuales

Expertos coinciden en que México se ha consolidado como un importante centro de producción y distribución de alimentos a nivel mundial, debido a que el país cuenta con ventajas competitivas y comparativas como climas idóneos durante todo el año, además de que la estructura de costos es mucho más competitiva con respecto a la de otros países.

Tan sólo en los últimos 10 años, las exportaciones de bienes agroalimentarios triplicaron su valor, al pasar de 8 mil 190 millones de dólares en 2003, a 24 mil 409 millones al cierre de 2013, lo que representó 3 por ciento más que lo registrado en 2012, cuando se ubicó en 23 mil 790 millones de dólares.

De esas exportaciones, más de 75 por ciento se destina al mercado de Estados Unidos, principal socio comercial de México y el mercado más grande a nivel mundial; seguido por Japón con aproximadamente 3.5 por ciento y a otros 19 países que concentran 17.2 por ciento.


En los últimos cinco años, México ha exportado un promedio de 20 mil millones de dólares en productos agroalimentarios debido a que tiene un lugar importante en el comercio internacional de hortalizas, legumbres y frutas, a la vez que ocupa el tercer lugar mundial como exportador de estos alimentos, después de China y España, y aporta una de cada diez toneladas comercializadas en el mundo; además es el octavo exportador de frutos comestibles, de acuerdo con datos recabados por la Sagarpa con base en el Departamento de Comercio de Estados Unidos.

La meta: diversificación

De acuerdo con Georgius Gotsis Fontes, coordinador de Promoción Comercial y Fomento a las Exportaciones de la Agencia de Servicios a la Comercialización y Desarrollo de Mercados Agropecuarios (Aserca), México tiene una gran oportunidad para seguir diversificando sus mercados a los que va a exportar, lo cual se ha logrado a través de la promoción de los productos y la participación de los productores mexicanos en ferias internacionales.

Tan sólo durante 2014 se espera la participación en más de 65 ferias, de ellas 50 por ciento son internacionales y para las cuales Aserca destina un presupuesto de 180 millones de pesos beneficiando a más de dos mil 300 productores, de esos, 660 cuentan con todas las credenciales, permisos y certificaciones para poder exportar

Thursday, May 29, 2014

8 more Apps changing the Food Industry (2nd.Part)



GoPure In order to be more transparent about the food industry, GoPurehelps you search for restaurants that have sustainable food practices and help the community. Search by type of food, beverages, vegan or vegetarian, or waste. You can also add your own discoveries once you visit the restaurants.

True Food Genetically modified foods are not required to be labeled in the US, and up to 70% of our foods contain genetically modified ingredients. The Center for Food Safety compiled a True Food Shopper's Guide to show which foods aren't safe for your health or for the environment. The app has tips in identifying GMOs, lists of supermarkets and their GMO policies, and a shopper's guide.

ZipList Still writing that shopping list on a piece of paper? It inevitably gets lost in your purse, or you leave it on your desk, or forget half the items on it because you don't have a pen to make notes. Fear no more: there's ZipList, which allows you to access your grocery list from any device. You can make separate grocery lists and it organizes them by aisle in your grocery store, and you can share them with friends or family. It also has a search option to find and save recipes on the go.

Munchery Munchery is a San Francisco startup that was recently in the news for raising $28 million in venture funding. It's same-day delivery service of foods from local, talented chefs. The menu changes every day, and you can order days in advance or the same day. They're delivered chilled, so all you have to do is heat it up. The best part is, Munchery uses eco-friendly products and helps feed people in need by donating a portion of the proceeds for each meal to the SF & Marin Food Bank.

Zipongo Zipongo is a digital health company that provides a platform with personalized meal plans, digital shopping lists, and discounts on the foods you want to buy. It has partnerships with grocery stores like Trader Joe's and Safeway, and offers subscription services for individuals and companies.


Seafood Watch This app recommends ocean-friendly seafood at your favorite restaurants. Search by location or by fish species. It lists the most current choices for seafood and sushi, ordered by characteristics such as how they are caught, how endangered they are, and how environmentally friendly and sustainable the fishing or farming practices used are. It was created by scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Best Coffee To promote local and specialty coffee shops, Blue Crow Mediacreated "Best Coffee" for London, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. The company is also releasing a "Coffee Challenge" app, to test your knowledge about coffee from the plant to the cup.



Wednesday, May 28, 2014

7 apps that are changing the food industry (TechRepublic)


 
HarvestMark  More than 400 companies and 3,000 farms around the world useHarvestMark, a platform to trace where food comes from. You can pick a food and trace where, how, and when it was grown. If the food in the participating supermarket chain has the HarvestMark logo, just scan it to find out the story of that particular item. It can be found on Driscoll’s berries, chicken from Petaluma Poultry, Kroger brands, and many others. 







Farmstand  Farmstand shows you seasonal, local food by mapping farms and farmers' markets. You use the app to quickly find the farmers' markets around you, and what's happening at them, or what produce people really like. It shows directions, hours of operation, and photos of over 8,700 farmers' markets around the world



Ratatouille  It's very new and only available for iPhone so far, but Ratatouille is an app to reduce food waste. It allows people in the same geographic area to post their leftover perishables. Upload a photo of your food, write a description, and arrange a pick-up spot.


Fooducate Fooducate was created to help you understand food labels and ingredient lists, which are often confusing. The app addresses marketing hype and health claims for all types of food products, showing the things that companies don't want you to see: high fructose corn syrup, excessive sugar, trans fats, and more. All you have to do is scan a product you find.


Instacart Download this app to have groceries from Whole Foods and Costco delivered within an hour. The first delivery is free, and after that it is $3.99. Deliveries run from 9 a.m. to midnight every day. Personal shoppers deliver the groceries, and you're encouraged to tip them.



Look & Cook Look & Cook was created by Israeli startup Kinetic Art. It combines step-by-step instructions with beautiful photographs. It tells you which ingredients and what appliances and utensils you will need. You can also purchase kitchen gadgets within the app. Search for recipes for a specific event or diet.


Wild Edibles Wild Edibles allows you to identify wild plants and flowers that you can harvest for consumption. Use a glossary of images and descriptions to find out what it is and then read about how to harvest and cook it the proper way. There's 165 edible plants, 52 minor look-alikes, and 162 recipes using roots, nuts, fruits, and plants.

Feedie Feedie is an app designed by The Lunchbox Fund, which puts our society's passion for taking and sharing food photos to good use. You sign up via Facebook or Twitter, then visit a participating restaurant. When you use Feedie to take a photo and post it on social media, that restaurant donates money to The LunchBox Fund, a non-profit organization that provides daily meals to schoolchildren in South Africa.

(tomorrow will continue with 8 more)










Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Microsoft challenged an FBI National Security Letter, and won (ZDNet)

Summary: Documents unsealed by a federal court in Seattle reveal Microsoft successfully litigated an information request from the FBI on one of its enterprise customers.

 for Between the Lines |

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Documents unsealed Thursday by a federal court in Seattle reveal that late last year, Microsoft successfully challenged an FBI National Security Letter.
NSLs allow FBI officials to send requests to Web and telecommunications companies requesting account information, with the assumption that the information is relevant to a national security investigation.  
The NSL Microsoft received was in regard to one of its enterprise customers and it sought basic subscriber information, Microsoft's general counsel Brad Smith said in a blog post.
Like all NSLs, the one Microsoft received contained a gag order that prevented it from notifying its customer about the request, which spurred Microsoft to take legal action. 
Smith noted a previous blog post from December where he had pledged that Microsoft would notify its customers if any legal orders were received relating to their data.
He continued:
In this case, the Letter included a nondisclosure provision and we moved forward to challenge it in court. We concluded that the nondisclosure provision was unlawful and violated our Constitutional right to free expression. It did so by hindering our practice of notifying enterprise customers when we receive legal orders related to their data.  
After we filed this challenge in Federal Court in Seattle, the FBI withdrew its Letter.
Smith said government requests for enterprise customer data are rare, but that the win was reassuring for its approach to securing customer data. Still, the bigger war for disclosure is far from over.
Natalie is a ZDNet staff writer based in Louisville, Kentucky.

Friday, May 23, 2014

Can Small Businesses Start a Gay Rights Movement in Mississippi? (BusinessWeek)


A hair salon displays a window sticker declaring “We don’t discriminate. If you’re buying, we’re selling” on April 22 in Jackson, Miss.
A hair salon displays a window sticker declaring “We don’t discriminate. If you’re buying, we’re selling” on April 22 in Jackson, Miss.
A 600-word provision signed into law by Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant last month will soon prevent the state from ”substantially burden[ing]” people’s religious freedom unless there’s a “compelling justification.” The brief legislation mentions the ”framers of the Constitution” and decades-old court cases while remaining, at least on the surface, rather vague as to its purpose. The law doesn’t mention any specific religions or describe any burdens—as if Mississippi had just reminded everyone that the First Amendment was a pretty good idea.
But the new law, which takes effect in July, has ignited a political firestorm over the belief its broad wording allows businesses to turn away gay and lesbian customers. “The bill will ensure that Mississippi business owners, such as photographers and wedding cake bakers, can refuse to serve homosexuals if they feel that doing so would violate their religious beliefs and moral convictions,” explained the John Birch Society’s New American in an article applauding the law.
The legislation was introduced by Philip Gandy, a Republican state senator who is also a Baptist preacher, and found support from the Christian Action Commission, the Family Research Center, and the state’s division of the United Pentecostal Church. Before passage, a second Baptist pastor who serves in the state legislature, Republican Representative Andy Gibson, told the Jackson Free Press that the  measure was designed to “protect Christians in the state from discrimination.”
In response, some Mississippi business owners have launched an opposition campaign under the slogan, “If You’re Buying, We’re Selling.” The campaign has already sold over 3,000 “We don’t discriminate” stickers that shop owners can place in their windows, and the stickers have spread as far Oregon, Tennessee, and Texas. In New York, chefs are even protesting an upcoming Mississippi-themed catfish event in Central Park.
“We’ve struck a nerve nationwide,” says the campaign’s co-founder, Joce Pritchett, 46, who owns a civil engineering firm in Jackson and is “not in the closet, but I play by the rules.” “There are a lot of these religious freedom bills going around in the country right now, but this one actually got passed here. And it turns out that even in Mississippi, a lot of business owners are angry about it.”
Mississippi’s law—along with its scrapped predecessor in Arizona—are state versions of the federal law that’s currently at the center of Hobby Lobby’s Supreme Court case. The $3.3 billion craft-store chain owned by a family of Evangelical Christians argues that the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) exempts it from having to cover all types of birth control under the Affordable Care Act. The Obama administration contends that corporations do not qualify for protection under the RFRA. The Supreme Court is expected to release its decision in July, around the time Mississippi’s law will go into effect.
Taken together, the cases mark the start of an unexpected and almost unprecedented legal battle. “Most of the past RFRA cases involve obscure laws and very minor religions,” says Douglas Laycock, a University of Virginia law professor who has written letters in support of the Mississippi law and filed a brief on behalf of several Christian organizations in the Hobby Lobby case. The questions in front of the Supreme Court and now raised again in Mississippi are big: What are the limits of religious freedom? Do those limits change for corporations? And why has it taken Americans so long to figure this out?
For a long time, courts generally believed that the government couldn’t interfere with someone’s religious practice unless it served a “compelling interest,” which essentially means that the harm caused by the religious practice—say, killing people for human sacrifice—outweighed the need for freedom of religion. When that line was crossed, the government could stop the practice.
But then came the 1990 court case Employment Division v. Smith. It involved American Indians in Oregon who were fired from their jobs and denied unemployment benefits because they had smoked peyote during a religious ritual. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which decided against the Indians. Surprisingly, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority opinion that a compelling state interest was a “luxury” that the government didn’t necessarily have to meet.
In a “Wait, what? That’s not what we meant at all!” moment, Congress passed the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act that explicitly required the compelling interest. The act passed so overwhelmingly—97 to 3 in the Senate—that when President Bill Clinton signed it into law, he marveled that “the power of God is such that even in the legislative process, miracles can happen.” The law has remained more or less unchanged, aside from a 1997 Supreme Court decision that it applied only to federal laws. When that happened, a number of states passed similarly worded state laws. Everything was more or less legally settled. Until now.
RFRA cases almost always involve individual citizens or religious institutions. But corporations are arguing that in the eyes of the law they are people, too. The RFA doesn’t explicitly agree that they are—but it doesn’t say they aren’t. Lawmakers even argued about this oversight in the 1990s but never resolved it. And for a long time, it wasn’t a problem because few for-profit corporations have concrete religious beliefs.
Hobby Lobby isn’t run like other companies, as Bloomberg Businessweek’s Susan Berfield pointed out in her magazine story in April, which is why its case is so controversial. “You didn’t see a lot of companies coming out in in support of Hobby Lobby,” says Laycock. “Most businesses just want to make money.”
Last year, as the Hobby Lobby fight was gaining steam, several state courts decided in favor of same-sex couples that were denied wedding services. New Mexico, one of the few states that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, found that a wedding photographer violated state law when she refused to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony. Colorado ruled that a bakery couldn’t turn away same-sex customers who order wedding cakes. Alarmed conservatives in such states asKansas and Tennessee began to push for bills that explicitly protected businesses from serving gay and lesbian customers. None of those bills passed.
Arizona tried a different approach with a bill didn’t mention sexual orientation or wedding services, but it was so sweeping in its language that opponents feared it would achieve such things as allow Muslim cabdrivers to refuse service to women traveling alone. Both Arizona Republican Senator John McCain and Mitt Romney spoke out against it, and Arizona Governor Jan Brewer ultimately vetoed it in February. So far, Mississippi’s bill is the only one that has passed. It, too, is pretty broad.
“It’s a bad business model to say, ‘We’ll only serve these people or those people,” says Pritchett, the business owner and activist fighting the new law. “I’m worried that it could open Mississippi up to discrimination against anyone,” says Eddie Outlaw, a hair salon owner in Jackson who is also fighting the law. “It’s not good for state business. We don’t have a great track record down here.”
Because Pritchett’s engineering firm deals with state transportation projects, she doesn’t know what will happen to her if persons in the government decide they don’t like that she’s gay. “I’m just waiting for someone to call the transportation commissioner and close me down,” she says, half-jokingly.
So Pritchett, Outlaw, and several other Mississippi business owners have started the website, IfYoureBuying.com, and are in the process of launching a national campaign for business owners who want to assure customers that they won’t be turned away. “I honestly didn’t think a movement like this would happen here—I didn’t know so many of us existed,” says Pritchett.
Mississippi hasn’t had much in the way of a gay-rights movement until now; the Human Rights Campaign is launching an $8.5 million civil rights campaign in the Deep South to address this disparity. A 2013 Public Policy poll found that 69 percent of Mississippi residents were against same-sex marriage, a much higher proportion than in than the rest of the country. Perhaps surprisingly, however, almost the same number (66 percent) agreed it was a wrong to let businesses discriminate against people based on sexual orientation.
There’s still a chance Mississippi activists can turn the broad new religious freedom law to their own ends. “I’ve heard that there are couples waiting to file lawsuits the day the bill becomes law, saying it’s against their religion not to be able to get married,” says Pritchett. “This could work against [the bill’s supporters] in a really big way.”


Thursday, May 22, 2014

China Bans Windows 8 on Government PCs (PCMagazine)


8 Windows 8.1 Tips for Business

Until further notice, all desktops, laptops, and tablets put to use by central state agencies cannot run Windows 8.

Microsoft is facing another hurdle in its bid to encourage adoption of Windows 8: China has reportedly banned Redmond's latest OS on government computers.
As reported by the official Xinhua news agency, all desktops, laptops, and tablets used by central state agencies must run on an OS other than Windows 8, according to China's Central Government Procurement Center.
"All computer products are not allowed to install [the] Windows 8 operating system," says a translated post on the center's website.
The center did not specify why it was banning Windows 8, but Xinhua said the country wants to avoid losing support for an operating system like it did recently with Windows XP. Last month, Redmond stopped providing support for the aging operating system, despite the fact that many public and private users were still using it.
The ban applies only to government offices; the personal computer market remains unaffected.
"We were surprised to learn about the reference to Windows 8" a Microsoft spokesman told PCMag in an email. "Microsoft has been working proactively with the Central Government Procurement Center and other government agencies through the evaluation process to ensure that our products and services meet all government procurement requirements."
In the wake of the XP support shutdown, some local industry leaders are making a push for a new home-cooked OS, likely based on Linux, Xinhua said. So far, the few Linux-based operating systems already in place in China, including KylinOS and StartOS, have not made much of an impact.
But Redmond will continue to provide Windows 7 to the Chinese government, while the company is also "working on the Windows 8 evaluation with relevant government agencies," the spokesman said.
For more, see PCMag's review of Microsoft Windows 8.1 Update and the slideshow above. Also check out 8 Things You Need to Know About Windows 8.1 Update.
Editor's Note: This story was updated Wednesday with comment from Microsoft.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Hackers Devise Wireless Methods for Stealing ATM Users' PINs (BusinessWeek)



Pilfering the personal identification numbers of financial accounts, a potential jackpot for hackers, is tougher to pull off thanks to data encryption and other security technologies. Yet the arms race continues: Hackers are devising more creative methods to intercept PINs at ATMs, the clearest path to instant cash. “It just blows you away how sophisticated these folks are in thinking this stuff up,” says Bryan Sartin, director of the team at Verizon Communications (VZ) that investigates data breaches.
Schemes to steal PINs from ATMs and similar machines now include Hollywood-style corporate espionage, Sartin says. Crooks have long fitted ATMs and gas pumps with phony number pads and card readers to retrieve debit card PIN data. That was a risky approach, because they had to set up the equipment and then come back to remove it without getting caught. Now, with banks using wireless Internet connections to monitor ATM cash flow and update software, hackers can filch PINs remotely, according to a Verizon report. Fraudsters are also taking an Ocean’s Eleven approach—getting jobs with technical-support companies that give them access to ATMs, then installing malware that can transmit PIN data to an e-mail address or a phone.
Regulators at the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council warned in April that the ATMs of small and midsize banks are preferred targets for criminals who hack bank Web pages to boost ATM withdrawal limits and then clean out people’s accounts. Remote hacks of Web-connected ATMs are a fast-growing problem, says Avivah Litan, an analyst at researcher Gartner. In March, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced charges against 17 people in an alleged skimming scheme that the FBI says stretched from Bulgaria to Chicago.
The memory chips and transmitters that enable PIN hacking are also getting thin and light enough to avoid setting off security equipment that card companies have installed at retail stores in the past few years, says David Robertson, publisher of the Nilson Report, a newsletter focused on the payment industry. Often, the hackers’ gear can’t be detected by the software that remotely monitors the weight of point-of-sale terminals, Robertson says: “They’ve done it in a way that suggests a very serious effort to try to crack this industry.”
Although it’s tough to estimate the total lost to these attacks, the U.S. Secret Service estimated annual losses from ATM skimming at more than $1 billion in 2008, its most recent published figure. Sartin says U.S. companies were frequently the targets of the 130 skimming breaches his team studied from last year for its report.
In part, Robertson says, that’s because U.S. consumers carry antiquated magnetic-stripe cards that are more vulnerable to PIN capture than cards with RFID chips, which verify that the original card is present for every transaction. “There’s nothing about PINs in 2014 that’s different than PINs in 1994,” he says. “ATMs are in need of even more defense.”
The bottom line: Hackers are taking advantage of wirelessly connected ATMs and other card readers to pull off smoother PIN data thefts.

Robertson is a reporter for Bloomberg News in San Francisco.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Fast, Furious & Safe? Porsches and Other Elite Cars Don't Get Crash-Testing (BusinessWeek)


First responders gather evidence near the wreckage of the crash involving Paul Walker, Roger Rodas, and a Porsche Carrera GT on Nov. 30, 2013
First responders gather evidence near the wreckage of the crash involving Paul Walker, Roger Rodas, and a Porsche Carrera GT on Nov. 30, 2013
The death of Fast and Furious film star Paul Walker has veered into the courts. The widow of the driver in the incident sued Volkswagen’s Porsche division on Monday claiming design flaws in the 2005 Carrera GT caused the fatal November accident.
The civil lawsuit filed by Kristine Rodas, the wife of driver Roger Rodas, makes nine claims against the automaker, including false advertising and wrongful death. Rodas alleges that the suspension system failed before it careened off the road and argues that the Carrera GT lacks a proper crash cage and a fuel tank designed to contain spills.
Her lawsuit also disputes an investigation by police agencies and Porsche that found the car was going at least 80 miles per hour when it crashed. “Speed and speed alone” was the problem, according to the report. Rodas contends it was going far slower. Porsche did not immediately respond to questions about the lawsuit on Tuesday.
To be sure, the car in question is a powerful machine—that’s its raison d’etre. Its 10 cylinders generate 605 horsepower and can propel the vehicle at 205 miles per hour. The deceased likely appreciated the performance, no matter what speed they were traveling at the time of the crash. Walker and Mr. Rodas were partners on a car-racing team and, according to the complaint, Mr. Rodas owned 5 to 10 Porsches at any given time.
The equation for a sports car is not complicated: engine – weight = speed. Safety features often fall into the weight category. Airbags, for instance, typically weigh between 5 and 8 pounds—tiny numbers that add up quickly if the units are going in dashboards, roof pillars, and door panels. Reinforcing steel is even heavier. What’s more, aggressive drivers often customize cars, stripping out certain features after purchase.
The crashed Carrera GT did, in fact, have dual front airbags and supplemental safety bars, offset by Porsche engineers with that powerful alloy engine block and a hair-trigger ceramic composite clutch. The car’s carbon-threaded chassis weighed only 220 pounds. Was it a safe car? Not really if compared with a Volvo wagon. But it wasn’t particularly reckless compared to other road rockets costing more than $300,000.
Whether the Carrera GT carrying Walker and Rodas malfunctioned is a different question. Ultimately, the people who buy Porsches and other high-end vehicles have to take the manufacturer’s word on questions of safety. These vehicles usually don’t have an accepted measure of crash safety. The two U.S. groups that carry out extensive crash-testing—the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety—rate only vehicles that sell in relatively high volumes, and the European New Car Assessment Programme doesn’t crunch Porsches either.
Cost is a major factor. The Euro NCAP pays for some of the cars it tests and allows manufacturers to “sponsor” certain other models. NHTSA and IIHS, meanwhile, make a point of buying every car they test, which makes the return on a Porsche review pretty crummy considering the limited number of buyers. Ironically, the driving masses who can’t afford such an opulent ride have far more assurances about the safety of their more mundane vehicles.
Now that Porsche is gaining a bit of momentum with mainstream consumers thanks to two models starting around $50,000—the Boxster and the tiny Macan SUV— Volkswagen’s blue-chip brand may make it onto the crash-test list before too long.
Kyle-stock-190
Stock is an associate editor for Businessweek.com. Twitter: @kylestock


Monday, May 12, 2014

With Big Obstacles Ahead, Tesla Still Isn't Checking Its Rear View (BusinessWeek)



Tesla (TSLA) has a number of fairly huge challenges ahead. It has to build out a worldwide network of charging stations, entirely change the way cars are sold, produce a crossover SUV from scratch, and build a giant factory to crank out batteries that are 30 percent more efficient than anything else on the market.
One thing, however, the company doesn’t appear to be the slightest bit concerned about: Whether people will stop buying its cars.
That’s typically what keeps most car executives up at night. All the other stuff—the cost of building materials, dealership infrastructure, exchange rates—falls a little further down the list of worries.
But Elon Musk argues that traditional supply/demand forces don’t apply to his baby car company. On a conference call yesterday, Musk spent more time talking about door gaskets on Tesla’s coming Model X than he did about any threat from BMW (BMW:GY) or Cadillac (GM), or the possibility that the vector for Tesla fever would narrow.
Here’s the guiding principle of Teslanomics as explained by Musk: “Deliveries and demand are not the same thing for Tesla. They are for other car companies, but not for Tesla.”
Translation: Tesla will keep selling cars as fast as it can make them. The sky’s the limit, particularly in China, where Musk says people are waiting up to five months for delivery of their sleek sedans.
Most notably, Musk didn’t mention BMW’s i8, a carbon-fiber spaceship that runs on both a battery and a tiny, 3-cylinder combustion engine. When it tears out of dealerships next month, the i8 is expected to get as much as 135 miles per gallon. Anyone who spends $136,000 on a such a machine likely won’t mind that a trip from Boston to Washington, D.C., will cost about $13 more than it would in a Tesla.
There was also no discussion of the Mercedes (DAI:GR) B-class Electric Drive, which journalists in California got to drive for the first time last week. Its range is less than half of Tesla’s, and it doesn’t look nearly as sexy, but with a starting sticker price of $41,450, it’s also almost half the cost.
We get it. Musk is right, nothing is really like a Tesla: a long-range, all-electric luxury vehicle at a price comparable to gas-powered counterparts. But by the time Musk builds his giant battery factory and rolls out its next model—by the time Tesla plans to be cruising, finally, into the black—something may be pretty close.

Kyle-stock-190
Stock is an associate editor for Businessweek.com. Twitter: @kylestock