Page 8A
BUSINESS & TECH
East Oregonian
Saturday, November 5, 2016
GM starts producing 200-mile electric Chevy Bolt
By TOM KRISHER
AP Auto Writer
ORION
TOWNSHIP,
Michigan — It can go more
than 200 miles on battery
power and it costs less than
the average new vehicle in
the U.S. But in an era of $2
per gallon gasoline, the Chev-
rolet Bolt probably won’t do
a whole lot to shift America
from gasoline to electricity.
General Motors has started
making Bolt hatchbacks on
a slow assembly line at a
factory in Orion Township,
Michigan, north of Detroit.
The cars, starting at $37,495
before a $7,500 federal tax
credit, will go on sale in Cali-
fornia and Oregon before the
end of the year, and will spread
to the rest of the country next
year. The average sales price
of a new vehicle in the U.S.
is about $34,000, according to
Kelley Blue Book.
Analysts say the Bolt’s
238-mile range on a single
charge, plus a net price of
around $30,000, should make
it an attractive alternative to
cars with internal-combustion
engines. While they expect
the Bolt to incrementally
add to the number of electric
cars now on the road, they
don’t expect a seismic shift to
electricity yet.
The Bolt’s range more
than covers the average
daily round-trip commute of
California electric-car rebates
jump for lower-income buyers
AP Photo/Duane Burleson
A battery is lifted into place for installation in the Chevrolet Bolt EV at the General
Motors Orion Assembly plant Friday in Orion Township, Mich.
about 40 miles in the U.S.,
and that should give comfort
to those who fear running
out of power, said Stephanie
Brinley, an auto industry
analyst for IHS Markit. But
there’s always the late night
at work and the early meeting
the next morning without
enough charging time, or
the night you forget to plug
the car in. Those are tough
adjustments for Americans,
she said.
“We’re trained to believe
that wherever we go, we can
get the fuel that we need.
With electricity you need to
plan that out a little bit more,”
Brinley said.
IHS predicts that GM will
sell just under 30,000 Bolts
in the first year, which won’t
add much to the roughly
235,000 electrics now on
U.S. roads. Brinley says there
will be small growth as more
companies such as Tesla
Motors roll out affordable
electric vehicles with range
over 200 miles. Last year
about 100,000 EVs were sold
in the U.S., and IHS predicts
300,000 annual sales by 2020
and 400,000 by 2025.
Still, Chevrolet believes
the Bolt is a game-changer.
“It becomes just a mainstream
vehicle choice,” said Darin
Gesse, the Bolt’s product
manager.
GM, he said, set out to
make the range about equal
to a half-tank of fuel in a
gas-powered car. With a
half-tank of gas, most people
don’t worry that they have
to refuel for a while and are
comfortable driving, he said.
In a quick drive Friday on
roads near GM’s technical
Paris climate change deal becomes
international law for 96 countries
By MICHAEL ASTOR
Associated Press
UNITED
NATIONS
— The Paris Agreement
to combat climate change
became international law
on Friday — a landmark
deal about tackling global
warming amid growing fears
that the world is becoming
hotter even faster than scien-
tists expected.
So far, 96 countries,
accounting for just over
two-thirds of the world’s
greenhouse gas emissions,
have formally joined the
accord, which seeks to limit
global warming to 2 degrees
Celsius. More countries are
expected to come aboard
in the coming weeks and
months.
Secretary General Ban-Ki
moon commemorated the
event, talking with civil
society groups at U.N. head-
quarters in New York to hear
their concerns and visions for
the future.
“Today we make history in
humankind’s efforts to combat
climate change,” Ban said
before opening the meeting.
He praised the civil groups
for mobilizing hundreds of
millions of people to back
fighting climate change, but
warned the outcome remained
uncertain.
“We are still in a race
against time. We need to
transition to a low-emissions
and climate-resilient future,”
Ban said. “Now is the time
to strengthen global resolve,
do what science demands and
seize the opportunity to build
a safer more sustainable world
for all.”
Scientists praised the
speed at which the agreement,
signed by over 190 parties last
AP Photo/Michel Euler
The Eiffel Tower lit up in green to mark the success of
the Paris Agreement, Friday in Paris. The Paris Agree-
ment on climate change enters into force Friday faster
than anyone had anticipated, after a year with remark-
able success in international efforts to slash man-made
emissions of carbon dioxide and other global warming
gases. Inscription reads, “it’s done”.
“Today we make history in humankind’s
efforts to combat climate change.”
fuels, which currently supply
the bulk of the planet’s energy
needs and also are the primary
drivers of global warming.
Naomi Ages, climate
liability project lead at Green-
peace, said that it was up to
civil society groups to hold
governments and corporations
responsible.
“We know that existing
fossil fuel projects will push
us past 2 degrees, so we’re
mobilizing around the world
to keep it in the ground and
stop development of new
fossil fuel projects,” Ages
said.
While the Paris agreement
is legally binding, the emis-
sions reductions that each
country has committed to are
not. Instead, the agreement
seeks to create a transparent
system that will allow the
public to monitor how well
each country is doing in
meeting its goals in hopes
that this will motivate them
to transition more quickly to
clean, renewable energy like
wind, solar and hydropower.
The
agreement
also
requires governments to
develop climate action plans
that will be periodically
revised and replaced with
new, even more ambitious,
plans. Many of these details
will begin to be addressed at
the COP22 climate change
meeting that begins next week
in Marrakech, Morocco.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lower-income buyers of
electric cars will get a bigger break under California’s
newest rebate rules, while deals for higher earners will
disappear.
Changes to the state’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Project
went into effect this week for buyers of all-electric,
plug-in hybrid and fuel-cell cars.
The changes are designed to help reach aggressive
goals set by Gov. Jerry Brown and the Air Resources
Board to vastly increase the number of zero-emission
vehicles on highways, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“We want to see different types of communities adopt
these vehicles,” said Colin Santulli, senior manager of
transportation at the Center for Sustainable Energy, the
San Diego nonprofit that administers the state’s rebate
program. “We hope to see a peer effect, a snowball effect
that you see with so many other technologies.”
People with household incomes less than or equal
to 300 percent of the federal poverty level will receive
$4,500 for buying or leasing battery-electric vehicles,
$3,500 for plug-in hybrids and $7,000 for fuel-cell
vehicles. That’s a boost of $500 per category, and it’s up
$2,000 compared with the rebates offered two years ago,
according to the newspaper.
center north of Detroit, the
car accelerated quickly when
compared to a gas car. GM
says it goes from zero to 60
mph in about 6.5 seconds,
which is faster than many
muscle cars from the ‘70s and
‘80s. The handling was tight
with very little body roll, yet
the ride was smooth and quiet.
GM beat rival Tesla to
market with a long-range
affordable electric car by at
least a year. Tesla plans to
start delivering its 200-mile,
$35,000 (before tax credits)
Model 3 in the second half of
next year, and it had 373,000
deposits as of May.
The carmaker hasn’t
revealed exactly when the
first customer will get a
Bolt. Chevrolet didn’t take
advance reservations but says
there’s been strong interest at
its dealerships.
Chinese company buys Dick
Clark Productions for $1B
BEIJING (AP) —
China’s Dalian Wanda
Group has added another
entertainment trophy to its
stable of overseas acquisi-
tions, paying $1 billion for
Dick Clark Productions, the
TV company that produces
the Golden Globes and the
“Miss America” pageant.
Wanda is one of China’s
most important conglom-
erates and China’s largest
property developer. Its
chairman, Wang Jianlin, is
China’s richest man by most
measures, with an estimated
net worth exceeding $32
billion.
The company owns
AMC Theatres and bought
Legendary Entertainment
for $3.5 billion in January.
In September, it announced
a movie partnership with
Sony Pictures.
Diversifying away from
China’s weakening prop-
erty market, Wanda Group
has made entertainment a
major focus of its growth in
recent years. It has openly
embraced a mission to fend
off Western imports in the
Chinese market and become
a globally recognized
Chinese
entertainment
brand.
That push into the U.S.
entertainment
industry
has raised alarm among
some American lawmakers
concerned about creative
freedom and the promotion
of Chinese propaganda. A
group of legislators recently
asked the U.S. Government
Accountability Office to
review Chinese takeovers.
The namesake company
of legendary American
television host Dick Clark
was purchased in 2012 by a
group including investment
firm Guggenheim Partners.
It produces several awards
shows and the New Year’s
Eve countdown show in
New York.
Wanda said in a state-
ment Friday that Dick
Clark Productions’ existing
management “will remain
in its entirety,” and that
both sides had reached a
long-term operating agree-
ment. It expects Dick Clark
Productions to show “strong
increases” in revenue and
profit every year, but did
not say whether its agree-
ment with management
was contingent on revenue
targets.
Wanda’s statement said
it expected to find ways to
coordinate
development
between Dick Clark Produc-
tions and its previous deals
in film, tourism and sports.
Hollywood has eagerly
welcomed Chinese part-
ners. From 2000 to 2015,
Chinese direct investment
in U.S. entertainment firms
amounted to $4 billion,
according to Rhodium
Group. That pace then
skyrocketed in January
with Wanda’s purchase of
Legendary, which almost
doubled that total by itself.
— Secretary General Ban-Ki moon
December in Paris, has come
into force, saying it under-
scores a new commitment by
the international community
to address the problem which
is melting polar ice caps,
sending sea levels rising and
transforming vast swaths of
arable land into desert.
But
environmentalists
say the agreement is just the
first step of a much longer
and complicated process of
transitioning away from fossil
GROCERY STORE TOUR!
Join Registered Dietitians,
Christine Guenther and
Melissa Naff, for this
interactive tour!
We will help you:
• Understand food labels
• Eat healthy on a budget
• Make better choices from
aisle to aisle
Thursday, November 10th, 2016 • 10:00 - 11:30 AM
Safeway - Pendleton (Meet at the store)
203 SW 20th Ave., Pendleton
Space is Limited - Call (541) 278-3235 to register.
WHITNEY AND
ASSOCIATES
Each Office Is Independently Owned And Operated
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