Once upon a time, back in 1995, BYD was a little-known battery maker. Today, it is the worlds largest electric vehicle producer after surpassing Tesla in global sales in 2024. This rise reflects a relentless focus on automation and vertical integration. It controls every part of its supply chain. It makes its own batteries, with features unmatched in the industry, even mining raw materials like lithium. Its factories are robotic wonders that run about 97% on their own, building a never-ending stream of cars better than Western equivalents at lower price points. And it also transports its own cars across the world with its own fleet of ships specially designed to carry automobiles.
The latest is also the biggest ship of its kind on the planet: The BYD Shenzhen, which just sailed to Brazil on its first assignment. This colossal ship was designed to carry just wheeled cargo, what is technically called a roll-on/roll-off (Ro-Ro) vessel. Unlike typical container ships, where vehicles are packed into boxes and containers, Ro-Ro ships allow cars to be driven directly onto decks via ramps, making loading and unloading faster. They are way more efficient to operate than regular transport ships because each minute shaved from loading and unloading translates into big financial savings for the company.
As BYDs general manager, Wang Junbao, pointed out at the Shenzhens delivery ceremony, Its efficient loading system and advanced protective technologies for stable and low-carbon logistics will be pivotal to [the companys] globalization strategy.
What’s so special about BYD’s ship?
At 721-feet longnearly twice the length of a soccer fieldthe Shenzhen is the largest car carrier by capacity, holding 9,200 vehicles across 16 decks.
According to the company, the ships design prioritizes efficiency and sustainability. It uses liquefied natural gas (LNG) dual-fuel engines, which burn LNG, a cleaner alternative to traditional marine diesel. LNG cuts sulfur oxide emissions by 99% and nitrogen oxides by 85%, aligning with stricter environmental regulations in markets like Europe. The Shenzhen also features anti-fouling paint, a coating that reduces drag by preventing marine organisms from sticking to the hull, improving fuel efficiency by up to 8%. It also employs shaft generators, devices that convert excess engine power into electricity, reducing reliance on polluting diesel generators. While BYD hasnt fully detailed its proprietary box-type battery packs onboard, their inclusion hints at efforts to electrify auxiliary systems, further lowering emissions.
Vehicles wait to be loaded onto BYD’s third 7,000-car carrier, the BYD Hefei, at the Taicang Port in Suzhou, China, in January 2025. [Photo: Ji Haixin/VCG/Getty Images]
Why BYD built this giant
BYDs decision to invest in ships stems from its explosive growth. The company sold about 455,000 vehicles in 2019, surging to approximately 740,000 units in 2021 and more than doubling in 2022 to 1.9 million. This growth strained existing logistics networks. Knowing where its heading, BYD announced it would invest $687 million to build its own seven-ship Ro-Ro fleet. Third-party shipping costs were skyrocketing, with daily charter rates hitting $150,000 per vessel in 2024. For context, leasing a single ship for a month could cost $4.5 million. The company estimates that per-vehicle shipping expenses drop 30% to 40% with its own fleet, saving up to $1.4 billion annually.
BYD plans to deploy seven car carriers over the next two years to address the shortage of shipping capacity for automobile exports, Wang Chuanfu, the companys founder and chairman, said last year. It has three more to go, including Shenzhen‘s twin, the BYD Changsha, which will be launched soon. No doubt the company will need it. Overseas shipments surged 124% year over year to 133,361 vehicles in Q1 2025, and the company is set to export 800,000 vehicles across the world this year. Such exponential growthwhich analysts believe will continue in the double digits for years to comeis why the company plans to make even more vessels. By 2026, BYDs seven-ship fleet aims to move more than one million vehicles yearly (or 83,300 per month, equivalent to nine Shenzhen trips). Thats one car shipped every 30 seconds, if you want an even more impressive figure.
BYD is not the only company that does this, even while it has the biggest ship for now. Its strategy mirrors a broader shift among Chinese automakers. SAIC Motor, Chinas second-largest automaker, operates 31 ships through its logistics arm, Anji Logistics, including the 7,600-vehicle SAIC Anji Sincerity. Unlike BYD, SAIC transports cars for multiple brands, including its rivals. But BYDs fleet will be reserved mainly for its own vehicles, out of pure necessity.
Globally, Hyundai GlovisHyundais logistics subsidiarymanages 60 ships and has just ordered a dozen 10,800-vehicle LNG-powered carriers. While larger, Glovis serves third parties like Toyota and Volkswagen. Legacy automakers rely on partnerships with shipping firms, a model BYD avoids, seeking instead to control every aspect of the production chain (the technology, the level of automation, the quality, and the price) to crush the competition. Its hard to imagine the beleaguered Tesla or any other Western manufacturer matching this kind of vertical integration. The massive BYD Shenzhen is yet another reminder that the race for EV supremacy may already have a winner.
Hotel art has changed. In the last few years, generic photography and reproductions of works by Old Masters have given way to remarkable pieces of artwork befitting top-notch museums and the worlds best private galleries.
Though it may feel like a 180-degree shift from the boring artwork that preceded these new and imaginative displays, hotels becoming cultural destinations unto themselves, by hanging up artwork ideal for the worlds top museums and private galleries, makes sense.
The standard used to be that youd put a picture in a frame and call it a daybut hotels dont cut it anymore with this, says Spencer Bailey, editor-in-chief of a multivolume book series starting with Design: The Leading Hotels of the World and cofounder of the media company The Slowdown. People expect more with the artwork, the furniture. People want to feel a sense of craftiness at every touch point at a hotel.
Millennial and Gen Z travelers in particular crave authentic, upscale, and culture-based experiences, a notion that has extended into the hotels branding itself through the use of artwork. Its something that still predominantly exists in the high-end, five-star hotel market, Bailey says.
The Damien Hirst Empathy Suite at the Palms, Las Vegas, 2019. [Photo: David Becker/WireImage/Getty Images]
Indeed, Denvers luxury-focused Art Hotel showcases a 22,000-piece LED light installation by Leo Villareal. Theres also Damien Hirsts outstanding art suite called the Empathy Suite at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegaswhere, for a whopping $100,000 a night, you too can gaze in disbelief at one of six original full-size pieces, like the one titled Winner/Loser, in which two taxidermied sharks float suspended in formaldehyde.
Some big-brand hotels are now breaking into the art hotel concept, using carefully curated art collections as a way to help define their brand identity and sharpen their claims of authenticity. Hilton recently jumped on the bandwagon with the Curio Collection, a series of 180 individually distinct and decorated hotels. Competitor Marriott has its Autograph Collection, which has grown to 154 hotels since launching in 2010. Smaller operators are now also embracing an art-forward approach.
[Photo: courtesy The Lytle Park Hotel]
Merging history and art at a Cincinnati boutique
The Lytle Park Hotel in Cincinnati, Ohiopart of Marriott’s Autograph collectionquite literally sits at the intersection of art and hospitality. The property, opened in 2020, combines the hotels structure from 1909 and themes from the next-door Taft Museum of Art. The venues Lytle Park neighborhood is now a lovely residential area, but at the turn of the century, Cincinnatis elite dwelled here and propagated the citys cultural and artistic center. Artwork from the museum adorns some of the hotels walls, a gesture to the hotels link to this rich, storied past. To better connect guests to the areas history and culture, the hotel in 2025 debuted its Taft Suite, which pays homage to the citys illustrious Taft family, including its most famous member, William Howard Taft, the 27th president of the United States.
[Photo: courtesy The Lytle Park Hotel]
Museums play a crucial role in the economy of American cities, contributing over $50 billion annually to the U.S. economy, says Rebekah Beaulieu, Ph.D, president and CEO of the Taft Art Museum. Hence Cincinnati, she hopes, will benefit from the hotel/museum cross-sector approach to cultural collaboration.
Todays hotel guests really want to be transported into a hotels story, says Colletta Conner, principal designer at ForrestPerkins, which designed the Taft Suite. Through its curated gallery experience, the suite offers hotel guests a glimpse into the Lytle Park of the early 20th century, when the Taft family lived there. Guests can peruse the spaces painted garden scenes and river valley motifs that feel vaguely reminiscent of the Ohio River Valley. For an added personal touch, there are even photographs of President Taft peppering the walls.
[Photo: courtesy The Lytle Park Hotel]
Creating a narrative is a very imprtant part of the design process, Conner explains. Sometimes you could walk onto a property and not feel a story. Sure, the hotel might be beautifulbut theres no story that pulls guests into the hotel experience.
Conner says ForrestPerkins works with a lot of different hotel brandslike Sheraton, Four Seasons, and Ritz Carltonto craft a brand narrative for each hotel. We provide local context to these properties, creating unique narratives for each that add up to unique, one-of-a-kind hotel experiences.
[Photo: courtesy The Lytle Park Hotel]
The design team wanted the suite to match the tone set by the gallery, which occupies a historic home that was built in 1820. Some of these hotels that think about the gallery concept are more like white-box museum gallery types of spaces, says Conner. But our intention here was to have almost this home feeling, which is how the Taft Museum next door is set up.
And yet, there might be an inherent contradiction in art hotels. Art requires taste, which can be a very controversial subject, and it requires lots of money, Bailey says. Owners of what was once considered the most valuable art collection in the west, the Tafts were obviously among Cincinnatis most privileged. Objects in the hotel, especially the Taft Suite, point to the Taft Museums Rembrandts and Turners, Italian majolica painted pottery, and Chinese porcelains, the latter a coveted collection both then and now. In many ways, art is a luxury item, and great hotels will need to understand that, Bailey says. The artand where it came fromchosen for each art hotel becomes an embodiment of that hotel as much as the architecture or furniture is.
If visitors sense any air of elitism at the hotel, its quickly dispersed by the interior designs and friendly staff. An open concept layout in the main lobby, complete with a stunning skylight that lets in plenty of natural light, mirrors the welcome attitude the hotel and its staff emanate. While they didnt plan these main areas, ForrestPerkins designers emphasize how convivial the spaces are meant to feel, and they sought to reflect this ambience in the Taft Suite. The idea was to have museum quality displayed in a home environment, to be welcoming, approachable, and accessible, Conner says.
21c Louisville [Photo: courtesy 21c]
A new kind of art hotel
As one-off hotels tailor their art offerings to their locales, boutique chain 21c Museum Hotels is scaling that approach. A chain of seven boutique hotels in the Midwest and South, the brand sees itself as a forward-thinking contemporary art museum first and a hotel second.
21c Bentonville [Photo: courtesy 21c]
When you walk into a 21c, youre walking into a hotel lobby, but youre also walking into a museum gallery, says Alice Gray Stites, chief curator for 21c Museum Hotels. Every 21c hotel lobby, hotel hallway, event space, and meeting room is treated like a museum gallery, where Stites installs a varied range of exhibitions.
21c Lexington [Photo: courtesy 21c]
The brand got its start in 2006, at a time when revitalizing urban cores and building preservation werent part of many peoples lexicons. As 21c cofounders, preservationists, and contemporary art collectors, Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson imagined that contemporary art could be a catalyst for revitalizing their hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. In the end, the pair combined their art collection with the hotel concept because a research firm they had hired revealed that their city needed more hotel rooms to spur tourism.
21c Louisville [Photo: courtesy 21c]
Laura and Steve wanted to take away the velvet rope that people sometimes perceive when walking into a museum. The result? A different kind of model for both the museum world and the hospitality industry. The hotel offers urated exhibitions that are open 24/7 and cover important topics of the day, and that cycle in and out every six months. 21c was a pioneer in thisthey were an early driver in the art hotel trend, Bailey says.
21c St. Louis [Photo: courtesy 21c]
At first glance, there seems to be some tension between the 21c idea of making art more accessible and the fact that its only available in a boutique hotel, where rooms cost upward of $185 a night. Most hotels dont invite anyone who hasnt booked a room to wander their lobbies or hallways, whereas 21c allows anyone, free of charge, into the hotels to view its artwork on display.
[21c has] created this idea of living with art and not being intimidated by art, breaking down the formal boundaries that feel so imposing sometimes for outsiders when they walk into an art gallery or museum,” Bailey says.
Because hiring staff is typically a time-consuming and costly process, many companies are now opting to interview multiple candidates at once. The Society for Human Resource Management reported that group interviews have become increasingly popular among employers.
For applicants, this changes the interview experience significantly. Instead of fielding questions about your résumé in a one-on-one setting, youve now got to vie for a role alongside other applicants and take part in real-world workplace scenarios designed to showcase your leadership skills.
Tech companies and brands such as Disney, Starbucks, and The Gap are choosing to adopt the trend. Not only can interviewers see how candidates work in high-pressure situations, but fewer interviewers need to be trained in the company.
By screening multiple candidates at once, this style of interview can save employers time, while also allowing them to observe candidates’ critical thinking and communication skills in action, says Sarah Skelton, managing director of recruitment company Flourish.
Skelton adds that this interview style can not only be a timesaver for companies, but it can also save applicants time, too. For the candidates, this can give an opportunity to showcase their skills in one day.
But it can also be a stressful process, especially if youre used to the traditional interview experience. The next time youre asked to participate in a group interview, heres what to keep in mind in order to make sure you stand out to the hiring managers:
Practice your networking skills
When taking part in a group interview, try networking to make you feel calm, grounded, and present. It may be helpful to warm yourself up by having a couple of light touch questions you ask other interviewees before the interview starts, for example, How was your journey?” says leadership coach Keren Blackmore from Leap of Thought.
Being interviewed alongside others might actually help reduce the amount of stress you feel, as youre all in the same boat. You can also use the opportunity to increase your network. The people you meet at the interview may be interesting contacts for the future, [so] why not, for example, connect on LinkedIn? says Blackmore.
Think about your body language
While it may be more difficult to stand out in a group interview, you can still make your presence felt, even when youre silent. Psychologist Albert Mehrabian said that 55% of our communication is through body language, rather than speaking. Beth Hope, an executive coach who specializes in resilience, says your body language in these group interview settings should reflect calm confidence.
Sit tall, ground your feet, keep your shoulders relaxed and open. This will help calm your nervous system and give you a boost of confidence, says Hope. Use purposeful gestures when speaking and avoid nervous habits like fidgeting or crossed arms. Confidence [is] about owning your space, staying grounded, and showing youre comfortable being yourself.
Executive coach Joseph Ball adds that to show engagement, you should nod, smile, [and] make eye contact with the speaker.
Know when not to talk
Group interviews may be embraced by extroverts, but the key is knowing when not to talk. The best way to stand out in any setting is not to be the loudest voice, but to be the clarifying voice, says Mike Manoske, executive coach at The Wharton School. The way to do that is through active listening and playback: replaying back what youve heard, followed by adding additional ideas to move things forward.
Make sure to keep your tone respectful. Leadership development trainer Andy Coley says you should avoid the word but when responding to someone elses idea or perspective. A but can be seen as confrontational, says Coley. Instead say yes, and this is my perspective. [This] implies youve acknowledged the other person’s point of view, whereas but comes across as a disagreement, which can lead to egos getting hurt, he says.
You can also show support for others without affecting your chances, says Coley. If someone shares a good idea, a simple comment like ‘Thats a great point,’ shows that youre thoughtful and team-minded, he says. That kind of behavior stands out because it shows you care about the whole group, not just yourselfand thats real leadership.
Treat other applicants as peers, not competition
Another way to gain confidence in this group setting is to view the other people as peers, rather than competition, says Blackmore. This helps frame them as equals rather than a threat. Dont spend your time distracted by how the other candidates may or may not be a better fit. They are no better or worse, but they do have different skills and experiences. If youre in the interview, you are there for a reason. How you show up in the group environment is likely to be just as important as your [credentials] and experience.
Work psychologist Dr. Marie-Hélne Pelletier says a group interview presents a good opportunity to work on your mental toughness. Identify what may get you off track and prepare. If another candidate saying a [great] point puts you at risk of losing your confidence, prepare now to put this aside mentally.
If you dont have the typical skills for the role, view this as a superpower. A great way to stand out is to connect insights from your nontraditional background to help move the group forward, says executive coach Kelly Ling. For example, if you are moving from a business development role into a product manager role, you can bring in your experience of understanding customers needs.
Keep an eye on the time
The whole idea of the group interview is to find someone who can do the job and even uncover a future leader. Skelton says that group interviews often include a timed component, so its important for candidates to demonstrate strong time management skills and help keep the group focused. Successful participants will guide the team toward hitting key milestones throughout the session and ensure a clear conclusion is reached by the end, says Skelton.
Launched in September, Overdrive, has taken an unconventional approach to harm reduction. Founded by Brian Bordainick, who also started emergency contraception company Julie and acne patch company Starface, the company has used its playbook of taking a fun, edgier branding approach to drugstore productsin this case testing kits for fentanyl and for seeing if a drink has been spiked to appeal to a newer generation of consumers.
Unlike sterile, medical-looking drug testing kits, Overdrives are designed to stand out with industrial-themed packaging that resembles a cigarette carton. Its all in the service of turning lifesaving testing into less of a buzzkill on a night out. The company’s branding helped make it one of Fast Company‘s 10 Most Innovative Companies in consumer goods this year.
Beyond encouraging testing, Overdrive is also interested in demystifying just how fentanyl gets into drugs. This week, the company released The Plug, a YouTube documentary and collaboration with photographer and director Sam Hayes (a former opioid user himself), aimed at highlighting the dangers of fentanyl and the importance of testing drugs given the widespread use of fentanyl to augment them.
Ryan Weaver, the companys creative director and branding mastermind, talked to Most Innovative Companies host Yasmin Gagne about the documentary, the companys messaging around drug safety, and his personal journey with drugs in his younger days.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Before Overdrive, you had experience in working on creative and business development. What did you learn from working on digitally native brands and channels?
After doing some independent production, I was at YouTube channels Full Send and Nelk Boys for a while and they were creator-driven channels that were doing banger numbers with prank stuff. These kids that were running it were supersmart and had no playbook for how YouTube channels are supposed to run. If somebody was trying to do a brand deal with them, they’d say, Fuck off, we’re going to do our own product. Everybody else in media, my whole life was like, well, there’s advertisers and there’s content creators. These guys did product development and put on a great show. They created this whole ecosystem where consumers could engage with both. In hindsight, its so obvious and smart.
How did you connect with your cofounder, Brian Bordainick?
Ive been working with him for three years. He shared his vision for where content was heading that brands dont need to do just advertisements, they can do storytelling with shared value sets around what the product stands for. Though that you can build an audience and fidelity. He also has really strong retail relationships and is really good at product development.
You started working with Bordainick at his emergency contraception company Julie. What attracted you to the project?
Julie was headed into launch and they wanted me to produce a hero asset. I came in to help produce their first commercial where two women were at a drugstore shelf shitting on their boyfriends and talking about how badly they needed the product. It did well and people were psyched about it. From there I got to understand how CPG worked.
[Photo: Overdrive]
Why did you want to build a brand around testing recreational drugs?
This inclination in the background to do something in the drug safety space had been percolating for Brian for some time and certain retailers had hit him up and said this is an important space. He has a grasp on how to tackle difficult topics. When he was ready to push play on this build, he brought me over from Julie to help spearhead the creative and design side of what the brand Overdrive would become.
I wanted permission to be intense and gnarly; you have to be aggressive and you have to stand out. With Overdrive, the market didnt really exist and social platforms arent especially stoked about us selling these products. So creatively you get to make different decisions because those platforms rules are so intense around what youre doing. From a creative standpoint, you’re looking at a project that has real stakes. You’re selling an actually helpful product, and you’re also able to not really focus on the product and focus on ethos because the product is so policed. Then you get to be a bit of an instigator because the brand isnt squeaky clean, you need a troublemaker attitude behind it.
Why did you feel the need to approach the project with that kind of attitude?
Youre appealing to people who might be in a situation where there is fentanyl. Theyre trying to get into the mosh pit versus watching from the sidelines. I have an addictive personality. Previously, in my 20s, I did hard drugs, so for me there was a lived experience access point. I didnt have to create a character to create the brand. I can speak to a version of myself and try to think of things I would have listened to or paid attention to from a safety perspective in my life. I wasnt guessing or relying on a case study.
Fentanyl wasnt as much of a problem when you were doing drugs, right?
No joke, I think about that all the time. Im really lucky that in my 20s that wasn’t something I had to worry about because the reality is most people don’t when they’re trying to have a good time and get lit. It’s really scary.
[Still: Overdrive]
Tell me about the documentary Overdrive is releasing this month.
Its a YouTube video we made with this awesome guy, Sam Hayes. I had this interest in fentanyl being this kind of gray area and a bogeyman that youre supposed to be scared of, but you dont know what it is. So Sam meets with people in recovery centers, actual drug dealers, and actual users. It shows you where you get fentanyl and how the dark web comes into it. Theres this one shot of a drug dealer grinding stuff up in a Vitamix, and when you look at the Vitamix . . . its not clean. You get a look at the process of creating these unregulated things.
Who is your target customer?
I try to think more psychographic than demographic. What’s the psychographic of someone using hard drugs? We try to look at places where thrill and danger intersect. This can be gnarly or louder forms of music or extreme action sports like skating or motocross. And then the thing that happens if it doesn’t go is a life or death stakes. There’s a tendency for that to be more gender- or age- or location- specific, but for us, we felt pretty confident that if we just talk to that psychographic of people that are looking for an extreme release from a hostile world.
How are you expanding your user base?
We want to broaden so that we’re speaking to the people around the user as much as the user. Some current parts of the brand will go away and there will be an emphasis on education over the next year or so. I think it’s cool that the DNA of the brand is representative of the user, but we’re going to start broadening things out so that it will feel a little bit more classic CPG product shot or an Instagram ad. The ads will provide an access point to more white collar people or parents. We want to target people that are caretakers and live in certain parts of the country.
How do you balance the edgier branding of Overdrive with a more education-first approach?
Last year we indexed really high on the edgier branding. The logic was that if we can create something somebody’s comfortable carrying around in situations [where they might have access to drugs], we’re already winning because our competitors aren’t. Theyre sterile and overly medical. An example of that could be the way our test strips come in packaging that looks like a pack of cigarettes. Youre not carrying a white box around.
So you dont look like a narc.
Exactly, because then it’s like, get the fuck out of here. We don’t want to fuck with this person. I think we did a really good job at that. The education piece, its almost easier to do. It’s like, this is what the product looks like and heres a stat about how many people this weekend will be exposed to fentanyl and a five-minute testing process can protect you or your loved ones. Its taking a step back from the lifestyle aspect of the space and creating more of a billboard with a few key pieces of information.
What inspired the design of the products?
We looked at companies that behaved like media companies but that didnt see themselves that way. Monster Energy is as much a media company as it is a product-driven company. When we were figuring out comps that made sense, a lot of it was power tools, action sports, cigarette companies, and beer ads. All of these companies have connective tissue to the partying and drug experience. Because the no-fly zones as fair as what they can claim and how they can advertise were kind of gnarly, those were the places we gravitated to really quickly. These are also areas that have higher fidelity. Some people’s favorite brand is Monster or Marlboro. We used a lot of higher contrast and bold designs. I think Ed Hardys cool. Minimal branding or this kind of flat design has been done.
What was the messaging strategy behind your products?Something I would say to people was, someone about to go in a UFC fight knows they’re about to get the shit beat out of them. You don’t need to tell them, This is dangerous. Not only do they know that, but that’s the last thing they want going through their head before they go fight. What we can say is, When you do this UFC fight, if you wear this mouth guard, you might not suffer serious brain damage.
My fundamental belief is that if you make the mouth guard look cool, like if it was chrome or had monster teeth or grills, that medical component can start to become aspirational and they might be excited to bring it with them. We can’t be a brand saying Don’t do drugs. You lose so many people out the gate telling them not to. We want Overdrive to feel like part of the experiencenot a scary reminder of the things our customer is trying to escape, like mortality.
One crucial factor helped keep Tesla profitable last quarter, and it wasnt direct car sales.
In its latest earnings report, the company said that it earned $595 million from selling regulatory credits to other automakers. The credits are issued by governments, including California, that require car companies to hit certain emissions goals by selling cleaner vehicles. If they dont, they have to make up the gap by buying credits from companies like Tesla that make zero-emissions cars.
Teslas sales tanked in the first quarter as Elon Musks dive into politics pushed away customers, both in the U.S. and internationally. The company reported that it earned $409 million in the first quarter of 2025, down 71% from the same quarter a year ago. Without the revenue from selling credits, Tesla would have posted a $186 million loss.
Now, President Trump is actively trying to dismantle the system that makes the credits possible. Republicans in Congress are helping that effort. The House is set to vote this week on a bill that aims to take away Californias right to have strict air quality standardsand the market for zero-emissions vehicle credits that exists in the state.
A long history of relying on credits
The credits have been important since Teslas beginning. In the early years, its really what kept them out of bankruptcy, says David Sperling, founding director of the Institute for Transportation Studies at UC Davis. Sperling previously helped set up the zero-emissions vehicle credit system in California.
Multiple other states that follow Californias air quality standards, from Colorado to Virginia, also issue the credits. While Tesla also earns money from a credit system in Europe and a small amount through a federal program, most of the credits it sells are in California and other states.
At points in the companys history when it particularly struggled, credits kept it going. The company was structurally unprofitable for a long, long time, says Ed Niedermeyer, author of Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors. If the cushion of the credits hadnt existed, the company might look very different now. Musk once considered a sale to Google at one of Tesla’s low points, for example. In theory, the company might not have even survived.
The credits still matter
Eventually, Tesla was selling enough cars that it became profitable without the credits (at least until now). But the credits continued playing an important role. Especially given the economic uncertainty right now, it remains an important driver for a type of profit in pre-cash flows, says Seth Goldstein, an equity analyst at Morningstar.
Credits also helped it accrue around $37 billion in cash. If we do have a long-term economic slowdown, Tesla should be able to withstand the slowdown because it does have such a strong balance sheet, Goldstein says. So I’ll attribute that to the credit allowing Tesla to put itself in a very strong position.
The credits werent designed to last forever, and Goldstein argues that Tesla is positioning itself not to need them. As more automakers make EVs, theyll have to buy fewer credits from electric-first companies like Tesla. Eventually, if California can keep its plan in place, all new car sales in the state will be zero-emissions by 2035. But as the state ramps up its emissions requirements on the way to that goal, some brands may not be able to keep up the pace and credits will become more valuable.
“The value of the credits is pretty low right now because the market is outpacing the regulatory requirements,” says Sperling. “But that’s going to change probably within a year or two. If the authority stays in place and the regulations stay in place, those credits are going to become more and more valuable.”
As Tesla’s sales falter, the credits play a more important role. The drop in sales isn’t solely because of the damage that Musk has caused the brand. Other car companies now offer a suite of options for EVs that customers may find more appealing, especially as Tesla has been slow to roll out new models. Musk has touted Tesla’s work on robotics and automation, but neither are ready to immediately come to market. (Both may be the latest examples of Musk’s hype machine.) The company has promised a new, more affordable car, but it likely won’t be out until next year. The sales of its current lineup of cars are still critical, which means that credits are, too.
No one knows what’s next
The state credits are at risk in two ways. Right now they’re possible because of California’s long-standing right to regulate air pollution. When the Clean Air Act passed in 1970, California already had air quality laws, so it was given a waiver to continue setting its own strict emissions standards for cars. Other states also have the option to follow California.
Trump tried to eliminate that waiver in his first term, and California and other states sued. (Four automakers then agreed to voluntarily meet California’s standards.) When Biden took office, with the lawsuit still underway, he restored the waiver. But fuel producers and industry groups suedsaying the Environmental Protection Agency shouldn’t have put the waiver back in placeand the Supreme Court is now considering whether that lawsuit can proceed.
Separately, Congressional Republicans are trying to reverse the EPA’s waivers for California’s plans to phase out new gas cars and trucks. The House will vote this week. In the Senate, the parliamentarian has said that Congress doesn’t have the authority to repeal the waivers. But Senate Republicans may try anyway.
Whatever happens, more lawsuits will follow. That means that the regulatory credits won’t immediately disappear. And Tesla, for now, will be able to keep using themeven as Elon Musk continues to rant about government handouts.
At around 8:40 a.m. on January 1, a disgruntled U.S. soldier blew up a rented Cybertruck in front of Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas. Seven bystanders were injured in the blast, though nobody was killed except the driver, who died by self-inflicted gunshot wound. The charred rubble and twisted metal left behind invoked both the cars creator, Tesla tycoon Elon Musk, and the hotels owner, returning president-elect Donald Trump. It also telegraphed untold carnage on the horizon from the prospect of this dystopic duo running the government together.The year had just begun and 2025 already delivered its most prescient visual metaphor. Plenty of other striking images have since emerged during the first 100 days of Trumps second term, though, that perfectly capture how this sequel presidency has played out so far.Elon Musk elongates his armFrom top: A neo-Nazi group salutes during a gathering in Orlando, Florida, in 2023; Elon Musk in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20, 2025. [Images: Sandi Bachom/Getty Images, Alex Wong/Getty Images]Although the sheer abundance of tech billionaires at Trumps inauguration raised some eyebrows, only one of those billionaires actions that day dropped jaws. During a speech about his then-gestating Department of Government Efficiency, Musk put his hand over his chest, said My heart goes out to you, and then, well, lets just say he made a memorable gesture. Twice.What kind of gesture? Media outlets have dog-eared their thesauruses searching for a euphemism that wont leave any legal exposure or get anyone fired. It was either a stiff-arm, odd-looking, or Roman salute, but it bore more than a passing resemblance to Sieg Heiling. Only Musk knows for sure whether he made the alarming gesture by mistake, on purpose in brazen earnestness, or on purpose but just to troll the left. Either way, he never apologized. Instead, he complained on X that all criticism of his gesture amounted to dirty tricks. No word yet on whether dirty tricks are why several people who mimicked Musks salute lost their jobs.Volodymyr Zelenskyy walks into a buzzsaw[Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images]Trump seems to delight in humiliating people he perceives as disloyal. Think of Mitt Romney looking medical-grade embarrassed to be photographed at dinner with Trump after criticizing him throughout the 2016 election, or Robert Kennedy Jr. being force-fed a Big Mac last fall after badmouthing Trumps diet. Those incidents seem like a mere warmup, though, for the humiliation ritual Trump put Volodymyr Zelenskyy through back in February. The Ukrainian president entered the Oval Office presumably expecting to reach an agreement about trading his countrys rare minerals in exchange for continued support from the U.S. Instead, Zelenskyy found himself ambushed. Trump and VP JD Vance took turns berating him on live TV for not being sufficiently grateful for U.S. support throughout the Russian invasion. (Days earlier, Trump falsely blamed Ukraine for starting the war.) Zelenskyys face during the disastrous meeting served as an apt avatar for leaders of other U.S. allies around the world, realizing in real time that a major geopolitical realignment may be currently underway.Trump take egg[Image: MrGeoff/Adobe Stock]Joe Bidens entire presidency was haunted by the specter of grocery store sticker shock. Whether he could have actually done more to assuage it or not, pandemic-driven inflation and supply chain issues kept driving up prices. Consumers were furious. Many were also desperate for relief, which Trump promised to deliver on day one of his second term. Instead, egg prices shot up further after Trump took office, for a variety of reasons. (DOGEs firing of the team assigned to study rampaging bird flu almost certainly didnt help.) Grocery store signage about egg rationing quickly showed up all over social media, forcing even Fox News to acknowledge it. The egg crisis has since receded, but not entirely, and not before birthing a massive meme.Gretchen Whitmer cant hideGretchen Whitmer temporarily shielded herself from the cameras when she was in Trumps Oval Office, per this photo from NYTs @erjleehttps://t.co/TFDPPnci7Q pic.twitter.com/hnLnvuQvlX bryan metzger (@metzgov) April 12, 2025After an election cycle spent warning Americans about the dire consequences of a second Trump term, Democrats in power have had difficulty finding their footing with it underway. Opposition took the form of holding up tiny signs of resistance during a Trump speech to congress, which GOP colleagues promptly snatched away. Although some Dems like Bernie Sanders, AOC, Cory Booker, and Chris Van Hollen have found meaningful forms of fighting back, the partys initial awkwardness out of the gate is crystallized in an April photo of Gretchen Whitmer. When the Michigan governor went to speak with Trump in the days after his Liberation Day tariff blitz, she had not been informed Trump planned on making a photo op out of her visit. To avoid looking like shed come crawling to Trumps bargaining table, Whitmer shielded her face with folderswhich only made the resulting photo exponentially more embarrassing. Its the image of a person who has been thoroughly outmaneuvered by someone who better understands the contours of visual manipulation.Heavy images tweeted lightly[Image: Official White House Twitter/X.com]The White Houses X account has undergone a radical vibe shift under Trump. Instead of serving up official dispatches from the government, most of its posts read like far-right shitposts from 4chan. Though many worthy contenders come to mind, the most egregious example is probably the photo of a woman crying while under arrest by ICE, which the White House social media manager then ran through an AI Studio Ghibli filter, rendering it paradoxically adorable. Regardless of her alleged past convictions, making fun of her pain on an official government channel is shameful behavior. Its an image that announces to the rest of the world: America runs on casual cruelty. The Epstein files stunt was very [redacted]Various right-wing influencers carry binders bearing the seal of the U.S. Justice Department reading The Epstein Files: Phase 1 as they walk out of the West Wing of the White House in Washington, D.C., on February 27, 2025. [Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images]Although the White House has touted this administration as the most transparent in American history, that title hasnt always proved out. When congressional Democrats tried to enter federal government offices in the midst of DOGE shredding their staff, for instance, they found police officers standing in their way. You know, somewhat non-transparently? The moment that best visually captured the opacity of historys most transparent administration, though, was the release of the so-called Epstein files. In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi invited 15 far-right influencers to the White House to receive binders supposedly filled with declassified information about deceased human trafficker Jeffrey Epsteinand his suspected ties to powerful people. The binders contained scant new information; nothing approaching the realm of revelatory. If anything, the photo stunt invited further questions about just what might be missing from those binders and why. Not exactly an ideal outcome for an event (and an administration) so vocally proud of its historic transparency.These babies are priced to move[Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images]Considering Tesla stock is down 71% year-over-year this quarter, it seems as if quite a few people are not very happy with Musks gleeful chainsawing of the federal government. In an effort to help his embattled colleague stem the tide, Trump put on a White House-set version of a seasonal car saleTeslathon on the White House lawn. Trump gushed to the assembled press about how sleek and cool he found the phalanx of Teslas on the South Lawn. (Everythings computer! he crowed at one point.) The spectacle ultimately didnt help Musks fading fortunes one iota, but it did bring to life an image long lurking in certain corners of the public imagination: Trump as an overzealous used car salesman.A crimson tide washes over the stock map[Screenshot: Finviz/Internet Archive]Trumps red-light-green-light approach to imposing tariffs on more or less every countrynot all of which are even populatedhas created a lot of compelling images. Most of them, however, are stock brokers with their faces in their hands on some of the recent days when the Dow dropped by 1,000 points or more. The most lasting image from the post-Liberation Day stock free fall, though, is probably a stock market heatmap turning nearly all redalmost as if Americas economic security had bled out.Just say Noem[Photo: Alex Brandon/Getty Images]Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem is apparently a fan of cosplay. Shes donned tactical gear several times to tag along on ICE raids, seemingly with the sole purpose of making content. On one of these raids, she even brought along Chaya Raichik, the far-right influencer better known as LibsofTikTok. Noems largest contribution to the visual vocabulary of Trumps second term, though, was her late-March stunt at El Salvadors Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) prison, where Noem filmed herself standing in front of a crowded cell full of mostly shirtless inmates, and threatened all criminal illegal aliens in the U.S. that they could soon be there, too. Using these men as props is already in poor taste, inviting painful memories of Abu Ghraib. That the administration admitted, just days later, to sending a man to CECOT by mistake made it even worse.Of course, for many viewers, the hardest part of looking back at any of these images from the past 100 days may be the shocking realization that it has only been 100 days.
If youre not on TikTok, you may not have heard of Aaron Parnas. But for many young people across the U.S., hes a prominent political news source, with over 3.5 million followers on TikTok and just under one million on Instagram.
Parnas isnt the only TikToker Gen Z and Gen Alpha turn to for news. Between 2020 and 2024, the share of adults regularly getting news from TikTok nearly quintupledwith adults under 30 leading the surge.
Who is Aaron Parnas?
After starting college at 14, Aaron Parnas completed his degree at 18 and graduated from George Washington University Law School at 21 in 2020.
That same year, Parnas transitioned from Republican to Democrat. He is the son of Lev Parnas and detailed both his familys political experiences and his personal journey in the memoir Trump First.
Outside of TikTok, Parnas has worked as a securities litigation attorney and a Democratic digital strategist. He first gained traction online by posting legal content during the pandemic. In 2022, he pivoted to covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine, sharing pro-Ukrainian stories from his relatives living there. His account quickly blew up, gaining 1.2 million followers in just a few weeks.
TikTok as a News Platform
TikTok is increasingly becoming a news platform, where users watch influencers summarize news stories and topicsgiving you the TL;DR in a way, Parnas said.
Parnas and others are often able to post as soon as news breaks. Ill post 20 times a day if I have to, he told the Daily Voice. For example, Parnas was among the first to report on President Zelenskyys March 5, 2022, call with U.S. lawmakers, during which Zelenskyy requested more resources and suggested it could be the last time they saw him alive.
Gen Z and Gen Alphas Shift in Media Habits
According to the Pew Research Center, 39% of adults under 30 regularly get news from TikTok.
However, less than 1% of the accounts users follow are journalists or traditional news outlets. Instead, young people are turning to social media influencers like Parnas. A lot of [his followers] say they dont go to CNN, FOX or MSNBC, he said.
Parnas believes Gen Z and Gen Alpha are disenchanted with legacy news media. He argues that traditional journalisms dedication to neutrality can be a turnoff, and that younger audiences are more open to editorializing and personal opinions from news sources. TikTok also makes space for diverse perspectives to be heardsuch as those of Parnass Ukrainian relatives.
Challenges of TikTok News Consumption
Parnas credits his ability to post quickly to the fact that he operates solo and doesnt need to go through multiple layers of approval. Still, his goal is to spread accurate information.
I would never consider myself an investigative journalist by any means, Parnas said in an interview. Instead, he views himself as a news aggregator who shares information from verified sources with his followers. He acknowledges that legacy media remains important due to its superior sourcing and fact-checking.
However, not all TikTok influencers prioritize accuracy. The platform lacks a system to prevent the spread of misinformationwhether its unverified claims, personal (and possibly uninformed) opinions, biased interpretations, or outright fabrications.
Parnas describes the relationship between traditional journalists and TikTok creators as a double-edged sword. While creators help traditional reporting reach younger audiences by repackaging it for social platforms, the original journalists often dont get the credit they deserve. As a result, many young users may struggle to recognize what trustworthy journalism actually looks like.
Is your green my green? Probably not. What appears as pure green to me will likely look a bit yellowish or blueish to you. This is because visual systems vary from person to person. Moreover, an objects color may appear differently against different backgrounds or under different lighting.
These facts might naturally lead you to think that colors are subjective. That, unlike features such as length and temperature, colors are not objective features. Either nothing has a true color, or colors are relative to observers and their viewing conditions.
But perceptual variation has misled you. We are philosophers who study colors, objectivity, and science, and we argue in our book The Metaphysics of Colors that colors are as objective as length and temperature.
Perceptual variation
There is a surprising amount of variation in how people perceive the world. If you offer a group of people a spectrum of color chips ranging from chartreuse to purple and asked them to pick the unique green chipthe chip with no yellow or blue in ittheir choices would vary considerably. Indeed, there wouldnt be a single chip that most observers would agree is unique green.
Generally, an objects background can result in dramatic changes in how you perceive its colors. If you place a gray object against a lighter background, it will appear darker than if you place it against a darker background. This variation in perception is perhaps most striking when viewing an object under different lighting, where a red apple could look green or blue.
Of course, that you experience something differently does not prove that what is experienced is not objective. Water that feels cold to one person may not feel cold to another. And although we do not know who is feeling the water correctly, or whether that question even makes sense, we can know the temperature of the water and presume that this temperature is independent of your experience.
Similarly, that you can change the appearance of somethings color is not the same as changing its color. You can make an apple look green or blue, but that is not evidence that the apple is not red.
Under different lighting conditions, objects take on different colors. [Photo: Liia Galimzianova/Getty Images]
For comparison, the moon appears larger when its on the horizon than when it appears near its zenith. But the size of the moon has not changed, only its appearance. Hence, that the appearance of an objects color or size varies is, by itself, no reason to think that its color and size are not objective features of the object. In other words, the properties of an object are independent of how they appear to you.
That said, given that there is so much variation in how objects appear, how do you determine what color something actually is? Is there a way to determine the color of something despite the many different experiences you might have of it?
Matching colors
Perhaps determining the color of something is to determine whether it is red or blue. But we suggest a different approach. Notice that squares that appear to be the same shade of pink against different backgrounds look different against the same background.
The smaller squares may appear to be the same color, but if you compare them with the strip of squares at the bottom, theyre actually different shades. [Photo: Shobdohin/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA]
Its easy to assume that to prove colors are objective would require knowing which observers, lighting conditions and backgrounds are the best, or normal. But determining the right observers and viewing conditions is not required for determining the very specific color of an object, regardless of its name. And it is not required to determine whether two objects have the same color.
To determine whether two objects have the same color, an observer would need to view the objects side by side against the same background and under various lighting conditions. If you painted part of a room and find that you dont have enough paint, for instance, finding a match might be very tricky. A color match requires that no observer under any lighting condition will see a difference between the new paint and the old.
That two people can determine whether two objects have the same color even if they dont agree on exactly what that color isjust as a pool of water can have a particular temperature without feeling the same to me and youseems like compelling evidence to us that colors are objective features of our world.
Colors, science, and indispensability
Everyday interactions with colorssuch as matching paint samples, determining whether your shirt and pants clash, and even your ability to interpret works of artare hard to explain if colors are not objective features of objects. But if you turn to science and look at the many ways that researchers think about colors, it becomes harder still.
For example, in the field of color science, scientific laws are used to explain how objects and light affect perception and the colors of other objects. Such laws, for instance, predict what happens when you mix colored pigments, when you view contrasting colors simultaneously or successively, and when you look at colored objects in various lighting conditions.
The philosophers Hilary Putnam and Willard van Orman Quine made famous what is known as the indispensability argument. The basic idea is that if something is indispensable to science, then it must be real and objectiveotherwise, science wouldnt work as well as it does.
For example, you may wonder whether unobservable entities such as electrons and electromagnetic fields really exist. But, so the argument goes, the best scientific explanations assume the existence of such entities and so they must exist. Similarly, because mathematics is indispensable to contemporary science, some philosophers argue that this means mathematical objects are objective and exist independently of a persons mind.
The bright colors of this granular poison frog signal a warning to predators of its toxicity. [Photo: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA]
Likewise, we suggest that color plays an indispensable role in evolutionary biology. For example, researchers have argued that aposematismthe use of colors to signal a warning for predatorsalso benefits an animals ability to gather resources. Here, an animals coloration works directly to expand its food-gathering niche insofar as it informs potential predators that the animal is poisonous or venomous.
In fact, animals can exploit the fact that the same color pattern can be perceived differently by different perceivers. For instance, some damselfish have ultraviolet face patterns that help them be recognized by other members of their species and communicate with potential mates while remaining largely hidden to predators unable to perceive ultraviolet colors.
In sum, our ability to determine whether objects are colored the same or differently and the indispensable roles they play in science suggest that colors are as real and objective as length and temperature.
Elay Shech is a professor of philosophy at Auburn University.
Michael Watkins is a professor of philosophy at Auburn University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Social media users have been having a field day with Waymos autonomous vehicles, sharing videos that poke fun at the driverless cars getting stuck, acting unpredictably, or simply navigating the world a little too awkwardly.
The latest wave of posts follows Waymos recent expansion into Austin, where users are already documenting bizarre and frustrating experiences with the service.
TikTok user Becky Levin Navarro posted a video on April 20 claiming a Waymo car trapped her and her fellow passengers on the side of a highway after heading in the wrong direction. This is the most insane thing. Were in a Waymo, here, under Mopac, she said. It was going the wrong way, we called customer support, it stopped us right here and wouldnt let us out of the car.
@beckypearlatx Zero stars for waymo. When we pulled up next to Deep Eddy Cabaret and the waymo didnt let us out and instead kept going the wrong direction towards downtown we said please let us out here it wouldnt let us out so it headed east, turned around back towards deep eddy cabaret and then STOPPED in a horrible spot to stop. We kept asking for it to move and customer service refused. #waymo #tiktok original sound – Becky Levin Navarro
The video shows passengers speaking to customer support through the cars intercom. The agent explains the car can’t be moved manually, and asks for a physical address to relocate the vehicle.
A Waymo spokesperson later responded: Waymo riders always have the ability to pause their ride and exit the vehicle when desired. Passengers can exit the vehicle by pulling the handle twiceonce to unlock and another to open the door.
From being called drunk robots to causing traffic jams in the middle of the night, Waymo has become a regular subject of online trolling. Viral clips include Waymos honking at each other in the early morning hours, jamming up intersections, and getting stuck in drive-throughs. Some show police and parking enforcement stepping in to deal with wayward vehicles.
@bluenote727 Waymo Self Driving Car Big Malfunction original sound – Blue Note
A video from San Francisco shows a Waymo going the wrong way during a Warriors game as officials try to redirect it. Its not funny. This is a very serious matter, a police officer jokes to bystanders.
The vehicle eventually backs up, awkwardly swerving to avoid a pickup truck. See, it worked!” the officer says with a shrug. “Still a little weird. I wouldnt have went that way, but . . .
@travellingnepali When a Waymo driverless car goes the wrong way during a Warriors game in SF and the cops + parking enforcement have to teach it a lesson. Waymo: processing processing Finally it gets the memo and turns back! #Waymo #bayareacheck WaymorivingStruggles #SanFrancisco #WarriorsGame #driverlesscar #nepali original sound – Anil & Mansha
Waymos fleet has more than tripled on California roads over the past year. A DMV report from April 11 cites 30 autonomous vehicle incidents in 2024. Still, Waymo reports 81% fewer injury-causing crashes and 64% fewer airbag deployments compared to human drivers in San Francisco and Phoenix.
Despite its safety claims, the company remains a favorite online target. As Waymo expands into more citiesincluding a recent launch in Tokyothe internet doesnt seem ready to let the driverless cars off the hook.
Fun fact: The saying work smarter, not harder is coming up on its 100th birthday. Coined in the 1930s by industrial engineer Allen Morgenstern, this simple, pithy directive is arguably more achievable today than ever before.
Thanks to generative AI chatbots such as OpenAIs ChatGPT, Googles Gemini, and Anthropics Claude, its never been easier to quickly create text, images, code, and more. Here are few practical ways you can leverage them to power up your productivity.
Create content
If you spend any time crafting marketing copy, drafting emails, outlining blog posts, or even brainstorming ideas, generative AI tools can save you an incredible amount of time.
Simply input a few keywords or a brief description, and watch as the AI generates initial drafts, outlines, or even complete pieces of content.
Sample prompts:
“Write a social media post announcing a new product feature for our accounting software. Keep it under 140 characters and include relevant hashtags.”
“Generate three different subject lines for an email marketing campaign promoting our summer sale.”
“Create an outline for a blog post titled ‘The Top 5 Benefits of Using AI for Project Management.
Summarize information
Drowning in readables? Generative AI can help you separate the wheat from the chaff far faster than even the speediest of human speed-readers.
You can condense lengthy documents, emails, reports, and more into concise summaries, without spending hours reading.
Sample prompts:
“Summarize the key findings of this market research report into a few paragraphs.”
“Extract the action items from this email thread.”
“Synthesize the customer feedback from this collection of online reviews into an overview of common themes.”
Generate ideas
If youre not quite ready to trust generative AI to reliably create content or summarize information for you, rest assured that it can act as a powerful brainstorming partner.
You can leverage AI to generate a wide range of concepts, muscle through writers block, or help you think of new ways to solve problems.
Sample prompts:
“Brainstorm 10 different marketing campaign ideas for a sustainable fashion brand targeting Gen Z.”
“Generate five unique names for a new coffee shop with a focus on local beans.”
“Come up with three different approaches to improve customer engagement on our website.”
