TheChek News Flow

Can Bentley crack the EV market?

The new hybrid Flying Spur saloon is the brand’s latest statement in its commitment to ditch the combustion engine by 2030 – we take a spin behind the wheel

When Bentley took its first step into the electrified vehicle market in 2019, with the launch of the Bentayga Hybrid SUV, it was a little late to the non-combustion engine party. But having turned up, it has loudly signalled its intention to stay. “By 2030, the whole portfolio will be electric – no more combustion cars,” insists Peter Bosch, member of the board for manufacturing. Figures from 2021 show an unprecedented demand for Bentley’s hybrid electric offering, a trend that has played out across the wider EV market, with more battery-electric vehicles hitting the UK’s roads last year than in the previous five put together. According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, 18.5 per cent of all new cars registered in 2021 are either hybrid plug-in or fully electric; meanwhile Ford, VW (which also owns Bentley), Mercedes Benz and Toyota have all committed their futures to electric.

This month sees the important next step in Bentley’s journey towards full electrification in the shape of the Flying Spur Hybrid saloon, which I put through its paces at its launch in LA. Edging out through Beverly Hills is an eerie experience: in a city powered by bravado, glitz and glamour, silence is an unconventional currency. While the bronzed Beverly Hills residents blast up and down Rodeo Drive in Lamborghinis and Ferraris, designed to draw attention, the new Spur whispers and wafts. With a lack of any engine vibration or noise in the cabin, the electrified Spur is a soothing place to sit – whether you’re behind the wheel or stretching out in the back. Only the sound of the fan or the gentle wheeze of the massage seats breaks the silence at low speeds.

Once out on the back roads towards Santa Barbara, the Spur’s e-motor (134bhp and an expected 25-mile electric-only range) is aided by the three-litre, twin-turbocharged V6 petrol engine, which combine to produce 536bhp and give the Spur an expected range of up to 450 miles. Running the car in EV mode requires featherweight footwork – anything more and the V6 kicks in and takes over acceleration duties, helping it along to its top speed of 177mph. Under heavy acceleration, the silence is quickly broken by the sound of the V6 revving hard to propel the 2.5-tonne car along at pace. For those familiar with the W12 and V8-engined Spurs, the V6 sounds strained compared with the mighty surge delivered from the more substantial combustion engines but it’s far from sluggish. Hitting 60mph from standstill takes 4.1s, a fraction slower than its W12 and V8 counterparts. 

For onlookers, only the hybrid badge behind the front wheels and the double filler cap reveal the car’s alternative power plant. Inside, the Spur’s interior remains unchanged with its novel rotating instrument binnacle, open-pore wood, quilted leather and cosseting seats reassuringly still present, depending on what you pick from the sizeable options list. Prices are expected to start from around £180,000, but can rise rapidly with a few additional extras.

 

Bentley says its first full EV is due in 2025; meantime this twinning of electric power and automotive opulence serves as a tantalising taster of what’s to come.

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The highly technical realms of wireless technology and avionics exploded into a furore in the US this week, after airlines warned of chaos if telecoms groups launched new 5G networks as planned on Wednesday.

5G will offer mobile phone users superfast connections and is expected to hasten the digitisation of many industries. But airlines have raised concerns over potential interference with their instrument systems.

AT&T and Verizon, the telecoms groups, on Tuesday said they had voluntarily agreed to scale back 5G near certain airport runways while pushing ahead with nationwide rollouts. The moves eased the showdown with the airline industry.

But not entirely: later on Tuesday, Delta Air Lines said it was planning for possible cancellations “caused by the deployment of new 5G service in the vicinity of dozens of US airports”.

How did the US reach this cliffhanger over 5G technology that already exists in other countries served by airlines? Here are some answers.

Airlines warn that the technology could interfere with sensitive equipment, notably altimeters, which use radio frequencies to measure how high an aircraft is flying and provide data to critical equipment including the autopilot. They are particularly crucial for landings in inclement weather.

5G networks in the US operate using frequencies in the same radio spectrum, known as the C-band.

The aviation industry believes this is a safety problem. The Federal Aviation Administration has cleared less than half of the domestic commercial aircraft fleet to perform low-visibility landings at many airports where the 5G C-band will be deployed. On January 7 the regulator delineated so-called buffer zones around 50 airports — including those around the hubs of New York City, Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles — to turn off 5G wireless transmitters close to runways for six months.

Airlines argue these buffer zones do not go far enough, and have called on the government to block 5G masts within two miles of runways at some airports.

Airlines on Monday said the problem presented by 5G was worse than their executives expected, threatening to ground thousands of passenger and cargo flights. “Multiple modern safety systems on aircraft will be deemed unusable,” US airline executives wrote in a letter to the FAA and Federal Communications Commission on Monday.

United Airlines has said it is particularly concerned about three Boeing planes — the 787, 777 and 737 — whose altimeters it said would be “compromised”. United and American Airlines said they were preparing to curtail flights if Wednesday’s planned 5G launch went ahead.

Ultimately, AT&T said it agreed to “temporarily defer turning on” some 5G towers around “certain airport runways”, while Verizon said it would limit its launch “around airports”.

Many other countries have introduced 5G. A key difference is that the radio frequency band allocated for 5G in the US is closer to the bandwidth used in avionics than in other regions including Europe.

The FAA has also pointed to other differences, including 5G power levels, the tilt of aerials and the placement of aerials in relation to airfields.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency said it “is not aware of any in-service incidents caused by 5G interference” and that data received from aircraft manufacturers “offers no conclusive evidence for immediate safety concerns”.

Concerns over interference have been discussed for years in the US, according to the FAA. Tom Wheeler, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and former chair of the FCC, said confusion over allocating the airwaves showed “a lack of leadership” in Washington.

“The Trump administration had no . . . unified spectrum policy; as a result, policy ended up being made by individual agencies,” he wrote in a November blog post.

The US telecoms industry has insisted there is no safety problem, that their equipment will not interfere with aircraft and points to the fact that 40 countries have already safely adopted 5G. AT&T and Verizon had already delayed their full 5G launches twice since early December.

CTIA, the telecoms trade body, has accused the aviation industry of “spread[ing] incorrect information about 5G and airline safety”, and argues that the delay to building the 5G network is harming US competitiveness.

Joe Biden, US president, hailed AT&T and Verizon on Tuesday for “allow[ing] aviation operations to continue without significant disruption”.

Yet pressure remained on the White House to find a long-term solution, as telecoms companies left it unclear how long they would further delay service near airports.

As well, the FAA had not lifted its directives to restrict flights as of Tuesday afternoon. Those directives officially govern aviation operations, said one industry official, and leaving them in place “could lead to cancellations”.

An official at the FCC, whose regulatory purview includes the spectrum, said that no other aviation regulator has put in place similar flight restrictions to the FAA.

Jessica Rosenworcel, FCC chair, said in a statement: “The FAA has a process in place to assess altimeter performance in the 5G environment and resolve any remaining concerns. It is essential that the FAA now complete this process with both care and speed.”

Esma vice-chair criticises method of minting bitcoin that is using more renewable energy

A top EU financial regulator has renewed calls for a bloc-wide “ban” on the main form of bitcoin mining and sounded the alarm over the rising proportion of renewable energy devoted to crypto mining.

Erik Thedéen, vice-chair of the European Securities and Markets Authority, told the Financial Times that bitcoin mining had become a “national issue” for his native country Sweden and warned that cryptocurrencies posed a risk to meeting climate change goals in the Paris agreement.

Thedéen said that European regulators should consider banning a mining method known as “proof of work” and instead nudge the industry towards the less energy-intensive “proof of stake” model to cut down on the sector’s vast power usage.

Bitcoin and ether, the two largest cryptocurrencies by volume, both rely on a proof of work model, requiring all participants on the blockchain digital ledger to verify transactions. Miners, who use sprawling data centres filled with fast computers to solve complex puzzles, are rewarded for recording transactions with newly minted coins.

That requires significantly more energy than the proof of stake model, where the number of parties signing off trades is much smaller.

“The solution is to ban proof of work,” said Thedéen, who is also director-general of Sweden’s Financial Services Authority and chair of sustainable finance for international body Iosco. “Proof of stake has a significantly lower energy profile.”

Mining has become a highly lucrative and competitive business, with the amount of computing power dedicated to the process running at record levels, according to Blockchain.com. China banned the process in May but activity has scattered across the world and there are now several publicly traded companies focused on the practice, such as Canada’s Hut 8.

“We need to have a discussion about shifting the industry to a more efficient technology,” Thedéen said, adding that he was not advocating a wholesale ban on crypto.

“The financial industry and a lot of large institutions are now active in cryptocurrency markets and they have [environmental, social and governance] responsibilities,” he added.

His comments were made after Swedish authorities first floated the idea of banning the practice in November last year, noting the rising amount of renewable energy being devoted to cryptocurrencies while stating that “the social benefit of crypto assets is questionable”.

“[We call for] the EU to consider an EU-level ban on the energy-intensive mining method proof of work,” the Swedish financial regulator said in November.

Cryptocurrency mining has been attracting growing criticism for its impact on the environment. The practice accounts for 0.6 per cent of the world’s total energy consumption and burns more electricity annually than Norway, according to data from the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index.

Faced with mounting criticism and the ban in China, miners have upped the share of renewable energy they use for powering their computers and pushed into countries with plenty of wind and solar power, such as Sweden and Norway.

“Bitcoin is now a national issue for Sweden because of the amount of renewable energy devoted to mining,” Thedéen said.

Without intervention, he warned, a significant amount of renewable energy would go towards creating units of bitcoin instead of moving traditional services away from coal-powered energy sources.

Swedish regulators, citing estimates from Cambridge university, also noted that mining a single unit of bitcoin consumes the same amount of energy as driving a medium-sized electric car 1.8m kilometres.

“It would be an irony if the wind power generated on Sweden’s long coastline would be devoted to bitcoin mining,” Thedéen said.

Ethereum, the second largest digital asset, has said it will migrate to the proof of stake model in June.

Tech investor’s blank-cheque deal with kidney biotech comes after he said ‘nobody cares’ about Uyghurs in China

A special purpose acquisition vehicle backed by tech investor Chamath Palihapitiya has agreed to merge with a healthcare company focusing on kidney disease, the latest move by the dealmaker who stirred controversy this week by saying “nobody cares” about the repression of Muslim Uyghurs in China.

Palihapitiya has been a prolific sponsor of Spacs, launching 10 blank-cheque vehicles to capitalise on booming demand. The latest deal between his Social Capital Suvretta III Spac and ProKidney, a therapeutics company focusing on treating chronic kidney disease, values the combined company at $2.64bn.

It is expected to provide $825m in proceeds, including $250m from Palihapitiya’s Spac, which listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in June.

The deal has $575m in private investment in public equity financing, $125m of which is from Palihapitiya’s venture capital firm Social Capital. Palihapitiya said chronic kidney disease affected his late father and that the merger will provide ProKidney with the capital to continue phase 3 trials into its cell therapy treatment.

The deal comes a day after Palihapitiya stoked controversy by saying on his podcast that “nobody cares what’s happening with the Uyghurs” in China. “Every time I say that I care about the Uyghurs, I’m really just lying,” he said.

Companies and investors are facing renewed pressure ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics after the US and UK announced a diplomatic boycott of the event in response to China’s persecution of the Uyghurs in its north-western Xinjiang region.

The US state department has accused China of “genocide and crimes against humanity” in its treatment of the Uyghurs.

Beijing has denied allegations of mistreatment and encouraged boycotts against foreign companies, such as apparel retailer H&M, that have spoken out against the use of forced labour in the region.

Palihapitiya, who owns stake in the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, later said that human rights mattered. “I recognise that I come across as lacking empathy,” he said, after the Warriors said Palihapitiya did not represent their views.

The World Uyghur Congress, an international advocacy group, said it was “appalled” by the tech investor’s comments.

“It’s absolutely sickening and despicable that someone with a great reach would say he doesn’t care about an ongoing GENOCIDE,” Zumretay Arkin, a programme manager at the human rights group said on Twitter.

A spokesperson for the Warriors said in a statement: “As a limited investor who has no day-to-day operating functions with the Warriors, Mr Palihapitiya does not speak on behalf of our franchise, and his views certainly don’t reflect those of our organisation.”

Palihapitiya’s comments drew backlash from Republicans politicians who said they had exposed his hypocrisy as well as the NBA’s.

Marsha Blackburn, a Republican senator from Tennessee, described his comments as “sickening” and “proof the NBA will cosy up to Communist China at all costs”.

Mitt Romney of Utah said that the “arrogant dismissal of China’s genocide of the Uyghurs and other minorities by the billionaire venture capitalist who founded the ironically named ‘Social Capital’ fund is repulsive, immoral, and disgusting”.

Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas, said the NBA “will prove itself greedy, spineless, and hypocritical if it doesn’t force Palihapitiya to sell his interest in the Warriors”.

Palihapitiya, along with his co-sponsor Kishen Mehta, is set to make $62.5m from the so-called promote of the Spac, according to Spac Research data.

Spac sponsors are paid in the form of founder shares, known as a promote, which typically involves taking 20 per cent of the Spac’s equity for a nominal price of $25,000. When the Spac merger is completed, the sponsor’s deeply discounted shares convert.

The deal marked the fifth merger for Palihapitiya’s Spacs, with others including Richard Branson’s space tourism company Virgin Galactic and healthcare company Clover Health.

Investor enthusiasm for Spacs has subsided from last year’s frenzied highs as regulatory scrutiny increased. Investors have withdrawn their cash at higher rates and Spac withdrawals have risen in recent months as some sponsors struggled to find suitable target companies to take public.

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