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XRivian Banking on Solar Energy To Power Its EV Chargers
Kristin Snyder
Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Electric truck and SUV manufacturer Rivian has entered an agreement with solar energy company Clearloop to finance a Tennessee solar facility that will help power its EV chargers in the region. Axios first reported the news Thursday.
The Irvine-based automaker provided upfront financing for one megawatt of renewable electricity at the Paris Solar Farm in Puryear, Tenn., about 100 miles west of Nashville. The solar farm broke ground on Tuesday; once completed, it will produce 6.75 megawatts of energy annually.
Rivian’s one megawatt investment will power its Rivian Waypoint chargers located in Tennessee state parks, among "other clean energy commitments in the region," it said in a press release. Power production startup Silicon Ranch, which acquired Clearloop last year, will build the solar farm. Tennessee utility Paris BPU, a partner in the Puryear solar farm, will oversee operations.
The partnership comes as Rivian has struggled to meet production targets, while CEO RJ Scaringe recently predicted a major electric vehicle battery shortage in the coming years. Rivian is also facing pushback on recent expansion plans after its $5 billion factory in Georgia was approved despite backlash from local communities. In recent months, the company has faced shareholder lawsuits over price increases to its vehicles and seen its stock tumble in the wake of its initial public offering last November.
Rivian joins a growing number of Southern California-based startups investing in solar power. Long Beach-based rocket maker Rocket Lab acquired New Mexico-based solar panel company SolAero last year, while Santa Monica-based B2U Storage Solutions plans to transform depleted electric vehicle batteries into solar power storage. In January, San Diego-based electric vehicle charging startup ChargeNet raised funds to bring solar-powered EV charging stations to fast-food parking lots.
Yet curbing enthusiasm about the alternative energy source is the Biden administration’s investigation into whether China circumvented tariffs on solar equipment imports to the U.S.—a probe that could hinder the domestic solar industry's ability to build projects.
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Kristin Snyder
Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
https://twitter.com/ksnyder_db
Here's How To Get a Digital License Plate In California
03:49 PM | October 14, 2022
Photo by Clayton Cardinalli on Unsplash
Thanks to a new bill passed on October 5, California drivers now have the choice to chuck their traditional metal license plates and replace them with digital ones.
The plates are referred to as “Rplate” and were developed by Sacramento-based Reviver. A news release on Reviver’s website that accompanied the bill’s passage states that there are “two device options enabling vehicle owners to connect their vehicle with a suite of services including in-app registration renewal, visual personalization, vehicle location services and security features such as easily reporting a vehicle as stolen.”
Reviver Auto Current and Future CapabilitiesFrom Youtube
There are wired (connected to and powered by a vehicle’s electrical system) and battery-powered options, and drivers can choose to pay for their plates monthly or annually. Four-year agreements for battery-powered plates begin at $19.95 a month or $215.40 yearly. Commercial vehicles will pay $275.40 each year for wired plates. A two-year agreement for wired plates costs $24.95 per month. Drivers can choose to install their plates, but on its website, Reviver offers professional installation for $150.
A pilot digital plate program was launched in 2018, and according to the Los Angeles Times, there were 175,000 participants. The new bill ensures all 27 million California drivers can elect to get a digital plate of their own.
California is the third state after Arizona and Michigan to offer digital plates to all drivers, while Texas currently only provides the digital option for commercial vehicles. In July 2022, Deseret News reported that Colorado might also offer the option. They have several advantages over the classic metal plates as well—as the L.A. Times notes, digital plates will streamline registration renewals and reduce time spent at the DMV. They also have light and dark modes, according to Reviver’s website. Thanks to an accompanying app, they act as additional vehicle security, alerting drivers to unexpected vehicle movements and providing a method to report stolen vehicles.
As part of the new digital plate program, Reviver touts its products’ connectivity, stating that in addition to Bluetooth capabilities, digital plates have “national 5G network connectivity and stability.” But don’t worry—the same plates purportedly protect owner privacy with cloud support and encrypted software updates.
5 Reasons to avoid the digital license plate | Ride TechFrom Youtube
After the Rplate pilot program was announced four years ago, some raised questions about just how good an idea digital plates might be. Reviver and others who support switching to digital emphasize personalization, efficient DMV operations and connectivity. However, a 2018 post published by Sophos’s Naked Security blog pointed out that “the plates could be as susceptible to hacking as other wireless and IoT technologies,” noting that everyday “objects – things like kettles, TVs, and baby monitors – are getting connected to the internet with elementary security flaws still in place.”
To that end, a May 2018 syndicated New York Times news service article about digital plates quoted the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which warned that such a device could be a “‘honeypot of data,’ recording the drivers’ trips to the grocery store, or to a protest, or to an abortion clinic.”
For now, Rplates are another option in addition to old-fashioned metal, and many are likely to opt out due to cost alone. If you decide to go the digital route, however, it helps if you know what you could be getting yourself into.
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Steve Huff
Steve Huff is an Editor and Reporter at dot.LA. Steve was previously managing editor for The Metaverse Post and before that deputy digital editor for Maxim magazine. He has written for Inside Hook, Observer and New York Mag. Steve is the author of two official tie-ins books for AMC’s hit “Breaking Bad” prequel, “Better Call Saul.” He’s also a classically-trained tenor and has performed with opera companies and orchestras all over the Eastern U.S. He lives in the greater Boston metro area with his wife, educator Dr. Dana Huff.
steve@dot.la
Four Tech Execs Charged in $150M Fraud Scheme Against San Diego Tech Giant
03:25 PM | August 15, 2022
Photo by Brian Kostiuk on Unsplash
The Department of Justice (DOJ) charged four people last week, alleging that they deceived a prominent San Diego technology firm in 2015 when the firm invested $150 million in the defendants’ startup Abreezio, which purported to offer innovative new microchip technology based on inventions by a Canadian grad student.
Defendants Karim Arabi and Ali Akbar Shokouhi were taken into custody in San Diego, and authorities arrested Sanjiv Taneja in the Northern District of California. The fourth defendant, Sheida Alan, was taken into custody in Canada. Authorities will seek her extradition to the United States for prosecution.
The DOJ indictment alleges that Arabi and Shokouhi used their positions with the buyer to create a fake multimillion-dollar sale. The defendants allegedly falsified business records and lied to company representatives about the startup’s value. While the DOJ didn’t name the defrauded company in its press release, Karim Arabi’s LinkedIn profile showed he was San Diego-based Qualcomm’s vice president for research and development between 2013 and 2016, and intelligence and sales engagement platform Apollo.io indicates Qualcomm acquired Abreezio in 2015.
A look at Abreezio’s website as archived in 2016 revealed a basic set of pages and just two team members—CEO Sanjiv Taneja and a CTO not named here because he was not included in the indictment. The home page advertised “groundbreaking TRUSENS technology to improve PPA [power, performance, and area] of SoCs [systems on a chip] providing one technology node advantage” and beneath that, in red letters, “Acquired by Qualcomm.”
But what did Qualcomm acquire when it purchased the startup? According to an indictment filed in the Southern California U.S. District Court, the semiconductor and wireless telecommunications products company paid $150 million to acquire Abreezio and proprietary technology—tech actually developed by Qualcomm employees taking advantage of their inside knowledge of the company.
The indictment alleges that Karim Arabi, who was vice president of research and development at the time at Qualcomm, took part in the creation of a new kind of microprocessor while at the same time another Qualcomm VP, Akbar Shokouhi, was funding Abreezio, filtering money through shadow companies.
According to the indictment, Arabi’s employment contract with Qualcomm stated that the company owned any “intellectual property he created” while employed there. So what Abreezio presented as “new” tech developed in part by Sheida Alan (a.k.a. Sheida Arabi), a grad student based in Canada, was already legally Qualcomm property.
The possibility that there was simply some misunderstanding between Qualcomm and Arabi or Shokouhi is quickly eliminated in reading the indictment, which alleges an elaborate coverup to conceal the true provenance of Abreezio’s technology. The scheme described in the court papers involved fake email accounts, Arabi allegedly filing patents using Alan’s name—he stated she was his sister—and money laundering through a combination of real estate transactions and loans. The indictment also alleges that Arabi colluded with Sanjiv Taneja by giving him Qualcomm’s “sensitive internal information about” the tech that Abreezio’s product would replace “in order to fine-tune Abreezio's marketing pitch.”
The defendants all cleaned up when Qualcomm bought Abreezio. Alan and Arabi received almost $92 million, Taneja $10 million and Shokouhi a total of $24 million.
The indictment enumerates a laundry list of financial crimes, including wire fraud, conspiracy to launder “monetary instruments,” and engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity. If convicted, the defendants face hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and the possibility of 20 years in prison.
In response to dot.LA’s request for comment, a Qualcomm spokesperson said, “Protecting intellectual property is a cornerstone of innovation. We thank the U.S. Department of Justice for its work in this case.”
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Steve Huff
Steve Huff is an Editor and Reporter at dot.LA. Steve was previously managing editor for The Metaverse Post and before that deputy digital editor for Maxim magazine. He has written for Inside Hook, Observer and New York Mag. Steve is the author of two official tie-ins books for AMC’s hit “Breaking Bad” prequel, “Better Call Saul.” He’s also a classically-trained tenor and has performed with opera companies and orchestras all over the Eastern U.S. He lives in the greater Boston metro area with his wife, educator Dr. Dana Huff.
steve@dot.la
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