Tag: Enel

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Google hit with $123M antitrust fine in Italy over Android Auto

Google has been fined just over €100 million (~$123M) by Italy’s antitrust watchdog for abuse of a dominant market position.

The case relates to Android Auto, a modified version of Google’s mobile OS intended for in-car use, and specifically to how Google restricted access to the platform to an electric car charging app, called JuicePass, made by energy company Enel X Italia.

Android Auto lets motorists directly access a selection of relevant apps (like maps and music streaming services) via a dash-mounted screen. But Enel X Italia’s JuicePass app was not one of the third party apps Google granted access to.

The app is accessible via the smartphone version of the Android platform — but of course a driver shouldn’t be reaching for their phone when at the wheel. So barring access through Android Auto puts a significant blocker on relevant usage.

Google’s market restriction of JuicePass has drawn the attention — and now the ire — of Italy’s competition watchdog.

The AGCM said today that Google has violated Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union — and has ordered it to make the JuicePass available via the platform.

It also says Google must to provide the same interoperability with Android Auto to other third party app developers.

The authority points out that the Google Maps app, which offers some basic services for electric vehicle charging (such as finding and getting directions to charging points), is available via Android Auto — and could, in future, incorporate directly competitive features like payments.

“According to the Authority’s findings, Google did not allow Enel X Italia to develop a version of its JuicePass app compatible with Android Auto, a specific Android feature that allows apps to be used while the user is driving in compliance with safety, as well as distraction reduction, requirements,” the AGCM writes in a press release announcing the sanction [translated to English using Google Translate]. “JuicePass enables a wide range of services for recharging electric vehicles, ranging from finding a charging station to managing the charging session and reserving a place at the station; this latter function guarantees the actual availability of the infrastructure once the user reaches it.

“By refusing Enel X Italia interoperability with Android Auto, Google has unfairly limited the possibilities for end users to avail themselves of the Enel X Italia app when driving and recharging an electric vehicle. Google has consequently favored its own Google Maps app, which runs on Android Auto and enables functional services for electric vehicle charging, currently limited to finding and getting directions to reach charging points, but which in the future could include other functionalities such as reservation and payment.”

Google denies any wrongdoing and says it disagrees with the order. But it did not confirm whether or not it intends to appeal.

The tech giant claims the restrictions it places on apps’ access to Android Auto are necessary to ensure drivers are not distracted. It also told us that it has been opening up the platform to more apps over time — with “thousands” now compatible.

It added that its intention is to keep expanding availability.

Google did not comment on why Enel X Italia’s app for recharging electric vehicles was not among the “thousands” it has already granted access to, however.

Per the AGCM, Enel X Italia’s app has been excluded from Android Auto for more than two years.

Here’s Google’s statement:

“The number one priority for Android Auto is to ensure apps can be used safely while driving. That’s why we have strict guidelines on the types of apps which are currently supported and these are based on driver-distraction tests and regulatory and industry standards. Thousands of applications are already compatible with Android Auto, and our goal is to allow even more developers to make their apps available over time. For example, we have introduced templates for navigation, charging, and parking apps, open for any developer to use. We disagree with the Authority’s decision and we will review our options.”

Google has a dominant position in the market via the Android smartphone platform, with a marketshare in Italy of around three-quarters according to the competition watchdog.

Under European Union law, a finding of market dominance in one market puts a responsibility on a company not to restrict competition in any other markets where it operates — and the EU already found Google to be a dominant company in general Internet search in every market in the European Economic Area back in 2017.

The AGCM said it’s concerned about the impact of Google’s restrictions on app access to Android Auto on the growth of the electric mobility market.

“If it were to continue, [it] could permanently jeopardise Enel X Italia’s chances of building a solid user base at a time of significant growth in sales of electric vehicles,” it wrote, adding that Google’s action in excluding the JuicePass app meant it did not appear in the list of applications used by users — thereby reducing consumer choice and creating a barrier to innovation.

The authority suggests Google’s conduct could influence the development of electric mobility during a crucial phase — as recharging infrastructures for electric cars are being built out and can help fuel growth and demand for recharging services.

“Consequently, possible negative effects could occur to the diffusion of electric vehicles, to the use of ‘clean’ energy and to the transition towards a more environmentally sustainable mobility,” it warned, linking anti-competitive behavior to negative consequences for the environment.

The AGCM added that it will monitor Google’s compliance with its order to ensure it effectively and correctly implements the obligations to provide third party app developers with access to Android Auto.

The authority’s action could be a taster of what’s coming down the pipe for gatekeeper players like Google in Europe under the incoming Digital Markets Act (DMA).

The flagship legislative proposal is intended to supplement ex post competition law enforcement with ex ante rules on how dominant platforms which intermediate others’ market access can behave — including by imposing up front requirements that they support interoperability.

The idea with the DMA is to supplement the slow and painstaking work needed to bring competition investigations to fruition with proactive measures slapped on tech giants to prevent certain types of known market abuse in the first place. Although the regulation is likely years out from being adopted and applied across the EU.

In the meanwhile competition probes of big tech continue.

Italy’s AGCM opened one into Google’s ad display business last October, for example.

Google has already faced a number of EU antitrust decision in recent years — including a $5BN penalty over how it operates Android. Although search rivals continue to complain that the remedy Google devised for that 2018 decision still does not sum to fair competition.

Europe lays out its plan to reboot digital rules and tame tech giants

Understanding Europe’s big push to rewrite the digital rulebook

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Committing to a fully zero-emission fleet by 2040, Uber is dedicating $800 million to electrifying its drivers

Ride hailing giant Uber is committing to become a fully zero-emission platform by 2040 and setting aside $800 million to help get its drivers using electric vehicles by 2025.

The company said that it would invest further in its micro-mobility options as well with the goal of having 100 percent of its rides take place on electric vehicles in the US, Canada, and European cities in which the company operates. Uber also said it would commit to reaching net-zero emissions from its own corporate operations by 2030.

If the company can hit its timeline, Uber would achieve necessary milestones in its operations a decade ahead of the Paris Climate Agreement targets set for 2050.

The keys to the company’s efforts are four new and expanding initiatives, according to a statement.

The first is the launch of Uber Green in 15 US and Canadian cities. For customers willing to spend an extra dollar, they can request an EV or hybrid electric vehicle to pick them up. By the end of the year, Uber Green will be available in over 65 cities around the world. Riders who choose the green option will also receive three times the Uber Rewards points they would have received for a typical UberX ride, the company said.

Uber’s second step toward making the world a greener place is to commit $800 million to transition its fleet to electric vehicles. Part of that transition is being subsidized by the $1 surcharge for riders who choose to go green and from fees that the company collects under its London and French Clean Air Plans. Those are 15 cent (or pence) surcharges that Uber has been collecting since January of last year to pay for the electrification of its drivers’ cars in European cities.

Dara Kowsrowshahi, chief executive officer of Uber Technologies Inc., speaks during an event in New Delhi, India, on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018. During his Japan trip, Khosrowshahi has made it clear the ride-hailing company isnt scaling back its ambitions in certain Asian markets, despite speculation of a retreat. Photographer: Anindito Mukherjee/Bloomberg via Getty Images

To incentivize drivers to go green, Uber’s doling out an extra 50 cents per trip in the US and Canada for every “Uber Green” trip completed to be paid out by riders. Drivers using EVs will also get another dollar from Uber itself, amounting to $1.50 more per trip for each EV ride completed.

Other enticements include partnerships with GM in the US and Canada and Renault -Nissan in Europe to offer discounts on electric vehicles to Uber drivers. Working with Avis, Uber is planning to offer more electric vehicles for rental to US drivers. Meanwhile, the company said it would also expand electric vehicle charging by working to develop new charging stations in conjunction with companies like BP, EVgo, Enel X, Izivia by EDF, and Power Dot.

Uber’s also working to revive the vision of robotic battery swapping to enable customers to forget about their concerns when it comes to charging a new vehicle. It’s working with the San Francisco-based startup, Ample, as the young company develops its battery-swapping tech — and Lithium Urban Technologies, an electric fleet operator out of India.

Building on its existing micro-mobility network, the company is going to integrate bikes and scooters from Lime even closer into its networks and expanding its shared ride programs as soon as its safe to do it. The company is also intent on expanding its Journey Planning feature to enable users to see pricing options, schedules, and directions to and from transit stations. Uber also now offers in-app ticketing in more than ten cities, so people can buy public transit passes in the app itself. As a coup de grace, Uber’s also unveiling a new feature that allows users to plan their trips in Chicago and Sydney using cars and public transit to get where they need to go.

Finally, the company has released its first Climate Assessment and Performance Report analyzing emissions from the company’s operations in the United States and Canada from 2017 through 2019. Unsurprisingly, Uber found that it was more efficient than single-occupant driving, but the company did reveal that its carbon intensity is higher than that of average-occupancy personal cars. Meaning when there’re two people using a personal car, their footprint is lower than that of an Uber driver looking for passengers.

Although arguably, Uber shouldn’t be having its customers foot so much of the bill for its electric transition, these are all positive steps from a company that still has a long road ahead of it if it’s looking to reduce its carbon footprint.

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Providing emergency and security services to employees, Base Operations raises $1 million

In 2017, when a destructive earthquake struck Puebla, Mexico, sending shockwaves to Mexico City and destroying buildings in the nation’s megalopolis and its surrounding suburbs, both public and private emergency services sprung into action.

For multinational corporations operating in the city it was a test of their internal support services, which were established to meet the “duty of care” requirements that multinationals have to their foreign employees. That’s a minimum threshold which companies have to meet to ensure the safety of their employees.

After the Mexico City earthquake, at least one Fortune 500 insurance company found its services lacking. It took two weeks for the company to contact all of its employees and account for everyone.

So the company turned to a new Washington-based startup called Base Operations to see if they could do a better job.

Founded by a former security and risk management consultant, Cory Siskind, Base Operations uses a suite of hosted software services and a mobile applications to provide security updates to corporate customers and their employees.

The insurance company tested Base Operations’ check-in feature to see how it would perform in a simulated natural disaster and Siskind said that Base Operations had identified the location of 80% of the company’s workforce in less than two days. Over half of the company’s employees checked in within the first 24 hours.

Base Operations offers a dashboard for corporate customers to monitor their employees’ locations and for staff traveling abroad, the company has an app that provides geo-tagged alerts on potential risks based on an individual’s location.

“This is a compliance situation for companies… They have to do it,” says Siskind. “We work with a company’s chief security officers and travel security. If you send people off into an emerging market with a risk .PDF… It’s not dynamic information and it just sits in a report and nobody reads it.”

Companies with a sales or marketing team traveling around need to have some sort of tool to meet their compliance regulations and duty of care standards, says Siskind.

“We have a whole set of features that nudge towards safer behaviors to that you don’t end up getting mugged and so that you don’t end up in a situation that would be damaging to you,” she says. 

Siskind recently raised $1 million for Base Operations from investors including Glasswing Ventures, Spiro Ventures, the Latin American early stage investment firm, Magma Partners, and Good Growth Capital. Base Operations graduated from Techstars Impact Accelerator in 2018.

The money from the company’s most recent round will be used to expand the company’s sales and marketing efforts and continue its research and development.

So far, the company has three customers including the undisclosed insurance provider, the energy company Enel, and another, yet unnamed, corporation.

Base Operations provides its services in 15 cities including: Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Bogota, Santiago, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and San Jose, Costa Rica.

 

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Sustainability-focused Ecosystem Integrity Fund closes on $100 million

With six deals already under its belt, the sustainability focused investment firm Ecosystem Integrity Fund has closed its third investment vehicle at its $100 million target.

Investments in the third fund include EV Connect, an electric charging company; eMotorWerks, the charging demand management software and service provider acquired by Enel; solar mounting company, Pegasus Solar; the water management company, Opti; and Flying Embers, a probiotic adult beverage company.

Investing in disparate sectors like consumer-focused wellness and organic brands and utility-focused software and services may seem like strange portfolio bedfellows, but the portfolio addresses a key issue for early-stage investment firms, which is following where money gets spent.

The San Francisco-based firm, led by managing partners James Everett and Devin Whatley, with partners Geoff Eisenberg and Sasha Brown, formed after the managing partners left their roles at the boutique investment bank Aquillian. 

EIF launched its first fund in 2011 with $19.6 million under management and returned 1.84 times the capital invested in the fund with a 34.4% net internal rate of return to limited partners. Its second fund raised $57 million and backed six portfolio companies.

“We seek to invest in areas that have not received sufficient investor attention,” said James Everett, managing partner, Ecosystem Integrity Fund, in a statement. “The movement toward environmental sustainability is making incremental improvements to the largest industries in the world. Sustainability is fundamentally about making things better: more efficient, more functional, less toxic, less costly.”

Overall, sustainability focused investments or investments in clean technology are gaining ground again after years of languishing. Last year, global venture capital and private equity investment jumped 127% to $9.2 billion, the highest since 2010.

And some of the biggest opportunities exist in an investment category that was largely unexplored by the first wave of clean tech investors. In the years since clean technology’s initial boom in the mid-2000s, investments focused on health and wellness and sustainable food production have surged.

Recent examples include the blockbuster public offering for Beyond Meat and that trend is even reflected in the largest dollar value exit for EIF, an over $200 million sale of the beverage maker Kevita to Pepsico.

“What we can do is change consumer preferences,” says Eisenberg. “We can get people to stop eating things that have unsustainable ingredients.”

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China’s BYD further drives into Chile with 100 electric buses

Over the past few years, Chinese automaker giant BYD has been on a partnership spree with cities across China to electrify their public transportation systems, and now it’s extending its footprint across the globe. On Thursday, BYD announced that it has shipped 100 electric buses to Santiago, the capital city of Chile.

The step marks the Chinese firm’s further inroads into the Latin American country where a green car revolution is underway to battle smog. BYD’s first batch of vehicles arrived in Santiago last November and the Warren Buffett-backed carmaker remains as the only electric public bus provider in the country.

Chile is on the map of China’s grand Belt and Road Initiative aiming to turbocharge the world’s less developed regions with infrastructure development and investments. “With the help of ‘One Belt One Road,’ BYD has successfully entered Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Uraguay and other Latin American countries. As the region accelerates its electric revolution, BYD may be able to win more opportunities,” said BYD in a statement.

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President of Chile Mr. Sebastián Piñera rides the BYD electric bus. / Credit: BYD

The 100 buses embarked on a 45-day sea voyage from BYD’s factory in eastern China to land on the roads of Santiago. They sport the Chilean national colors of red and white on the exterior and provide USB charging ports inside to serve a generation who live on their electronic devices.

The fleet arrived through a partnership between BYD and Enel, a European utility juggernaut that claims to make up 40 percent of Chile’s energy sales in 2017. Enel has purchased the fleet from BYD and leased them to local transportation operator Metbus while the Chilean government set the rules and standards for the buses, a BYD spokesperson told TechCrunch.

Local passengers graded BYD’s electric vehicles at 6.3 out of 7, well above the 4.6 average of the Santiago public transportation system, according to a survey jointly produced by Chile’s Ministry of Energy as well as Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications. Respondents cited qualities such as low noise level, air conditioning and USB charging that the buses deliver.

Santiago currently has 7,000 public buses running on the road, among which 400 get replaced every year. A lot of the new ones will be diesel-free as the Chilean government said it aims to increase the total number of electric vehicles by tenfold in 2022.