🚘️ The Cybertruck Conundrum

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TOP STORY
📈 The Cybertruck Conundrum

For the first time ever, we have some production numbers for the Cybertruck, and spoiler alert; they’re not so good.

• Initial production began in late November of last year, with 1,163 vehicles delivered in December.

• As of June, an estimated 10,525 vehicles have been produced in 2024, resulting in an average monthly delivery rate of 1,754 Cybertrucks.

Then things took a turn for the worse. 

Late this month, Tesla announced a recall affecting 11,688 Cybertrucks because of a defective front wiper that can fail due to “excessive electrical current.”

This hiccup means that Tesla could realistically deliver around 23,500 cybertrucks this year.

However, the company recently announced a record 1,300 Cybertrucks produced per week and hopes to increase that number to 2,500 vehicles per week by the end of 2024.

This would potentially mean 125,000 vehicles produced annually, a figure nowhere near the amount of cars they can actually deliver to customers this year.

So unless Elon Musk wants to keep thousands of Cybertrucks in his garage, Tesla’s gonna have a real problem on its hands.

PHARMACEUTICALS
💊 Supreme Court blocks Purdue Pharma settlement, victims left waiting

On Thursday, the Supreme Court blocked OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma's bankruptcy settlement, which would have shielded the company's owners, the billionaire Sackler family, from lawsuits over their role in the U.S.'s deadly opioid epidemic.

The Supreme Court's decision reversed a lower court’s ruling that granted immunity to Purdue's owners in exchange for up to $6 billion.

The money would’ve gone to settle thousands of OxyContin lawsuits claiming that Purdue did not properly advertise the potential risks of OxyContin.

How did we get here? Back in 2019, Purdue filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to address its debts, nearly all of which stemmed from the thousands of lawsuits they were facing for initiating the opioid epidemic—an epidemic that has caused more than 500,000 U.S. overdose deaths over the past two decades.

Because Purdue is an American company, bankruptcy is always an option.

The question, though, was if Purdue's restructuring plan also legally protected the members of the Sackler family, who have not filed for personal bankruptcy.

A bankruptcy court in New York approved a $10 billion settlement plan in September 2021 to help victims as well as state and local governments, but the settlement was quickly challenged by a few states and President Biden’s administration.

The justice seekers claimed a settlement would be an abuse of bankruptcy policy, which shouldn’t be used to bail out a billionaire family like the Sacklers.

The Sacklers have not declared bankruptcy or offered most of their assets for creditor distribution, yet they are seeking legal protection from lawsuits.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
🤖 Amazon is working on its own AI chatbot

The world’s largest e-commerce giant has been secretly working on an AI chatbot that will eventually compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

The model, which will reportedly be called “Métis”, will provide text and image answers, include source links, suggest follow-ups, and generate images conversationally.

So it’s basically just another chatbot with a considerably worse name?

No, here’s the difference:

Amazon wants the model to function autonomously as an agent, capable of “turning on your lights and booking a flight for you.”

These new alleged capabilities are very similar to the Alexa chatbot (a way better name for an assistant, by the way), which is why it makes sense that Amazon is targeting the "Métis" launch around the same time it is introducing a lineup of new LLM features for Alexa.

New Alexa features will include:

• Improved natural language understanding

• Enhanced conversational abilities

• Integration with more smart home devices

• Advanced skills for various tasks like shopping, entertainment, and productivity

Amazon has a checkered past when it comes to new ventures: the Fire Phone was one of the worst flops in recent history, while Amazon Web Services (AWS) brought in over $90 billion in revenue in 2023.

So, it really can go either way.