GM Wants To Be A Power Company, CNN Pulls the Rug on NFT Holders, Black Friday Begins

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It’s a great Tuesday to be in Retail Auto as we cover a move by GM to leverage their battery tech into home and fleet services. We also talk about the demise of CNN NFT project that promised ownership of history, as well as the fact that October is apparently the new November when it comes to Black Friday. 

• GM is launching offshoot division, GM Electric, which will sell products and services that allow consumers to transfer and store energy to and from their personal EVs and EV fleets named Ultium Home and Ultium Commercial
  • Special charging and storage equipment will allow for the storage of power and management of that power to residential homes and will act like a back up generator 
  • other commercial applications will make allowance for the transfer of power from one vehicle to another to help alleviate periods of stress on the power grid
  • Travis Hester, head of GMs EV growth initiatives said “We have become an expert battery manufacturer,” he said. “It’s a natural evolution for us to move in here.” as the company moves to leverage their massive investment in battery tech and production capabilities
  • Tesla and Toyota have been offering similar services. Tesla generated $866M in Q2
  • TILI: Owning the driveway has more bluesky than ever
    
    
    
• In a surprise move to it’s NFT community, CNN has announced the sudden abandonment of it’s NFT project, “Vault by CNN” which was comprised of collectible and notable “Moments” from history as reported by CNN
  • In the Summer of 2021 CNN minted reports of key events or artistic interpretations inspired by them, creating digital collectibles that owners could show off somehow or trade with others, like baseball cards.
  • The program is shutting down its Discord and will not be issuing any type of utility leaving investors, some who have invested 6 figures holding the bag
  • There will be some sort of “rebate” effort which in many cases will only account for a small percentage of the tokens current value in crypto
  • The parting Discord message thanked the community for being a part of the ‘experiment’. Users noted that the word ‘experiment’ was never used. 
  • They are not alone as a lesser known AP attempt at NFTs as well as many other major efforts have shuttered in recent months
  • TILI: More than the money, the brand is the big loser
    
    
    
• Black Friday has officially begun at Target stores across the country as the company has released its first “weeklong Black Friday Deals” which feature Target’s best planned pricing for the season. 
  • “Weeklong deals” will continue all the way through actual Black Friday and will also include the popular “Deal of the Day” 
  • TILI: The consumer mindset around “sales” has totally changed

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