Business News – 11-18-2021

K Buenavista — Fri, 19 Nov 2021 05:28:36 +0000

Blue Origin raised offer to cover $3B in lunar lander costs in lost NASA lawsuit

An offer by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to cover NASA costs of an astronaut lunar lander increased from $2 billion to upwards of $3 billion
Bob Smith, the CEO of Blue Origin said that the company would “add valuable competition” and help in covering NASA’s “budget and funding shortfall” for the program that led to the agency selecting just one company for the HLS contract

On November 18, Nike announced that it is partnering with Roblox to create a virtual world called “Nikeland” on Roblox’s gaming platform online
In this virtual gaming space, it will include Nike buildings, fields, and arenas for players to compete in multiple mini-games
The company eventually plans to integrate in-play moments that emulate global sporting event

In midtown Manhattan, New York, Starbucks is opening a pick-up cafe with Amazon that utilizes cashierless technology
The first Starbucks Pickup with Amazon Go location opens Thursday in New York City on 59th Street, between Park and Lexington Avenues, with a flag outside waving both companies’ logos
Amazon’s technology allows customers to leave without seeing a cashier and scales, cameras and shelf sensors tally up customers’ totals and charge them when they leave

Included in Ford’s plans to inrease its short- and long-term supply of semiconductor chips, the company has announced a new partnership with GlobalFoundries
This may eventually result in new chip designs specifically for Ford and an increase in the domestic production and supply of chips for the overall automotive industry

On November 18, CVS Health said that it will close about 900 stores over the next 3 years as it transitions to better serving online shoppers
The chain has said that it will focus more of its funding towards digital growth and transitioning its stores into a sort of department store for health-care products
According to CVS, store closures will begin in the spring of 2022

According to Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford, the company plans to increase production capacity of its electric vehicles to 600,000 vehicles
Farley expects this mode to make Ford the second-largest US based EV manufacturer in the world, behind tesla
Ford’s first three new Electric vehicles are currently the Mustang Mach-E, E-Transit, and F-150 Lightning

K Buenavista — Wed, 09 Jun 2021 17:30:19 +0000

Fast casual restaurant Chipotle Mexican Grill has now raised prices by about 4% in order to compensate for the cost of raising their worker’s wages
This may, Chipotle has reported that they would raise hourly wages for their restaurant workers into reach their average of $15 an hour towards the end of June

Customers of Starbucks are now allowed to use their own personal reusable cups again at all Starbucks location in the US starting June 22
Other restaurants including Starbucks are now making efforts to returning their businesses back to normal after changing many policies due to COVID-19
Back in March of 2020, Starbucks had paused their reusable cup program

Ford has recently unveiled their all new compact pickup today (Tuesday) which is their smallest vehicle in their pickup truck lineup
This truck marks the first time a truck in America with a standard gas-electric hybrid engine ever to go on sale and wills start at $19,995

Relativity Space has raised $650 million from contributors known as Fidelity and other investors such as Blackrock and Tiger Global
The company plans to work on a fully reusable rocket that will attempt to go against SpaceX’s rocket of similar goal in less than 3 years