*By Carlo Versano*
Shares of the newly-public Chinese electric car company NIO surged for a second straight day Wednesday ー even amid a broader market slump ー on the news that Tesla's largest outside investor is taking a stake.
NIO ($NIO) was up as much as 5 percent on Wednesday morning, following an SEC [disclosure](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1088875/000108887518000054/NIOInc30092018.txt) that Baillie Gifford, an investment firm that owns 9 perfect of Tesla ($TSLA), is acquiring around 11 percent of NIO.
The investment shows that we're still in the early stages of a match to own the exploding market for luxury electric vehicles, and deep-pocketed investors seem willing to back more than one horse at a time.
"We're in uncharted territory now," said Tamara Warren, co-host of Cheddar Rides.
But NIO isn't Tesla.
Despite its troubles, Elon Musk's company has a soup-to-nuts production component.
NIO, on the other hand, doesn't actually make its own vehicles, as Warren noted. Instead, it has an agreement with a Chinese manufacturer. So while NIO proclaims itself to be a Tesla rival, "no one knows who's going to give Tesla run for their money," Warren said.
NIO raised $1 billion in a public offering last month on the NYSE, though it stumbled out of the gate. After more than doubling in its first few days on the market, shares feel back below their IPO price. With Wednesday's gains, the stock is at its highest level since Sept. 25.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Tuesday, adding that they will trigger toug
The Trump administration has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop nearly all its work, effectively shutting down the agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis and subprime mortgage-lending scandal. Russell Vought is the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought directed the CFPB in a Saturday night email to stop work on proposed rules, to suspend the effective dates on any rules that were finalized but not yet effective, and to stop investigative work and not begin any new investigations. The agency has been a target of conservatives since President Barack Obama created it following the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
