Looking for guidance?

Amid tariff-related uncertainty, it may be hard to find in the auto industry. In releasing Q1 earnings, automakers suspended financial guidance, slashed profit forecasts, and cut outlooks for vehicle deliveries.

In a research note, Wedbush Securities analysts said the tariff situation “will change the paradigm for the US auto industry for years to come.”

Crunching numbers: Rivian reported gross profit of $206 million in Q1, the second consecutive quarter in which it posted a gross profit. This allowed the company to unlock $1 billion in funding from Volkswagen Group as part of the terms of a joint venture between the two companies.

Ford’s net income ($471 million), revenue ($40.7 billion), and adjusted EBIT ($1 billion) all fell from a year ago. The automaker’s EV business reported an EBIT loss of $849 million, better than Q1 2024’s EBIT loss of $1.3 billion.

General Motors reported $2.8 billion in net income (down 6.6% YoY) on revenue of $44 billion (up 2.3%). Adjusted EBIT of nearly $3.5 billion was down 9.8%.

Tariff talk: The Trump administration recently gave the auto industry some relief on tariffs, but 25% levies on imported vehicles remain in place. Experts have estimated that the tariffs could add about $100 billion in annual costs for the domestic auto industry.

Changes to trade policy have dominated recent corporate earnings reports and calls.

Keep reading here.—JG

China had a hold on the green tech industry last year, and “there is no end in sight” to its preeminence in the market.

A new report from BloombergNEF about energy transition supply chains found that 76% of clean tech factory investment was located in China last year, and that China houses 70% or more of clean tech equipment production in a majority of clean tech sectors including solar, batteries, and wind.

Antoine Vagneur-Jones, one of the report’s authors and the head of trade and supply chains at BloombergNEF, told Tech Brew that China’s lion’s share of the market comes down to two factors: its political and economic structure, and the fact that solar and battery manufacturing is always changing. As for the former, China’s “industrial strategy,” as Vagneur-Jones put it, is for the government to choose priority sectors that investors then financially support. And the country’s “political stability” ensures that investments will pay off in the future.

“There’s that level of long termism,” Vagneur-Jones said. “When you have a risk of everything flipping and flopping every four years [in the US], then that’s quite scary.”

Keep reading here.—TC

Generative AI has made big strides in the past couple years—but much of this progress is still concentrated in the English language.

A set of recent research papers looked at the kinds of roadblocks that stand in the way for developers aiming to close that gap, especially when it comes to languages with less available text data. One big obstacle is the lack of comprehensive benchmarks—the measures that developers use to grade AI capabilities—that adequately capture the nuances of what researchers call low-resource languages.

The lack of LLMs for languages with less online data threatens to widen existing global divides, cutting off parts of the Global South from potentially transformative technology, researchers at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI wrote in a recent white paper.

“Most major LLMs underperform for non-English—and especially low-resource—languages; are not attuned to relevant cultural contexts; and are not accessible in parts of the Global South,” the authors wrote.

Keep reading here.—PK

How do we electrify the roads without overwhelming the grid? On May 29, join us and Jess Melanson, COO of Utilidata, as we tackle the future of energy and transportation—from AI to EVs to smart cities. Attend live in NYC or virtually from anywhere. See you there!

Usually, we write about the business of tech. Here, we highlight the *tech* of tech.

Microsolar: The train ride from Munich to Salzburg involves a lot of wide open spaces, but as the train rolls into towns and housing appears, it’s hard to miss the ubiquity of solar panels hanging off of balconies and porches. “Balcony solar systems have already seen widespread adoption throughout Europe where millions have been safely installed,” The Verge reports, noting that a system from EcoFlow will soon go on sale stateside—but only in Utah.

The changeup: Next time you plop down on the couch and settle in for a few hours of Bridgerton, be warned that things might look a little bit different. Morning Brew has notes on Netflix’s plans to revamp its TV app.