Chart: U.S. Employment of Foreign-born Worker vs. Native-born Workers

Source : The Washington Post

Chart: U.S. Real Consumption of Goods Stalled Over the Last 2 Years

Source : Apricitas Economics

Chart: High Yield Levels vs Earnings Yields on the S&P 500

Median spread over nearly 3 decades is 170 bps

Source : Twitter

In Pictures: 1957 Dual-Ghia Convertible

Source : Bring A Trailer

Mapped: How Blood Type Prevalence Varies Around the World

Source : Statista

Is It Chicken? Here’s How the First Bite of ‘Cell-cultivated’ Meat Tastes

Jonel Aleccia wrote . . . . . . . . .

When I told friends and family I was reporting on the first chicken meat grown from animal cells, their first comment was “Eww.” Their second comment was: “How does it taste?”

The short answer (you’ve probably heard this sentence before in other contexts): Tastes like chicken.

The longer answer, which folds in the “Eww” response, is more nuanced. Yes, it’s strange to think of eating a totally new kind of meat — chicken that doesn’t come from a chicken, meat that will be sold as “cell-cultivated” chicken after the U.S. Agriculture Department on Wednesday gave the green light to two California firms, Upside Foods and Good Meat.

But it’s also interesting (and exciting!) to taste test the first offerings of a new era in meat production, which aims to eliminate harm to billions of animals slaughtered for food — and to dramatically reduce the environmental effects of grazing, growing feed for those animals and dealing with their animal waste.

FACING UP TO THE ‘MEAT PARADOX’

I’m a lifelong meat eater. I’m also a victim of the “meat paradox,” a term scientists use to describe the psychological conflict that occurs in people who like to eat meat but don’t like to contemplate the animals that died providing it.

As someone who has reported on food-borne illness outbreaks and slaughterhouse safety, I’m keenly aware that the chicken on my dinner plate probably suffered to get there. And that fact makes me uneasy if I dwell on it too much.

So I was open to trying a different kind of meat — and also curious to see if it would taste like the real thing.

I’ve tried plant-based options like the Beyond Meat sausage and the Impossible Burger and liked them, even though I didn’t think they were perfect substitutes. To be honest, the Beyond Meat sausage tasted good, but a little mealy. And the Impossible Burger was dry, although I may have cooked it too long. In both cases, I enjoyed the taste of the products but was still aware that I wasn’t actually eating pork or beef.

What about the artificiality of it all? It didn’t bother me that this new cultivated meat is made from cells that grow to epic proportions in big steel vats, only to be shaped and formed — “extruded” is the somewhat unfortunate verb that came to mind — into familiar cutlets, filets and nuggets that would look right at home on the dinner table.

But as with all food, in the end it would come down to taste. And in this case, to the larger question behind it: Is this new material in fact chicken, or is it an impostor?

TIME FOR THE ALL-IMPORTANT MOUTH TEST

In January, I traveled to the Upside Foods manufacturing plant in Emeryville, California. There, chef Jess Weaver sauteed a cultivated chicken breast in a white wine butter sauce with tomatoes, capers and green onions.

The aroma was enticing, just like any filet cooked in butter would be. And the taste was light and delicate with a tender texture, just like any chicken breast I’d make at home – if, that is, I were a chef trained at the Culinary Institute of America.

Last week, I visited the Alameda, California, plant where Good Meat is poised to begin production of its chicken products. Chef Zach Tyndall was ready with a smoked chicken salad with mayonnaise, golden raisins and walnuts. He followed it with a chicken “thigh” dish — darker meat served on a bed of potato puree with a mushroom-vegetable demi-glace, golden beets and tiny purple cauliflower florets.

The taste was richer than a chicken breast, more like the dark meat of a thigh. And the texture was both tender and chewy, like a well-cooked chicken thigh should be.

That, says Tyndall, is the whole point.

“It needs to be as lifelike as possible for it to catch on,” he said.

While “lifelike” is an interesting word, from my side of the fork I think this will catch on. There are still huge hurdles — how to scale up manufacturing and pare back costs, experts say, and the lingering question of whether chicken without the bird is, in fact, chicken — but if you’re basing it on authentic taste, I’ll leave you with this:

Please pass the “chicken.”

Source : AP

Infographic: The Most Innovative Companies in 2023

See large image . . . . . .

Source : Visual Capitalist

Toyota Unveils Sweeping Plans for New Battery Tech, EV Innovation

Daniel Leussink wrote . . . . . . . . .

Toyota will introduce high-performance, solid-state batteries and other technologies to improve the driving range and cut costs of future electric vehicles (EVs), the automaker said on Tuesday, a strategic pivot that sent its shares higher.

The Japanese giant’s technology roadmap, covering aspects as varied as next-generation battery development and a radical redesign of factories, amounted to the automaker’s fullest disclosure of its plan to compete in the fast-growing market for EVs where it has lagged rivals led by Tesla.

The plan comes a day before an annual shareholders meeting where governance and strategy – including a slow pivot to battery EVs under former CEO Akio Toyoda – will be scrutinised.

Shares of the world’s best-selling automaker jumped 5% on the day to 2,173 yen, the highest since August.

Toyota said it aims to launch next-generation lithium-ion batteries from 2026 offering longer ranges and quicker charging.

It also trumpeted a “technological breakthrough” that addresses durability problems in solid-state batteries and said it is developing means to mass produce those batteries, targeting commercialisation over 2027-2028.

Solid-state batteries can hold more energy than current liquid electrolyte batteries. Automakers and analysts expect them to speed transition to EVs by addressing a major consumer concern: range.

Still, such batteries are expensive and likely to remain so for years. Toyota will hedge with better-performing lithium iron phosphate batteries, a cheaper alternative to lithium-ion batteries that have spurred EV adoption in China, the world’s largest vehicle market.

At the high end of the market, Toyota said it would produce an EV with a more efficient lithium-ion battery offering a range of 1,000 km (621 miles). By comparison, the long-range version of the lithium-ion-powered Tesla Model Y, the world’s best-selling EV, can drive for about 530 km based on U.S. standards.

An EV powered by a solid-state battery would have a range of 1,200 km and charging time of just 10 minutes, Toyota said. By comparison, the Tesla Supercharger network – the largest of its kind – offers the equivalent of 321 km of charge in 15 minutes.

The roadmap detailed on Tuesday showed that under new CEO Koji Sato, Toyota has adopted much of the revamp that engineers and planners have been developing as options for months.

That includes use of electric-axle and other technology from suppliers such as Aisin and Denso.

“What we want to achieve is to change the future with BEVs,” Takero Kato, president of new Toyota EV unit BEV Factory, said in a video posted on the automaker’s YouTube channel on Tuesday.

NEW ASSEMBLY TECHNOLOGY

Toyota said it was developing a dedicated EV platform to reduce the cost of new models and a heavily automated assembly line that would do away with the conveyor belt system that has defined auto production since Henry Ford over 100 years ago.

In Toyota’s “self-propelling” assembly line, cars under production would drive themselves through the process.

It also said it would use Giga casting to cut production costs, adopting an innovation pioneered by Tesla using massive, aluminium casting machines to reduce vehicle complexity.

Koji Endo, senior analyst at SBI Securities, said he was surprised by Toyota’s move to counter Tesla’s lead in production efficiency. “I’m not sure yet Toyota can push back in a counter offensive, but it’s getting ready to try,” he said.

Toyota’s BEV Factory, established in May, aims to produce about 1.7 million vehicles by 2030, Kato said – about half of the 3.5 million EVs Toyota aims to sell annually by that year.

In April, the automaker sold 8,584 EVs worldwide, including under its Lexus brand, accounting for more than 1% of its global sales in a single month for the first time.

Toyota sold almost 10.5 million vehicles in 2022, and has a market value of about $254 billion. By contrast, Tesla sold one-eighth as many vehicles yet is valued at around $791 billion, a premium reflecting investor belief in Tesla’s growth potential.

Toyota has long said it wants to offer consumers a choice of new-energy vehicles, including petrol-electric hybrids and hydrogen fuel cells as well as battery EVs, as part of the industry’s transition from petrol-powered vehicles.

Source : Reuters

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Read also at Toyota

Electrified Technologies – Batteries, Fundamental technologies to innovate BEV . . . . .