SoftBank’s Arm Holdings opened today on the Nasdaq, and opened strongly for its first day of trading…up 10% from the offer price. Reuters.com reports this gives Arm a valuation of nearly $60 billion in its return to public markets after 7 years. The Arm chip architecture is widely used in mobile devices due to the fact that it draws far less power than other chips. Arm licensed tech has been making inroads into the laptop market for the same reason…increased battery life with great performance. SoftBank still held a 90.6% stake in Arm as of this morning. 

Ford has generated a fair amount of excitement over its F-150 Lightening electric pickup, but the automaker also builds hybrid F-150’s, too. Now, according to arstechnica.com, Ford has announced it wants to double sales of hybrid F-150 pickups. Up to now, about 10% of F-150’s have been hybrids. The hybrid is actually not a lot more efficient than the regular 3.5 liter V-6, only getting about 4 mpg on the highway, but the automaker feels that other conveniences like 2.4kW onboard AC power…upgradable to 7.2kW will help lure buyers. Ford and other makers also understand that a fair proportion of the public is still nervous about electric vehicles based on ‘range anxiety,’ and worries that there won’t be an EV charging station nearby…so a hybrid you can fill at any gas station is a draw for those not quite ready for a fully electric EV. 

Google is extending the time that they will support Chromebooks. The devices will now get 10 years of updates, instead of 8. This, by the way, is the amount of time auto makers have had to support vehicles with parts availability for decades now…and seems reasonable. 9to5google.com says ChromeOS is also adding adaptive charging and energy saver mode. The extended update time frame will apply to all Chromebooks released from 2021 and thereafter, and will kick in next year. Google will also give existing owners (and IT admins, like schools) of Chromebooks released before 2021 the option to “extend automatic updates to 10 years from the platform’s release when they receive their last automatic update.”

The Departments of Energy and Transportation have announced that $100 million in grants to repair or replace malfunctioning or broken EV chargers is now available. Arstechnica.com reports that they are accepting applications for the funding. The $100 million is part of $5 billion the government is putting into a national network of EV chargers by 2027. How about the additional chargers? Well, some of those grants have already been awarded. Trillium Energy Solutions, the tech arm of Love’s Travel Stops has gotten $4.8 million to build out high-speed EV chargers along highways at 4 existing locations in Pennsylvania and another 4 in Colorado. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.