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A year ago, a small California-based EV charging startup was quickly expanding to other states. The company, called GreenWealth Energy, had multimillion-dollar projects planned in places like Colorado and Texas. Then came the election, and everything changed. Donald Trump attacked EVs throughout his campaign, despite the fact that electric cars can save consumers money and automakers have invested more than $300 billion in EV and battery manufacturing in the United States. Now the new administration is already making it a priority to fight anything EV-related. In January, when the president issued an executive order that paused spending from the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, he specifically called out the funding that Congress allocated to build a national network of EV chargers. Ariel Fan [Photo: GreenWealth Energy] The majority of the $7.5 billion for charging stations has already been committed to states and cities. Legally, its theirs; the president doesnt have the authority to take away the money. But because states and local governments have long planning processes, most of the new charging stations still havent been built. The federal programs work through reimbursement, so states dont have the money in handand with funds now frozen, the uncertainty about the future means that some projects are on indefinite hold, including those that the startup was planning outside of California. Basically, we can assume those projects are dead in the water, or being scaled down so significantly that we wouldnt be able to participate, says GreenWealth founder and CEO Ariel Fan. For the company, that means adapting quickly. The team is leaning into its work in California, where the state is still planning for all new car sales to be zero-emission vehicles within a decade. (The Trump administration is suing to revoke California’s right to set strict air pollution goals, though experts expect that the state will prevail.) The state has some separate funding sources for EV chargers, including through an offset program that gets money from oil companies. Utilities also offer rebates and are investing in chargers for their own fleets; in one project, GreenWealth is planning to help build 1,500 charging stations for SoCalGass fleet of electric vehicles. In another new project, the startup will operate and maintain chargers for the city fleet of EVs in Santa Monica. Weve actually seen an uptick in the last couple of months because California [is] doubling down on their policy, says Fan. Theres no indication that this is going to change as a result of whats happening federally. With all of our signed contracts in California, we arent directly impacted by any of the federal rollbacks of funds. [Photo: GreenWealth Energy] The need for more chargers is clear in California, where around 25% of new car sales last year were zero-emission vehicles. (Colorado, which also has strong incentives, has a similar rate of EV sales.) California Governor Gavin Newsom has said that the state will provide tax credits if the Trump administration gets rid of the federal program, helping boost EV sales more. The state’s Zero-Emission Vehicle Program requires manufacturers to ramp up the percentage of clean car sales each year. To meet demand as more people drive electric, nearly 10 times as many charging stations will be needed in the state by 2030. Public chargers are especially in demand at apartment buildings, one of the places where GreenWealth focuses its work. Still, Fan says it feels like the company is on California island, as she watches governments pause projects in other states. As the startups short-term pipeline of projects has changed, shes had to lay off some of her staff of 20, reduce pay and hours for others, and delay hiring for some planned positions. To compound the challenges, the company’s headquarters in Pasadena is a mile from where the Eaton Fire burned; some team members lost their homes, and work slowed to a standstill in January. The disaster is temporarily affecting new projects. Multifamily building owners are focusing on housing for displaced people rather than EV infrastructure. Permitting is delayed. New charger projects may not ramp up again for three to six months. (At that point, the company will hire more staff.) Fan has also had to work harder to secure financing at a time when lenders are spooked by the uncertainty in the market. It helps, Fan says, that the startup is scrappy and quick to adapt. She launched the business in 2017 as a 25-year-old, focused first on connecting building owners with incentives to improve efficiency with LED lighting, and then on providing sustainability consulting. She later saw an opportunity in EV charging, and pivoted in 2019, working through dozens of leads for new charging station projects each month. She believes that the company is resilient. “Our industry needs hope right now, and people really feel that it’s life or death for their companies,” she says. “One thing that I would want to convey with this story is that we’ve been nimble enough to survive.” It’s not clear yet how the shift in federal policy will affect the growth of EV chargers as a whole. So far, at least five states have paused their participation in the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program (one part of the federal funding) according to Paren
Category:
E-Commerce
The other day, my 15-year-old daughter and her friend were smelling candles in the local grocery store just two blocks from our home. I frequently send my daughter, and my younger son, 10, to grab a few items there when I’m busyespecially in the summer when no one gripes about the walk. But on this particular day, an employee approached the girls and asked them to leave the store immediately. “Why?” they responded in unison, taken aback. The answer: Because they didn’t have a parent or guardian with them. Annoyed, but not entirely shocked, I popped by and spoke to a manager (in the least Karen-like fashion I could muster). I was told that the grocery store does not have a no kids or teens policy, and that the employee had been mistaken. I was relieved, yet at the same time, I wouldn’t have been stunned to learn about a newly implemented policy banning teens. My rules-following first born has grown used to being kicked out of businesses. In the past year, shes been asked to leave a department store, our local mall, and other chains, not for loitering, being loud, or misbehaving in any way, but simply because she wasn’t with an adult. Shes not aloneits happening to teens everywhere. Research on just how many malls and shopping centers across the U.S. have banned teens is lacking, but according to the International Council of Shopping Centers, per the Los Angeles Times, at least 105 out of the 1,222 U.S. malls have policies that ban or restrict teens during certain hours. The nowhere-to-go generation The mall was once a staple of teenhood. Yet, our local Maryland mall bans teens past 4 p.m. And it’s seemingly common in other parts of the country. New Jersey’s oldest mall, Westfield Garden State Plaza, implemented a similar policy in 2023, as did a Pittsburgh mall and Del Amo Fashion Center in Los Angeles, the largest in the Western U.S. Sometimes, even the movies are a no-go. According to AMC, the largest movie theater chain in the country, kids under 17 may need to show up with an adult, even to see a kid-friendly movie. At our local AMC, teenagers need a parent or guardian present after 5 p.m. But the page advises, “For some theatres, adult supervision is required all day.” And a quick Google search brings up tons of conversations about stores and other businesses banning teenseven some grocery stores. Katie Dongorra, a Baltimore-area mom who works in finance, says her teen daughter has had similar negative, even jarring, experiences. She told Fast Company that her teen was also harassed and kicked out of a grocery store by a police officer who asked her age, then told her he’d be monitoring her transaction. “It’s been two years and I’m still mad about it,” Dongorra said. Businesses seem to be banning teens over claims of disruptions to other customers. For example, the L.A. mall banned teens after a brawl broke out. And a Pennsylvania Chick-fil-A that restricts diners under 16 without a guardian said that it was over noise, “unsafe behaviors,” and mistreatment of the locations employees. However, while teenagers have always brought a, perhaps, noisier, more dynamic presence to the establishments they frequent, crime, including violent crime, has been falling among teens in recent years. According to a September 2024 report from the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ), all incidents involving youths have notably dropped. “Juvenile offending (total incidents) was about 14% lower, and the total number of juveniles involved was around 18% lower, in 2022 than in 2016, the beginning of the study period,” the report explains. If teen crime isnt radically rising, then the increasing practice of banning teens in public places is at best curious and at worst intolerant. And it may not even have the impact that businesses are hoping for. Where to spend it? Recent data on shoplifting supports the idea that bans aren’t practical or helpful for business, at least when it comes to keeping out shoplifters. That’s because shoplifting isn’t isolated to teens. In fact, most shoplifters are adults. A 2024 LendingTree survey found that 90% of recent shoplifting was motivated by inflationnot rebellious teen attitudes. According to the data, the groups most likely to shoplift are those with young children in the home (27%) and millennials ages 28 to 43 (26%). Banning kids from stores might not curb shoplifting, but it will certainly curb the ability of kids to spend money in those stores. Instead, they’ll just spend their earnings online. Jennifer Seitz, a financial education instructor and director of education at Greenlight, the debit card for kids that helps them learn to track and manage funds, tells Fast Company that kids are spending more than ever. “Teens have significant spending power, so businesses that exclude or ban them may be leaving significant money on the table,” she explains. While Seitz says kids are still spending plenty in malls and shopping centers, most of the money they are spending is now happening from home. “Spending habits have increasingly shifted online, with a rise in online shopping and food delivery platforms that offer convenience, variety, and on-demand access,” Seitz says. Of course, much of modern shopping happens from our phones, but when it comes to teenagers who, at one point, craved being out and about, the shift feels alarming. Yet, with kids being banned from so many establishments, the spending-from-home trend makes sense. Bad business or not, kicking out perfectly well-behaved teens leaves parents feeling like they have nowhere to drop their older children off anymore to hang out. It also may be bad for kids. Joe Sugarman, a dad and writer, tells Fast Company that his 15-year-old, now 16, was kicked out of one Maryland mall, and warned at another. We try to get these kids off their phones and out of their bedrooms and teach them some independence, but they have nowhere to go, he explained. He recalled that even the state fair has the same policy, quipping, What teen wants their old dad hanging out with them as they flirt with boys and hope for their first kiss on the top of the Ferris wheel? Sugarman says policies like these make it practically impossible for parents to plan and schedule their own lives around their teens’ hangouts, especially when theyre expected to be nearby. Only the lonely As inconvenient all this might be for modern parents, there are more serious consequences for teens, experts say. A 2023 commentary in The Journal of Pediatrics by Peter Gray, a research professor of psychology at Boston College, pointed to the loss of “independent activities,” like shopping or hitting up a movie sans parents, as a culprit for the well-documented decline in children’s mental health in recent years. Gray tells Fast Company that we shouldn’t pretend this trend doesn’t negatively impact kids and their understanding of their place in the world. “If we want kids to grow up with a sense of agency, with the confidence required to engage the real world around them, we must grant them, as they grow, ever increasing freedom to explore public spaces independently of adult control,” he says. Jessi Gold, MD, MS, author and chief wellness officer of the University of Tennessee System’s Psychiatry Department, who works with teens and young adults, agrees. Gold worries about how the trend impacts those on the cusp of adulthood. “Loneliness is a rampant problem in our society, and community building, especially offline, is lacking in younger generations,” Gold tells Fast Company. “We know loneliness contributes significantly to the mental health crisis . . . we need to be encouraging spaces where teens can safely have fun with friends, not prohibiting them.” Gold also explains that the teen years are a huge time for growth and discovering one’s identity and learning social skills, so in-person time with friends is massively important. “As a psychiatrist who sees college students, I worry that if we stop allowing high schoolers the ability to socialize with their friends alone and in non-school or online spaces, that they would struggle making friends and forming a community more than they already have post-COVID on campus,” Gold says. Who actually gets banned? There is also the glaring issue of how businesses enforce bans across different races. Sugarman believes that teen bans are more common in racially diverse areas, and recalls a friend who lives in a mostly white area of Massachusetts being “gobsmacked” when he explained that such policies exist in his state. He’s not alone in worrying about the racial dynamics that may come with sweeping age restrictions. Meg St-Esprit, a journalist and Pittsburgh mom, who has kids of different races, tells Fast Company that she’s seen racial profiling firsthand. “Our nice mall has this policy and it is absolutely not evenly enforced,” she shared. “My two boys walking together, one white, one black, ahead of me. Guess which one got asked where his adult was?” Of course, it’s up to businesses to equally enforce the policies they create. But as for the policies themselves, it’s legal for establishments to create and modify their guidelines, including restricting younger clientele. As long as they aren’t restricting customers based on federally protected categories such as race, religion, national origin or disability, they’re in the clear. That doesn’t mean those policies are kind, or fair, and it doesnt mean they are good for teens. Any adult who remembers the first freedoms of going to the grocery store, the mall, or the movies alone knows how formative those experiences were. I used to roam the mall for hours with groups of friendsHot Topic, Spencers Gifts, and a since-shuttered Silver Diner on the bottom level where I ate my body weight in cheese fries. I had my first dates at movie theaters and at Chinese food restaurants. Being out in the world, spending my own money, was, in part, where I learned to be self-sufficient, and also social. Sure, there are parking lots and fields to hang out in. But if we widely ban teens from businesses, we ban them from so many necessary lessons, like how to talk to a salesperson or not spend all your money in one place. Instead, they’re learning that they arent to be trusted. We are essentially forcing them to stay home, and thenpoofexpecting them to know how to navigate the world as fully functional adults. If we dont get rid of the leashes while theyre young and supposed to be learning how to be part of society, we shouldnt be surprised by how radically society as a whole changes once theyre grown.
Category:
E-Commerce
Its just another cut in the death by a thousand cuts. Thats how New Orleans restaurateur Neal Bodenheimer views the looming threat of potential tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods. Bodenheimer is the managing partner of CureCo, which runs three restaurants in New Orleans and one in Washington, D.C. Hes most concerned, though, about VALS, his neighborhood Mexican restaurant. Tequila and mezcal are on his mind, yes; but he also worries about skyrocketing costs of other essentials, from straws to avocados to transportation costs. Bodenheimer is already balancing razor-thin margins, along with supply chain disruptions and changing consumer preferences. It all adds up to a lot of uncertainty in an already-fraught industry. And hes not alone. Spirits producers and importers are keeping a watchful eye on the news and scrambling to plan for a future of uncertainty. This week, President Trump announced a 30-day pause on his proposed tariffs for Canada and Mexico, but what will happen beyond that date is unclear. Impacts of tariffs on businesses and customers When you already have slim margins in restaurants and bars, you tap away little by little at the margin, until there’s nothing left, says Bodenheimer. Hes been through this wringer before, when President Trump imposed a 25% tariff on some European wines in October 2019. Back then, his restaurants and bars adjusted their menus to avoid tariffed goods. Some of his distributors warehoused extra wine, which Bodenheimer says did keep prices down for a few months. In the end, though, says Bodenheimer, restaurants are flow-through businesses. We’re going to have to pay more for the products, and we’re going to charge more to the consumer. Another pain point from the 2019 tariffs was fuel surcharges, which Bodenheimer expects to see return. We’ve seen many fuel surcharges that happen when costs go up and the surcharges never come off, he says. With Canadian products making up 60% of Americas crude oil imports, even a 10% tariff would likely inch transportation costs upward. He also expects greater transportation distances if hes required to source items from outside of Mexico. Sourcing local, in Bodenheimers case, means shipping produce further than he had before. It certainly seems like it would make things a little less green, he says. I’m closer to Mexico than I am to California. Stockpiling in anticipation of tariffs Also struggling to anticipate the tariffs: spirits producers. The skyrocketing popularity of tequila and mezcal might grind to a halt with the imposition of 25% tariffs, industry insiders warn. As the chief commercial officer for Mezcal Amarás, Mexicos second-largest mezcal producer, Holden Ching and his team have been in full production mode since late September. We do suspect that tariffs will happen at some point this year, which is why we got inventory into the U.S. a bit earlier than usual, Ching says. Beginning in October 2024, Mezcal Amarás harvested significantly more than its usual amount of agave, then distilling and bottling at a rapid pace. We really wanted to ramp that up with the ability to ship it into the U.S. prior to any change in hands from a political standpoint, says Ching. Instead of one month of inventory over the course of four weeks, we shipped six months of inventory by the end of 2024. Ching estimates that Mezcal Amaráss distributing partner, Suntory Global Spirits, is sitting on about 6 months’ worth of supply in its U.S. warehouses. That, he hopes, will keep prices stable and help retailers cushion the blow with gradual price increases rather than hiking retail costs by 25% immediately. Still, he expects that by the end of the year, if Mexican goods are tariffed at 25%, that cost increase will pass directly to the consumer. We definitely don’t want to be the first ones that have to make that move, but its likely inevitable, says Ching. That is in part due to the complex three-tier system of alcohol distribution in the U.S. Producers such as distillers and wineries sell to distributors, who then sell to retailers, either on-premise restaurants and bars or off-premise locations including supermarkets and liquor stores. With the three-tier system in the U.S., there’s fairly fixed structures for pricing, says Ching. Everybody works on a margin-based system, and so that margin generally doesn’t change from a percentage standpoint. So any front-end cost just filters its way all the way through to the consumer. Trading mezcal for bourbon Ching and Bodenheimer both expect to see changes at the retail and restaurant level as Mexican and Canadian spirits come at a higher premium. Ching is especially worried about the fact that a greater proportion of mezcals sales take place in bars and restaurants, as compared to other spirits. Where you see most other categories at about a 70%-off premise/30%-on premise split, he says, mezcal is a little bit closer to 50-50. This makes its sales more subject to the whims of beverage directors who might decide, faced with a steep increase in costs, to feature different spirits. Instead of featuring a mezcal, he says, restaurant and bar operators might choose to either feature a tequila that’s cheaper, or they feature another category for the time being. Bodenheimer agrees this is likely to be the case, at least in the short term. If we’re looking at our margins, and our margins are harder to make on agave spirits or Canadian whiskey, we’re going to use them less, he says. He hopes this might be a boon for the bourbon and American wine and vodka industries. I think you already see vodka producers are trying really hard to get market share back, he says, citing the immense popularity of the espresso martini in recent years. Still, he says, its anyones guess as to what the next year holds for the drinks business. It’s so hard to game out what the future looks like, he says. If you were an entrepreneur, would you bet your future that these conditions are going to be the same in four years? Tariffs on exports too Looming over all of this is the potential for another massive tariff increase. A 2021 tariff halt from the European Union on American whiskey is slated to snap back into place on March 31, 2025, unless further action is taken. If that happens, American whiskey will suffer a devastating 50% tariff on exports to the EU; currently, the EU is the largest export market for American spirits, accounting for 40% of all American spirits exports. It would take a staggering amount of Old Fashioneds and Manhattans on American bar menus to make up the loss of European consumers. Unless lasting agreements are reached, both Bodenheimer and Ching expect the American consumer to take the brunt of price increases. In the end, says Bodenheimer, you’re still going to pay more. You may kick the can down the road for a few months, but at some point you need to be prepared for higher prices.
Category:
E-Commerce
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