Covid Vaccine And EVs -- February 28, 2021

If one wants any more proof that what's holding back America, one doesn't have to look any farther than federal bureaucratic regulations and the Covid-19 vaccine story. In less than a year, three US vaccines have reached the market. Under normal circumstances, two of the three may have never seen the light of day, and none of the three would have come to market in less than five years, again, under normal circumstances.

Trump will get no credit. 

This was Trump's JFK moonshot.

This was Trump's Eisenhower's June 6, 1944.

This was Trump's Groves' / Oppenheimer's Manhattan Project. 

Overnight it was announced that the FDA had authorized emergency use of J&J's single-dose Covid-19 vaccine. Link here to Barron's and the paywall.  Shares of JNJ:

• up 1.6% in after-hours trading on Friday
• up 18% from a year ago

World Trade Center, the twin towers:

• architects selected: September 20, 1962
• the Port Authority begins acquiring property: March, 1965
• construction began: March 21, 1966
• ribbon cutting ceremony: April 4, 1973

Boston's Big Dig:

• planning began: 1982
• construction began: 1991
• construction (considered) complete: 2006
• project concluded on December 31, 2007, with dissolution of the partnership

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EVs

Two really good articles on EV -- neither with good news for EV enthusiasts -- in today's WSJ:
how Europe became the world's biggest EV market, and why it might not last;
what's missing in the electric vehicle revolution: enough places to plug in;

I'm too busy to provide many excerpts. I may come back to these articles.

• Tesla: in deep doo-doo. It wins in three areas:
• marketing;
• luxury car market;
• charging stations.
• but this is where Tesla will lose: in the trenches:
• 65 new EV models launched in Europe last year;
• another 99 are slated to come to market this year in Europe
• 30-some new EV models launched in China last year;
• North America: 15 new launches last year (2020)
• 2021: 64 are planned
• luxury car market:
• Tesla
• BWM AG, Mercedes and Audi launched high-end EVs
• this year Mercedes is set to launch the EQS -- a highly automated successor to the flagship S-class

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Humbled

I am truly humbled. 

I share my thoughts on the Bakken on a blog simply because it was the easiest way for me to follow the Bakken. It was one of the best things I ever did. The blog has a lot of shortcomings, most of which won't improve over time. 

I am blown away -- and humbled -- to see the names of some of the analysts that follow my blog. Yes, there are ways to do that using social media. 

But I am truly humbled. It makes me want to get more serious about blogging about the Bakken. But wow, that would get boring.