The Next Billion Seconds with Mark Pesce

"How did you go bankrupt?" begins the oft-quoted line from Hemingway. "Two ways. Gradually - then suddenly." That's how the automotive sector feels at the end of 2024, with Nissan maybe preparing for bankruptcy and Stellantis firing its CEO and VW struggling with strikes and low sales and GM shuttering Cruise and on and on and on. Sally Dominguez and Drew Smith join Mark Pesce in studio to explore what's really happening - and what it all means for THE NEXT BILLION CARS.

In 2018, Nick Hazell founded v2food - an amazing startup making plant-based substitutes for meat that got extensive coverage on THE NEXT BILLION SECONDS. Six years later, it's getting difficult to find their product on supermarket shelves - and there's been a broader roll-back from plant-based alternatives. What's happened? Nick Hazel doesn't have all the answers - but he asks some of the right questions...

The impacts of global heating have become persistent and profound, so we need to do as much as we can to lesson those impacts, as quickly as we can. The best paths forward lean into existing, natural processes - and this is exactly where Nick Hazell has arrived with Algenie. Can algae restore balance to our ecosystem? Is it the moonshot we need to transform our future?

In this final year in review episode, Sally Dominguez, Drew Smith and Mark Pesce address the big, smelly elephant in the room: The change of government - and direction - over in the United States of America. Could massive tariffs plus 'drill, baby, drill' together land a knockout punch on the US EV industry? Plus - predictions for 2025. We're bringing the year to a thrilling close on this episode of THE NEXT BILLION CARS.

Whenever Mark, Sal and Drew get together, sparks will fly. So much has happened since our visit to CES 2024, we reckoned it time to draw all the year's threads together: Are we pulling back from EVs? Will China dominate manufacturing? And what about all that data vehicles are collecting? It's been full on - enough to require a bit of a 'group hug'. Part one of two.