Raphael Stevens

The 2024 Buick Envista will be the brand’s last new gas-powered vehicle ahead of its transition to an all-electric domestic lineup by 2030.
The Envista will replace the Buick Encore as the GM brand’s entry-level model, starting at $24,495 for a base model.
The new crossover comes amid affordability concerns as many automakers have discontinued lower-priced car models.

2024 Buick Envista Avenir

DETROIT – General Motors on Monday revealed the last new gas-powered Buick vehicle ahead of the brand’s transition to an all-electric domestic lineup by 2030.
The final new traditional nameplate for the brand will be the 2024 Buick Envista, a small crossover that has the look of a sedan but the ride height and storage of a comparable SUV. It features a smooth, long exterior with styling inspired by the brand’s well-received Wildcat concept car last year.

The Envista will replace the Buick Encore as the brand’s entry-level model, starting at $24,495 for a base model and $29,695 for a top-end Avenir model. GM discontinued production of the Encore last year in exchange for a larger “Encore GX” vehicle that starts between about $26,000 and $35,000.
“There just seems to be an enormous opportunity at the price point,” Sam Russell, Buick marketing director, said during a media briefing. “The Envista we honestly think is just a great opportunity for conquesting. … That’s kind of our objective is to be the conquest champion within GM.”

2024 Buick Envista ST

The Envista comes amid affordability concerns about new vehicles, as many automakers have discontinued lower-priced cars in exchange for pricier crossovers. Average transaction prices have increased to record levels amid low vehicle availability during the past three years.
Production of the Envista at a GM plant in South Korea – home of other Buick and Chevy small crossovers – is scheduled to start next month. The vehicles are expected to arrive in Buick showrooms this summer.
The Envista will be offered exclusively in front-wheel-drive and powered by a 1.2-lter turbocharged engine that’s expected to include 136 horsepower and 162 foot-pounds torque. It includes a standard safety package with six active safety features such as automatic emergency braking and lane keep assist. Its interior features 19 inches of information and control screens.

2024 Buick Envista 

The Envista is the second of five new models or vehicles for Buick over an 18-month span that ends next year. The first vehicle was the redesigned 2024 Encore GX. The last model is expected to be the brand’s first all-electric vehicle, which will debut in the first half of next year.
“Once we transition to EVs, it’s just all the EVs after that,” Russell said.
Buick’s target to exclusively offer EVs by the end of this decade comes as GM spends $35 billion in electric and autonomous vehicles between 2020 and 2025. The automaker has a goal for all of its brands to exclusively offer consumer EVs by 2035. More

Volkswagen on Monday unveiled a new large electric sedan that it says will have well over 300 miles of range in its top-level trim.
Volkswagen’s new ID.7 will serve as a flagship for the automaker’s growing line of mainstream EVs.
Inside, the ID.7 is a roomy high-tech wonderland – as one would expect of a car designed to challenge Tesla’s Model 3 in markets around the world.

Volkswagen’s new ID.7 electric sedan will go on sale in the U.S. next year.
Courtesy: Volkswagen

Volkswagen on Monday unveiled a new large electric sedan that it says will have well over 300 miles of range in its top-level trim when it arrives in the U.S. market next year.
Volkswagen’s new ID.7, as it’s called, will serve as a flagship for the automaker’s growing line of mainstream EVs. The German auto giant said last month that it expects to invest 180 billion euros (nearly $200 billion) in future products and technologies between now and 2027, with more than two-thirds earmarked for “electrification and digitalization.” The company expects about 80% of the VW brand’s sales in Europe, and about 50% of its sales in the U.S., to consist of electric vehicles by 2030.

VW hopes that the new ID.7 will play a key part in that transition. It’s a large sedan with a distinctive hatchback design that allows for more headroom in the rear seats and improves the car’s aerodynamic efficiency.
That aerodynamic emphasis and a brand-new high-efficiency electric drivetrain help the ID.7 achieve what VW says will be strong range ratings: up to 435 miles with the optional 86 kilowatt-hour battery on the European WLTP (Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicle Test Procedure) test cycle. (The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s EV range ratings are often 10% to 20% lower than WLTP ratings.) Base models will come with a 77 kWh battery that will provide an estimated 382 miles of range on the WLTP cycle, the company said.
Both batteries will accept DC fast charging: The standard 77 kWh battery can recharge at up to 170 kilowatts; the optional 86 kWh battery at up to 200 kWs.
All ID.7s will feature a single 282-horsepower motor driving the rear wheels.

All Volkswagen ID.7s will come standard with a large touchscreen and a heads-up display, the company said.
Courtesy: Volkswagen

Inside, the ID.7 is a roomy high-tech wonderland – as one would expect of a car designed to challenge Tesla’s Model 3 in markets around the world.

Beyond the now-ubiquitous large touchscreen, all ID.7s will come standard with a heads-up display that replaces most traditional dashboard instruments with images projected in the driver’s field of vision.
Above the passengers is a large auto-dimming sunroof – standard on U.S.-bound ID.7s – that, like many other features in the car, can be controlled with voice commands.
Production of ID.7s for Europe will begin in the second half of 2023 at VW’s plant in Emden, Germany; production of ID.7s for Chinese customers will begin in China before year-end. ID.7s for North America will also be built in Germany and will begin arriving at dealers in 2024. More

Since June, federal officials have seized $961 million worth of goods over suspected ties to forced labor, Customs and Border Protection officials said.
Companies are receiving detention notices and stand to lose millions of dollars while their goods remain in custody at ports.
Topping the list of detained items in terms of dollar value: electronics, apparel, footwear, textiles and agricultural products.

Inside these boxes: Approximately $20 million worth of detained solar panels by U.S. Customs & Border Protection over suspected ties to forced labor.

Since late June, federal authorities have seized $961 million worth of goods over suspected ties to forced labor, officials told CNBC.
In many instances, companies have no idea their supply chain is tainted, officials said.

CNBC received exclusive access in February to the Port of New York and New Jersey, the largest port on the East Coast, located a few miles southwest of Manhattan. There, millions of dollars’ worth of cargo – from solar panels to bedding to floor tiles – was being held while major companies scrambled to prove their supply chains are clean.
“Our goal for the forced labor laws [is] to prevent merchandise from being made with forced labor in the first place, and we will not rest until we achieve that goal,” said Customs and Border Protection Executive Assistant Commissioner AnnMarie Highsmith, who oversees the Office of Trade.
The enforcement falls under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, or UFLPA, signed into law by President Joe Biden in late 2021. The law prohibits imports of goods produced or sourced in the Xinjiang region of China from entering the U.S. economy.
China has come under intense criticism recently for its treatment of the Uyghur minority. Last year, a report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights into the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China concluded that “serious human rights violations” against the Uyghur and “other predominantly Muslim communities” have been committed by the country. Beijing denied the claims, calling it “disinformation” and “lies fabricated by anti-China forces.”
According to Highsmith, enforcing ULFPA is a top priority for CBP and the department. 

“This is not just a supply chain security issue for us,” Highsmith said. “It is an economic security issue for the country.”

This is not just a supply chain security issue … it is an economic security issue for the country.

AnnMarie Highsmith
Executive Assistant Commissioner, Office of Trade, U.S. Customs & Border Protection

Highsmith told CNBC that Chinese authorities make doing business in the country even more challenging.
“The Chinese government has taken steps to obfuscate those supply chains and prevent businesses from learning [about] the conditions under which the products are manufactured,” Highsmith said. “So if you’re going into China you have an extra layer of risk to work against.”
Highsmith’s message to American businesses: “know your supply chain.”
But it isn’t that easy.
Surprisingly, the most recent CBP data shows that in terms of value, the majority of shipments detained since last summer were not sent from China. Shipments coming directly from China represented about $80 million worth of goods, while Malaysia accounted for $461 million and Vietnam accounted for $370 million. CBP officials told CNBC those shipments were stopped because the goods were believed to have been made with raw materials from the Uyghur region. 
To date, only about a third of those detained shipments, amounting to 1,090, have been released.

Shipping containers lie stacked on a ship docked at the Port Newark Container Terminal, Newark, New Jersey.
Getty Images

Both the Biden and Trump administrations have amped up economic and trade pressure on China. The White House under President Joe Biden is currently reviewing the penalties imposed under former President Donald Trump, who levied a raft of tariffs on Chinese goods in an effort to bolster U.S.-made goods
During CNBC’s recent visit to the port, 916 40-foot-long shipping containers filled with merchandise worth about $60 million were under investigation, said CBP Assistant Port Director Ed Fox.
“UFLPA allows us to presume [goods] were produced with forced labor, and therefore they’d be excluded from the United States,” said Fox. “So now, [after receiving a detention notice], the importer has to go back through their entire supply chain, and they have to prove that it was not produced with forced labor.”
In addition to $20 million worth of solar panels in lockdown, there was also a 40-foot container filled with bags of xanthan gum – a common food additive used in toothpaste and ice cream – and $15 million worth of vinyl floor tiles. 
Textiles are a big category, too. “The cotton commodity coming out of the Xinjiang region has typically been tied to forced labor,” Fox told CNBC.

Top categories detained, since June 2022

Electronics ($841.2 million)
Apparel, footwear, textiles ($29.6 million)
Industrial and manufacturing materials ($39.1 million)
Agricultural products ($12.4 million)

Source: CBP data

How Customs tracks merchandise

“It’s a combination of intelligence, information that’s gathered from a variety of sources, all feeding into our expert cargo targeting systems,” said Fox.
In some cases, he said goods are sent to a lab for more tests. 
CNBC followed T-shirts from a well-known designer fashion label that were sent to a lab in Newark, New Jersey, to undergo analysis.

A scientist at a U.S. Customs & Border Protection lab in Newark, New Jersey, cuts a T-shirt from a well-known designer fashion label with scissors for testing.

First, a scientist cut samples of the shirts. Then, she examined the fibers under a microscope to see if they were made from cotton. Next, the shirts were sent out to a private lab overseas for isotope analysis that can determine whether the cotton was grown in the Xinjiang region.
“We really have to drill down into the chemical makeup of cotton,” said Stephen Cassata, senior science officer at CBP. “It creates kind of a fingerprint for that particular region.”
The isotope analysis is so precise that scientists can pinpoint the exact geographic location of where the cotton originated from – from one side of a river to the other side of a river, according to Cassata.

During CNBC’s port visit, a 40-foot shipping container full of floor tiles (white boxes) was detained by U.S. Customs & Border Protection over suspected ties to forced labor.

CBP asked CNBC not to reveal the names of any corporation that had items detained because the information was protected by the Trade Secrets Act, which says disclosing it could impact CBP’s ability to enforce the law as well as the company’s reputation.
Officials sent detention notices to the manufacturers, explaining that merchandise was being held. The companies then had 30 days to come back to CBP and prove that the items were produced without forced labor.
While a company works to prove it’s not in violation of the new law, it’s faced with another cost: storage fees. If the company cannot prove within a 30-day period that its products have no ties to forced labor, then the products are either destroyed or reexported and will incur extra fees.

Uncertainty for companies

Public and private companies are now caught in the crosshairs – left struggling with limited information to navigate new laws, and stand to lose millions, according to one attorney.
“I’ve spoken to executives, CFOs, CEOs, and also their investors in their boards because they’re concerned about this,” said Angela Santos, a New York attorney for the ArentFox Schiff firm. “These forced labor laws could cost companies millions of dollars between preparing and conducting the due diligence hiring new staff to handle this.”
Santos says she deals with forced labor issues every day. Her clients include public and private companies in the solar, fashion, energy and automotive industries who have received detentions.
“They just don’t know if their supply chain includes goods produced with forced labor,” she told CNBC. “With regards to addressing the detentions, it can be extremely expensive and time consuming to get goods released.”
According to Santos, companies receive very limited information from customs officials when their goods are detained.
“Often the company does not know how problematic the material or level is,” Santos said. “A company needs to provide chain-of-custody documents for every single tier of the supply chain.”
She says that’s difficult to obtain, because historically, companies only really had a relationship with their first-tier suppliers. But that’s changing – there’s now a push for companies to know their entire supply chain.
“It is a huge burdensome task for companies and can be really problematic for small- and medium-sized companies that don’t have those kinds of resources,” Santos said.
So is pulling out of China the answer?
“Many companies are still reliant on China for their supply chain. And I would know that China is not the only place where forced labor is allegedly occurring,” Santos said. “So, shifting out of China may not be the solution for everybody.” More

Key components from Western countries have been found in the military equipment used by Russian forces in Ukraine.
Research demonstrates the illicit procurement and misuse of semiconductors by overseas entities.
Although the semiconductor companies and government officials CNBC spoke to acknowledge the unauthorized use of American chips is a serious issue, experts can’t agree on who is to blame.

Western companies were quick to shutter operations in Russia after the country’s military invasion of Ukraine last February. But U.S. and European microelectronic tech continues to power the Kremlin’s war.
Key components from more than a dozen Western countries have been found in the military equipment used by Russian forces in Ukraine, according to research from the British academic journal Royal United Services Institute. A separate report from the nonprofit research group Conflict Armament Research analyzed the components of four Iranian-made drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, used by Russia in Ukraine and found the vast majority of the technological devices originated from U.S. companies.

The two reports help demonstrate how multibillion-dollar, decadeslong military-modernization programs in Iran and Russia have depended on semiconductors made by U.S. companies. The research calls into question the two countries’ domestic capabilities when it comes to microelectronics manufacturing and demonstrates the illicit procurement and misuse of semiconductors by overseas entities.
“For Russian systems, I think we have a little bit more than 50% of components that bear the brands of U.S.-based entities,” said Damien Spleeters, deputy director of operations for CAR. “For Iranian systems, it is more than 80%.”

Qaem-5 precision-guided munition, documented by Conflict Armament Research in Ukraine.
Source: Conflict Armament Research

Spleeters said he’s personally traveled to Ukraine on seven separate occasions to investigate and trace the supply sources of the microelectronics used in advanced weapons like Iranian-made drones.
“With just screwdrivers and wrenches and whatnot, we’ll just open these systems and take them apart to access every single component,” Spleeters said.
He and his colleagues take thousands of photos of the parts before rebuilding the weapon in a process he compared to “an IKEA system.”

Russia’s sourcing of equipment, like the UAV drones from Iran, “underscores the challenges” the country is having “replacing equipment lost or expended since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” according to RUSI researchers.

Shahed-131 UAV documented by Conflict Armament Research in Ukraine.
Source: Conflict Armament Research

About 70% of the 450 components that RUSI examined from more than 27 different weapons systems, platforms, radios and equipment were manufactured by U.S. companies.
Nearly half of the components came from Analog Devices, Texas Instruments, Microchip Technology, Onsemi, Intel, Xilinx (recently acquired by AMD) and Cypress Semiconductor (now owned by Germany’s Infineon Tech). According to RUSI’s report, products from Analog Devices and Texas Instruments were the most prevalent in weapon systems.
All of these U.S.-listed companies told CNBC they have halted shipments of goods to Russia, Belarus and Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, in accordance with U.S. restrictions.

Trade restrictions

The U.S. and Iran have a history of trade restrictions that date back decades.
The current economic sanctions restricting imports and exports between the two countries were first imposed in 2012. They’ve been updated several times over the years, banning nearly every type of exchange of goods and services except those meant for humanitarian aid and informational services. Even those exempted categories still require a specialized license from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security.
While many of the harshest sanctions imposed on Russia didn’t start until after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, many exports to the country had been restricted since at least 2014 when Russia first violated Ukrainian sovereignty by annexing the country’s eastern peninsula, Crimea.
In the near-decade since, American semiconductor components have still found their way into Russian weapons.

A date marking on a Qaem-5 munition, documented by Conflict Armament Research investigators in Ukraine.
Source: Conflict Armament Research

“For the Russian systems, we see that a lot of these components were manufactured between 2014 and 2021. And for Iranian systems, we found a lot of components made in 2021, 2020 and then we’ve got some components from 2022, as well,” said CAR’s Spleeters.
The more recently dated parts demonstrate how Iran and Russia may have circumvented U.S. restrictions, according to the analyses done by CAR and RUSI.
Even more troublesome, according to that research: Some of the discovered components are classified as dual-use goods, with what are called Export Control Classification Numbers on the Commerce Control List. This means that a chip could be sold legally to a country for consumer or commercial use, only to then be resold to a company in a different country on the secondary market for military use. This type of re-routing of goods is known as transshipment and causes three problems, according to industry experts.
First, it’s more difficult for manufacturers and governments to trace end users, and second, it raises questions about the effectiveness of existing export controls given that many of these products were made recently and would have fallen under stricter regulations. What’s more, it underscores that an outright ban is likely unachievable, given the dual use of certain chips that are needed for commercial products.

Circuit boards of four different items of Russian military equipment found in Ukraine by Conflict Armament Research investigators.
Source: Conflict Armament Research

All seven of the U.S. chipmakers CNBC contacted for comment condemned the unauthorized diversion of their products to countries like Russia and Iran.
A spokesperson for AMD said the company would take “immediate measures per our contract terms” if any of its products were found to be sold to these countries or regions.
Onsemi called export-control violations a “material breach” and said they “may lead to the termination of our contractual relationship with business partners.”
Texas Instruments said it does not “support or condone” the use of its products “in applications for which they weren’t designed.”
A spokesperson for Intel said, “We do not always know nor can we control what products our customers create or the applications end-users may develop,” but stressed the chipmaker “does not support or tolerate our products being used to violate human rights.”
Analog Devices said it takes the unintended misuse of its products “very seriously” and is strengthening efforts to counter these issues by “implementing enhanced monitoring and audit processes and taking enforcement action where appropriate.”
Microchip Technology said it uses “various methods including screening customers against restricted party lists” to help prevent the illegal use of its products.
And Infineon said it has directed global distribution partners to “prevent deliveries and to implement measures that will prevent any diversion of Infineon products or services contrary to the sanctions,” adding that it has reiterated this position “several times.”

Accountability

Although the semiconductor companies and government officials CNBC spoke to acknowledge the unauthorized use of American chips is a serious issue, experts can’t agree on who is to blame.
“I don’t think the bulk of the bad behavior is with the manufacturer … It’s the ultimate buyers where I think you’ve got the real problem,” said Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
“I think our supply chains are really so fundamentally weak,” said Nazak Nikakhtar, a partner at the law firm Wiley Rein and the former assistant secretary for industry and analysis at the International Trade Administration. “What I see all too often is for companies just to say, ‘This is not my problem. I have a good compliance mechanism. This is somebody else’s fault.'”
Others, however, blame what they say is a lack of government oversight.
“The Department of Commerce has been lax about export controls for too long, sending critical supplies like chips to third parties which it knows will turn around and sell those materials to adversary militaries. This must end,” said Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark, who serves on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. “We should deny export licenses to companies if we even suspect that they are helping our enemies evade U.S. sanctions.”

Electronic components documented by Conflict Armament Research investigators in Ukraine.
Source: Conflict Armament Research

A spokesperson for the Commerce Department said its officials are aware of the transshipment issue with microelectronics and other goods. In response to the war in Ukraine, the department formed what it’s calling a “Global Export Control Coalition,” consisting of 38 international partners, many of which were key trading partners of Russia prior to the invasion of Ukraine.
The group’s purpose is to siphon off Russia’s access to many goods by implementing the same level of trade restrictions across the entire group.
“We’re constantly in communication with our allies and our interagency partners. We’re constantly tracking as much as we can, using every source of information that we have access to, to try and stay one step ahead and close off as many illicit networks as we can,” the department spokesperson said.
Stronger cooperation from U.S. allies could help lessen the degree to which these components end up in the hands of bad actors, according to Nikakhtar.
“Ally engagement in doing press releases and stating intent to do something is one thing, but really, the rubber has to meet the road. Allies need to revamp their system to ensure that the technologies aren’t being exported,” she said. “And the United States needs to lead.” More

Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News has been delayed on the eve of its scheduled start date.
The conclusion of the jury selection process and the start of opening statements, which were set for Monday morning, have been pushed to Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. ET.
As recently as Saturday, the possibility of Dominion and Fox avoiding trial seemed as unlikely as ever.

A political display is posted on the outside of the Fox News headquarters on 6th Avenue in New York July 21, 2020.
Timothy A. Clary | AFP | Getty Images

WILMINGTON, Del. — Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News has been delayed on the eve of its scheduled start date, an official for the court said Sunday.
The conclusion of the jury selection process and the start of opening statements, which were set for Monday morning, have been pushed to Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. ET, according to a statement from Delaware Superior Court.

Spokespeople for Fox and Dominion did not immediately provide statements when asked for comment after the delay was announced Sunday night.
Dominion, which sells voting machines and election software, claimed it was defamed by Fox Corp. and its cable TV networks after Fox aired false claims that the company had rigged the 2020 election against former President Donald Trump.
Fox has argued that Dominion has not met the legal standard for defamation, and that the statements made about Dominion on its air were protected by the First Amendment.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier Sunday that Fox has made a last-minute push to settle the lawsuit out of court.
Most defamation cases settle out of court. But as recently as Saturday, the possibility of Dominion and Fox avoiding trial seemed as unlikely as ever. “In the coming weeks, we will prove Fox spread lies causing enormous damage to Dominion. We look forward to trial,” a Dominion spokesman told CNBC on Saturday morning.
Judge Eric Davis, who is presiding over the case, said in a statement from the court that he will formally announce the delay from his courtroom on Monday at 9 a.m. ET. More