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    BMW to install new ‘panoramic’ display in all vehicles

    BMW revealed its new Panoramic iDrive system, including windshield-length display, and BMW Operating System X during the CES tech show.
    The automaker said it will begin installing the features on all its new vehicles by the end of 2025.

    BMW said it will begin installing a new operating system and “panoramic” display in all its new vehicles by the end of 2025.

    LAS VEGAS — BMW AG will install a new operating system and “panoramic” display in all of its upcoming vehicles, the company said Tuesday.
    The new BMW Panoramic iDrive system, which has a windshield-length display, is powered by the BMW Operating System X, the German automaker announced during the CES technology show. The features will begin rolling out before the end of the year, it said.

    The new display appears across the bottom of the windshield, an emerging trend in the automotive industry. The goal is to give drivers more information but allow them to keep their eyes on the road.
    “With this advance, we are giving one of the world’s best and most comprehensive infotainment systems even greater capability and once again setting the industry benchmark in multimodal interaction,” Frank Weber, who leads BMW’s vehicle development, said in a press release.
    The display appears similar to that of Ford Motor’s Lincoln brand, including in an SUV called the Nautilus that launched in 2024.
    The new BMW system also has a “multifunction steering wheel” that illuminates relevant buttons depending on how the vehicle is being used, BMW said.
    The system will begin rolling out internationally first, followed by the U.S. debut scheduled for mid-2026. More

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    Puma challenges Tiger Woods’ Sun Day Red logo

    Puma has filed a notice of opposition against Tiger Woods’ apparel and sneaker company Sun Day Red over its tiger logo.
    Puma said the mark will cause confusion among consumers.
    This is the second notice of opposition against Sun Day Red, whose logo features a tiger with 15 marks representing the major championships Woods has won.

    Puma logo (L) and Sun Day Red Tiger logo (R)
    Source: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

    Sun Day Red is not out of the woods yet in regard to trademarking its logo.
    Footwear giant Puma filed a last-minute notice of opposition against Tiger Woods’ logos tied to his Sun Day Red brand, according to a filing last week.

    The German sneaker and apparel company says the Sun Day Red logo is too similar to the logo that Puma has been using since 1969. The company filed to prevent the TaylorMade-owned golf brand from being able to use its proposed mark.
    “Due to the confusing similarity of the marks and the identical, legally identical, or closely related nature of the goods and services of the parties, consumer confusion is likely between the Challenged Marks and the Leaping Cat logo,” Puma said in the filing.

    Side-by-side comparison showing the Puma logo (L) and the Sun Day Red Tiger logo (R).
    Source: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

    Shoes showing Puma logo (L) and Sun Day Red Tiger logo (R).
    Source: U.S. Patent and Trademake Office

    In a statement to CNBC, TaylorMade said, “We feel very confident in our trademarks and logos.”

    Josh Gerben, a trademark attorney at Gerben IP, said the challenge from Puma is “significant.”
    “This is a real fight,” said Gerben, whose firm is not involved in the Puma lawsuit. “Any time you have open litigation you can lose. I think Puma has a legitimate case.”
    The two parties could still reach a settlement before the case goes to trial, likely in September 2026, according to Gerben.
    Gerben said disputes over logos are much less common than trademark disputes over names or slogans.
    “Tiger certainly has a target on his back,” he said. “He’s big enough to move markets.” More

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    Panera Brands CEO steps down, CFO to fill in as interim chief

    Panera Brands announced its CEO, Jose Dueñas, is stepping down, effective immediately.
    CFO Paul Carbone will serve as interim chief executive.
    The restaurant company, which also includes Einstein Bros. and Caribou Coffee, has been attempting to go public over the last few years.

    A Panera Bread restaurant in Miami Beach, Florida, Nov. 8, 2017.
    Joe Raedle | Getty Images

    Panera Bread’s parent company announced Tuesday that CEO Jose Dueñas is stepping down, effective immediately.
    The change in leadership is the latest challenge to the company’s plans to go public eventually, following several years of hurdles.

    Panera Brands CFO Paul Carbone will step in as interim chief executive while the board searches for a permanent replacement to lead the company, which includes Panera Bread, Einstein Bros. and Caribou Coffee.
    Dueñas plans to stick around through the end of March as a special advisor, the company said. He took over as CEO of Panera Brands in July 2023 after four years leading bagel chain Einstein Bros.
    JAB Holding, the investment arm of the Reimann family, bought Panera Bread in 2017 for $7.5 billion, taking it private and then forming Panera Brands with some of its other acquisitions.
    JAB has been trying to take Panera public again for years. In 2022, Panera scrapped a deal with Danny Meyer’s special purpose acquisition company, citing market conditions.
    In the same 2023 announcement tapping Dueñas as its latest CEO, Panera said the leadership transition is to prepare for an eventual initial public offering. Months later, in December 2023, the company confidentially filed for an IPO.
    It has yet to go public, following lawsuits tied to its heavily caffeinated Charged Lemonade, a rocky year for the restaurant industry and a sluggish market for IPOs in 2024. More

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    J&J says its lung cancer drug combination keeps people alive longer

    Johnson & Johnson said a combination of its lung cancer drugs Rybrevant and Lazcluze kept people alive for at least a year longer than AstraZeneca’s Tagrisso in a clinical trial.
    J&J is trying to supplant AstraZeneca’s blockbuster Tagrisso, a once-daily pill that has transformed the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer with EGFR mutations.
    It remains to be seen how many doctors will adopt the treatment.

    Niels Wenstedt | Getty Images

    Johnson & Johnson on Tuesday said its lung cancer regimen keeps people alive for at least a year longer than AstraZeneca’s Tagrisso, the go-to drug for a certain type of lung cancer.J&J in a statement said its drugs – Rybrevant and Lazcluze – showed a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement to survival relative to Tagrisso in a pivotal trial. The company expects the benefit to be at least a year and possibly longer, J&J executives said in an interview. The company plans to present the full results at a medical meeting later this year.
    “This is an absolute igniter,” said Biljana Naumovic, president of U.S. Oncology Solid Tumor at Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine. “People were looking for an overall survival difference.”

    J&J is trying to supplant AstraZeneca’s blockbuster Tagrisso, a once-daily pill that has transformed the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer with EGFR mutations and extended the median survival to about three years. These genetic errors cause cancer cells to proliferate. They’re responsible for between 10% and 15% of lung cancer cases in the U.S., according to the American Lung Association.
    J&J executives hailed the result as a game-changer that should change the treatment of this type of lung cancer. But there’s no guarantee doctors and patients will all switch to using Rybrevant and Lazcluze since the regimen comes with more side effects and requires infusions every few weeks, said Dr. Stephen Liu, director of thoracic oncology and head of developmental therapeutics at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.
    “I think the announcement that this leads to people living longer will force a harder look,” Liu said.
    He wants to see who benefited the most so he can treat those patients more aggressively while sparing those who are less likely to respond. Rybrevant and Lazcluze can cause people to develop a rash and lead their fingernails to split.
    Like Tagrisso, J&J’s regimen blocks the EGFR protein to prevent cancer cells from growing. It also targets MET, a common pathway cancer uses to develop resistance to drugs.
    J&J forecasts Rybrevant and Lazcluze’s annual sales could top $5 billion. Tagrisso brought in about $6 billion for AstraZeneca in 2023. More

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    Online holiday spending rises nearly 9%, as deep discounts and AI-powered chatbots fuel purchases, Adobe data says

    Online spending grew 8.7% during November and December, according to Adobe Analytics, as consumers took advantage of discounts.
    Shoppers have embraced “event-ized buying,” as they hold out for key periods when they know that items they want will be on sale, said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst for Adobe Digital Insights.
    The biggest year-over-year spending growth came from groceries, which jumped nearly 13% to $21.5 billion, and cosmetics, which shot up by 12.2% to $7.7 billion, the data said.

    Alistair Berg | Digitalvision | Getty Images

    Online spending rose 8.7% during the holiday season from last year, according to data from Adobe Analytics, as deals and the use of AI-powered chatbots helped inspire purchases.
    Sales on retailers’ websites and apps totaled $241.4 billion from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31, according to Adobe. The company’s analysis includes more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million unique items and 18 different product categories.

    More demand, not higher prices, drove higher online spending, according to Adobe. Adobe’s Digital Price Index found e-commerce prices have fallen every month for 27 months. The company’s figures are not adjusted for inflation, but if they were revised, overall consumer spending would be higher.
    The e-commerce results are a promising sign for the retail industry, which has yet to report company-specific sales. Walmart, Target, Macy’s and others will start to post their fiscal fourth-quarter results, including their sales over the key shopping season, in late February.
    Other early reads on the holiday season have looked strong, too. Retail sales for the holiday season in the U.S., excluding automotive sales, rose 3.8% year over year for the period from Nov. 1 through Dec. 24, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which measures in-store and online sales across payment types.
    Deep discounts motivated holiday shoppers to spend, according to Adobe’s data. For every 1% drop in the typical price, demand for merchandise increased by about 1% compared with the 2023 holiday season, Adobe data found. That led to an additional $2.25 billion in online spending.
    Vivek Pandya, lead analyst for Adobe Digital Insights, said as prices of groceries and housing remain elevated, consumers are waiting to buy nonessential goods at times of the year when they expect to pay less. He described that pattern as “event-ized buying.”

    For example, he said shoppers have opened their wallets during Amazon’s Prime Day event in the summer or during sales days such as President’s Day and Memorial Day.
    “There are certain moments and certain opportunities where we see them overindexing their spend, really driving forward, because they see the value,” he said. “And then outside of those periods, we start to see growth kind of draw back down.”
    Some of the best online deals during the holiday season were in the electronics category, where discounts peaked at 30.1% off listed price; toys, where price reductions topped out at 28%; TVs, where discounts maxed out at 24.2%; and apparel, where price cuts peaked at 23.2%.
    Electronics, apparel, and the furniture and home goods segment were the three top categories for the holiday season, which contributed to about 54% of the total online spending, according to Adobe. Yet the biggest year-over-year spending growth came from groceries, which jumped nearly 13% to $21.5 billion, and cosmetics, which shot up by 12.2% to $7.7 billion.

    The AI effect

    One of the newer factors nudging spending is AI-powered shopping assistants such as ChatGPT and its competitors.
    Traffic to retail sites that came from generative AI-powered chatbots shot up by 1,300% compared with the year-ago holiday season, as more shoppers turned to the technology to look for gift ideas and direct them to cheaper items, according to Adobe. That data included only external chatbots, not those that retailers offer on their own apps or websites.
    Pandya said while the technology is young and the base of users still modest, those chatbots are becoming more meaningful drivers of clicks and purchases on retailers’ websites.
    “You have a consumer that’s very strategic and thinking a lot about their strategy around where they’re buying, when they’re buying, what’s offering the best deal,” Pandya said, “and that’s where the generative AI sources, the assistants were helping the consumer and kind of co-piloting that journey.”
    For many shoppers, smartphones played a central role. Most of the season’s e-commerce purchases — nearly 55% — took place through a smartphone rather than a laptop or other device. That’s up from about 51% in the year-ago holiday season, Adobe found.
    The use of buy now, pay later, a credit option that allows shoppers to split their purchase into multiple payments, rose 9.6% year over year and contributed to $18.2 billion in online spending during the holiday period. That marked an all-time high for the holiday season, according to Adobe. Cyber Monday was the biggest day on record for buy now, pay later with $991.2 million in spending. More

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    Stellantis reveals redesigned Ram heavy-duty trucks

    Stellantis has redesigned its large Ram heavy-duty trucks after the brand has seen three consecutive years of sales declines.
    The new Ram 2500 and 3500 pickups are expected to arrive in U.S. dealers during the first quarter of this year and will start at $47,560.
    Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis said rollouts of its redesigned trucks have “been super delayed,” which has hurt the automaker.

    2025 Ram 2500 Heavy Duty

    DETROIT — Stellantis has redesigned its large Ram heavy-duty trucks — and it’s betting those updates will help reverse three consecutive years of sales declines for the brand.
    The new Ram 2500 and 3500 pickups and chassis cab trucks feature updated interior and exterior designs, as well as a new 6.7-liter Cummins turbo diesel engine that produces 430 horsepower and a best-in-class 1,075 foot-pounds of torque, according to the automaker.

    The heavy-duty trucks are expected to arrive in U.S. dealers during the first quarter of this year and will sell for roughly $2,300 more than current models, starting at $47,560.
    They follow the delayed rollout of their redesigned smaller sibling Ram 1500 pickup, which was released last year.

    2025 Ram 3500 Heavy Duty

    Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis, who returned to the automaker in December after retiring in May, said the rollout of the Ram 1500 is improving.
    “It’s been super delayed, let’s be honest. We should have been fully launched up on that [1500] truck this summer. We should have had [the heavy-duty trucks] already,” Kuniskis said during a media event. “It’s getting better every day.”
    Pickup trucks are crucial products for American brands such as Ram, which reported a 19% year-over-year decline in sales in 2024. That included a 16% drop in sales for its Ram pickup trucks. That compares with competitors such as Ford and GM’s Chevrolet, which reported level sales in 2024 for their pickups.

    2025 Ram 5500 Chassis Cab

    “We’ve been getting our ass kicked,” Kuniskis said, noting the 1500 model rollout is largely to blame for the brand’s sales decline.
    The diesel engine is an important option for heavy-duty truck customers, many of whom use the vehicles for hauling, towing and other work-related jobs. The other engine option is a 6.4-liter Hemi V-8 that delivers 405 horsepower and 429 foot-pounds of torque.
    For 2025, the Ram Heavy Duty lineup includes Tradesman, Big Horn/Lone Star, Laramie, Rebel, Power Wagon, Limited Longhorn and Limited models. The trucks are built in Saltillo, Mexico.

    2025 Ram 3500 Heavy Duty More

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    Toyota is ‘exploring rockets’ with nearly $45 million investment in Japanese launch startup, chairman says

    Toyota Motor is exploring the development and production of orbital rockets, Chairman Akio Toyoda said Monday.
    The automaker is investing 7 billion Japanese yen ($44.4 million) into Interstellar Technologies, a startup developing orbital launch vehicles.
    “We are exploring rockets too, because the future of mobility shouldn’t be limited to just earth or just one car company, for that matter,” Toyoda said during a press conference for CES.

    After Akio Toyoda, CEO and President of Toyota, announced he was stepping down on Thursday, he shared his advice to his successor and his business philosophy.
    Photo by Yoshikazu Tsuno | Gamma-rapho | Getty Images

    LAS VEGAS — Toyota Motor is exploring the development and production of orbital rockets, Chairman Akio Toyoda said Monday.
    The automaker, through its “Woven by Toyota” mobility company, is investing 7 billion Japanese yen ($44.4 million) into Interstellar Technologies Inc., a Japanese private spaceflight company developing launch vehicles for satellites.

    Toyoda, former CEO and scion of the automaker, said there shouldn’t only be “one car company” — referring to Tesla, whose CEO Elon Musk also leads SpaceX — working on the development of such technologies.
    “We are exploring rockets too, because the future of mobility shouldn’t be limited to just earth or just one car company, for that matter,” Toyoda said during a press conference for the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

    Read more CNBC space news

    Founded in 2013, Interstellar Technologies has performed seven launches of its small suborbital MOMO rockets, which reached space for the first time in 2019. The startup has yet to deploy a satellite in orbit, with plans to develop the larger ZERO and DECA line of rockets for delivering spacecraft.
    Toyota said the company expects to leverage its experience with the mass production of vehicles for the production of rockets with Interstellar Technologies. 
    In the Japanese launch market, Toyota is taking on Mitsubishi, whose subsidiary Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has developed and launched the H3 series of rockets for JAXA, the country’s space agency. Mitsubishi’s H3 rocket, which debuted several years behind schedule, was intended to be priced competitively with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets, which dominate the current global launch market.

    Woven City

    Toyota on Monday also announced completion of the first phase of Woven City, including housing for residents and inventors whom the automaker is inviting to come to the location.
    Woven by Toyota was announced five years ago by Toyoda at CES as a “prototype city of the future,” located on a 175-acre site at the base of Mt. Fuji in Japan to test and develop new emerging technologies such as autonomous vehicles.
    The chairman said the mission of Woven City isn’t necessarily to make money, but to be a test course and experimental proving ground for future technologies. More

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    Winter storm disrupts thousands of U.S. flights

    Nearly 7,000 U.S. flights were delayed and more than 2,600 were canceled as a winter storm moved eastward.
    The winter storm was set to dump about a foot of snow on areas around Washington, D.C.
    The worst of the disruptions were centered in and around Washington, D.C., but flights were delayed around as far west as Dallas.

    Airplanes on the tarmac during a snow storm at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, US, on Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. 
    Ting Shen | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    Thousands of flights were disrupted Monday as a winter storm moved eastward, snarling air travel in the eastern U.S.
    By 5:45 p.m. ET, more than 6,900 U.S. flights were delayed while more 2,130 were canceled, according to flight tracker FlightAware.

    The storm, which was moving from the Ohio Valley to the mid-Atlantic, was set to dump as much as a foot of snow in the Washington, D.C., area, though cold weather stretched through the southern U.S., according to federal forecasters.
    More than 300 flights, or 80% of the day’s schedule, were canceled at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, while about a third of the scheduled flights were canceled at each Washington Dulles International Airport and Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.

    Read more CNBC airline news

    Each of the major New York-area airports had about 200 flight delays, FlightAware tallies showed, and there were significant slowdowns at other major airports like Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Chicago O’Hare International Airport.
    United, Southwest, American and other airlines waived change fees and fare differences for travelers affected by the storm.

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