Volvo has set itself apart from other mainstream automakers this month by announcing that all of its new models from 2019 onwards will be electric or hybrid. Five fully electric models and a range of hybrids will become available between 2019 and 2021. In a year in which Tesla has surpassed Ford Motors and GM in market value, the shift toward electric can only be seen as a smart move for Volvo. But, interestingly enough, it was not actually a choice made to corner the American market.

Volvo is owned by Geely Motors, a little known Chinese company that purchased the Swedish brand from Ford in 2010 for a fraction of the cost that Ford had originally paid. The purchase could have driven Volvo into the ground but instead has given it new life in the Chinese market, where government regulations favor electric and hybrid vehicles in large cities. Geely has built a name for itself with its reinvigoration of Volvo and has now moved on to purchasing the makers of London’s ubiquitous black cabs, the racing brand Lotus, and the flying car start-up Terrafugia. Volvo is not the only brand under the Geely umbrella to go green–Geely opened a solar powered factory near Coventry, England this year which has created all-electric cabs for London Taxi Co. The UK government has been preparing plans to give taxi drivers grants for switching to these low emission cabs.

Geely stock price has been climbing ever upward over the past several years, tripling over the course of 2016-2017. The Chinese juggernaut may not be a household name in the U.S. at the moment, but it is expanding across Europe and into the Southeast Asian market, where American automakers have historically struggled to gain a foothold. If the company continues to commit to low emissions vehicles and transforming iconic brands into electric powerhouses its success may spread to the American market. Although the company will probably never have the immense production facilities of its direct competitors, with Ford and GM sales taking a downward turn, Geely may have found its moment to begin edging into the North American market.

The shift to electric has been underway for several years and Volvo is truly just a high profile manifestation of a larger trend–however every effort to drive consumers toward electric energy should be applauded. From the Nissan Leaf to Tesla’s more affordable Model S to the ever popular Prius, electric and hybrid vehicles are now settling into a price range that first time buyers are more comfortable with–but what about drivers with loyalty to a certain brand? In those instances, a massive transformation like the one Volvo is undergoing captures a section of consumers that may never have planned to buy electric–but could change their minds when the vehicle comes from a name they trust. Whether or not the Volvo transition is just a drop in the bucket on the path to a fully electric future, Geely clearly has a vision and commitment to electric energy that makes it unique in the conventional automotive market.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

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Uber and Lyft are the two big names in the modern transportation industry. Both services, heavily technologically based, provide dependable transportation and serve as a foil to a traditional taxi. So, naturally, there’s plenty of room for feuding there. Case in point: Lyft is suing former COO Travis VanderZanden, who is now with Uber. Lyft is arguing that VanderZanden breached the confidentiality agreement he signed with Lyft, as well as failed his fiduciary duties.

VanderZanden left Lyft in August after purportedly feuding with company founders John Zimmer and Logan Green. Soon after, he got a job with Uber, Lyft’s most obvious rival.

Lyft is accusing VanderZanden of a few different types of inappropriate conduct after he left the company. It is arguing that he attempted to solicit Lyft employees to leave with him, and it claims that he took a bunch of confidential documents with him when he left. There are traces of certain proprietary documents being copied to VanderZanden’s personal Dropbox–an online account used for large document storage. Lyft claims the confidential documents included:

Historic and future financial information, strategic planning materials like marketing plans and product plans, customer lists and data, international growth documents, and private personnel information.

Even if VanderZanden in no way conveyed this sort of information to his new employers, Lyft argues that he’s still breaking the confidentiality agreement that he signed when he began working with them. The possession of the documents in a personal account alone breaches the document he signed. Uber claims that it doesn’t have any of Lyft’s proprietary information, but who’s to know if that’s true.

The ongoing feud between the two companies is certainly interesting though, as they have very similar roots. Lyft was founded in San Francisco in 2012; Uber was founded in San Francisco just three years before. Having used both services in Washington, D.C. multiple times, there are very few noticeable differences in terms of user experience, except for maybe the fact that Lyft drivers adorn their cars with bright pink mustaches, whereas Uber drivers go for significantly more subtle window stickers.

Despite the obvious similarities, Uber is pretty much trouncing Lyft in the market. Fortune discovered that in the last year, riders spent $26.4 million on Uber rides, in comparison to only $2.2 million reported by Lyft. Part of that could very well be because Lyft is a younger company, and while they’re growing quickly they’re certainly still behind Uber in the grand scheme of things. Uber is a global company, whereas Lyft is still working on expanding.

Given that the two companies really are fighting for the same market–smartphone wielding people who don’t want to have to bother with hailing a cab or fumbling with cash to pay for said cab–Lyft and Uber have every reason to compete. Like Apple and Samsung, on a much smaller scale, I think we can expect to see lawsuits, court cases, and allegations thrown around between the two companies for a while to come.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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