logo
Public consultation on electric vehicle charger and double yellow lines by shops

Public consultation on electric vehicle charger and double yellow lines by shops

Yahoo2 days ago

A public consultation has been launched on the implementation of an electric vehicle (EV) charger and double yellow lines outside a row of shops.
The developments would be brought in outside the strip of stores on Highfield Road in Farnworth, which includes Co-op, Premier and more.
Bolton Council granted planning permission in July last year for an EV charger and its associated infrastructure such as line markings and electrical equipment.
The plans would see two existing double parking bays turned into four EV charge parking bays.
As part of the permission, the highways department would need to "carry out a review of Traffic Regulation Orders in the locality where necessary".
The proposed yellow lines and parking bays (Image: Bolton Council) Now, a proposed traffic order has been uploaded to the council's website, outlining separate parts for the EV parking place and for double yellow lines.
Read more: Raft of new double yellow lines to deal with 'anti-social parking and driving'
Read more: Road could be made one way after safety concerns
Read more: 'We have this serious issue of cars driven in an irresponsible way' - police respond
In its reasoning, it says: "A planning application has been received and has been approved for two electric vehicle charging points outside the shops on Highfield Rd, an area which has a demand for on street parking but also has a turnover with visitors due to the varied nature of the business premises.
"This proposal will introduce the associated restrictions, amending existing restrictions to accommodate the new bays.
Highfield Road shops (Image: Google Maps) "To secure the expeditious, convenient and safe movement of traffic in pursuance of the Authority's duty under S.122 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984."
The council says that any objections or representations should state the grounds they are made on and be sent either by email to highways@bolton.gov.uk or in writing to Highways and Engineering Division, 3rd Floor, Paderborn House, Civic Centre, Bolton BL1 1UA, no later than June 13.
It asks anyone who does so to quote the reference 'TRO303992/JF/web' in all correspondence.
This comes after a raft of new double yellow lines was brought in across Farnworth and Kearsley.
The development comes as part of a bid to cut antisocial parking and driving.
Some of the areas where restrictions were approved include around Kearsley West Nursery and Primary School in Primrose Street.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

I Used MindStudio AI to Help With Research. It Was Remarkably Handy
I Used MindStudio AI to Help With Research. It Was Remarkably Handy

CNET

time42 minutes ago

  • CNET

I Used MindStudio AI to Help With Research. It Was Remarkably Handy

The most taxing thing about being a journalist, apart from the job insecurity, is all the required reading. Working on a piece means reading through stacks of articles, studies and other reports just to paint a full picture for readers. Even then, you'll invariably miss things that'll immediately be pointed out in the comment section. However, AI can help streamline research and reduce missteps. As an AI reporter, I'm constantly being sent pitches about the latest AI wares from companies the average person hasn't heard of. Most don't seem particularly useful for the average person, but speaking with Dmitry Shapiro, a former product manager at Google and current CEO of MindStudio, and seeing a video he posted on LinkedIn for his Do Your Research AI agent, made me want to give it a try. AI is increasingly becoming the go-to tool for reporters, researchers and students. Its ability to synthesize nearly the entire trove of human knowledge and give a bespoke output to any question saves time that would have otherwise been dedicated to cross-referencing material. At the same time, there's a worry that relying too heavily on AI systems atrophies the human mind, making it less capable of problem-solving and critical thinking. Despite this, people, companies and universities are all in on offloading the arduous task of human analysis to neural networks. In some cases, AI can greatly outperform human output, doing 1 billion years of doctoral research in one year. On the other hand, AI can make grave mistakes, such as telling businesses to break the law. While AI optimists say that the tech will maximize human potential in a fraction of the time, there's worry about the effects of the workforce being supplanted by AI systems and whether society is ready to deal with the potential of mass layoffs. Despite the concerns, AI is here, everyone is using it, and only the most useful tools will survive. In concept, Do Your Research seems like a godsend for reporting. In practice, it's good overall, but it has some issues that need fixing. For example, in researching the changes to Twitter's moderation policies after Elon Musk's takeover, Do Your Research did a great job painting a history of all the changes the Tesla CEO made and how it immediately led to an increase in hate speech on the platform. It also highlighted the externalities to Musk's abrupt firings and moderation changes, including an advertiser revolt and an exodus of customers, backed by actual data. The conclusion also gave a position -- I hadn't asked for one, but it shows that the tool can connect all the facts presented. Per my spot checks, the data that Do Your Research presented was accurate and backed up with correct sources. However, I wish that factoids could be hyperlinked directly to sources, like Wikipedia. If you're a student, you'll want to be careful with copying and pasting directly from Do Your Research. Upon checking with a plagiarism detection site, Do Your Research's text came up as 20% plagiarized. Unsurprisingly, AI detection tools dinged Do Your Research as 46% AI-generated, which is pretty low considering it's 100% AI-generated. An example of MindStudio's Do Your Research AI agent looking into Twitter's content moderation. Screenshot by CNET The thing I like about Do Your Research over ChatGPT and Gemini is the way it breaks down different points into subheads and tacks on a full list of sources at the bottom. While the other chatbots do this too, Do Your Research lists it out like a detailed bibliography. Given that AI systems can get things wrong, easily being able to go back to the actual source immediately is handy. Perplexity has a function called Pages that works similarly to Do Your Research. In my tests, the writing read much more like a human and was at a level I'd deem publishable. The sourcing was also well detailed and correctly documented. Granted, Pages was immediately dinged by plagiarism checking tools as more than 93% plagiarized. It's a criticism Perplexity has received in the past. It also explains why Perplexity reads so much better than other AI-generated content. Do Your Research does need further optimization. A single run of the model can take minutes to compile. In my case, it would fail about 40% of the time. Obviously, these instances are annoying, and it requires more time to rerun the model. After about five successful Do Your Research reports, I ran out of the $5 in token credits allotted to me by MindStudio for my press account. Tokens are essentially the amount of output the AI model can generate before the customer will need to pull out a credit card. Is Do Your Research worth your time and investment? Yes. It's an incredibly handy tool that does a fantastic job of grabbing various bits of information and collecting it all into an article-like package. The output isn't good enough to be publishable, as its text can read as anodyne and lacking in personality. However, it's a strong jumping-off point to help expand your own research and reporting.

Hyundai just built a $7.6 billion EV factory in Georgia to compete with Tesla and GM — see inside
Hyundai just built a $7.6 billion EV factory in Georgia to compete with Tesla and GM — see inside

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

Hyundai just built a $7.6 billion EV factory in Georgia to compete with Tesla and GM — see inside

The Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America is an all-new $7.6 billion EV factory. HMGMA, located near Savannah, Georgia, opened its doors in March of this year. The factory will be able to build 500,000 EVs and Hybrids for Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis every year. The $7.6 billion Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America, or HMGMA, is one of the newest and most technologically advanced car factories in the world. The plant, located near Savannah, Georgia, opened its doors in March and will be a key production facility for Hyundai's EVs and PHEVs, as well as those belonging to its Genesis luxury brand and sister company Kia. In a recent interview with Business Insider, Genesis North America COO Tedros Mengiste cited the investment as an example of Hyundai's track record for "visionary and strategic, and long-term thinking." I recently took a behind-the-scenes tour of Hyundai's new megafactory packed with autonomous robots and state-of-the-art tech. The Hyundai Metaplant is situated on a 3,000-acre campus in the south Georgia town of Ellabell. Located just 20 miles from the Port of Savannah, one of the busiest in the US, the plant not only gives Hyundai much-needed manufacturing capacity in the US to avoid import tariffs, but it also affords the company the flexibility to export vehicles abroad. It also gives Hyundai the production footprint to compete against rivals like Tesla, GM, and Rivian, which is also building a new factory in Georgia. Driving up to the factory, it's easy to be wowed by the sheer scale of the sprawling complex. It's Hyundai Group's second car factory in the state. The company also operates a $3.2 billion, 2,200-acre facility in West Point, Georgia, that builds Kia EV and ICE SUVs. I drove to the factory in a new 2026 Hyundai Ioniq 9 EV SUV, which is one of the vehicles assembled at the Metaplant. The only other model assembled at the plant is the Hyundai Ioniq 5 EV. My tour began in the plant's modern main lobby. Hyundai broke ground on the facility in the fall of 2022 and took just two years to complete construction on the main production buildings. The Metaplant site consists of 11 buildings totalling 7.5 million square feet of space. The Metaplant is a marvel of vertical integration, with the goal of having as many key components, ranging from battery packs to seats, made on-site. Here's a Hyundai XCIENT hydrogen fuel cell semi truck used to transport parts and supplies to the factory. It's one of 21 emission-free XCIENT trucks deployed around the Metaplant site. The production process starts in the stamping shop, where sheet metal is cut and stamped into parts that will make up the frame of the car. The sheet metal is supplied by the on-site Hyundai Steel facility. Stamped parts are transported by automated guided vehicles, or AGVs. The plant employs almost 300 AGVs to shuttle everything from spare parts to partially assembled cars. The stamped metal panels are then stored in these massive racks. The Metaplant was originally expected to produce up to 300,000 electrified vehicles annually. However, Hyundai announced at the plant's grand opening in March that its capacity will be expanded to 500,000 units in the coming years as part of a new $21 billion investment in US manufacturing. Here are parts of the Ioniq 9, Hyundai's new flagship three-row EV SUV. The plant is expected to start production of its first Kia model next year. The next part of the tour is the welding shop. Here, the stamped metal pieces are welded together by robot to form the body of the vehicle. The work done by the welding robots is then inspected by the plant's human employees known as Meta Pros. The Metplant employees more than 1,300 Meta Pros, nearly 90% of whom were hired locally. There are employee meeting and break areas located along the inspection and assembly areas. An employee cafeteria with remote ordering capability is located in the main assembly building. In addition to human eyes, the vehicles are also inspected by a pair of Boston Dynamics robot dogs called Spot. In 2021, Hyundai acquired an 80% stake in Boston Dynamics in a deal that valued the company at $1.1 billion. After the inspections are complete, a robot loads the partially assembled vehicles onto a conveyor system. Next stop, the paint shop. Unfortunately, my tour did not get access to the paint shop due to concerns that outside visitors may compromise the quality of the paint application. After receiving a fresh coat of paint, the vehicles travel through a bridge to the assembly building. Here, the painted bodies are married with their battery packs and skateboard chassis. Hyundai Mobis produces the skateboard chassis in a building next door to the general assembly facility. The Metaplant's on-site battery factory, operated in a joint venture with LG, is expected to come online next year. The plant currently sources its batteries from Hyundai's other facilities, including one in North Georgia that's a joint venture with SK. The vehicles' interiors are then assembled by hand. The further along the production process, the more you see human workers on the assembly line. Partially assembled EVs are shuttled through from area to area by the automated robots. The entire facility was immaculately clean, quiet, and felt beautifully choreographed. Assembled vehicles are loaded onto different AGVs that navigate the facility by reading the QR codes embedded into the floor. These AGVs shuttle the vehicles through the plant's various quality control tests. At the end of the assembly line, completed EVs are put through their paces at the on-site test track before being sent to the vehicle preparation center, or VPC, to get them ready for shipping. Vehicles destined for dealerships in the region are put on trucks, while those traveling more than 500 miles are shipped by rail at the Metplant's on-site train terminal. Read the original article on Business Insider Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

4 Reasons to Buy Alphabet Stock Like There's No Tomorrow
4 Reasons to Buy Alphabet Stock Like There's No Tomorrow

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

4 Reasons to Buy Alphabet Stock Like There's No Tomorrow

Investors' worries that AI could disrupt search have sent Alphabet shares to a very attractive valuation. However, many investors miss the inherent advantages that Alphabet has. Meanwhile, Google Cloud and Waymo have the potential to be huge businesses. 10 stocks we like better than Alphabet › One stock that divides many investors at this time is Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG). A big reason some investors are bearish on the name is that they believe artificial intelligence (AI) will disrupt its highly profitable search business. While certainly a risk, I don't think that is going to happen. Let's look at four reasons why I'm bullish on the stock to the point where I would recommend buying it like there is no tomorrow. AI is potentially one of the biggest technological advancements of our generation. However, while it is very good at many things, there is good reason to believe that AI chatbots won't replace search. Cost is one main issue. Running AI queries is much more costly than search queries, which is why there are often limits placed on the number of queries someone can run, and paid tiers. Investors recently got a peek into the amount of money that AI search start-up Perplexity AI is losing for trial users and users on its free tier, as the company spends heavily on third-party AI models and cloud computing services. Meanwhile, OpenAI said that it loses money on its $200-per-month ChatGPT Pro plan. In addition, there will continue to be a large number of people who will not spend money on AI and prefer free, ad-supported search. And when it comes to ad-supported search, whether it be powered by AI or regular search, Google has established a wide moat through its distribution and ad network advantages. The company's search engine is preinstalled and the default engine for billions of devices. Its Android operating system has about a 70% market share in the smartphone market, while its Chrome browser has a 66% market share. Both use Google as their default search engine. Meanwhile, it has a revenue-sharing deal with Apple to be the default search engine on its devices through Safari, which helps it capture much of the rest of the market. It even has revenue-share deals with other browsers, such as Opera, to be their search engine. At the same time, Alphabet has created one of the largest ad networks on the planet. Early on, the company built up its ability to serve local markets through location-based ad targeting and letting local businesses create free listings to improve their presence on search. Meanwhile, its self-service platform makes it easy for local businesses to run campaigns themselves. With a huge user base, Alphabet can connect advertisers with consumers on everything from a global to a local level. Typically, for a search query to be monetized, there must be some form of commercial intent, which is why Google has historically only displayed ads on about 20% of searches. This also highlights the significance of Alphabet's latest AI-powered search updates. With the launch of its new AI mode, the company added several commerce-focused features aimed at enhancing monetization. One standout is "Shop by AI," which allows users to find products simply by describing them, virtually try on clothes using a photo, and even track prices. Google also introduced generative AI capabilities that can perform tasks like finding the best ticket deals across platforms from sites such as Ticketmaster and StubHub. These innovations could help drive new ad opportunities over time. Between Google's unmatched distribution, massive ad network, strong data advantage, and the growing strength of its Gemini AI model -- not to mention its renewed focus on commerce -- I see AI as more of a long-term opportunity for Alphabet than a threat. While much of the investor focus has been on Google search, Alphabet's cloud computing unit, Google Cloud, has been a strong growth driver for the company. Cloud computing is a high-fixed-cost business, and Google Cloud has recently gained enough scale to cover its fixed costs, hitting a profitability inflection point. This was seen in its results in the first quarter of 2025, where the unit grew its revenue 28% year over year to $12.3 billion, while its segment operating income soared 142% to $2.2 billion. Google Cloud is seeing momentum as customers use its Gemini foundational models to build and customize their own AI tools, then run those workloads on its infrastructure. Its Vertex AI platform, meanwhile, makes it easier for organizations to build, deploy, and manage models all in one place. At the same time, Google Cloud continues to lean into its strengths in data analytics with tools like BigQuery and its leadership in Kubernetes, which are software packages that bundle apps with everything they need to run. Alphabet is investing heavily in data center infrastructure to keep up with demand, and this should be a strong, growing business in the year ahead. Meanwhile, the company has a cost advantage through the development of its own custom AI chips that consume less power, lowering its cost of ownership over time. Another big potential growth driver for Alphabet that should not be overlooked is its Waymo robotaxi business. The company has gotten a big first-mover advantage in the U.S. and has started to see rapid growth as it expands to more cities. Meanwhile, it has recently teamed up with Uber Technologies in a few cities to gain access to its large distribution platform and for help with fleet management services, such as cleaning, maintenance, and charging its vehicles. Waymo is now providing over 250,000 paid robotaxi rides per week, and Uber reported that in Austin, Texas, Waymo vehicles were busier than 99% of its human drivers in the city, based on trips per day. As the technology gains traction, it's likely that adoption in new cities will accelerate even faster. Alphabet will still likely need to lower the costs of its technology for this business to become profitable, but it is a huge opportunity. With investors seemingly unable to see the forest for the trees of late, Alphabet has been left with a very cheap valuation. The stock currently trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 18 times based on analysts' estimates for 2025. For a company with a strong collection of market-leading and emerging growth businesses, that valuation is just too cheap. Alphabet is one of the least expensive megacap tech stocks tied to AI, and this is a great time to pick up shares on the cheap. Before you buy stock in Alphabet, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Alphabet wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $638,985!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $853,108!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 978% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 171% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of May 19, 2025 Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Alphabet and Opera. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Apple, and Uber Technologies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 4 Reasons to Buy Alphabet Stock Like There's No Tomorrow was originally published by The Motley Fool

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store