Last week, Detroit became the first American city to install an electrified roadway.

While that might sound like something you would definitely not want to drive on, it’s actually a big step toward widespread EV adoption:

• The wireless-charging roadway can charge EVs while driving, parking, or idling.
• When an EV with a receiver nears the roadway, copper inductive charging coils beneath the road transfer electricity to the car through a magnetic field.
• Electrified roads are safe for drivers, pedestrians, and animals.

The new tech was created by Electreon, an Israeli company developing wireless-charging solutions for EVs.

And Michigan’s $5.9m, quarter-mile experiment is the first of many: Electreon already has contracts for projects in Israel, Sweden, Germany, and Italy.

To note: Most EVs currently can’t charge wirelessly, and would need receivers to do so — something the company is working with car manufacturers on introducing.

Why’s this a big deal?

Because there are still many obstacles standing in the way of broad EV adoption:

• The nation’s power grid, designed for a fossil-fuel world, will strain under an 18% increase in electricity demand by 2030.
• A dearth of chargers around the country means drivers can get stranded with nowhere to recharge — leading to EV range anxiety.

So, while the average range for EVs in the US has quadrupled since 2011 to 300 miles, electrified roads would allow for unlimited range.

That isn’t just good news for your road trip: Wireless charging would allow public transit buses, long-haul trucks, delivery vehicles, and taxis to operate constantly without charging.

Thankfully…

… Electreon is only one of several companies working on solving wireless charging.

And there’s more EV support from Uncle Sam: The Biden Administration announced plans to install 500k EV charging stations across the country and signed a $1T infrastructure law that sets aside $5B for states to build EV chargers.

Lastly: If you’re wondering how we made it this far without making an “Electric Avenue” joke, it’s because we’re saving it for 2024, when Michigan will start taking bids to bring all of Michigan Avenue wireless.

Low pay. Irregular hours.

… We haven’t even gotten to the “dealing with customers” part and already these common descriptors of working in a grocery store aren’t sounding like the most appealing long-term career prospect.

That’s an opening for Whole Foods Market, which is looking to improve on the grocery industry’s typical high-turnover workforce through its career development initiatives, per Axios.

Its tool of choice: Culinary apprenticeships

In September, CEO Jason Buechel said Whole Foods’ previous year saw 11k+ employee promotions, with an expanding roster of paid apprenticeship programs playing a key role in their internal development model.

• Existing apprentice tracks: butchery, cheesemongering, bakery decoration.
• Next additions: pizza-making, produce specialist, and fishmongering.

The on-the-job training programs are intensive, sometimes yearslong paths for Whole Foods employees, but there’s a prize at the end: expert-level certification and expanded growth opportunities.

It’s not a hard bargain for employees; for instance, would you rather pay ~$4k for an eight-month meat-cutting certification, or get paid while you complete that education?

More loyal employees mean more happy customers?

Six years after Amazon’s $13.7B acquisition of Whole Foods that sought to disrupt the grocery world, you can feel the tech giant’s DNA all over the stores — from expanded, redesigned stores to palm-reading payment tech — but only to limited effect.

• For all the fanfare, the chain carries just a 1% share of the US grocery market.

Still, they can afford to play the long game, and they’re betting on long-lasting employee satisfaction — then projecting that team’s expertise to build on a reputation for higher-quality groceries — as a differentiator.

• To wit, Whole Foods proudly hails itself as the world’s top employer of Certified Cheese Professionals.

Good for them. Just don’t come for our crown as the top employer of cheese-eating professionals.

$17m: What Twitch streamer Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa paid for a ~2.2k-acre fruit orchard in and around Florida that primarily produces Valencia oranges. Why? Several investment reasons, but also because she aspires to own more land than Bill Gates, who owns ~275k acres of US farmland.

58: The median age of a repeat buyer (i.e., someone who has previously purchased a home) in 2023, per the National Association of Realtors. What’s interesting about that? Well, in 1981, the median age was 36. While the real estate market has become pricklier for first-time buyers, older buyers are able to sell their existing homes to afford new purchases. Another surprising stat: 70% of recent buyers had no kids under 18 in their homes, compared to 42% in 1985.

$60,990: The starting price of Tesla’s Cybertruck base model, much higher than the $39.9k price tag announced in 2019. That price jump may lead some potential customers to cancel their $100 preorders — though the cost seems to be worth it for Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, who thinks he’ll now be the “coolest dad” picking up his child from school.

$87.50/hour: How much a pine cone harvester can make, per a Reddit user who said they once worked as one. That figure is based on claims that harvesters are paid $35 per every five-gallon bucket they fill, and that an experienced picker can fill 2.5 buckets per hour. Elsewhere, Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources offers $100 for a bushel (or two five-gallon buckets) of red pine cones, the seeds of which are used to replant state forests. This might sound like a fun seasonal gig, but it’s apparently very irritating to be covered in tree sap.