Solo Stove knocks up to 45 percent off fire pits in its summer sale

Despite the summer heat, a fire pit can elevate your backyard’s environment. Solo Stove makes some of our favorite fire pits, and now the company’s brought back some of its best discounts on all three of its devices. You can get up to 45 percent off Solo Stove fire pits right now, which translates to $100 off the Ranger, $180 off the Bonfire and a whopping $350 off the Yukon.

Shop fire pits at Solo Stove

You might be hesitant to get a fire pit for your backyard, but Solo Stove’s machines don’t produce the smokiness that you might associate with normal fire pits. Instead, they channel smoke away from you using a double-walled design that pulls hot air through vent holes and back into the fire. In addition to reducing smoke, this also creates a fine ash and keeps the fire hot.

That’s one of the main reasons we’ve recommended Solo Stove fire pits in the past, and another is their relatively portable designs. The 15-pound Ranger and the 20-pound Bonfire can be moved round your backyard pretty easily, and they can go in your trunk before you head out on a camping trip or family outing. The 38-pound Yukon, on the other hand, should probably be left in a semi-permanent spot on your property. As we’ve mention in guides before, we recommend splurging for a bundle that includes a stand and a weather-proof cover so you’ll have everything you need to use and protect the fire pit of your choosing.

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Lyft is shutting down its in-house car rental program

Lyft will stop renting out cars from its own fleet and has laid off around 60 employees, according to The Wall Street Journal. As TechCrunch notes, the layoffs have also been confirmed by the LinkedIn posts of affected workers. The people who lost their jobs, The Journal said, worked in operations and covered 2 percent of the company’s workforce. Back in May, the company reportedly wrote in a staff memo that it’s slowing down hiring due to the economic downturn, but that it didn’t have any layoffs planned. Things have clearly changed since then.

In an internal memo from Lyft VP Cal Lankton seen by The Journal, the executive said that the company’s road to in-house rentals is “long and challenging with significant uncertainty.” Lankton also explained that Lyft started discussing the possibility of exiting the business last fall and that talks ramped up as the “economy made the business case unworkable.”

The ride-hailing service debuted its car rental business in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area back in 2019 after a few months of testing, eventually expanding its first-party car rental offering to five locations. While it’s sunsetting the option to rent vehicles from its fleet, the company isn’t leaving the space completely. Lyft already runs more than 30 rental locations with Sixt SE and Hertz Global Holdings Inc., and it said it will continue working with big car-rental companies. “This decision,” a spokesperson told the publication, “will ensure we continue to have national coverage and offer riders a more seamless booking experience.”

Lyft is also in the midst of reorganizing its global operations and consolidating its offers from 13 to nine regions. That will lead to the closure of a location in Northern California and of its Detroit Hub, but it’s unclear if the move will cause more layoffs. Either way, Lyft is merely the latest company in the tech industry to cut jobs due to the economy. Tesla reportedly laid off 500 employees from its Nevada Gigafactory without 60 days of advanced notice. Netflix cut 300 jobs in June after cutting 150 jobs in May. And more recently, TikTok started laying people off around the world. Even the biggest companies in the industry aren’t immune: Meta reportedly told managers to keep an eye out for low-performing workers and to “move to exit” them if they’re unable to get back on track.

Ford is reportedly planning to cut 8,000 jobs to help fund its EV plans

Ford is reportedly planning to cut up to 8,000 jobs over the coming weeks in an effort to fund its plans to build EVs, according to Bloomberg. The layoffs would occur at its Ford Blue unit, recently created to develop vehicles with internal combustion engines (ICE), and would affect other salaried positions in the company. The bulk of cuts are expected to occur in the US.

In March, Ford CEO Jim Farley restructured the company, dividing it into the Ford Blue and Model E divisions, with the latter dedicated to electric cars and pickups like the Mach E and F150 Lightning. As part of that, he announced plans to cut $3 billion in costs by 2026, with the aim of transforming Ford Blue into “the profit and cash engine” for the entire company.

“As part of this, we have laid out clear targets to lower our cost structure to ensure we are lean and fully competitive with the best in the industry,” Ford’s CCO Mark Truby told Bloomberg in a statement, without revealing more details about the cuts. Ford currently employees around 31,000 salaried US workers. 

In March, the automaker announced plans to boost electric vehicle spending to $50 billion and plan to build two million EVs by 2026. The company sold just 27,140 EVs stateside last year, but got a significant 76.6 percent boost last month as shipping commenced for the F-150 Lightning.