Carnival’s next megacruise will be huge. Your biggest change will be in how the sea will look

by

A mega cruise can offer so many attractions that at times it’s easy to forget you’re sailing. Carnival aims to respond to this contradiction with the Carnival Destinya ship of enormous dimensions whose proposal will not be based solely on volume, capacity or the number of spaces on board. The shipping company wants its distinctive feature to be its relationship with the outside world. To achieve this, it has proposed an open architecture, with more glass surfaces, wide perspectives and areas designed to keep the ocean within the field of vision. Carnival Destiny will be the first member of the new Ace class, a family of three ships with deliveries scheduled for 2029, 2031 and 2033. Its construction formally began with the steel cutting ceremony at the Fincantieri shipyard in Monfalcone, Italy, where a 3D hologram was also shown with the first preview of its design. Delivery is scheduled for summer 2029, after which she will sail to destinations in the Caribbean, Bahamas and Mexico. By size, the Destiny will enter directly into the highest category on the market. Its approximately 230,000 GT of gross tonnage and its capacity to around 8,000 passengers They will place it close to the largest cruise ships built, although it will not lead the classification by volume. Royal Caribbean’s Icon class ships, such as the Icon of the Seas and the most recent Legend of the Seasare around 250,800 GT and can accommodate around 7,600 passengers at full capacity. The new Carnival ship will therefore compete in that same league, but with a different proposal. A giant who does not want to hide the ocean Once its scale is located, the difference that the company wants to highlight appears in the design. Carnival has not yet presented a main attraction or a large thematic space that defines the ship, but rather a different way of organizing it around its relationship with the outside. The company describes it as the most outward-oriented megacruise ship on the market, a promotional claim it will yet have to prove. The intention, in any case, is clear: that the ocean functions as a constant reference and not as a secondary element. To materialize this idea, the project will use more than 18,200 m² of glass surfaces. Among the elements already announced there will be multi-story glass wallsmore open lines of sight and a greater presence of spaces facing the outside. It is not just about adding windows, but rather organizing part of the architecture to reduce visual obstacles and extend views across the ship. Carnival has not yet shown the complete design, so the real scope of that transformation remains to be known. This image shows Royal Caribbean’s Legend of the Seas, not the future Carnival Destiny. Delivered in June 2026 as the third ship of the Icon class, it represents the current reference against which Carnival will place its new giant Another of the pillars will be in the cabins and on the outer decks. The company maintains that the Destiny will have an unprecedented number of accommodations with balconies and sea views, but has not published a figure to verify the scope of that claim. It will also redesign the Lanaian exterior cover designed to create a more continuous connection with the ocean. With this, the shipping company intends that this relationship does not depend solely on the large panoramic spaces. The changes will not end in the architecture, although the rest of the new features are still difficult to measure. According to Carnival, more than 70% of the spaces and attractions will respond to concepts that the brand has not used beforewith proposals planned for restaurants, bars, lounges, entertainment and outdoor areas. The figure is striking, but it is not yet accompanied by names, plans or detailed descriptions. Until these announcements arrive, it can only be stated that it is preparing a broad renewal of its offer, not that each proposal will be unprecedented in the sector. The Destiny proposal is based on a contradiction: the more cruise ships grow and the more activities they concentrate, the easier it is for the sea to be relegated to the background. Carnival will try to correct this with balconies, exterior routes, large glass surfaces and a layout designed to expand the views. The idea has already been defined, but it still remains to be seen how it will work on a ship prepared for around 8,000 passengers. Until 2029 we will not know if this architecture will really change the experience or if its greatest effect will remain in the promotional field. Images | carnival In Xataka | A technology created to avoid collisions at sea blows millionaires’ minds: it allows them to locate their yachts in seconds

China has just gathered 100,000 national accelerators into a supercluster. The challenge now is for them to work together efficiently.

by

China has launched in Zhengzhou the Dawning 8000, an artificial intelligence supercluster that, according to Sugon, can integrate 100,000 calculation cards developed in the country. The company presents it as the first Chinese system of this size built around a national infrastructure, from chips and network to storage and cooling. Sugon assures that the project is already connected to the national supercomputing network, although it has not yet published its complete technical specifications. The scale is not enough. The size of the installation does not in itself imply an equivalent leap in computing capacity. In loads that intend to take advantage of thousands of processors, the work must be dividedsynchronize and recompose without communication between nodes ending up consuming a disproportionate part of the time. As the stack grows, so do the points of failure, software complexity, and demands on network and storage. The real challenge begins when those cards have to behave as a single machine. The pending jump. Sugon maintains that the central node has already been optimized for more than 300 applications in about twenty fields, including large models, robotics, automotive, pharmaceutical industry and weather forecasting. The company adds that more than 70 applications have completed deployments at scale of 10,000 cards. These are relevant data to evaluate the maturity of the platform, although the information released does not detail a public load executed with the 100,000 units simultaneously. Autonomy under pressure. Zhengzhou’s bet cannot be separated from the pressure facing the Chinese technology industry. The United States included Sugon in its Entity List in 2019 and has since expanded restrictions on advanced semiconductors and equipment related to high-performance computing. In this scenario, building an infrastructure based on national technology has a value that goes beyond the power achieved. The project fits into China’s effort to expand its own capacity and reduce supply chain dependencies. The figure is not enough. One hundred thousand Chinese accelerators do not automatically equal one hundred thousand comparable Nvidia GPUs. The deployment also does not allow us to affirm that China has left behind its dependence on Western hardware to sustain its artificial intelligence infrastructure. It does demonstrate, according to Sugon, that the country can now build its own systems on an increasingly larger scale. It is not complete autonomy, but it is another step on the path to depending less on foreign suppliers. Images | Sugon In Xataka | Claude has a space in which he manipulates concepts before his final response. And it has surprised Anthropic itself

What science says about the “trick” of two crossed fans to cool the house: it works, but with limits

by

With heat waves hitting the thermometers, the desperation to cool the house without increasing the electricity bill leads us to look for any shortcut. And although the new air conditioners have shown that they have a low daily costthe reality is that many people prefer to opt for the classic fan and there are ways to optimize its operation. An idea. Something that has become popular in recent days is the possibility of using two fanshaving each in opposite windows. Under this premise, the idea is that one of them brings in air from the street and the other manages to get it out to ensure that the house in the end is as cold as possible within their possibilities. It has support. What is proposed here is to take to the extreme a concept that has been used for a long time in the architectural world to ensure that homes, passively, can acclimatize. And, according to the design standards and manuals of entities such as the IDAE, uwell-designed cross ventilation can reduce the interior temperature by up to 5°C. The two-fan technique falls into the category of hybrid or assisted ventilation. As detailed by platforms specialized in architecture such as ArchDaily or the technical area of ​​Tinsa, it is not enough to open windows at random. For there to be flow, a pressure difference must exist. The idea. By placing one fan pointing inward on the coldest façade, which is normally the north one or the one facing a shady patio, and another pointing outward on the opposite façade, we are mechanically forcing that pressure differential. The goal here is for the cool air to push the stagnant hot air mass out the opposite window. Although yes, for this flow to accelerate and be more efficient, the opening through which the air leaves should be more open than the one through which it enters. It’s proven. A thesis from the Piloto University of Colombia wanted analyze the effectiveness of this ventilation methodand it was seen that this system showed a significant reduction in thermal load in a hot-humid climate. Although here it is important to highlight that the thermal insulation of the home or building is very important, logically, to maintain an adequate temperature. It has small print. Logically, these two fans cannot work miracles, and if the outside temperature exceeds 30 degrees and especially if the relative humidity is high, cross ventilation loses all its effectiveness. Far from cooling, here there would be thermal energy in the home and forcing the entry of air at 35 °C with a fan is the equivalent of turning on a giant hair dryer. The best hour. Here the official recommendations point out that cross, forced or natural ventilation is a strategy that should be left for the first thing in the morning or at night. when the temperature is considerably lower. For the “two fans trick” to work and achieve that promised 5°C drop in the structure of the house, you must apply it only when the outside temperature drops below the inside temperature. This is called “selective ventilation” since during those hours, the mechanical technique of the two fans will sweep away the heat accumulated on the walls and ceilings during the day. Images | Delaney Van In Xataka | We have been trying to optimize cooling for centuries. My grandfather from Toledo solved the heat with the simplest invention: a door split in two

a study shows why it is a trap

by

A common scene in any summer is seeing how people arrive at the beach, stick their umbrella in the sand, spread their towel or put their chair under the shade and breathe a sigh of relief because they think that this way they won’t get burned. The problem comes when you get home and, after taking a shower, you can clearly see how your skin is burned. The culprit. This situation, which is more common than we think, is not the fault of the material the umbrella is made of or even the protection factor assigned to these products, but rather the problem is in the sand itself and the rebound effect that the Sun’s rays have. The experiment. To understand what is happening here, we have to go to a great study published in 2017where researchers took 81 participants with sun-sensitive skin to a sunny Texas beach. They were left in this environment for 3 and a half hours at midday, but with the difference that one group of them only used a standard beach umbrella as protection and another group only used sunscreen with an SPF 100 factor without seeking shade. The results were devastating, since 78% of the participants who were under the umbrella developed sunburn, compared to 25% in the group that used the cream. Although if we look at the total number of injuries, the difference is even more overwhelming, as 142 incidences of sunburn were recorded under the umbrella, compared to only 17 in the sunscreen group. How is it possible? For many people, it makes no sense to burn their skin if they are constantly in the shade, but the answer to this lies in albedo, which is a metric that defines the percentage of radiation that is reflected by a specific surface. And ultraviolet light not only ‘falls’ from the sky in a straight line hitting us, but it also bounces off the ground and impacts from any direction. For example, we know that beach sand reflects between 15% and 20% of the UV radiation it receives, a figure that is much higher than that reflected by asphalt, which is around 2%. Although all of these remain ‘nothing’ if we compare it with snow, which is undoubtedly almost like a mirror, since it reflects a spectacular 85% of ultraviolet rays. You have to combine it. With all this data we should not fall into the thought that the umbrella is completely useless, but we should be aware of the importance of using sunscreen as soon as we leave home to prevent this radiation from affecting our skin. And logically, also combine it with the umbrella on the beach to achieve these two protection systems. It’s not just the beach. It is increasingly common to see people on the street who are walking with their umbrellabut here you are not exempt from suffering some burns because, as we have seen, even asphalt can reflect ultraviolet radiation. That is why sunscreen is not only an item that should be used when we go to the beach or pool, but in any situation where the UV index is high. Images | Engin Akyurt In Xataka | Italy has been privatizing its beaches for years. Now it has taken another step: prohibiting you from bringing your sandwich from home.

Anya Taylor-Joy is a lucky con artist in one of this week’s most intriguing premieres, now streaming

by

Apple TV+ premieres today the first two episodes of ‘Lucky‘, a series with a few stars in the cast and that is based on a formula that the platform already knows well: turning a best-selling novel into a streaming success. In this case, it adapts the book of the same name by Marissa Stapley, published in 2021 and which went viral a few months later, when it was chosen as a recommendation for Reese Witherspoon’s reading club. From there, the book topped the sales charts for months. The plot, however, partially moves away from the original starting point. In the novel, Lucky Armstrong is a con artist who wins the lottery with a ticket purchased at random and cannot collect it without giving herself away. The series changes the mechanism: a million-dollar heist goes wrong, causes her husband to disappear and she finds herself pursued by both the FBI and a mafia boss. However, the result wants to preserve the spirit of the original character. Leading the cast, Anya Taylor-Joy returns to television for the first time since Netflix’s memorable ‘The Queen’s Gambit’. She’s joined by Annette Bening as her mother-in-law and crime boss, and the always-worthy Timothy Olyphant. The aforementioned Reese Witherspoon, after discovering the novel, continues to be linked to the story by producing it (this is not the first time she has done so, her hits were ‘Gone Girl’ and ‘Big Little Lies’), and TTaylor-Joy also serves as executive producer through her own company.Ladykiller. On this occasion, ‘Lucky’ seems to follow in the footsteps of ‘Presumed Innocent’, which was based on a best-seller by Scott Turow and also had a cast of bells headed by Jake Gyllenhaal. Here again we find great actors, a taste for intense thrillers (here seasoned with explosive action sequences) and a visual finish, as always in Apple TV+, which puts the platform several steps ahead of its competitors. Not much will be said about ‘Lucky’, but it will undoubtedly become one of the proposals to follow this summer. In Xataka | 11 years after its end, this masterpiece of British suspense comes streaming and completely free

My phone is almost five years old and the battery maintains its useful life at 85%. This is how I got it

by

My smartphone, a iPhone 13 Pro Maxis almost five years old and its battery retains 85% of its original capacity. It is not coincidence or good luck. It is the result of understanding what happens to a battery of lithium ions every time we charge it and consciously apply a handful of habits that slow down its degradation. Most users assume that a mobile phone’s battery is condemned to degrade without remedy in two or three years. And to a certain extent it is true: every lithium-ion battery loses capacity over time. But the speed at which it does so depends largely on how we treat hernot just its internal chemistry. In this context, we are interested in understanding two specific physical phenomena, voltage stress and thermal degradation, because they are the ones that wear out battery cells the most. And we also need to know the guidelines I have followed for almost five years to minimize them. They are not magic tricks. They are direct consequences of the electrochemistry that occurs inside the battery. What happens to a battery every time we charge it A lithium-ion battery works by moving ions between the cathode and anode through an electrolyte. When we charge the phone up to 100% we force the cathode to reach its maximum voltage potential. This high voltage state oxidizes the electrolyte in contact with the cathode and favors the dissolution of transition metals from its crystalline structure. This phenomenon is known as voltage stress, and it is cumulative: the longer the battery spends in that state of maximum voltage, the faster it degrades. An increase of 10 degrees Celsius doubles the speed of certain degradation reactions in the electrolyte A quick note before moving forward: that layer that forms on the cathode is called CEI (cathode solid electrolyte interface or cathode electrolyte interphase), and is the first cousin of the SEI (solid electrolyte interface or solid electrolyte interface) that grows on the graphite anode. At sustained high voltages, the IEC thickens uncontrollably, irreversibly consumes active lithium and reduces the usable capacity of the cell with each cycle. For this reason, it is worth using the 80% loading automation offered by both iOS and Android. In fact, I don’t charge my phone at 100% unless I know I’m going to need full battery life that day. Keeping the battery in an intermediate voltage range (between 20% and 80%) dramatically reduces the time the cells spend at the extremes of voltage where molecular wear is most aggressive. The second big enemy is heat, and this is where thermal degradation comes into play. Parasitic chemical reactions do not depend on voltage alone; They also accelerate with temperature, and do so in a non-linear manner. As a guideline, an increase of about 10 degrees Celsius can reach double the speed of certain degradation reactions in the electrolyte, a behavior consistent with the Arrhenius equation that governs the kinetics of any chemical reaction. This is why I avoid ultra-fast chargers in summer, especially if my phone is exposed to the sun or inside a thick case. Charging at 45, 65 or more watts generates considerable internal heat, and if that heat is not dissipated well (and in environments at 35 or 40 degrees Celsius it is not dissipated well), the cell temperature can approach 40-45 degrees Celsius, a range beyond which electrolyte degradation and cathode dissolution accelerate noticeably. I definitely prefer slower charges at 15 or 20 watts, even if they take longer: the battery appreciates it in the long run. Images | Xataka In Xataka | How to know the health status of your Android battery and how it can lose capacity In Xataka | Europe changes the standards for mobile batteries in 2027. The striking thing is that no manufacturer has complained

“Neither swimming nor walking, from the age of 50 it is absolutely necessary to do bodybuilding”

by

For decades, the medical and popular advice par excellence for people crossing the fifty-year-old barrier has been that they should walk every day, taking a walk or even sign up for swimming for being a really complete exercise. But we now know that they are completely insufficient if we want to achieve a good quality of life as the years continue to add up. The experts. The new tests that we have on the table make it clear that strength is essential, and the Spanish coach Álvaro Puche, a graduate in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences, point that “neither swim nor walk. From the age of 50 it is absolutely necessary to do bodybuilding.” A priori, this may sound radical to those who associate weights only with bodybuilding, but if we look at the current scientific evidence, Puche is not only right, but his warnings are fundamental for our longevity. The real enemy. The main argument for changing the pool for dumbbells has a clinical name, what is “sarcopenia“, which is nothing more than the loss of muscle mass with all the consequences that it has. Starting in our third decade of life, this process of muscle loss starts and steps on the accelerator once we cross 50 years of age. Walking or swimming at moderate intensity are excellent exercises for cardiovascular health, but they do not provide the stimulus necessary to stop muscle loss. Strength training, on the other hand, is the best clinically documented strategy for slowing and even reversing sarcopenia. And the sooner you start putting the brakes on, the better. The data. Science overwhelmingly supports the need to lift weight in adulthood, and we are not talking about isolated data, since a great meta-analysis showed that dedicating the minimum possible time to strength training reduces overall mortality by between 15% and 21%. Specifically, the risk of cardiovascular death drops by 19%. But you don’t have to live in the gym to do this, since science indicates that the benefit curve is “U” shaped. This means that the maximum benefit from exercise is achieved with just 60 minutes of strength exercise per week. Doing much more does not provide extra advantages, so the figure we have to achieve is not a great sacrifice nor a great expenditure of time. in women It is even more important if possible, since when menopause is reached, the loss of the ‘protective’ function of estrogen causes bone density to decrease, to the point that it can end up causing osteoporosis. This is why strength exercise becomes a great way to significantly increase bone density, especially with exercises focused on the hip. Lack of adhesion. Although in medical consultations it is increasingly common to ‘prescribe’ strength exercises, it is still a pending task for many. The problem may be the perception of older people, thinking that gyms or weight training are only for young people and that older people should only be left with the morning walk. A mistake that is blundering. On the other hand, there may be a lack of greater awareness on the part of health professionals when it comes to recommending this type of exercise, since clearly explaining the benefits of developing strength can be a good incentive for everyone to decide to start this exercise. Images | Andrea Piacquadio In Xataka | We were wrong about exercise after 60: why strength training is the true shield against aging

This is Hermes Agent by Hostinger

by

AI is already part of our lives, both personal and work. In this last area, it can be a tool that helps us a lot with processes of all kinds, but everything will depend on what we use for it. There are many freelancers or entrepreneurs who are simply looking for something simple and intuitive that does not involve many complications. That’s just what Hostinger’s Hermes Agent offers, now with an offer: from 18.99 euros per month it costs 4.99 euros per month. Hermes Agent by Hostinger (monthly) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links An AI to automate and facilitate the workflow without complications As we say, what Hermes Agent offers is having an artificial intelligence assistant that is easy to use, install and configure. In fact, as Hostinger itself promises, its installation It requires practically a click and wait a few minutes. That way, we don’t have to worry about anything to start using this AI. Nor when it comes to maintaining and updating it. And how can it help us? The peculiarity of this artificial intelligence agent is that, every time we interact with it, learn from you. This means that over time they become more effective in their tasks and we have to make less effort. For example, imagine that you ask him to summarize a report and, once done, you ask him to correct a part with a certain format. Hermes Agent will learn and know that it has to do it this way the next few times. This AI also has persistent memory. All the utilities, formats and particularities of our work that you learn will not disappear. This is something that will be maintained even if there is a new deployment or update of the tool, something that, by the way, Hostinger will do it automatically without us having to do anything. To all of the above we must add two more details. Everything we interact with this agent is stored securely, so we won’t have to worry about our privacy. Besides, We can link Hermes Agent with several apps such as Telegram, WhatsApp or Slack to ask for things directly through them. all for 4.99 euros per month while the promo lasts. Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Hostinger In Xataka | Artificial intelligence guide: main characteristics of the main AI models, points for and against, and comparison In Xataka | The best AI agents that are faster and easier to use to do tasks for you without complications or long installations

the five million dollar birthday party of a millionaire who went down in history

by

It was February 2007 and in a former military barracks on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, nearly 600 guests toasted with champagne while Rod Stewart sang at a private concert marking the 60th birthday of one of the most powerful men on Wall Street. That man was Stephen SchwarzmanCEO and founder of Blackstone. Nobody at the party knew that, months later, that same night would go down in history as the symbol of everything that was going to go wrong on Wall Street. A party that marked an era. That was not just any birthday party. Almost two decades later, there are still many who remember her as one of the most ostentatious. Schwarzman, founder of Blackstone, rented the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan, filled it with orchids, palm trees, and a life-size portrait of himself. According to the book ‘Davos Man‘ by Peter S. Goodman, comedian Martin Short entertained the evening, singer Patti LaBelle sang happy birthday and even Rod Stewart gave a private concert. Among the almost 600 attendees were bankers, politicians and even a certain Donald Trump, then just another New York businessman. An unforgettable party. HE esteem that the party cost between three and five million dollars. Today that figure seems modest next to other waste the kind that millionaires boast about, but in those years it was a significant waste. Schwarzman later justified it as “a celebration with six hundred people we cared about.” Peccadillo for someone who had just pocketed $398.3 million in the 2006 fiscal year. The expensive thing was not the party. However, the party came just four days after a key announcement. Blackstone had just closed the biggest real estate purchase in history until that moment, for 39,000 million dollars. Months later, the company went public. Schwarzman he pocketed nearly 700 million in cash, and was awarded a stake valued at about 9,000 million. That cocktail of luxury and easy money caught the attention of the Senate. Legislators Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley presented what the press dubbed the “Blackstone Bill”. A regulations tailor-made for Schwarzman’s company that sought to raise taxes on private capital. With the subprime crisis already upon us, Schwarzman ended up admitting that that party was “a little exaggerated”. He assured that he never wanted to become the symbol of the opulence of an era. “I’m not rich,” he only had a net worth of 8 billion. With such a fortune, anyone would expect a certain comfort with the label of rich. But that wasn’t the case with Schwarzman. As and how I collected The Wall Street JournalEven after the millionaire’s ostentatious birthday party, when asked about his lifestyle, the Blackstone CEO responded without hesitation: “I don’t feel like a rich person. Others see me as such, but I don’t. I feel the same as when I was a fifth-year associate and aspired to be a partner at Lehman. I haven’t changed… I’m still trying.” The old excesses that no longer return the same. Perhaps displaying a certain nostalgia, ten years after that memorable party, Schwarzman celebrated his 70th. On this occasion, he did not skimp either. There were camels, trapeze artists and a private concert by singer Gwen Stefani in Palm Beach, near Mar-a-Lago. The party almost happened without noise from the front pages of the newspapers. It was the Trump era and luxury no longer shocked anyone like before. Their neighbors Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were among the guests. The king of parties at 79. Today, with a fortune of 48 billion dollars, Schwarzman prepares a Halloween party at his English estate in Conholt Park. No camels or temples: just fireworks and two days of private meeting. Something quiet. chill. The excesses of yesteryear, those that made Congress tremble, they no longer scare so much today. The billionaires of this decade are more discreet with their forms, although their wealth has increased tenfold. Today’s billionaires they spend the same or more than Schwarzman in 2007, they just don’t do the same ostentation. The difference is in the noise, not the money. In Xataka | A Swedish millionaire lent money to European governments in exchange for matches. Nobody suspected that his finances were pure smoke Image | Unsplash (Ophélie Bonavita), Flickr (World Economic Forum)

The AP-7 has not had tolls for four years. Now the Government is studying whether to recover them or spend 500 million to expand it

by

The AP-7 is once again at the center of the debate on mobility in Catalonia. And just as share El Periódico, the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility has four projects underway to widen the highway with new lanes, a joint investment that exceeds 500 million euros. The works will affect almost a hundred kilometers spread between Vallès, Penedès and Terres de l’Ebre. Why it is important. Since tolls were eliminated in 2021the AP-7 has ceased to be a highway designed primarily for long journeys and has become a road that also supports a good part of the daily traffic of the Barcelona metropolitan area, in addition to an intense passage of trucks of all kinds. This has led to almost daily traffic jams in the most densely populated sections and recurring collapses every summer. In detail. The four projects are: Third lane between L’Hospitalet de l’Infant and Ampostajust over 38 kilometers. It is the most advanced, with the drafting of the project underway since 2023. Fourth lane between the B-23 and Martorellabout nine kilometers, in one of the main accesses to Barcelona, ​​with an estimated cost of 94 million euros. Fourth lane between Sant Celoni and Montornès del Vallèsapproximately 30 kilometers. Fourth lane between Martorell and Vilafranca Centerabout 25 kilometers. These last two are, as far as possible confirm ACN and El Periódico, which until now were not publicly known. Each project is in a different phase of processing, from preliminary studies to final drafting, so none of them yet have a closed execution date. Between the lines. The problem is not just with private cars. Of the 41,000 vehicles that cross the border through La Jonquera on average every day, 15,000 are trucks, according to data of 2025 collected by El Periódico. The Ministry and the Generalitat agree that the railway should absorb a greater part of this freight traffic, but the lack of capacity of the railway network and intermodal terminals, together with a Mediterranean corridor still uncompleted, leaves the road as practically the only competitive option. Meanwhile. Expanding lanes requires years of environmental and administrative procedures, so both administrations have chosen to also act where the highway loses fluidity without the need to build anything new. An agreement of 250 million euros Annually between the Ministry and the Generalitat will allow the remodeling of fifteen links (including Girona Nord and Sud, Maçanet de la Selva, La Roca del Vallès, Montmeló-Parets, the connection with the B-30 or Vilafranca del Penedès) to eliminate the so-called “braided”, the conflictive crossings between vehicles that enter and leave in a few meters and that generate a good part of the delays. And now what. It is also still on the table limit truck overtaking in some sections, an option that the Servei Català de Trànsit is studying to reduce accidents while the works have not yet begun. In parallel, the debate has also resurfaced about whether it is appropriate to introduce a toll or a vignette on high-capacity roads, although both the central government and the Generalitat have ruled out recovering any means of payment for now. The Minister of Territory, Housing, Ecological Transition, Sílvia Paneque, already claimed a few days ago in an interview with El Periódico to advance in these expansions to prevent the same image of collapse on the AP-7 from being repeated every summer. Cover image | Costa Brava In Xataka | “The recharging excuse has its days numbered”: the Government confirms that 90% of the main roads already have fast charging nearby

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.