Month: October 2025

one has a turnover of 250 million and the other is going into bankruptcy

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Mr. Wonderful appealed to the Supreme Court against Ale-hop in January. nine months later is about to enter bankruptcy. The chronology reveals that the court battle was never about intellectual property: it was the last attempt to externalize one’s own failure. Why is it important. Two companies that sell “cuquis” products with positive messages have had opposite trajectories. One has been litigating while sinking. The other has been growing without going into debt. The facts. Mr. Wonderful sued Ale-hop in 2021 for unfair competition, alleging that he copied his style of animated objects, motivational phrases and pastel tones. In 2022, the Commercial Court No. 5 of Valencia rejected the claim. In 2023, The Provincial Court ratified the ruling. And in January 2025 sent an appeal to the Supreme Court as the last bullet. In October 2025 it is about to enter bankruptcy. The argument. The courts have been clear: the kawaii style (objects with eyes and expressiveness) has been in the public domain since the sixties. “Styles are not the object of a monopoly,” the Court ruled. That Mr. Wonderful applied it with initial success (his first years were of meteoric growth) did not give him a monopoly over it. In addition, Ale-hop had products of this style in its catalog in 2010, a year before Mr. Wonderful was established as a company. The figures. While they litigated, they achieved very different financial results. Figures for the year 2023 (last year with figures for both presented): Billing: Ale-hop, 224 million euros (there are already 254). Mr. Wonderful, 26 million. Number of stores: more than 300 in five countries for Ale-hop. Mr. Wonderful he was 50 and now he has 10 left. Margin: 20% profitability on income for Ale-hop, 7 million euros of losses for Mr. Wonderful. It is a difference in model, not scale. They are two opposite philosophies. Ale-hop has a rotating catalog of 6,000 references that is constantly renewed. It “forces” the customer to return frequently. It buys directly from factories in large volumes (the key behind its high margins despite low prices) and has a strict anti-debt philosophy. Mr. Wonderful was born in 2011 as a design studio specialized in personalized wedding invitations. Its cheerful tone and colorful aesthetic connected with its clientele, and within a few years it became a phenomenon. In 2016 it reached 30 million in turnover. It was present in El Corte Inglés, in Fnac, in stationery stores throughout Spain. Then he decided to make the leap to his own stores, but the pandemic arrived right after and completely hit a business model that depended on physical traffic. Sales fell and losses began. The sentence. In October 2024, A Barcelona judge approved a restructuring plan for Mr. Wonderful. CaixaBank, its main financial creditor with 6.8 million debt (45.47% of liabilities), he challenged it and now justice has ruled him right. The sentence, collected by Five Daysis devastating: He questions whether the sales forecasts – an increase of 10 million between 2024 and 2028 – are “reasonable” or based on “a historical reality.” He considers it “surprising” that the company did not have audited accounts or updated sales data during the judicial process. And he concludes that the projections “cannot be objectively justified.” It’s the same kind of argument the courts used against Mr. Wonderful in the Ale-hop case: your numbers don’t hold up in reality. Only this time they weren’t talking about whether they had the right to claim a style, but rather whether the company was viable. The Court adds something else: given that Mr. Wonderful has closed physical stores and its main channel is now online, the logical thing would have been to make estimates close to the results of the years prior to the pandemic, when that was its model. Instead, it presented projections that the court considers hardly credible and based on provisional, unaudited data. He timing. Nine months have passed since the appeal to the Supreme Court until the bankruptcy proceedings. Nine months between pointing out a competitor and admitting the internal problem. It is common in companies in crisis: to outsource, to look for blame outside (unfair competition, plagiarism) when the problem comes from within (strategy, adaptation, business model). Mr. Wonderful has come this far by a deadly trident: bet on him retail physical just before the pandemic, opening more than 50 stores that coincided with COVID, in addition to investing too much in premium areas that would not give the expected return. Going into debt without sustainable competitive advantages. Operate in a market where you never had moat. Mr. Wonderful tried to build his moat about an aesthetic style that he could not legally possess exclusively. Business Insider public a report in November 2023 in which he provided other keys to this fall, alluding to internal sources: Exhaustion of your core business: The product was copied by other companies and buyers were no longer willing to pay extra for the brand. The online channel was adulterated with too many discounts and offers that generated conflicts with the rest of the sales channels. It went from being the jewel in the crown to being outsourced. Business model with high structural risk: almost half of the income came from school agendas, return rates ranged between 30% and 50%, and there was dependence on the price set by Amazon’s algorithms, which again… represented a multichannel conflict. The logistics crisis of September 2022. It caused serious delays at a critical time for sales (back to school) and eroded the trust of some customers. They also pointed to a drain on managers motivated by strong discrepancies with the leadership style. The contrast. Ale-hop has not shown signs of fearing his competition because he knew that they did not compete in the same thing. Grimalt, its founder, saw a simple opportunity: cheerful and cheap products, for impulse purchase, in tourist areas. It didn’t take revolutionary genius, but rather consistent execution over time. Mr. Wonderful did have a great connection with his … Read more

It is called cheapflation and it directly attacks the most basic products

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In recent years the inflation seemed to subside on the charts, but not where millions of homes feel it: the supermarket. Under this appearance of normality, a silent and structural shift has been taking place that does not hit everyone equally: because what increases the most is not luxury, but the essentials, and it is paid for by those who cannot stop buying it. One word sums it up and explains it perfectly. Cheapflation. I remembered this morning the newspaper El País that food inflation has not been neutral: it hits harder the less you have. Thus, the so-called cheapflation (the disproportionate increase in the cost of the cheapest products) has raised the price of basic foods by 37% between 2021 and 2024, compared to 23% for high-end foods. The result: the poor households spend more proportion of their income in essential goods, and when they try to lower their basket by replacing commercial brands with white brands or smaller formats, they discover that these ranges are precisely the ones that have increased the most. The burden is not only economic: the qualitative degradation of the diet in households with financial stress has an impact on health, and in Spain the ECB indicators show a gap “exceptional and persistent” between food and the rest of the prices from 2022, consolidating a structural, not cyclical, shock. Pandemic, energy neck and Ukraine. The sequence that triggered cheapflation is recognizable: the exit from confinements with the demand running ahead of the offer, the later energy escalation and logistics, and that war in Ukraine that has only been stress fertilizerscereals and fuels. The ECB estimates a +30% accumulated in food in the eurozone since 2019, and in Spain, groceries have risen more than 30% from 2021 (compared to 19% of the general CPI), with essentials such as meat, milk, butter between +30% and +50%and extreme peaks in olive oil, coffee or cocoa, with increases up to 80%. The hidden layer. The increase in food is not explained only by wars or general inflation, but by how it is organized the market itself. Since the 2008 crisis, basic foodstuffs have been traded as a financial product on futures exchanges, which allows for speculative movements that push up prices. Account the investigation from the Barcelona Urban Research Institute (IDRA) that at the same time the world cereal trade is in the hands of only five large companies that control between 70% and 90% of the market and they also participate on both sides: in the physical grain and in the financial business linked to that grain. Between 2021 and 2022 they obtained record profits, some multiplied by three on previous levels. That combination (few hands managing the product and the price) means that any global shock translates into higher prices faster and with more strength. Spain as a laboratory. According to the same report from the Barcelona Institute, in Spain, both manufacturers and distributors captured extraordinary margins in inflationary phase: agri-food leads the rise in margins with +38.1% since 2020; The large distribution groups declared record profits (7.5 billion in 2024), while salaries in the sector are below average and pockets of precariousness persist, such as in fruit in Lleida and Andalusia. The contrast in this sense is clear: income moves from consumers and labor to capital concentrated in an oligopolistic market whose pricing power has not been contested. Non-intervention policy. The report also pointed out that when the market is left to resolve itself, the same thing almost always happens: the hard of the cost remains in families (worse and more expensive food, more deprivation, more inequality) and the extraordinary benefits remain above. Spain is already the third country in Europe where the food deprivation in 15 yearsonly behind France and Greece, and mainly affects single-parent households, dependent people and precarious jobs. Although from 2023 costs went down energy and logistics, the final prices have not. When a price “jumps” due to a crisis, if there are few companies dominating the market, that jump becomes the new floor and there is no going back. Regulation of power. The studies agree in which the problem is not solved only with specific aid, but by changing how the market works. That means reduce concentration of power in a few companies, stop financial speculation with food and be able to put temporary caps on prices when there is a crisis to prevent them from staying at the top forever. According to the documentit is not useful to give money to the consumer (because the State pays it) or to demand discounts from the farmer (who is already the weakest link), the adjustment has to come of the middle part of the chain, where the highest margins are (industry and distribution), and with an active role of the State to monitor that price power. The ultimate goal is not only for food to cost less, but for essentials to stop depending on financial fluctuations and the control of a few companies that today they dominate the grain on which food security depends. Image | H. Friar In Xataka | The shopping basket is so expensive that many Madrid residents are driving 40 minutes to buy in a cheap supermarket In Xataka | They are touching our balls (specifically, their price)

Using aerial balloons to smuggle tobacco is common in Eastern Europe. And then the airports have a problem

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The airport of Vilnius, Lithuania, has been forced to close its doors throughout the night from last Tuesday to Wednesday due to the massive entry of hot air balloons loaded with cigarettes smuggled from Belarus. The closure, which lasted from 11:00 p.m. until 6:30 a.m., has affected around 4,000 passengers and caused the cancellation of 30 flights. The worst thing is that It hasn’t been the first time that the airport is facing this situation. What has happened. Dozens of weather balloons used by smugglers to transport tobacco from Belarus crossed Lithuanian airspace overnight. According to Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Center, called it “the most intense raid of the year.” Incoming flights had to be diverted to other airports, including Warsaw and Kaunas, while two land border crossings between the two countries were also temporarily closed for the same reason. Why do they use balloons? Smugglers take advantage of the fact that tobacco is significantly more expensive in the European Union than in Belarus. Using these hot air balloons, they send thousands of packages of illegal cigarettes across the border without having to go through customs controls. The images spread The media shows large balloons floating between the trees with cigarette packs hanging below. It’s not the first time. On October 5, just two weeks before, Vilnius airport had already had to suspend operations for hours for a similar incident. On that occasion, 25 balloons crossed Lithuanian airspace, affecting around 6,000 passengers. According to official data published this month, a total of 966 balloons entered Lithuania last year and more than 500 have already done so so far in 2025. Neighboring Poland has recorded more than 100 similar incidents this year, according to its border police. The Government’s response. Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė has announced the call for an urgent meeting of the National Security Committee to address the problem. “It is not normal that so many balloons cross our border and that we have to intercept them to keep them away from our strategic installations,” he declared. Ruginienė has urged authorities in Minsk to cooperate to prevent future incidents, calling on Belarus to take “a responsible approach towards these events, regardless of our political relations.” A security issue. The commander general of the Lithuanian Border Guard, Rustamas Liubajevas, confirmed that hundreds of balloons could have crossed the border last Tuesday and that four suspects have been detained. The Lithuanian authorities have been authorized to shoot down these balloons since last year. Although these incidents are directly linked to smuggling, violations of Lithuanian airspace are a particularly sensitive issue: the country is a member of NATO and the EU, and in July suspected russian drones They crossed its territory from Belarus, one of them carrying explosives. Vilnius is located just 32 kilometers from the border with Belarus, Vladimir Putin’s main ally in Europe. Cover image | State Border Guard Service and Made In Vilnius In Xataka | El Prat airport is full of ghost valets, and they are a real problem: the Mossos have already shielded the area

characteristics, technical sheet and photos

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BYD has found a golden opportunity with the plug-in hybrid. Aware that electric vehicles are not advancing at the expected pace in Europe and that they have to make a jump in sales on our continent, the DM-i, their well-known plug-in hybrids, seem the best option to expand that customer base. The last to arrive is the BYD Atto 2 DM-i, the plug-in hybrid version of the one that until now It was only sold as an electric car. Its credentials are the same as always: autonomy of over 1,000 kilometers. We do not know its price at the moment but until now BYD has opted to make its cars a clear commitment to providing the most complete equipment at a reasonable price. Technical data sheet of the BYD Atto 2 DM-i BYD Atto 2 DM-i Body type. Five-seater SUV. Measurements and weight. Measurements to be confirmed Trunk. To be confirmed. Maximum power. To be confirmed WLTP consumption. WLTP consumption to be confirmed. Total autonomy of 1,020 kilometers Electric range of 90 kilometers. Environmental distinctive. Zero emissions. Driving aids (ADAS). Mandatory by the European Union. Electric hybrid. No. Plug-in Hybrid. Yeah. electric. No Price and launch. Pre-sale available in the month of November Delivery of the first units in the first quarter of 2026 A clear commitment to increasing customers BYD continues to expand its offer. In just over two years, the Chinese company has gone from landing with three flashy electric cars. Today, they already have nine cars in their range and they have completely redefined it. From betting solely on electric vehicles to having a good presence of plug-in hybrids. From playing with their most premium vehicles to choosing to open the market at a lower price. He BYD Atto 2 DM-i It will be one of the bets that sums this up perfectly. In this plug-in hybrid version, there are hardly any aesthetic changes. The company talks about a larger front grille and some minor changes such as the absence of side grilles on the fenders or a new emblem on the tailgate. This DM-i version will feature an exclusive Midnight Blue color. Regarding its equipment, the Chinese company has not offered details but we can expect few changes because its base models always come with great equipment. It remains to be seen if they repeat the configuration with their rotating 10-inch central screen or change something in that regard. Likewise, we can expect all the mandatory driving aids required by the European Union, with emergency braking, the rear camera or the speed warning assistant by default. All in all, and although it has not been revealed, it is very likely that we will also see it arrive with adaptive cruise control, a system that BYD has included in all its vehicles. The company boasts a propulsion system that should provide a range of 1,020 kilometers. If you choose to drive only in electric mode, the range will be 90 kilometers. This allows the car to take advantage of offers from the MOVES III Plan as if it were an electric one, that is, they can reach up to 7,000 euros in discount. The pre-sale is expected in November and that will be when they reveal the price. At the moment the electric version is sold for 25,790 euros before aid from the MOVES III Plan, so we can expect a very reasonable price. Photo | BYD In Xataka | BYD wants to challenge European hybrids with the Seal 6 DM-i: it promises 105 km of electric power and up to 1,505 km of total autonomy

an idea as ambitious as it is risky

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The United States has a company that wants to take artificial intelligence beyond the laboratory. It’s called Shield AI and its next creation, the X-BATaims to make it the protagonist of a new era in defense. It is a combat aircraft capable of taking off and landing vertically, but its most striking feature is not in the design, but in its pilot: an AI system called Hivemind that will make decisions for himself in mid-flight. The project seeks to demonstrate that a machine can direct a complex military mission as effectively—or more—than a human. Shield AI She is not a newcomer. Founded in 2015, it has gone from a small startup to one of the most promising companies in American defense. CNBC points out that is valued at $5.3 billion after its latest round of financing. His career includes relevant contracts with organizations such as the United States Coast Guard, which in 2024 awarded him almost 200 million dollars for his V-BAT drone. After that boost, the company redoubled its commitment to artificial intelligence, placing its Hivemind software as the axis of its strategy and its future combat aircraft. This is how Shield AI wants to reinvent air power: total autonomy and low cost The X-BAT is designed to operate where conventional fighters cannot. It can take off and land vertically, allowing it to operate from ships, remote islands or improvised bases without the need for a runway. With a range of more than 2,000 nautical miles (approx. 3,700 km) and a flight ceiling exceeding 50,000 feet, it aims to redefine autonomy on the battlefield. Its compact structure, with a wingspan of about 12 metersfacilitates transportation and storage: three units fit in the space occupied by a single traditional fighter. As we say, the real leap is not in the aircraft, but in the intelligence that governs it. The company assures that Hivemind, its autonomous flight system, has already been validated on different platforms and real test environments. According to the company, it can operate even when there is no GPS or communication with bases, which would allow it to keep the mission active in scenarios where a human pilot could not react as quickly. Shield AI describes Hivemind as a system capable of observing, deciding and acting in milliseconds, applying a continuous decision cycle inspired by the military doctrine of the “OODA loop”. According to Shield AI, the X-BAT is designed to go into combat. It can carry air-to-air and air-to-surface weapons both in its internal bays and in external mounts. The company details that its architecture supports everything from light missiles to long-range attack munitions, in addition to a set of active and passive sensors that cover the entire detection spectrum. These include a electronic warfare package which would allow it to operate in environments with signal interference or attacks. Altogether, it seeks to combine stealth, autonomy and offensive power in a single system. Shield AI’s economic proposal is one of the most striking arguments: the company claims that the X-BAT could be produced for around $27 million per unit, a figure that – if confirmed in production – would be a fraction of the cost of fighters like the F-35, whose unit price exceeds 100 million dollars. This difference would not only reduce the initial bill, but, according to the company, would allow more aircraft to be deployed and multiply sorties in a theater of operations; However, the expected cost reduction depends on economies of scale, supply chain and maintenance costs that are not yet demonstrated in mass production. Shield AI ensures that the development of the X-BAT is progressing according to the planned deadlines. The company claims to have completed wind tunnel, engine and structural section testing, as well as radar signature testing. Its objective is to carry out the first flights with vertical takeoff and landing in 2026, reach operational capacity in 2028 and start production in 2029. For now, this is an internal calendar and not a contractual commitment, but the company presents it as a demonstration that aerial autonomy is no longer a laboratory idea, but a program under construction. The autonomy of the X-BAT also forces us to think about its digital security. Systems controlled by artificial intelligence depend on complex software and networks, which exposes them to possible attempts at interference or manipulation. If the data they process is altered, their behavior could be affected. Shield AI has not yet detailed how it plans to protect the aircraft’s information flow, although in defense programs it is not unusual for certain technical aspects to be kept under wraps. Images | Shield AI In Xataka | Ukraine cannot believe what it found inside Russia’s ballistic missiles: déjà vu

Shenzhen metro is transforming into an autonomous logistics network. The key is a legion of AI robovans

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During the day, Shenzhen’s stations look, in some ways, like those of any big city: full of movement, loudspeakers and announcements marking the passage of trains. But when traffic eases, something changes. In the same space where a few hours ago there were crowds, autonomous vehicles and small robots appear that move with precision, transporting packages from one point to another. There is no spectacle or artifice, just a different use of a familiar environment. The metro network, designed for travelers, is also beginning to serve urban logistics at a time when every minute and every square meter counts. The idea of ​​taking advantage of the subway to move goods does not arise on a whim. In Shenzhen, as in many large Chinese cities, surface traffic has become in an obstacle for daily logistics. Delivery companies deal with extreme urban density and the constant growth of e-commerce, which forces them to deliver faster and with increasingly tight margins. Using trains outside of peak hours allows us to alleviate this pressure and reduce costs, while at the same time making use of infrastructure that usually remains underused for much of the day. When travelers leave, robots stay According to the Xinhua agencyone of the officially documented pilots takes place on line 11 of the Shenzhen metro. Every night in Futian District, SF Express staff sort and pack packages, which are then loaded into metal cages. These cages are transported by means of a autonomous shuttle vehicle to the platform, where they are destined for the sixth coach of the train, enabled as a logistics car during off-peak hours. In less than thirty minutes, the goods cross the most congested stretch of the city and arrive at the Bihaiwan area, near the airport, where they continue their journey to the distribution center. The aforementioned operation is supported by a fleet of robovans. Nikkei Asia explains that These are small vehicles capable of moving autonomously along predetermined routes, where they transfer packages from a storage center to the subway loading area. Each one can transport up to 500 kilos and has a useful space of about 3 cubic meters. Another official test takes place on subway line 2, at Wanxia station, where delivery robots are able to board the train by themselves to deliver goods to stores 7-Eleven inside the station. The system, described by Guangdong Department of Transportationcombines autonomous route planning, laser sensors and a control system that allows it to move safely between passengers. The project, promoted by Shenzhen Metro Group, Vanke and Wanwei Logistics, remains in the testing phase and seeks to verify whether it can be applied on a larger scale in the city’s underground commercial network. The Chinese industrial ecosystem is one of the reasons why these types of projects are advancing so quickly. The aforementioned newspaper highlights that strong competition between national manufacturers has made key components such as LiDAR sensors cheaper and has driven the development of more efficient batteries and specific chips for autonomous driving. On this basis, production costs are significantly reduced. A robovan is already between 20 and 30% cheaper than a traditional commercial vehicle, and the difference increases by eliminating cabin space and the cost of the driver. The development of these initiatives is not without difficulties. Autonomous vehicles still depend on human supervision at various stagesespecially in the loading and unloading of goods. Its speed inside the stations is reduced to guarantee the safety of passengers, and that limits the operational pace. For now, operations remain limited and are far from mass application. Even so, they reflect a clear trend: the attempt to optimize each section of urban space, even the underground. Shenzhen functions as a laboratory for a model that seeks efficiency without altering the rhythm of the city. Ultimately, these tests speak less about technology than about management: about how a metro network can serve two different purposes while remaining, above all, a public service. Images | Guangdong Department of Transportation (1, 2, 34, 5) | Shenzhen Government (1) In Xataka | Many Spanish ports have become luxury resorts for the rich: owning a pleasure boat is increasingly difficult

AI is running out of power in this world. So Nvidia has opted for servers in space

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The energy appetite of data centers is nothing new. Elon Musk predicts a shortage of transformers in two years. Sam Altman believes we will need an energy revolution, such as nuclear fusion, to keep pace. The planet was not prepared for so much energy demand. And that’s why Nvidia is funding a possible solution: deploy the servers outside of Earth. It’s not science fiction. It is the business model of several startups that propose building the next hyperdata centers in Earth orbit and even on the Moon. The idea, which until recently sounded far-fetched, is gaining traction driven mainly by two factors: the insatiable demand for AI and the low-cost launches that Starship promises. One of the companies leading this idea is Starcloud, supported by the NVIDIA Inception program. And he is so serious that he plans to launch his first satellite, the Starcloud-1in November. On board it will carry the first GPU for data centers launched into space: an NVIDIA H100. The difficult part will come later. Starcloud-1 is a test unit the size of a small refrigerator, but the company’s goal is to build a monster five-gigawatt orbital data center. Adding the solar panels and the enormous radiator, it would measure four kilometers wide. Its goal is the training of large AI models in orbit. Why in space? As detailed in an extensive white paperfuture models like GPT-6 or Llama 5 could require multi-gigawatt clusters, something “simply impossible with the current energy infrastructure” on Earth. In space, there is no such limitation. It’s more. According to Starcloud calculations, server energy costs are 10 times lower in space than on Earth. The value proposition of space data centers is based precisely on two pillars that are a problem on Earth: energy and cooling. Solar energy 24/7. On Earth, solar energy is intermittent. They depend on the day/night cycle, the weather and the atmosphere, which attenuates the radiation. In space, things change. By placing your data centers in a sun-synchronous “dawn-dusk” orbit, Satellites follow the line that divides day and night on Earth. With the panels illuminated by the sun almost continuously, the system increases its capacity to more than 95%. “Almost unlimited, low-cost renewable energy,” in the words of Starcloud. And the refrigeration? How would they dissipate all that heat? Land-based data centers consume millions of liters of fresh water to cool. There is no water in space, but they have something much better: an infinite heatsink at -270°C. The plan is not to ventilate the servers. The heat generated by GPUs (such as the H100) will be managed within sealed modules using liquid cooling (direct-to-chip or immersion), like high-performance systems on Earth. The difference is that this hot liquid does not go to an evaporation tower, but is pumped to gigantic radiator panels. These panels simply radiate waste heat into the vacuum of space in the form of infrared radiation. The Starcloud white paper details the calculations using the Stefan-Boltzmann law, estimating that a radiator at 20°C can cleanly dissipate more than 630 watts per square meter. Without using a single drop of water. Not everything that glitters in space is gold. The pillar that supports this entire concept is the launch of high-capacity reusable rockets, such as SpaceX’s Starship. Starcloud calculations are based on a long-term cost of $30 per kilo put into orbit. But Starship is not ready, and it is certainly far from achieving its full and rapid reusability capability. If that cost does not materialize, the economic viability of the system collapses. The other big problem is radiation. Commercial GPUs are not designed for space. Cosmic radiation and solar flares can fry electronics. The solution is shielding, which adds mass and therefore launch cost. Not to mention that maintenance is not possible with current technology.

The DGT has a fine of 200 euros for those who carry the bicycle in any way in the car: this way you can avoid it

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There are those who would leave their own child at home if in exchange they could put the bicycle in the trunk of the car. I know what I’m talking about, I know some practical cases. And beyond opening the debate on whether we should call the officials in charge of ensuring the care of minors, we can guarantee that the DGT is not going to have so many concerns. And that’s what to wear a bicycle incorrectly placed in the car is grounds for a fine. Specifically, a penalty of 200 euros for carrying the cargo poorly packaged, as stated in article 76 of the Traffic Law. Although beyond the possible fine, carry the bike correctly It is also essential to guarantee the safety of the passengers themselves. It must be taken into account that objects that are not properly secured can become real projectiles and in the case of a bicycle, which usually requires the seats to be folded down, it can be much more dangerous. To give us an idea, it is calculated that at 50 km/h an object multiplies its weight by 50 when thrown into the void. These are data from the DGT that are scary and that should make us think if we have the car seats folded down to carry the bicycle in any way inside. Having said all this, let’s review what the alternatives are. What can I do to carry a bicycle in the car? As the colleagues of Motorpassionnot everything goes when transporting a bicycle because we will be risking a good fine and our own integrity. In that case, there are three solutions that we must take into account to choose the one that best suits us. If what we want is carry the bicycle inside the carThe most effective thing is to use anchors. To do this we must have adjustable straps that attach to the vehicle’s fixing points that we can find on the vehicle seats themselves. In any case, they are points that are not always in the same places. However, if you can’t find these points or they are not entirely practical, you can always find some bike fixing kits that are sold for the interior of passenger cars. Of course, it is important to look at the size because they are often designed for vans. Another option is to mount the bike on top of the vehicle, on the roof. It is not the most recommended because the car will consume more but, above all, we will be more exposed to side wind, making the mobility of the vehicle difficult. Of course, regarding the regulations, we can rest assured because the General Vehicle Regulations allows the load to reach a maximum of four meters high. In this case we will need a roof rack or roof bars previously installed on the car. The kits to take advantage of this possibility are diverse. There are those that fix the bicycle frame, others in which we can mount the bicycle with both wheels on and, in the last case, turn it over and hold it by the saddle and handlebars, with the wheels facing up. In any case, it is very important to ensure that the bicycle is securely fixed. The last and most recommended option, but also more expensive, is to opt for a bike rack. There are those that are installed on the tailgate and, in this way, are easily dismantled and assembled and there are those that are hitched like a trailer. In this case, it must be reflected in the vehicle’s technical sheet and pass the ITV when installing the modification if the original vehicle did not have the tow ball. Despite this, if you regularly use the bicycle and want get the most out of the trunkis still the best option. However, keep in mind that the load cannot protrude across the width of the vehicle and lengthwise it cannot extend more than 10% of its total length if the load is divisible and 15% if it is not. Furthermore, in this last case you have to mount one of V-20 signal. If the load occupies the entire width of the vehicle, two signs of this type must be mounted (one at each end) and in no case can the car’s license plate be covered. It must be taken into account that driving with a poorly legible license plate can also result in a fine of 200 euros. Photo | Motorpassion and Gabe Pierce In Xataka | This titanium bike looks spectacular. It is also the first 3D printed that can be purchased

selling Bugatti to Rimac would be the most elegant way to release ballast

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According what was published by BloombergMate Rimac, CEO of Bugatti after the merger of Rimac with Porsche, wants to take absolute control of one of the most prestigious brands in the world of luxury supercars. This could be a golden opportunity for Porsche, which have more serious problems to worry about, can release ballast by getting rid of the luxury car brand. How the Bugatti cake is divided. Right now, Rimac Group already controls 55% of the company, compared to 45% held by Porsche. According to information published by BloombergRimac would be trying to buy their piece of the Bugatti pie for more than 1.1 billion euros. “It’s no secret that we are in talks,” said the Bugatti CEO during an interview in Singapore. To launch the purchase offer, Mate Rimac has sought the support of international investors and, if everything goes as expected, the transfer of shares could be closed in 2026 and the brand would remain entirely in the hands of the Croatian businessman. Why do you want to stay with Bugatti? According to confirmed Rimac himself is tired of having to negotiate every decision made at Bugatti with those responsible for Porsche, and prefers to set the course in his own way. “I just want to be able to make long-term decisions, make long-term investments and act differently without having to explain myself to 50 people. When you deal with a corporation, there are so many factors. It’s families, a lot of families. It’s an emotional issue.” Porsche is thinking about it. Although Bugatti seems to have found its way with the latest launches, Porsche is not at its best, burdened by sales that They don’t stop falling in China and maneuvering to avoid tariffs from the USA. The Germans have invested a lot in electrify your carsbut sales have not taken off as much as they expected, so they have had to redirect their strategy and continue betting on gasoline engines in various models. For a brand like Porsche, selling its share of Bugatti now would be an easy way to recover part of its investment and take off the pressure of having to decide between two sides. Bugatti will continue to sound like gasoline. Mate Rimac seems to be clear that for an electric supercar brand He already has Rimacwhich is why it has confirmed that the cars that go on sale under the Bugatti seal will continue being internal combustion. “All customers expected Bugatti to go fully electric and digital under my leadership. And they got just the opposite. There will be no fully electric vehicles at Bugatti in the near future,” said Rimac. in an interview for Business Times. Bugatti’s CEO is convinced that millionaires who buy these supercars They do not want to be left with only “the silence of an electric motor”, adding that “even with the strength of the Bugatti brand and the design of the Tourbillon, if it were electric, we would have difficulty selling it. “Customers prefer pure combustion engines, but hybrid solutions offer performance advantages, regulatory ease and fewer requirements in certain countries.” Rimac is not the only one who thinks that supercar buyer He is very reluctant to electric motors. Lamborghini also has its reservations when it comes to taking the definitive step towards electrification. “We have to convince customers,” assured one of the spokespersons for the Sant’Agata Bolognese brand. In Xataka | Bugatti Veyron was a jewel that cost 1.7 million dollars: Volkswagen lost 6.7 million with each one it sold Image | Porsche, Bugatti

setting a time in Spain will always leave losers

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The week started with Pedro Sánchez announcing that “the Government of Spain will propose to the EU to end the seasonal time change”. Immediately afterwards, the marmorena got involved. And not because the idea does not have popular support: when in 2018 the European Commission held his famous public consultation On the subject, 8 out of 10 people were in favor of ending it. The problem is another and much more thorny: what schedule do we stick with? The experts are clear about it. In fact, the consensus between specialists from the SES (Spanish Sleep Society) and many other international companies It’s surprising: science is with winter time. It is the time that (on paper) ensures better alignment with natural light, limits “social jet lag” and appears to consistently yield better health and safety results. “Winter time makes it easier to have more hours of sleep and a more natural awakening that coincides with dawn. If there were a permanent summer time, in the winter months there would be a lack of light in the morning and in the summer months an excess of light at night, a situation that imbalances the internal clock and can cause poor performance and vulnerability to certain diseases,” explained the SES in its public positioning. Martín Olalla, the great Spanish expert on these topics and a historical opponent of the elimination of change of seasonal time, often insists that the evidence makes it clear that the benefit is very limited. However, when choosing one of them, the winter one wins. And then everything becomes strange. Because, although no one says it explicitly, in the popular imagination “permanent schedule” is associated with an “eternal pseudo-summer” full of long afternoons to comfortably enjoy the little leisure that day-to-day life leaves us. But let’s face it, that’s not going to happen. Daylight saving time has problems. The main one is that enjoying “long afternoons” throughout the year condemns the west of the peninsula to sunrises around ten in the morning. For landing it in a specific way. In A Coruña, in the middle of the winter solstice, dawn at 10:03 in the morning and it would get dark at 17:01. Something that is, clearly, unfeasible. A zero sum game. In the end, the seasonal time change is a compromise solution that tries to adjust the civil time to the variability of the days. It is probably a bad solution, but it helps mitigate the problems that would arise when opting for either of the other two schedules in a stable manner. After all, with winter time Galicia, Asturias, Extremadura and western Andalusia would win; while they would lose the Mediterranean and the Balearic Islands. We would avoid very late sunrises in winter and we would improve sleep, health and the morning security. The problem is that you kill the afternoons, which is the only socially attractive thing about making a permanent schedule. And that “game” is not only regional. It is also economical. There are economic sectors such as tourism or hospitality, that prefer bright afternoons; but there are many others, such as school or industry, that prefer earlier sunrises. Sometimes, phrases like “the time zone or time that corresponds to us” give the impression that the schedule is something ‘natural’: that the clock is neutral and all we have to do is adapt to it. But not. Nothing is neutral: opting for daylight saving time, winter time or daylight saving time is deeply political. Something that, whether we like it or not, prioritizes some over others. It’s not a problem, what we have now does too. The problem is another. It is walking towards the abolition of the time change without being aware of it and, above all, without being prepared for it: thinking that abolishing the time change will end all our chronoproblems is ‘magical thinking’. It will create others and, for the first time in more than a hundred years, we will not be able to blame it on the seasonal time change. Image | Moncloa | Jon Tyson In Xataka | The war that ended at two different times: the time change has been giving Spaniards headaches for almost a century

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