There are so few mechanics on the market that Ford is taking radical measures, like paying them $120,000

In the United States, and in general in the main Western economies, the manufacturing industry faces a serious problem: there is no specialized labor to fill the vacancies that are leaving who retire. Jim Farley, CEO of Ford, has stressed in an interview for the podcast Office Hours: Business Edition that his company has “5,000 mechanic vacancies. A workshop with an elevator and tools, and no one to work in it. They charge 120,000 a year, but it takes five years to learn how to do it.” This lack of training is the weakest link in the chain for Ford and the majority of the industrial sector. Global talent crisis. One of Trump’s slogans when he came to power is to reindustrialize the country. However, for many billion dollar investment that I get for build huge factorieswill fall on deaf ears if there are no well-trained employees to produce. This problem can be extrapolated to any country in the world. During his podcast appearance, Farley lamented: “We have over a million vacancies in critical jobs: emergency services, trucking, factory workers, plumbers, electricians and technical trades. It’s very serious.” The situation is not exclusive to Ford. According what was published by NPRwith data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the US there were almost 500,000 unfilled jobs in the manufacturing sector, even with a rising unemployment rate that stood at 4.3%. This is an indication that, although there are people who are unemployed, companies cannot hire them because they simply do not have the training to do the jobs they need. In Spain, the problem is also significant. The BBVA Foundation estimated that the manufacturing industry had lost a quarter of its employment since the beginning of the century, and there are an estimated 100,000 vacant jobs in the industry, in a country with 2,613,200 unemployed, according to data of the EPA’s third quarter of 2025. Again, this mismatch is due to the gap between the training of the workforce and the needs of companies. Importance of Vocational Training. Farley insists that the current reality demands a serious commitment to professional training, since “to learn how to disassemble a diesel engine from a Ford Super Duty truck requires at least five years.” For this reason, the CEO points out that without a determined effort to strengthen technical training schools and offer competitive wages, the American industrial economy—and that of any country that aspires to industrialization—is doomed to failure. The lack of investment in this type of training is one of the main causes of the crisis. Farley mentioned that “we don’t have trade schools. We are not investing in educating a new generation like my grandfather, who started with nothing and built a middle-class life for his family (working on the assembly line of a Ford factory).” The Spanish FP is a success story. In Spain, Vocational Training has experienced a big change thanks to investment policies, greater training offers and the involvement of companies in the training of those who will later become their employees. In fact, according to the report ‘Infoempleo Adecco 2024‘, in 46.96% of the job offers published during the last year, candidates were asked have a vocational training degree. The FP student report of the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports reveals that, in the 2022-2023 academic year, 1,085,259 students were enrolled in Vocational Training degrees. That represents an increase of 32.6% compared to the last five years. The demographic factor is going to make it worse. A key factor in the number of vacancies is the template aging: Many workers with decades of experience are retiring and there are not enough young people trained to take their places. This is a problem that not only affects the industrial sector, but also affects the entire labor market, both in the public sector as private. Seeing that young people are showing greater interest in Vocational Training invites us to think that the number of vacancies in sectors with vacancies due to lack of trained labor at present will not increase, but the big question is whether this generational change will arrive on time and to the areas that are needed. As and as highlighted Jensen Huang, the new millionaires will not be engineers or AI experts, but electricians, carpenters, bricklayers or bus drivers. Incentives: “Pay them more”. Never have three words held as much truth as those spoken by Joe Biden when someone asked him how to end the labor shortage: “Pay them more.” Pay them more. In his attempts to attract qualified labor to his assembly lines, Ford’s CEO adopted a strategy that the company’s founder, Henry Ford, implemented in 1914: raise salaries. That’s why Farley boasted of paying $120,000 to his mechanics. Just as he told in an interview with Walter Isaacson, Farley came to that conclusion when during labor agreement negotiations, some of his workers approached him and commented: “Young people don’t want to work here. Jim, you pay $17 an hour and they’re very stressed.” To combat this, Ford approved a 25% pay increase for its workers over four years, ensuring everyone has a fair wage and a viable career future. have a professional opportunity with a good salary and job stability is the best incentive for young people to spend five years of their lives training for a profession. In Xataka | 47% of the unemployed in Spain are over 50 years old. The problem is that many will not return to work until they retire. Image | ford

1,000 workers just to make the food

He Icon of the Seasthe ship that holds the official record “largest cruise ship in the world”, it is a fascinating mass for many reasons. All capital letters. Not only is it extremely long (364.7 meters), extremely wide (48 m) and extremely heavy (250,800 tons), it is also a floating city capable of accommodating more than 2,000 crew members and 5,600 passengers. To get an idea of ​​what such figures mean, in Spain there are some 6,800 municipalities that do not even exceed 5,000 inhabitants. When reviewing these figures we usually automatically think of the engineers and shipyards that allow such large structures to sail the seas, but there are another challenge which is just as (or even more) complicated: feeding such a troop, mostly tourists who expect to eat and drink like true kings. floating cities. It may sound cliché, but there is no better way to define a cruise ship than as a ‘floating city’. The numbers leave no doubt. If we talk only about passengers (the crew is older), the Icon of the Seas, Star of the Seas, Utopia of the Seas, Wonder of the Seas either Symphony of the Seas (to name just a few examples) they can accommodate more than 5,000 people. Or what is the same, 5,000 mouths and stomachs to feed in the middle of the ocean. Not a simple task and one that we can understand better thanks to the last ship on that list, the Symphony, which for a time was the biggest cruise of the world. How do you cook on a megacruise? A few years ago Sophie-Claire Hoeller, a travel reporter from Business Insiderdecided to answer that question in a way quite practical: checking it herself, in situ, on board the Symphony of the Seas, of the Royal Caribbean company. He chose that ship because at that time (2019) there were still years before the delivery of the Icon and it boasted the title largest cruise ship in the world. Hoeller’s experience was fascinating. Not only because of his story, but because of the figures that he collected during his stay in the megacruisein which during the most chaotic weeks of the year they could eat up to almost 9,000 peoplebetween travelers and employees. And let’s remember: people eat several times a day. In fact, Allan Gentile, chef in the culinary innovation area, explains that there are passengers who come to eat between breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. eight times a day. Not for disorganized chefs. As a figure always says more than a long explanation, here are a few of the ones collected by Hoeller during his visit to the Symphony: at that time the ship had 23 restaurants on board in which they served 30,000 dishes daily and 1,850 people were working in charge of feeding the passengers, which includes everything from chefs to dishwashers. It may seem like a lot of staff, but the kitchen works non-stop, which is why it requires a culinary team of more than a thousand of people capable of delighting travelers while the megaship moves among the waves. Lots of people, lots of food. There is not only a lot lots of staff. To feed such a clientele, the cruise ship needs to carry a huge amount of food. To be more precise, Hoeller explains that every Saturday, before embarking on a seven-day voyage, the Symphony is loaded with dozens of tons of food, which in turn requires millimeter organization. “On average, we load 500 pallets every Saturday and we have to finish at four in the afternoon to leave Miami,” explained Jaret de Silvaresponsible for inventory. “It’s a big challenge.” To move such a quantity of merchandise they need 30 trucks and a weekly budget of one million dollars. A team of 18 people is then responsible for carefully storing the food, which is carefully organized to supply the twenty or so restaurants on the ship. As a reference, each of these food points must order their supplies from the warehouse at least one day in advance. Logistics, the key on board. The task is even more complex than it seems because not all of the ship’s restaurants (23) have their own kitchen. Hoeller explains that there are 12 specialized restaurants that do have their own kitchens on board the Symphony of the Seas, but the rest of the dishes are basically prepared in six kitchens: three focused on supplying the main dining room and another three in which food is prepared for the rest of the establishments. “The food is prepared 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” clarifies the reporter from Business Insiderwhich specifies that in total the cruise has 285 chefs dedicated to menus that may vary from one trip to another. After all, a boat full of families with children does not demand the same food as a more senior audience, a mostly Asian clientele than one from Europe. Another key: advance. Since no one wants to be left without supplies in the ocean (even less if they have paid a considerable sum to enjoy a relaxing vacation), those responsible for filling the Symphony’s holds are in charge of stockpiling more food than their guests and crew will theoretically need. The emergency ‘cushion’ they work with is designed for two days, although that figure increases to three days during hurricane season. Of course, it doesn’t come with stowing the load correctly. As in any other restaurant, the food must be in proper condition and at a controlled temperature. Do you eat so much on board? Yes. The figures are once again capital letters, hyperbolic. During a week-long cruise they devour on average 15,000 pounds of meat of beef, which is equivalent to around 6,800 kilos. And that’s not even the most impressive number. If we talk about chicken, consumption skyrockets to 20,000 pounds (9,100 kg) and if we focus on eggs, demand rises to 10,000 dozen. Each day the passengers and crew also account … Read more

Until now in ChatGPT we chatted only with an AI. Now it’s starting to look more like WhatsApp

OpenAI has begun testing a function that gives a twist to the use given to ChatGPT: group chats. For the first time, the platform allows create conversations with up to 20 people where the chatbot acts as another participant. The pilot test has started in Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and Taiwan, and is available for users of all plans: Free, Go, Plus and Pro. How these groups work. To create a group chat, tap the new people icon in the top right corner of any new or existing conversation. Users must set up a basic profile with name, username and photo. They can then invite others by sharing a direct link. If you add people to an existing chat, ChatGPT creates a copy as a new group to keep the original conversation separate. The chatbot that knows when to speak. OpenAI assures have adjusted ChatGPT’s behavior to work better in this collaborative environment. The chatbot now follows the flow of the conversation and decides when to respond and when to remain silent, something that did not happen before. Users can force participation by directly mentioning “ChatGPT” in a message. In addition, the assistant can also react with emojis to messages, offering more natural behavior. Why does it make sense?. ChatGPT already had a solid foundation as a one-on-one conversation tool. Making the jump to group chats allows you compete directly with courier servicesa terrain where opportunities for use multiply. Planning trips, organizing work projects, searching for restaurants, or preparing collaborative documents are natural use cases that increase the time users spend on the platform. More exposure means more chances of conversion: the more people using ChatGPT as a group, the greater the chance that at least some will end up subscribing to the chatGPT. most basic payment plan (Go) turning the function into another way to make the service profitable. The technology behind. The responses in these groups are powered by GPT-5.1 Auto, a new model that OpenAI says can automatically select the best model GPT-5.1 depending on the type of question and the models available for each user according to their subscription. All the usual ChatGPT features, be it web searching, image and file uploading, image generation, and dictation, are available within groups. OpenAI also specifies that usage limits only apply when the chatbot responds, not when users chat with each other. What’s next. OpenAI indicates that will refine the experience based on feedback from early users before expanding it to more regions and plans. Currently, participants can customize the group name, add or remove people, mute notifications, and even set custom instructions for how ChatGPT should respond in each specific group. Anyone with the link can invite others, and participants can mute or remove other members at any time, except the group creator. Images | OpenAI In Xataka | Companies are turning their workers who know how to use AI into “stars”: the new labor gap

Shein and Temu had taken over e-commerce in the EU. Your future is complicated for one reason: small packages

The body that brings together the Ministers of Economy and Finance of the European Union (Ecofin) wants to put an end to the red carpet that Europe has laid out for platforms like Shein or Temu for years. The mechanism is simple: end the tariff exemption that until now has benefited packages of less than 150 euros that were imported into the old continent. Why is it important. In recent years we have seen how platforms like Temu or Shein have become absolute giants of electronic commerce. Part of that success has been based on how cheap it was for these platforms to ship their affordable products: they took advantage of a tariff exemption for packages valued at less than 150 euros, but that exemption’s days were numbered. And now he has even more of them. Deadlines want to be shortened. The initial proposal put forward by the European Commission was to eliminate this exemption in 2028. This week Ecofin took advantage of this proposal, but the executive made it clear that they have an additional objective: to advance its application two years, to 2026. Chinese companies did not stop making a fortune. 91% of all e-commerce shipments valued at less than 150 euros They came from China in 2022. Alibaba, Temu and Shein were the clear beneficiaries of an exemption that was created in the 1980s and that has gained extraordinary relevance with the rise of electronic commerce. 1.5 billion euros that the EU does not collect. According to a report that the EU commissioned from a group of experts, the union’s coffers stopped collecting 1.5 billion euros for those imports of less than 150 euros. In 2024 products entered the EU worth 4.6 billion euros through packages of less than 150 euros: double that of the previous year. Two euros for each small package. The Commission wants not only to stop this mechanism used by Chinese e-commerce platforms, but also to apply a minimum fee of two euros for these low-value packages. Eliminating the exemption in 2026 is a firm intention. This tax for the moment is an announcement that can remain just that. It will not be easy to advance the deadlines. The initial proposal is reasonable in terms of deadlines because adapting customs to this new reality is not easy. As pointed out the EU statement issued after the meeting, this new regulation “will begin to apply once the EU Customs Data Centre, the central platform proposed by the EU to interact with customs and strengthen controls, is operational, which is currently planned for 2028.” European companies could not compete. In recent years Shein, Temu or Aliexpress have grown exceptionally thanks to this regulation. According to Danish Finance Minister Stephanie Losse, this caused “unfair competition” in which European companies lost out. Tariffs from the first euro. The EU estimates that 65% of small packages entering the EU are “undervalued to avoid customs duties on imports”, something that also raises “environmental concerns, given the incentive for non-EU companies to split shipments into individual packages when sending goods to the Union.” The new regulations seek to ensure that goods entering the EU pay tariffs from the first euro. The US has already applied the story. The trade war that the US maintains with China caused the United States to already take similar measures. In February, Donald Trump issued a new executive order that also eliminated the so-called “de minimis” exception for packages valued below $800. Although there was later some relaxation Regarding the terms of that regulation, the impact on this type of commerce has been notable. Our pocket will suffer. The logical consequence of these changes is twofold: consumers will not have access to such a wide catalog on Chinese platforms, and it is also likely that the products sold on Temu or Shein will increase in price to pass on this increase in costs to users. Meanwhile, companies from the old continent such as Inditex could win by competing more favorably against these Chinese platforms. In Xataka | Shipping this $320 lens from Japan to Spain costs $29. Sending it to the US costs 2,000, and it is not a typographical error

a hundred neighbors on the street

In the midst of the housing crisis, with the skyrocketing prices and real estate developers warning of a serious deficit that is counted tens of thousands of housing, Madrid risks seeing how around a hundreds of neighbors of the Villa de Vallecas remain on the street. Literally. The news spread on Monday the BEING, the has confirmed The Country and it is warming up and the political debate. The reason: dozens of humble families who once obtained a social rental thanks to the Obra Social de la Caixa now see how their apartments go on the free market and, with it, the lease termination notices arrive. What is the reason? To understand it you have to go back a few years and go to the Ensanche de Vallecas, more specifically to Mazaterón and Fresno de Cantespino streets. There are two residential buildings with 220 identical apartments, homes between 40 and 45 square meters (m2) and a single room. The blocks were inaugurated in the heat of the Caixa Social Projects program and allowed quite a few families to benefit from social rents of between 400 and 600 euros, prices well below what is charged today in the free market. As a reference, according to Idealista in Madrid, the square meter costs 23 eurosso a 45 m2 apartment would require paying a rent of more than 1,000 euros per month. The real estate portal shows that the average is somewhat lower in Villa de Vallecas (€16.1/m2), but even so a quick search confirms that it is difficult to find an available house in the district for less than 800 euros per month. And it doesn’t just come with paying the rent. The advertisements They also require tenants to meet certain requirements, such as a minimum income threshold or an indefinite contract. But… What is the problem? That tenants who once obtained a social rental in those two buildings through Caixa now find themselves probably having to pack their bags and leave their homes. And they have been living there for more than a decade (in some cases almost two) and their economic situations are far from ideal. These days the press was echoing cases of tenants with a volume of income that does not reach 500 euros monthlyappear to have recognized disabilities or have children and sick in your charge. Why is that? Very simple. Basically because the apartments that they have been renting for years in exchange for affordable rents are no longer in the same hands and (most importantly) have seen their term as officially protected housing (VPO) expire, so they have entered the free market headlong. In fact the neighbors assure that in the two buildings there are apartments that already apply seasonal rentals for 1,100 euros or that have even gone on sale for 250,000 euros. There are three key dates to understand the case, according to the information that drives The Country. The first is 2022. That year the tenants claim to have noticed a first relevant change: they suddenly encountered problems when it came to extending the rents that were due when until then, says David Jiménez, one of those affected, “the Foundation had never caused difficulties.” Although that was several years ago, the neighboring communities did not notice anything strange. People were leaving, but the rest of the tenants did not know why, whether it was by choice, work or because the landlord had decided not to renew their contract. Hence some affected people now speak of “invisible evictions.” And the other dates? The second came last August, when residents began to receive letters from InmoCaixa (La Caixa’s real estate portfolio manager) informing them that their contracts would not be renewed. In other words, there will be no extensions of rents that expire The precise SER that in some cases this means that the tenants will have to leave in December. The third date that completes the chronicle and gives a global image of what happened is much more recent: October, which was when the neighbors began to receive another letter related to their homes, only in this case it was not signed by Caixa or any entity related to it. Its author was Mosaic Propcoa fund that informed them that it is now responsible for their contracts. The reason: the foundation has sold the apartments, which for the neighbors meant a bucket of cold water. What do the neighbors and La Caixa say? The first, the neighbors, speak of “speculation” and an attempt to expel them from what have been their homes for the last few years, homes to which they had access at the time by meeting certain requirements and which since then they have been paying as agreed. According to their calculations, right now there are just over a hundred (110) people who maintain their InmoCaixa contracts and, therefore, risk having to pack their bags. Among them there are several dozen who will face this scenario over the next few months, during 2026 or even in December. “I collect 480 euros in aid for people over 52 years of age and with that I pay the rent and little else. They tell me to enter the affordable housing lottery, but if I already have affordable housing, why do I have to start over from scratch? They don’t give me options, there is no real alternative,” relates in Madrid Diario Mercedes, 60 years old, 11 of which she has spent in one of the apartments in Vallecas. A spokesperson for the La Caixa Foundation explained these days to The Country that simply the nature of the apartments has changed and now they focus on other social areas. What does it say exactly? “This is a development whose VPO term had expired and, therefore, had gone to the free market. Tenants are always notified in a timely manner, complying with the conditions of the contracts that both parties have signed,” they insist from the entity, which has “redirected” its efforts in social … Read more

A very deep polar trough is descending towards North Africa and Spain is right in the middle

Now Spain is busy with the rain and it is logical: it is not every day that a high-impact storm hits you and turns the country upside down. However, as they said from Navarmeteothe key question is what is going to happen from Tuesday. Let’s fasten our seatbelts, because curves are coming. An early winter. Both the European and American models coincide in a change in weather pattern next week. Towards Thursday, a very deep polar trough will descend from northern Europe towards the south. The interesting (and worrying) thing is that it is going to pass right over us. That is, in a week Spain will be immersed in a polar air mass maritime. But the thing is not limited to that: as a corridor opens that connects us to the north (between the western anticyclone and the storm in the Gulf of Genoa), shortly after the first ‘impact’ a second pulse of even colder continental polar air will arrive. What does this mean? Well, if everything happens as the models say, cold and humid air from the North Atlantic will enter first. That will cause temperatures to drop and rain and snow will return. Then, with the strengthening of the northerly flow, drier and colder air will arrive: a major thermal collapse. Are we sure about this? We have been seeing for days how the great models they were converging around a scenario like this: a huge tongue of cold approaching the peninsula. However, skepticism was more than justified. But things are starting to get real. It seems clear that it will be a cold week throughout the country (except the Canary Islands) and temperatures at altitude are beginning to reach up to 10 degrees below average. Everything will start in the Cantabrian Sea, but by Friday it will have reached the entire peninsula. Things are going to change. We come from the storm Claudia and, although the impact has been considerable, It has been a fairly tempered system. However, things are going to change: even if in the end the trough does not reach that far south, the cold is going to be felt in large areas of the country. And this is the beginning of a winter that, if all goes well, is expected very (but very) moved. Image | Tropical Tridbits In Xataka | It’s going to rain in Galicia. It seems normal but it is something more: the prelude to a total change in the weather in Spain

Huawei is coming back. And not everyone is prepared for what is coming

In China it has already happened. Huawei has gone from being practically dead after the US sanctions of 2019 to lead its domestic market again in 2025 with a 18.1% share. This national resurgence has not been a stroke of luck or the result of blind nationalism (although his subsequent resurgence helped), rather it has been a matter of engineering and strategy: But China is just Act I. Act II, the global leap, is in progress. And when Huawei presses the button, the consumer electronics market will change. Again. What’s stopping them… at the moment There are two things holding Huawei out of China: chips. The current Kirin chips, manufactured in 7 nm by SMIC, work but are two generations behind the Snapdragon or the 3nm Apple Silicon. That means less energy efficiency, less raw power. More importantly: production capacity is limited. SMIC can’t manufacture in volume like TSMC, at least not yet. Huawei can make competitive 5G smartphones, but it can’t make enough to saturate global markets. Software. The other bottleneck. HarmonyOS can boast of being the second mobile ecosystem in China, even surpassing iOS in share. But outside of China, the equation changes. Without Google Play Services, without the complete catalog of Western apps, convincing a European or Latin American user to abandon Android is asking them for a leap of faith. Huawei knows this, that’s why it has invested a lot of money for six years to build AppGallery and its own services. But breaking the inertia of a consolidated duopoly requires more than good intentions: it requires critical mass. Even so, these brakes are, if all goes well, temporary: When both reach the minimum threshold—sufficient chips and viable ecosystem—Huawei will make the leap. And he will not do it timidly. He will do it with the aggressiveness of someone who has been preparing in silence for five years. The scene that no one wants to name Huawei Pura 80 Ultra. Image: Andrey Matveev. There is an uncomfortable question floating in the air: What if Huawei doesn’t come back alone? What if other Chinese brands (Oppo, Xiaomi, Vivo, Realme) adopt HarmonyOS instead of Android? It seems like science fiction, but let’s remember that the Chinese government has been promoting OpenHarmony as a “strategic national operating system.” And that the Chinese government has hinted that companies should reduce their dependence on Android and Windows. That in an environment of increasing technological friction with the West, having our own ecosystem is a matter of survival. If that happens—and political pressure makes it increasingly feasible—the map changes. Android would not lose a manufacturer, it would lose all the big Chinese. Samsung would remain practically Google’s only relevant ally outside of the Apple ecosystem. And HarmonyOS would go from being a local Chinese curiosity to a real global third pole. Not tomorrow, but not in a decade either. In three or four years at most. Besides, andn China Huawei is no longer just consumer electronics: it is an automotive player. Its automotive division has become a key technology partner for several local brands, from Aito until Arcfox. It doesn’t manufacture cars, but it puts the brain into it: sensors, software, connectivity, digital platform. There are already complete “Huawei Inside” models there. That muscle did not exist before the US blockade. And now it is part of the Huawei that could reach Europe: one capable of entering your pocket, your wrist, your home… and also your car. It seems familiar to us. Meanwhile in Europe… Huawei has done something interesting in Europe: not disappear. Here Sales of its smartphones suffered a brutal collapse overnight. Not being able to include Google services was lethal. But they did continue to sell other products: They are the products that do not depend on Google. And they keep the brand visible, preserve the memory of what Huawei was… and pave the way for a better tomorrow. Every GT watch or set of FreeBuds headphones someone buys in Europe is a seed of future loyalty. It is a party waiting in the trenches for it to die down while the others assumed that they would withdraw from the battle. AND Europe will be precisely its real test. No China, they have already won there. Not the United States, where sanctions and market inertia make any short-term operation impossible. Europe, where Huawei became a sales leader and where it built prestige with its commitment to Leica, where there is a certain brand nostalgia and above all where there is no formal veto on its products. Huawei has been in charge of closing local gaps. For example, a bridge to make mobile payments from its platform that compensates for forced trade restrictions. If they manage to offer a good enough ecosystem – it doesn’t even have to be perfect, just enough – there is a market. Because what we (neither consumers nor the industry) cannot forget is that Huawei was never just hardware. It was always a complete value proposition: design, cameras, ecosystem integration. At first, with mediocre quality while being friendly. But then it got better. That doesn’t go away because they block your access to Google for five years. It reinvents itself. The window opens Huawei has already announced its plans to relaunch its smartphones in up to 60 countries. Starting with emerging markets, where its reputation was not so eroded and where US restrictions have less political weight. Europe’s time will come. And when it does, with Kirin chips in volume and a more mature HarmonyOS, the market will shake up. Samsung will have to accelerate, the rest of the Chinese manufacturers – which occupied the space that Huawei freed up, with Xiaomi at the helm – will face a rival that, in addition to returning, will do so without the dependencies that the rest drag, and even Apple can see in them a threat in the medium term. Huawei has been building autonomy for five years while many of us considered it finished. Or … Read more

Renault is already pushing for Europe to copy the Chinese model

The statements have been as concise as they are clear: “You cannot come to Europe and build four plates with wheels and seats with little added value. What we have to do is commit them to teach us, to come with products with added value. We did not do it like that when we went to China, they should not do it when they come to Europe” The words are from Josep Maria Recasens, president of Renault Spain, and reflect in three sentences the situation that the industry is experiencing in Europe, its internal debates and its fears. Added value. This is what Recasens has demanded at the 1st Automotive Forum, organized by the Automotive Press Group to which it belongs. The Automotive Tribune. The president of Renault Spain, who is also the president of ANFAC (the manufacturers’ association in our country) has demanded that Europe force Chinese brands to associate with European ones so that they “teach us” how they make their products. In Recasens’ opinion, Europe is opening the door to Chinese brands, allowing them to build “four plates with wheels and seats with little added value.” It is a veiled statement that points to the Chinese factories that are settling in our country but that, however, plan to produce vehicles based on kits that already come pre-assembled from China. What do they teach us? When the president of Renault asks that the European Union force Chinese manufacturers “to teach us” it is for two reasons. The first is that China forced foreign manufacturers to partner with their local firms to produce on its soil. What did they earn? Obviously, knowledge. Just take a look at the MG4 Electric to understand the extent to which its partnership with Volkswagen has borne fruit. At the same time, foreign manufacturers could produce at a much lower price and had access to the largest market in the world. What, we assume, they did not imagine is that China was going to surpass the West. Yes, let them teach us. The second point referred to in “let them teach us” is evident: the president of Renault and Anfac recognizes that, at least in part, China is ahead. And the French company itself has gone to Shanghai to develop your Renault Twingoa car whose heart has been created internally in China in record time for the European industry. But there have also been curious situations such as Mazda has brought the Mazda 6e to Europea car developed by Changan in China that, given its success, they have decided to test on European soil with a groundbreaking price per size. And the warnings don’t end there. The industry has entered a fever to shorten deadlines and approaching the times of Chinese development. The consultants warn that, at the level of quality, there is no difference with the Europeans. Others warn Japanese firms that their extreme attention to detail and conservative evolutions they may have left them behind. In question. Recasens’ words also emphasize the misgivings that have arisen among European manufacturers seeing how Chinese companies are arriving on our soil. With the intention of stopping the arrival of Chinese electric cars at knockdown prices, Europe applied variable tariffs to each brand depending on the supposed help they have received from the Chinese Government in the form of soft loans or the transfer of land. The promise is that they would not pay if they manufactured in Europe. But the first factories are also in question. Chery opted for assemble car kits in Barcelona. That is, cars that arrive almost assembled from the other side of the world and to which the final touches are given in the Spanish city. Now, the European Union is studying whether or not the electric Omoda 5 has to pay tariffs by understanding that added value is not being created around the production of said car. But not only Chery. The Chery case was the first but it has not been the only one. Stéphane Séjourné, vice president for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy of the European Commission, has assured the Italian newspaper La Stampa that the institution also has the factory in its sights BYD in Hungary or the plans that CATL has in Europe (including those that has in Spain with Stellantis). According to Séjourné, “it is not right” that these companies are manufacturing their cars in Europe with Chinese components and Chinese employees, noting that their investment in creating a local network of suppliers is minimal. A good example is the CATL battery production plant in Aragón where it is expected that employ 2,000 Chinese employees. Photo | ANFAC and Renault In Xataka | Before opening its gigafactory, Zaragoza has a pending task: create a “chinatow” for 2,000 Chinese workers

soldiers who save lives don’t have medals, they unlock the deadliest weapons

At the beginning of November Ukraine updated the bloodiest game of the nation, that kind of “Amazon of war” where it borrowed the idea of ​​video games and their reward systems, granting points to its soldiers for eliminating enemy troops. Those points later could be exchanged for weapons and systems. Now, in a twist, the greatest reward does not come from an accurate shot, it comes from saving lives. War innovation. The war in Ukraine has entered a phase in which the technologythe incentive systems and management human resources they intertwine. The scenario is no longer defined only by the clash of armies, but by the ability of a country to transform its internal processes, accelerate the arrival of equipment to the front and keep together a military force subjected to extreme wear and tear. In this framework, the appearance of digital platforms capable of rewarding tactical actions, prioritizing the protection of lives and compressing the logistics chain in a matter of days reveals a country that is trying to compensate for numerical inferiority with structural innovation (ethics are more debatable). The morality. At the same time, this development occurs in a military theater where Russian pressure It’s intensewhere entire cities risk being isolated and where the political leadership is forced to decide between holding symbolic positions or preserve your soldiers for more sustainable lines. The convergence of both phenomena defines a war dynamic in which technology not only shapes the offense and defense, but also the moral and strategic considerations that determine each retreat, each advance and each sacrifice. Amazon and its new incentives. We told it at the beginning, the digitization of the war effort Ukrainian has crystallized into a system of rewards and acquisitions capable of altering the way units obtain weapons, electronic systems and tactical material. The platform Brave1 Market It allows any unit, from drone brigades to mechanized infantry battalions, to directly request equipment from manufacturers that previously depended on slow bureaucratic chains, with deadlines incompatible with the urgency of the front. Their catalogues, which cover weapons more expensive and deadly of the nation, have everything from drones to UGVs, electronic warfare systems, cameras, batteries, motors and satellite communications, devices that are constantly renewed as companies and volunteers integrate new technologies. The result is an almost instantaneous shopping environment, financed by the state but guided by the immediate needs of those who fight. The speed of the model, added to the monitoring of points accumulated by units throughout the country, has generated an internal competition that accelerates the incorporation of innovations and creates incentives to execute missions of high tactical impact. Some of the weapons and robots that can be redeemed in Brave1 Unlock save lives. Thus, on a front where medical evacuations have become one of the most lethal tasks due to the proliferation of reconnaissance and attack drones, unmanned ground vehicles have acquired a decisive relevance. These robots are capable of enter beaten areas by artillery or monitored by kamikaze drones, towing wounded from exposed positions, transporting ammunition and carrying out demolition missions against vehicles and fortified points. Expansion of the reward system to privilege the rescue Companionship introduces a change in focus: saving lives takes a central place in the incentive structure, generating not only practical effects on survival, but also psychological effects on troops fighting in an increasingly automated environment. This priority is reinforced with unit testimonials which have already experienced successful rescues, although not exempt from risks derived from the loss of signal or the need to operate in complex terrain. The strategic dilemma. And as innovation advances, the country faces repeated decisions about the fate of its most contested urban positions. Cities like Bakhmut either Avdiivka demonstrated that holding out for months can inflict severe losses on Russian forces, but also that prolonging the defense after losing supply routes leads to unsustainable attrition. With Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad threatened by Russian advances that seek progressive encirclement, the dilemma resurfaces between resisting to delay the enemy push or withdrawing to preserve essential units in a war of attrition. The difference between holding a position and losing an entire contingent of soldiers is measured in corridors increasingly narrowersubjected to continuous bombings and assaults by Russian groups that take advantage of the staff shortage Ukrainian to infiltrate weakened lines. This pattern has already been repeated in several scenarios where late withdrawal has led to captures, massive losses and the rapid fall of deep fortifications. The fragility of the defenses. The recent Russian advance in different sectors shows Moscow’s ability to exploit gaps that have emerged after months of continuous pressure. The reduction of troops Due to the prolonged defense of urban areas, it can result in an unexpected weakening of subsequent lines, which, if they do not receive reinforcements in time, are exposed to deeper ruptures. In areas such as southwest Donetsk and parts of Zaporizhzhia, Russian forces have captured several settlements in a short periodtaking advantage of both the Ukrainian wear and tear like weather conditions that limit the use of surveillance drones. The possibility that units trapped in cities under siege cannot withdraw affects not only the local balance, but also the entire defensive architecture of the eastern front, where the loss of trained personnel outweighs the loss of territory in a long-term war. A war of technological adaptation. If you like, the combination of a digitized incentive systemthe rise of ground robots and the relentless pressure about strategic cities draws a war in which innovation and survival are closely linked. The accelerated adoption of technologies distributed among brigades, the ability to purchase material in hours and the rescue prioritization Through multiplied rewards they form a network war model that attempts to compensate for resource asymmetry with organizational agility. It happens that this modernization develops in parallel to a front where the territorial decisions They involve the possibility of losing hundreds of soldiers in weeks, where the lack of trained personnel limits each counterattack and where withdrawal or prolonged resistance … Read more

More and more children suffer from it and science believes it knows why

For years, the hypertension has earned the nickname the “silent killer“. It is a pathology that barely causes symptoms, but can cause serious damage in the heart, brain and blood vessels. Traditionally, it has been associated with older people, whose arteries age and accumulate atheromatous plaques over time. But that is changing: More and more children are living with high blood pressure. Taking blood pressure in the little ones in the house is something that for many may be unthinkable, because it is something that is logically assumed to be perfect because their arteries are also very young. But it’s changing, according to a study published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health. How many. The data are worrying: the percentage of children and adolescents with hypertension has almost doubled in two decades: from 3.2% in 2000 to more than 6.2% in 2020. This means that 114 million children under 19 years of age in the world today live with high blood pressure. This photograph results from an analysis of 96 different studies and 443,000 young people from 21 countries. The reasons. So… Why on earth does a child have a disease that is associated with older people? The person responsible is in obesity which is associated with an almost eight-fold increased risk of developing high blood pressure compared to their peers with a healthy weight. And the figures in this case are devastating. To give us an idea, among children who have a healthy weight, only 2.4% have hypertension. But this counteracts with children who do have obesity, where the figure shoots up to 19%. This is further amplified when childhood obesity is increasing globally and has tripled since 2000 as has recognized UNICEF. And the causes in this case seem to be in the high consumption of processed foods and also in the low physical activity that some young people have. Diagnose in time. Although the study recognizes the limitations that arise in the differences in measuring blood pressure, the message is quite clear: blood pressure must be taken when risk factors such as obesity are present. We must remember that we are talking about a ‘silent killer’, because it seems that everything is correct, but damage to the arteries is occurring. The most important thing, like any other disease, always is early diagnosis to be able to apply measures to control the situation and prevent it from advancing much further. The problem of measurement. One of the most revealing findings of the study is that How we measure blood pressure matters, a lot. Prevalence figures change drastically depending on the diagnostic method. A priori, the diagnosis in a medical consultation requires at least three office visits for hypertension to be confirmed, causing the prevalence to be estimated at 4.3%. However, when the researchers included out-of-office evaluations (like the classic blood pressure monitors that anyone can use), the prevalence of sustained hypertension shot up to 6.7%. It’s a problem. This paradigm shift suggests that there are children who have normal tension when they go to the doctor, but it increases in their daily lives. Something alarming, especially considering that it affects 9.2% of children and adolescents globally and that is why we should not allow this masked hypertension. In the opposite case, blood pressure is elevated in the medical environment due to stress, but is normal at home, something known as ‘white coat hypertension‘. This affects 5.2% of young people, suggesting that a notable proportion could be being misdiagnosed or overtreated. Prehypertension. The study not only looks at children who are already hypertensive, but also at those who are in the waiting room. Data show that an additional 8.2% of children and adolescents have prehypertension, that is, blood pressure levels higher than normal, but do not yet meet the criteria for diagnosis. But this risk is not homogeneous. Prehypertension is especially prevalent during adolescence, reaching 11.8% of adolescentscompared to 7% in younger children. Images | CDC Ben Wicks In Xataka | We have known for a long time that our heart “fixes” itself. Now we know better how

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