challenges

Verdeliss’s latest challenge reminds us that impossible challenges are huge business

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Before we get into the matter, let me ask you an indiscreet question: What did you do between seven in the afternoon on Wednesday and the same time on Thursday? Most likely several things, including eating, sleeping, and stretching your legs. Of all of them Estefanía Unzu, better known by her alias ‘Verdeliss’he only did the last one. And in an unorthodox way. During 24 hours the influencer He dedicated himself to running on a treadmill installed behind a shop window in Madrid. It is the umpteenth proof of two trends that they walk run hand in hand: business and the fever generated by impossible challenges, a field that Verdeliss know well. What has happened? If in the last few hours you have stopped by the Decathlon store in Nuevos Ministerios (Orense Street, Madrid) it is quite likely that you have been surprised. On Wednesday the 25th at 7:01 p.m. in its window you could see a treadmill with a runner taking strides. At 2:00 a.m. the image was identical. And at 6:59 p.m. on Thursday the 26th, the same thing happened. The surprising thing is that during all that time (the 24 hours from 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday to 7:00 p.m. on Thursday) the person who ran on the treadmill was always the same: Verdeliss. His balance: 24 hours of walking and more than 250 km. Why did he do it? Advertising. The challenge is part of the campaign orchestrated by Decathlon to promote the sneakers Kipride Maxof Kiprunthe brand with which the French chain aspires to expand its space in the growing business athletics and amateur running. In fact, the company has been in charge of giving visibility to the Verdeliss challenge on its networks, with videos, photos, interviews with passers-by and of course to the influencer herselfwho before starting to run assured that his objective is to test his limits. The underlying purpose: to take advantage of the challenge to give notoriety to the new Decathlin sneakers and provide them with a place in a hypercompetitive market, in which large multinationals such as Adidas or Nike work in different price ranges and frequently launch promotions. Kiprin introduced the Kipride Max ago just a monthpromote them as daily training shoes “designed to offer the brand’s most cushioned and comfortable ride.” Why Verdeliss? Because of his public profile. Runners there are many. Influencers, too. Estefanía Unizo Ripoll (‘Verdeliss’) has however managed to gain notable fame. And it has done so with two ingredients: an unconventional profile and a commitment to extreme challenges like Decathlon. The influencer Navarre has 40 years, eight children and combines his love for extreme sports with his businesswoman facet and media figure (he reached go through Big Brother). Since he joined YouTube in 2008, his profile has also changed: from basically publishing family content he has turned towards extreme sports. If his name sounds familiar to you even if you don’t follow current events running maybe it’s because in 2025 he went for it World Marathon Challengea test that consists of seven marathons in seven days and different continents. And that is just one of the challenges he has conquered. Another is the national championship 100 km on the road. Why is it important? Because Decathlon’s challenge not only tells us about it. It also tells us a lot about the fever (and business) generated around impossible challenges. People like to explore (or see how others explore) physical limits, whether climbing skyscrapersjumping from heart attack distances either swimming and running enormous distances with hardly any breaks. Behind many of these initiatives there are sponsorships (also campaigns with a more or less solidarity approach) and above all a huge media exposure for those who star in them. Verdeliss, for example, adds some 1.6 million of followers on Instagram and others 2.1 million on YouTube. The organization of extreme events also opens a business avenue: without going any further, participating in the World Marathon Challenge requires paying tens of thousands of euros. With yesterday’s campaign, Decathlon manages to position itself in a hypercompetitive market and the influencer (beyond the promotional agreement itself) feeds her image as an athlete capable of conquering extraordinary challenges, traveling 255 km in 24 hours. In the background there is another debate: to what extent facing challenges like this pushes the body to its limits. In the past Unzu herself has recognized having done “savages” and who does not seek to be “exemplary.” In fact, he even warns his followers: “Don’t do this in your house.” Images |Decathlon (IG) and Verdeliss In Xataka | The Winter Olympics leave Italy with a debt of 7.8 million dollars. Not to organize them, to win them

Samsung confirms the date of its next Unpacked in a year full of challenges

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The Samsung Galaxy S26 They are just around the corner. We could intuit that, but now it is official. And Samsung just confirmed the date of your next Galaxy Unpackedan event that will take place at the gates of the Mobile World Congress (although much further away) and in which AI will once again be the main protagonist. when and where. Galaxy Unpacked will take place on February 25 in the city of San Francisco, United States. The conference will be at 7:00 p.m., Spanish peninsular time, and can be followed through the usual channels. Among them, of course, the live one we will do from Xataka. What do we expect? Unless there are surprises, it is most likely that we will know the new Samsung Galaxy S26. If nothing changes, it should be a family of three devices, with the Ultra model being the flagship. Even though AI PCs have not finished taking shapeSamsung has already started talking about “AI Phone” and assures that its new smartphones represent “a new stage in the era of artificial intelligence, where technology becomes truly personal and adaptable.” We’ll see what this means. A year of challenges. Samsung has a tough year ahead. The Galaxy S are no longer the only exponents of the most premium high-end and Chinese firms are pushing hard. There they are OPPO, Xiaomi, Motorola and Honorto give just a few examples. In terms of pure and simple specifications, the entire high-end range plays more or less in the same league, although Samsung starts with a clear advantage: brand positioning and ecosystem. As far as the technical specifications are concerned, last year we missed a more notable leap in photography and battery. Seeing how Chinese brands are spending money on silicon-carbon batteries and the 200 megapixel telephotosthis year these two sections aim to become even more important. Without forgetting the component crisis. Another important aspect that will be interesting to see how Samsung has resolved is that of the components, courtesy of AI. We are immersed in a RAM and storage crisis, to the point that we are seeing mobile phones again with four gigabytes of RAM and not so ambitious configurations. And it is important, because RAM goes far beyond keeping more apps in the background. On the other hand, and everything must be said, there is no evil that does not come with good. Samsung is one of the largest manufacturers of RAM and that branch of the business is scary. The results for the fourth quarter of 2025 speak for themselves: a year-on-year profit increase of 208% and shares completely skyrocketing. Cover image | Xataka In Xataka | With the consumer segment drowning, Samsung is the first to manufacture HBM4 memory. And it will be for NVIDIA, of course

a revealing map that anticipates several demographic challenges

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The old continent is older than ever, literally. Because Their average age is already around 50 years old. and the birth rate shows that except in Monaco, our sons and daughters they are not enough replacement (the “magic” number is 2.1). So much so that it can be said that Europe is shrinking, something that It hasn’t happened since the black plague. Old Europe vs young Nigeria. The latest Eurostat update gives an average birth rate of 1.38 babies per woman in the EU and 3.6 million births in 2023 for a population that around 450 million. If we set a “Eurovision” and expand the borders, including states like the United Kingdom or Russia, the figure rises to 6.3 million. It is still little, especially if we take into account that only in Nigeria 7.5 million were born in that same year, has a birth rate of 4.5 babies per woman and that the middle ages around 18 years old. A huge lake is in the making. Note: in Nigeria there are 222 million inhabitants. A picture is worth a thousand words. In Brilliant Maps have synthesized this data into a very simple map with this devastating fact that shows the rapid population growth of Sub-Saharan Africa, specifically Nigeria, which has one of the youngest populations in the world. A single country, with a much smaller area, surpasses an entire continent in births. Brilliant Maps map with data from Our World in Data In perspective. Taking United Nations data for Europe and Nigeria from 1900 to 2100 (until 2023 the data is accurate, from then on the UN predictions are used) the evolution and trend leaves no room for doubt about the change produced in the last century in figures: In 1950, 12 million people were born in Europe and 1.7 million in Nigeria, which had a population of 548 and 37 million people respectively. In 2000, 7.3 and 5.5 million were born in Europe and Nigeria, which had a population of 728 and 126 million people. By 2100, less than 5 million births in Europe compared to 6.6 million in Nigeria and 592 million inhabitants for the old continent compared to 476 million in the African country. The turnaround is such that on reddit there is a graph which, although more qualitative than quantitative, sums it up well: The population difference between Europe and Africa. reddit Why is it important. Beyond statistical curiosity, we are facing a paradigm shift that will define the 21st century. If “demography is destiny”, how they attribute to Auguste Comte, Europe aims for change (renew or die, never better said). Of course, Nigeria’s population explosion is not la vie en rose either. In Europe. Europe’s demographic winter is raising alarm bells for its welfare state simply because the population pyramid is inverting, thus threatening its intergenerational social model: first, delaying the retirement age. On the horizon, the cut of benefits even though there are many people who “the cannon life” is not sticking. On the other hand, the market has found a vein in the “silver” economy in the form of care for the elderly: without going any further, those related professions are already applying for rise like foam in the coming years. In Nigeria. Having 7.5 million new people in a territory is quite a challenge. On paper, it is a fantastic opportunity to train and employ a mass population that can drive massive economic growth (as has China in recent decades). The problem is not doing it and finding yourself with unemployed and frustrated youth. On the other hand and regardless of this difficulty, such a high population increase translates into high pressure on its current infrastructure, for example there will be an urgent need to build schools or hospitals. The communicating vessels. Given the previous perspective, the migratory flow is as inevitable as it is necessary. From old Europe, in search of labor to fill vacancies and thus manage its decline without losing its standard of living. From young Nigeria, to alleviate internal population and infrastructure pressure. A symbiosis not exempt from cultural frictions, culminating identity tensions in the rise of the extreme right and the flight of talents in the African country. In Xataka | If you were born today you would be born at 17.5% in India: the map that shows the distribution of world birth rates In Xataka | Where the world’s next 1,000 babies will be born, in a surprising map Cover | Brilliant Maps

Restoring vision is one of the great challenges of contemporary technology. These Spaniards have had an idea and it seems to work

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In January 2018, the car Tonya Illman was riding in got stuck in the sand. They were on Wedge Island, 180 kilometers north of the Australian city of Perth; so while they waited for roadside assistance to arrive, Tonya took a walk on the beach. And it was there, among the dunes, where saw something sticking out of the sand. It looked like an old bottle and he picked it up thinking it would look good on his shelf. Then, as they emptied it of sand, they found a note: a form on the back, a small handwritten note on the back. Tonya had just found a message that had been thrown into the sea from the German ship Paula on June 12, 1886. A message that had taken 132 years to reach its destination. Well, this, just like this, is how we tried to restore sight to blind people: throwing electric bottles into the sea of ​​neurons in our brain. Now a Spanish team wants to change that. What has happened? That a team from the Miguel Hernández University of Elche and the Center for Biomedical Research Network (CIBER) just published data from a new “round-trip” cortical machine vision system; that is, capable of adjusting stimulation according to the neuronal response. The results (despite being in a preclinical phase) they are excellent. How does it work? It is a device of about four millimeters with 100 microelectrodes that is implanted through a small hole of about 10 millimeters. The interesting thing is that it is a system that records and stimulates at the same time. This is what allows you to adapt the stimulus patterns in real time and fine-tune the stimulation to adjust it. And that has been the complicated part. In the end, sending stimuli to the brain is trivial; But during all these years it was a lot like throwing a bottle into the sea: I knew what you were sending, but not what was being received. With these new ones closed, everything changes. Are they the first to get it? Reviewing clinical trials databasesit seems that there are a couple of other companies developing the same type of devices: the trend seems clear and we can see how the market is changing from the They seem to be a little more advanced, but not too much. Which is good news for the UMH and for Spain. It is clear that the only way we have right now to move forward on this problem is ‘personalizing’ the way systems stimulate the brain. And the only way to do it is through these closed circuits. It is still curious that the field of research has survived such notorious failures as those of retinal prostheses (which left many people in the lurch). But here we are, one step closer to being able to look back. Image | Ruiqi Kong In Xataka | Hundreds of blind people received bionic implants to restore their sight. Now they are out of support

A Spaniard has patented a mast that transforms wind and waves into electricity. His invention challenges diesel in ships

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A mast shaken by the wind, the waves pushing without rest: usual scenes in any maritime journey. The interesting thing is that the same movement can serve to generate electricity. A canary who is one step away from being an engineer has designed a system that converts the strength of the ocean into usable energy, with the ambition to reduce the dependence of the diesel in the ships. It is an idea that takes the everyday of the sea and makes it a concrete technical proposal, simple enough to intrigue and ambitious enough to demand validation in the sea. “In the end it is a three -dimensional generator,” Juan Francisco Sarmiento Medina said in an advance of the Podcast of the Stier Groupand described the mechanism with simple images: “Let’s imagine that my arm is the mast. When the wind comes in front, it clashes, as the mast of a flag, and begins to oscillate. The keel works as a piston of a combustion engine (…) then movement occurs in the x, y y y z axes, all under Faraday’s law,” he explained. That narration of the inventor itself forms the technical spine of the project. What exactly is the e-mast. In its LinkedIn account the project appears as E-MAST (Energy Mast System) and is presented as a technology that transforms the structural vibration of the mast into clean electrical energy. According to the textthe system integrates an encapsulated rotor without exposed parts, linear generators and piezoelectric elements to convert oscillations into electricity, and can direct part of the induced air under the keel in the form of microburbujas. The advantages of the inventor are clear: “Without diesel engines, or maintenance. The owner of the boat, as there are no mechanical parts that have to be maintained with oil or that are broken, also reduces costs in that sense,” He pointed to El Español. The inventor also underlines the operational silence due to the absence of external propellers and the total structural integration into existing masts. These benefits, in any case, will require trials to measure power, autonomy and acoustic signature. Of production patent. The applications of applications published by the author encompasses autonomous marine surveillance, oceanographic research, defense and ecological navigation platforms in protected areas. According to Sarmiento Medina, the e-mast is protected by two patents, ES202430338 and ES202430339, with a favorable report according to the promoter. According to the newspaper La Provinciathe promoter figure around half a million euros international protection and development and has conversations with shipyards in France and the Netherlands to explore production. The sea still has the last word. Sarmiento says that he is a neighbor of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and recognizes that part of his learning and opportunities come from the Stier Group, which has supported his training. This local support, added to the intellectual protection that it declares in its public profile, has allowed to convert a daily element of any ship at the base of an ambitious technological proposal. Now the most difficult part remains: validate the system in the sea. But the idea has already demonstrated something important: that there is still margin to imagine new things, even in an environment as old as navigation. Images | Juan Francisco Sarmiento Medina In Xataka | A “Roomba” to clean rivers: the ship that the three throats has launched in China

A Chinese firm has just presented a quadruped that challenges the limits. Boston Dynamics no longer has a clear path

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In a world where the focus seems to be in humanoids as Tesla optimus or the ‘nurse’ robot that already works in a Taiwan hospitala new generation of machines is winning its place. They are fast, resistant and are beginning to show that they can do much more than impress in videos. One of them has just run 100 meters as if their future depended on it, and is Chinese. Quadruped robots also compete. For years, the conversation about advanced robotics has been monopolized by biped figures. Robots that move as humans. But there is another way: that of robots that do not try to imitate us, but overcome ourselves in other areas. The quadrupeds, for example, have been demonstrating its usefulness in difficult terrain, repetitive tasks and, now also, in speed tests. A challenging career. It was just a moment, but it didn’t go unnoticed. How global aims aimduring a live broadcast of Chinese state television, a four -legged robot aligned on an athletic track prepared for something unusual: a 100 -meter race. When the stopwatch was launched, Black Panther II did, the new robot developed by the startup Mirror Me. He completed the route in 13.17 seconds, which is equivalent to an average speed of 7.6 m/s. In that same test, the robot sensors registered a peak of 9.7 m/s, and the company claims to have reached 10.9 m/s in previous internal tests. If that data is confirmed, we would be facing one of the fastest quadrupeds. Is it the fastest in the world? It depends on how you look. The figures invite to breastfeed, but it is always key to put them in context. Black Panther II reached 10.9 m/s in an internal test, which is equivalent to about 39.2 km/h. During the televised race, the registered peak was 9.7 m/s (34.9 km/h). Both figures exceed the official Wildcat,That according to the Boston Dynamics website reaches 30.6 km/h. For its part, the robot Cheetah – also from Boston Dynamics – reached 45.6 km/h (12.6 m/s) In laboratory tests. The demonstration, collected in an official video, was made on a running tape with external food and physical support to maintain balance. Even so, the data remains the highest technical reference registered by a quadruped. With that data, Black Panther II would be below the Cheetah – at least in tip speed – but clearly above Wildcat. In other words: it is one of the fastest quadrupeds ever built, although its brands have not yet been officially certified. For now, the formal title is maintained by the Hound robot, of the Advanced Institute of Science and Technology of Korea, which completed 100 meters in 19.87 seconds (about 18 km/h), As stated in the Guinness book. A young startup with very clear ideas. Mirror’s story didn’t start a long time ago. The company was founded in May 2024 in Shanghai by a group of professors and graduates from the University of Zhejiang. One of the founders is Jin Yongbin, a researcher at the Institute of Innovation in Humanoid Robots, while his partner, Wang Hongtao, is a university professor with trajectory in advanced robotics. In just one year, this startup has gone from developing robotic arms and mechanical hands to compete publicly with companies such as Boston Dynamics. Beyond the Black Panther II, Mirror already works on new prototypes. Among them, a fast bipedo in 2026 and a humanoid that, according to their plans, could act as a personal assistant for the year 2030. Images | Mirror me In Xataka | Elon Musk has updated Grok to look so much to him that AI is having hallucinations: Elon Musk is believed

Runway promises to overcome her with her latest Gen-4 model and challenges Sora de Openai

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Than the generative modelss are achieving increasingly shocking images and videos is no surprise. A few years ago, producing something similar would have required a great manual effort. But it should not lose sight of a reality: although this technology advances at high speed, it still drags important limitations that hinder its use in certain professional environments. One of the great challenges for creators is to maintain visual coherence in the results. In ambitious projects, the generative AI usually has difficulty representing consistently to the same character or object in different planes or environments. Although changes may seem subtle, they are not always easy to manage. Of course, there are those who work to solve it. Runway Gen-4 arrives with coherence as a key piece Runway returns to the load. The Startup based in New York has presented Gen-4its new video generation model. The great novelty: a significant improvement in visual coherence, One of the weak points of models like OpenAi Sora. With this advance, the idea is that creators can build longer narratives without fighting with visual jumps between plans. Gen-3 Alpha, the previous model, already offered a notable level of detail and control. But with Gen-4, the proposal rises level. It is now possible to generate characters, locations and consistent objects throughout multiple scenes. Once the appearance, style and atmosphere are defined, the model maintains those elements unchanged, frame by frame, and in multiple scenes. Gen-4 allows you to use visual references combined with instructions to generate images and videos with styles, locations and topics coherent. In addition to this continuity, the model seeks to highlight for its ability to create dynamic videos, with realistic movements and a remarkable consistency in characters, objects and style. According to Runway, his understanding of the world is “the best of his class.” The best example is found in the video that accompanies this article, one of the many shared by Runway to show Gen-4 capabilities. If we refine our eyes, it is evident that these are synthetic scenes, both in the image and in movement. Even so, it represents a remarkable leap for audiovisual productions that are willing to accept this type of aesthetics. Gen-3 Alpha had already made its appearance in productions such as ‘House of David’, by Amazon Prime Video, and in Puma ads. Now, GEN-4 begins to deploy in Runway’s payment accounts, allowing to generate five-second and ten seconds clips In 720p resolution. Prices range from $ 15 to $ 95 per month, with an Enterprise option for companies, whose cost has not been revealed. Images | Runway In Xataka | The fever for the chatgpt images is “melting” the OpenAi GPUs: the company has already begun to limit access

Scotland has a plan to overcome one of the great challenges of renewable energy: a storage megaplant

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Thanks to strong winds, Scotland has become an ideal place to install wind turbines. The data speak for themselves With an exponential increase In these almost 15 years. However, as a bagpipe, energy also goes like that air, so they have designed what will be the largest storage megabatism in Europe. And there is even more. European megabattery. The British company, Zenobē, has announced That the energy storage plant (Bess) has begun to operate in Blackhillock, Scotland. In addition, it is the first in the world that provides complete services of active and reactive energy. With a capacity of 300MW/600MWh at the moment it is placed as the largest in Europe. However, in the Scottish territory a struggle has opened to see who leads it. It is not there. In its ambition, Scotland will house the three energy storage systems in largest batteries in Europe After an investment of £ 800 million by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP). The projects are Coalburn 2 in South Lanarkshire and Devilla in FIFE, which will be added to Coalburn 1. Currently, the latter is under construction and with an operating date planned for October. Each battery will have a capacity of 500 megawatts, allowing total storage of 3 GW/h to supply 4.5 million homes. Coalburn 2 is expected to enter into operation between 2027 and 2028. The current largest on the continent. The Blackhillock plant has been launched in two phases: 200 MW of initial capacity began operating in March 2025, and phase 2 of 100 MW will be completed in 2026. This installation seeks to improve the reliability of the electrical system, taking advantage of wind energy and storing excess electricity in batteries for use at high demand. The first in the world. As a little above, the central in operation provides complete services of active and reactive energy. In other words, since the United Kingdom He said goodbye to his gas plants They have had to find another way to generate these services. This BlackHillock Bess plant provides them and you will ask what it is. On the one hand, active energy is what is used directly for electricity consumption, while reactive energy helps keep the network tension and guarantee its stability. In summary, it helps to balance the network, especially in times of fluctuations in the supply and demand of electricity. For this reason, they have also found their light bill will benefit. They already noticed that, independent of coal, They had to pay a high pricebut with the new storage system, they expect this to generate a positive impact. Let’s not forget this controversy. More than a year ago, It was discovered that several wind turbines were working with diesel generators for days. This happened because network infrastructure is not always ready to handle fluctuations in renewable energy generation and distribution. For this reason, having a storage system helps prevent this situation from being repeated. The challenge for Europe. The intermission of renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, remains one of the biggest challenges globally. The phenomenon of “Dunkelflaute” Because of this situation and an aged network It positions the storage system in one of the first objectives of the European agenda. In addition, in these types of situations we must look for a solution that allows the integration of stable and accessible renewable generation. There are some European countries that have already begun to invest in energy storage such as the case of Finland or Spain. In the latter, it has been used by a more unique system as They are the reservoirs. Forecasts Scotland, with its renewable wind excess and its limited network infrastructure, has become a strategic point for energy storage. By 2030, it is estimated that 60% of the United Kingdom’s energy will be generated by the wind, with 31% from Scotland. However, these projects have generated some opposition in local communities, concerned about safety, noise pollution and landscape industrialization. Despite this, the Scottish government highlights the importance of these systems to reach zero net, according to collect the Financial Times. Image | Zenobē Xataka | A United Kingdom project has found the easiest way to maintain offshore wind farms: AI and submarine robots

Airbus’s hydrogen plane was going to reach the market in 2035. It has now been delayed in the midst of “great” challenges

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Airbus wanted to take the me. First commercial plane of the world propelled by hydrogen In 2035. The ambitious initiative continues to exist, only that it is not clear when it will end up materializing. The European aerospace giant has recognized that the project is progressing at a slower pace than expected. As Reuters collects He said that “the development of a hydrogen ecosystem, which includes infrastructure, production, distribution and regulatory frameworks, is a great challenge that requires global collaboration and investment.” One of the most important obstacles has to do with obtaining renewable hydrogen. An ambitious project, multiple challenges The main objective of the hydrogen plane is to reduce air transport emissions, and at this point the Hydrogen production: Obtaining large quantities using renewable energy is still complicated. Green hydrogen needs a lot of investment And a long way to go to be widely profitable. Guillaume Faury, CEO of Airbus, has said in the past that there is a doubt that there is sufficient green hydrogen in the future to boost a large number of commercial airplanes, but the company has continued to boost its plans to reduce emissions, which also include the use of Sustainable aviation fuel (SFA). Airbus has not yet given a new calendar for the project, but the signs are not optimistic. According to the Force Ouvrière union, workers were informed this week that technology has a delay between five and ten years with respect to the necessary rhythm. With this panorama, the objective of 2035 seems increasingly complicated. The aforementioned organization has indicated that the European firm is also evaluating the completion of “Certain subprojects” It is not clear if in addition to the aforementioned challenges related to the alternative fuel supply there are other disadvantages in the development of proposed aircraft. Airbus presented three concepts in 2020. The first, a turbofán with capacity for about 200 passengers and a range of 3,704 kilometers. The second, a more content turbohyl, designed for about 100 passengers and with 1,852 kilometers of reach. And the third, a mixed wing model, also turbophah, with the same figures as the first. The company also contemplated two propulsion systems. On the one hand, the Hydrogen combustionwith gas turbines with modified fuel injectors. On the other hand, a completely electrical propulsion system with hydrogen fuel batteries, which feed electric motors that turn the propellers or plane turbines. Images | Airbus In Xataka | A report has revealed that US air traffic control technology is obsolete. There are pieces that are no longer achieved

Volkswagen faces challenges due to Trump policies: this happens

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With the arrival of donald trump to the White House, the international automotive sector faces an uncertain outlook. The protectionist policies of the new American president have raised concerns in conglomerates such as the Volkswagen Groupwhich operates globally and depends on a complex production and distribution network. Read also: Hyundai Venue: the cheapest in the United States from Hyundai Trump’s promise to impose tariffs on goods manufactured outside the United States threatens to reconfigure trade relations between both sides of the Atlantic. You can read: The electric boom continues to grow in the US. Trump’s focus is on encouraging domestic manufacturing as a measure to strengthen the US economy. However, this position generates tensions with companies that have plants in countries such as Mexico, Europe and China. “The Volkswagen Group is concerned about the damaging economic impact that the tariffs proposed by the US administration will have on American consumers and the international auto industry. “We value collaboration and open dialogue,” stated a company spokesperson in an interview published by Automotive News Europe. The threat of tariffs Among Trump’s proposals, the possibility of imposing a 25% tariff on products imported from Mexico stands out. This move would directly affect the Volkswagen Group, which operates one of its main production plants in Puebla, Mexico. From there, the company manufactures around 350,000 vehicles annuallyincluding models such as the Jetta, Tiguan and Taos, which are mainly exported to the United States. Although the tariff has not been made official, Trump has suggested that these measures could go into effect as soon as on February 1, 2025. In addition, the president has also hinted at the possibility of applying tariffs on products from Europe, which could further complicate the situation for Volkswagen and other European manufacturers. A very challenging panorama The Volkswagen Group’s reliance on cross-border operations is a key piece of its business model. The plants in Mexico not only produce vehicles for the United States, but also for global markets. The possibility of these operations being affected by tariffs raises questions about the sustainability of its current strategy. “The Volkswagen Group looks forward to continuing its long-standing and constructive collaboration with the US administration”the spokesperson insisted, underlining the company’s willingness to dialogue with the authorities. Volkswagen Golf eHybrid logo. Credit: Volkswagen.Credit: Courtesy Impact beyond the United States The challenge is not limited to North America. In Europe, the Volkswagen Group faces growing competition from Chinese manufacturers offering vehicles at lower prices. At the same time, the company is struggling to remain competitive in the electric vehicle segment, a market in which Chinese manufacturers are also gaining ground. China, a key market for Volkswagen, also presents difficulties. In recent years, the company has experienced a decline in sales in this country, adding to global pressure. In response, Volkswagen has stepped up its efforts to develop a line of affordable electric vehiclesa crucial measure to stay relevant in a rapidly changing market. Faced with this complicated panorama, the Volkswagen Group is evaluating various strategies to mitigate the impact of Trump’s policies and other global challenges. Options include the possibility of increasing production in the United States, diversifying its supply chains and accelerating the electrification of its fleet. However, each of these solutions presents significant challenges in terms of investment and time. Trump’s protectionist speech could also influence the decisions of other countries. While Europe has traditionally been a supporter of free trade, the possibility of trade retaliation could exacerbate international tensions. For Volkswagen, this means operating in an increasingly complex and fragmented environment. The Volkswagen Group finds itself at a crossroads. Donald Trump’s protectionist policies represent a significant challenge for the automotive giant, which will need to adapt quickly to avoid a negative impact on its business. Although the road ahead is filled with uncertainty, the company is confident that open dialogue and collaboration with the US administration will be key to getting through this period of “challenging times.”

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