china

China has just crossed a red line in Taiwan. They are no longer drones, they are their fighters shooting “attached” to the Taiwanese F-16s

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China has been tightening the siege on Taiwan for years with pressure constant and calculated: increasingly frequent air raids, naval exercises large scalesymbolic crosses of the midline of the strait and military deployments designed to rememberwithout firing a single shot, that the island lives under permanent surveillance. This strategy of attrition, made of demonstrations of force and controlled ambiguity, has marked the relationship between Beijing and Taipei long before the current pulse reached disturbing levels. One (another) red line. If a few weeks ago we said that China had taken a qualitative step in its military pressure on Taiwan by crossing the island’s airspace with a military dronehas now redoubled its efforts, going from intimidating maneuvers to direct aerial encounters with manned fighters flying meters away and firing flares near Taiwanese planes, an escalation that multiplies the risk of accident and turns intimidation into something much closer to a deliberate clash. during exercises “Justice Mission”J-16 planes of the People’s Liberation Army not only came dangerously close to Taiwanese F-16s when they came to intercept them near the middle line of the strait, but they also arrived to launch flares at close range, a maneuver considered unsafe even by demanding military standards and that marks a before and after in the face of previous, more indirect provocations. From symbolic pressure to physical risk. In just 24 hours, dozens of Chinese aircraft crossed the midline of the strait and penetrated the airspace controlled by Taiwan, showing a pattern of behavior that no longer seems to seek only to saturate radars or send political messages, but rather to put enemy pilots in extreme situations. Unlike radar jamming or the presence of military drones, these encounters centimeters away introduce a human and physical factor. much more dangerouswhere a mistake, turbulence, or knee-jerk reaction can trigger an immediate crisis between China and Taiwan. One of the Chinese J-16 fighters photographed during Chinese People’s Liberation Army military exercises while being monitored by a Taiwanese F-16V aircraft Intimidating maneuvers. The actions were not limited to direct harassment: Chinese fighters used concealment tactics flying close to H-6K bombers to evade radars, revealing itself, according to local Taiwanese media, “ostentatiously” by displaying missiles at close range, in maneuvers compared by observers to historical tricks of military infiltration. They remembered in the Financial Times That this behavior, described by some sources as more typical of a “thug” than a professional pilot, reinforces the feeling that Beijing is testing new risk thresholds to measure the Taiwanese and allied response. A regional pattern. What happened around Taiwan is not an isolated event, but part of a incident sequence in which the Chinese air force has raised the tone towards neighbors like Japan and the Philippinesincluding blocking radar and firing flares against patrol aircraft. In fact, analysts warn that the next logical step in this escalation could be to operate regularly within the 12 nautical miles of Taiwanese territorial airspace, a scenario that would then exponentially increase the risk of collision or armed confrontation. Political pressure and risk of lack of control. If you like, this increase in boldness coincides with those publicized changes in the chain of command China and with political pressure from Xi Jinping for the armed forces to demonstrate their preparation for an eventual conflict, which could be pushing pilots and commanders to take risks that were previously avoided. Under that prism, Beijing would not only have crossed another red line against Taiwan, but would have entered a phase in which aerial intimidation ceases to be a calculated game and becomes a much more dangerous gamble, one with potentially explosive consequences for regional stability and security. appearance of “third parties” on the board. Image | 日本防衛省・統合幕僚監部, Ministry of National Defense In Xataka | China already has drones capable of shooting with surgical precision at 100 meters. Not good news for Taiwan In Xataka | The biggest geopolitical risk on the planet is not Greenland. It’s a smaller island with a disturbing neighbor: Taiwan

Apple begins the reconquest of China thanks to the strong point of the iPhone 17 Pro: it is orange

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Color psychology is a tremendously studied field. Something as simple as a color can trigger feelings subconsciouslybeing the use of green color in the scenes of the villains of classic Disney one of the best examples. It also depends on our languagebut I feel such a powerful weapon, it is evident that it is used consciously in the marketing and colors of the products. And there is nothing that exemplifies it better than China’s fever for the iPhone 17 Pro. For one in particular: the orange iPhone. In short. China is a market with immense potential for companies that want to exploit it. They are simple numbersand Apple has just witnessed what happens when they hit the key. How do they count in Financial TimesIn Apple’s recent financial presentation, Tim Cook welcomed the rebound in iPhone sales in China during the fourth quarter of 2025. The last and first sections of each year are the strong points of an Apple that usually launches its new devices between September and November of each year, but in the last quarter of 2025 they have experienced something unusual: income of 26,000 million dollars, marking a growth of 38% year-on-year in China and accounting for a fifth of the company’s total income. Taking into account the continuity in terms of specifications and fierce competition with Xiaomi, Alive and one Huawei that has returned on its ownit’s… curious. But it seems that the person responsible is none other than one color. cosmic orange. It is the model we analyzed, clearly the most striking of Apple’s colors for the latest batch of iPhone and the one that is causing a stir in China. Orange is a color that distills energy, happiness and vitality. It is a warm color, and in China it also has a meaning positive related to the vitality of the crops, but also with spirituality and with the association of “orange” and “success” due to the similarity in Mandarin. And it seems like a joke, but it’s not. As we said, the colors of a device are not chosen at random, and this one has also landed on the right foot in the Asian giant. Nabila Popal, research director of the analyst group IDCnotes in the FT that “it sounds simple, but iPhone sales respond to obvious external changes in the design, which include the introduction of a garish orange color.” Viral. But it is no longer that Chinese consumers are buying the orange iPhone because it symbolizes that vitality, but because it symbolizes status. The shade of Apple’s ‘Cosmic Orange’ is very, very similar to the classic Hermès Orange, a luxury brand with which Apple itself has collaborated on some occasions (for Apple Watch straps, for example). It is something that has made the orange iPhone Pro transcend: from being a premium range phone to a luxury accessory. And of course, it is only in the most expensive model, the Pro, which increases that even more. perception to have a luxury accessory. “Choosing orange means that everyone knows that you are using the latest iPhone. It is a statement of identity,” said an influencer in one of the -many- unboxings of the orange iPhone that are seen on Chinese networks. Beyond color. Aside from the fact that color has had an impact on the sale of iPhones in China during the last period, the interesting thing is that Apple has managed to turn the tables. It has presented its strongest quarter since the first of 2022, the year in which it stood out and which has been followed by three periods of dcadence compared to national competition. Huawei, in particular, was very strong after recovering from the US veto and starting to launch high-end mobile phones again, this time with home-made chips. Apple should not be too amused about calling the orange iPhone “the Hermès iPhone,” but seeing how viral it is, it’s not like this mix of identities should be a headache in Cupertino. Now the question is whether they will start launching other devices and models in orange to try their luck in China… or if they will withdraw it, leaving the color as an exclusive to the iPhone 17. It wouldn’t be the first time. Image | Xataka In Xataka | For Apple, the price of its iPhones was sacred. Until it began to fall into the void in China

The US recorded something strange underground and didn’t know what it was. Now he has just accused China of pressing the nuclear button

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During the Cold War, even at times of greatest nuclear tension, Washington and Moscow maintained an unwritten rule: If a test was done, the world had to find out. The explosions were political signals as much as military experiments, designed to be seen, measured and, of course, feared. Therefore, talking about detonations so small that they barely leave a seismic trace and about tests designed not to be detected, generates great concern. The United States just accused China exactly that. An unprecedented accusation. It happened last Friday, when the United States denounced China for having carried out at least a nuclear test with explosive performance in 2020 and to prepare for other low-power ones, a complaint made in Geneva through by Undersecretary Thomas DiNanno just as the classical arms control framework is collapsing after the New START expiration. According to Washington, Beijing would have resorted to decoupling techniques to dampen seismic signals and hide underground detonations, an accusation of enormous political significance because it breaks the previous ambiguity and indicates for the first time a specific date, the June 22, 2020in the midst of debate over whether the United States should recover the option of testing nuclear weapons again. The diffuse limit. The technical and legal background is key to understanding the controversy, since both China and the United States have signed, but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treatyallowing subcritical testing no self-sustaining nuclear reaction but prohibits any explosion with measurable output. Washington maintains that Beijing would have crossed that line with evidence very low powerdifficult to detect, while the body in charge of verification, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, ensures that its network did not detect no event compatible with a nuclear explosion that day, thus underlining the fragility of a control system that never came into full force. Lop Nur, satellites and silent expansion. It we have counted other times. American suspicions are also supported by satellite images and intelligence analysis that point to intense activity in the historic Lop Nur polygonwith new excavations, tunnels and drilling that could be used for both subcritical tests and higher performance detonations. This movement fits with the rapid expansion of the Chinese arsenal, which would already exceed the 600 nuclear warheads and could reach a thousand before 2030reinforcing the perception in Washington that the real strategic challenge is no longer Moscow but a Beijing with the capacity and will to challenge US military primacy. A new nuclear race scenario. The Washington complaint comes accompanied by a clear political message: without binding limits, transparency or verification mechanisms that include China, the system inherited from the Cold War ceases to serve, and the United States reserves the right to adopt “parallel steps”including the resumption of testing, if it considers that other actors are breaking the rules. Beijing strongly rejects accusations, claims its moratorium and its doctrine of no first use, but the simple verbal clash shows a change of phase, one with the risk that the end of New START and mutual distrust open the door to a new nuclear race in which small, almost invisible explosions can have enormous strategic consequences. Image | CCTV In Xataka | Nuclear fusion is humanity’s great utopia in the short term: China has already set a date for it In Xataka | China is building something that looks like an oil well. It is actually a nuclear bunker with a command center

There is only one market in China where European brands dominate. Exactly, the one that no one cares about

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Much has been written about the decline in sales of European and traditional manufacturers in China. Volkswagens, Porsches and Mercedes have collapsed in a market that, until very recently, was key when it came to presenting results year after year. Have they collapsed? Not in all markets. In one they are still leaders. Exactly, the one that no one cares about. Leaders. A ranking where 18 of the 20 best-selling cars in China are not Chinese? Yes. It is the extra-luxury market, the one where cars that cost more than a million Chinese yuan are collected, almost 122,000 euros in direct exchange. They collect in CarNewsChina that in this list only BYD has made it among the best sellers. The rest, 90% of the list, is made up of the so-called traditional brands. If we remove Lexus, which is Asian and enters with its Lexus LM (a minivan with a screen that crosses the entire width of the car) and its Lexus LS, the rest are European brands. Yes, Europe also rules in China but it does so in a market of ridiculous volume. Porsche dominates here. The best-selling car over one million yuan is the Porsche Cayenne. Before its renewal that will offer an electric version, the Porsche SUV leads this table with 17,194 units sold in 2025. Land Rover closes the podium, which has placed the Range Rover and the Defender as the second and third best-selling car in this group. Below, Porsche repeats again with the Panamera (fourth classified) and will appear again with the Taycan. But the brand that is most repeated is Mercedes. Cars signed by the brand appear up to seven times, although, yes, it accumulates the sales of the AMG and Maybach divisions separately. Their S Class (fifth, signed by Maybach, and sixth classified) are the best sellers. It also appears with the G-Class and the GLS. The exception. From the Chinese market, only BYD penetrates this hyper-luxury market. It does so with the YangWang U8 and its even longer version, the U8L. This car, both versions of which have exceeded a thousand units, is a gigantic SUV with extended range options (plug-in hybrids with very wide electric range) that has become famous because it is capable of floating on rivers thanks to the enormous power of its wheels. A drop in the ocean (1). There are two problems for European manufacturers. The first is more than evident: its sales are very low. Porsche, which in 2020 shipped almost 89,000 units in China has closed 2025 selling less than half (it has fallen short of 42,000 units). The drop compared to 2024 is 26%. Mercedes boasted when it comes to presenting results of continuing to lead the extra-luxury market in the Asian country. The accumulated sales in this list exceed 38,000 units but the fact that the twentieth place is the Mercedes-AMG GLS with 83 units sold throughout the year gives an idea of ​​its size and its competition. Yeah, Mercedes sold almost 460,000 units in China last year but it is 12% less than the previous year and is very far from the almost 775,000 units placed in 2020. A drop in the ocean (2). This market, if we analyze its best classifieds, almost entirely lacks electric cars. The closest thing is the plug-in hybrid versions, like those offered by BYD. They are automobiles, pure gasoline ones, that are clearly declining in China. Where in 2020 17.8 million gasoline cars were sold Today 10.85 million cars of this type are sold. New energy cars (plug-in hybrids and electric) already account for 60% of sales in the Asian country. In Autohomeexplain that this situation has weakened brands that have collaborations with European automotive companies. They give as an example the case of Maiteng, a company associated with Volkswagen that was a symbol of status and recognition and that has had to lower its prices to continue selling. Right now, the market where European manufacturers succeed is the niche of the niche. They don’t even consider it. But there is also another reason why Europeans succeed in this market. The Chinese don’t even consider entering it. With the market clearly betting on its local manufacturers, they are offering their most advanced cars at “affordable” prices compared to foreign manufacturers. Already in his presentation, the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra highlighted its price difference with the Tesla Model S (DEP) and Porsche Taycan Turbo. While the first one came on the market with a price of 814,900 yuan (it would not be included in the previous list), the German one cost almost two million Chinese yuan. The price war in China has pressured all companies to reduce their prices drastically. This has left out traditional companies that have found an evident loss of competitiveness in all types of markets, from general to luxury, where Chinese manufacturers are offering features and equipment typical of hyper-luxury segments in cars that, due to price, do not fall into that category. Photo | Hong Wei Fan and Arthur Wang In Xataka | We tested the Ojo de Dios with which BYD wants to break the market: autonomous driving for a 9,000 euro car

China surrounded an enclave with robots. Now they have been given a rifle to shoot at 100 meters, and the result points to an island

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China has been leaving increasingly explicit clues about how it imagines future conflicts. In 2025, PLA maneuvers included island assault exercises minors using ground robots and unmanned systems, a sign that Beijing is no longer testing only classic amphibious crossings, but scenarios where machines make way before soldiers. Those practices marked a clear direction: Combat automation was no longer a distant theory, but something China was beginning to test on the ground. Now he has amplified it. Drones with rifle. China has made a qualitative leap in the use of combat drones by demonstrating that a UAV armed with a standard assault rifle can be 100% right of his shots against a human target at 100 meters while remaining in hover. The system, developed by a Chinese company together with the PLA special operations academy, fired 20 times and placed half of the hits in a comparable radius. a shot to the heada result that makes it clear that these are no longer experimental platforms but rather precision weapons ready for real environments. Extra ball. It does not seem like a specific experiment or a laboratory demonstration: the team itself has explained that the only “imperfect” shot was due defective ammunitionnot the system, making this test an unmistakable sign of where Chinese combat power is headed. Taiwan and a problem. This progress cannot be understood without the Taiwan backdropone of the most urbanized territories on the planet, where any military operation would require fighting in dense megacities, full of civilians, underground infrastructure and narrow streets that neutralize many traditional advantages. For the PLA, the challenge is not just cross the seabut to dominate neighborhoods, subway stations and residential complexes where human infantry suffer enormous political and military costs. The Chinese response to this dilemma is neither doctrinal nor moral, but technical: dealing with urban warfare as an engineering problem which can be solved by delegating violence to machines capable of moving, identifying targets and shooting without fatigue or fear. A bet. In fact, recalled in The Diplomat that the essay of the armed drone fits into the third major phase of Chinese military modernization, the so-called “intelligentization,” which seeks to replace human decisions with distributed artificial intelligence systems. Having mechanized and digitized its forces, the PLA now aims to delegate key functions (detection, prioritization and attack) to algorithms that operate faster than any human chain of command. In this framework, a drone with a rifle is not a curiosity, but rather an elemental piece of an ecosystem where sensors, weapons and software act in a coordinated manner, reducing the role of the soldier. to a mere initial authorizer or, in the extreme, eliminating him from decision-making altogether. Swarms in alleys. There is much more, because the medium stood out documents and studies linked to Chinese military universities that reveal that the target is not individual drones, but autonomous swarms specifically designed for urban warfare. These systems are designed to operate at low altitudes, inside buildings, indoors and underground, even when communications are degraded or non-existent. Through simple rules and self-organization, swarms They could patrol areastrack people and execute attacks without receiving orders in real time, a solution that the PLA consider ideal to neutralize defenses in cities such as Taipei or Kaohsiung and to eliminate key objectives before external forces can intervene. The gray area of ​​legality. The technological bet is accompanied by a legal position deliberately ambiguous by Beijing on lethal autonomous weapons. As? Defining as unacceptable Only those systems that simultaneously meet a series of very strict criteria, China leaves itself a wide margin to develop weapons capable of killing without direct human supervision, as long as they can be stopped in theory or follow pre-programmed rules. This ambiguity, they say, contrasts with documented risks of AI in combat (identification errors, inability to interpret human intentions, data biases) and makes it easier for research to advance without clear regulatory brakes. The future that is being tested today. In short, the drone that shoot with surgical precision at 100 meters is not an anecdote, but tangible proof of where the Beijing strategy: move the war to the heart of the city and delegate it to machines. There is no doubt that if this model is applied in a conflict such as Taiwan, the combination of autonomous swarms, integrated light weapons and decisions without human intervention could multiply the risk for civilians and reduce the political thresholds for the use of force. From that prism, what is presented today as a technical experiment is, in reality, a most disturbing preview: that of an urban war where the alleys are no longer patrolled by soldiers, but by armed robots that will never ask questions. Image | Heeheemalu In Xataka | The biggest geopolitical risk on the planet is not Greenland. It’s a smaller island with a disturbing neighbor: Taiwan In Xataka | 200 drones in the hands of a single soldier: China is advancing very quickly in a type of war that seemed like science fiction

China has given the green light to buy NVIDIA chips. The problem for your companies is that you will closely monitor each operation

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NVIDIA has hundreds of thousands of H200 chips trapped in limbo. It is one of the company’s most powerful chips and the standard of the companies that are training AI. It is preferred for train the modelsand also the weapon with which The United States sought to leave China out of the game. After movements by the two countries, The US finally approved (25% commission through) that NVIDIA could sell the H200 to Chinese companies. China has taken some time, but finally it seems that it will accept the offer reluctantly and with an ace up its sleeve: DeepSeek. The mess. The H200 issue is a soap opera. In the context of the trade and technology warthe United States played one of the best cards they had: preventing one of their most powerful products from reaching Chinese hands. They also hindered European companies like ASML from selling their most advanced machinery for making semiconductors to companies like Huawei or SMIC. China responded, of course. He attacked with rare earth -that control almost exclusively– and has been showing little by little that they can not only create advanced semiconductors on your own (and pushing old technology to the limit), but they are alive and well in the battle for artificial intelligence. Furthermore, they have developed a robotics industry and other aerospace practically out of nowhere, making a vacuum to Western chips, and that has caught the United States on the wrong foot. China makes a move. Seeing that China was advancing and the US was not getting a cent, they moved tab: They opened the door for NVIDIA to sell its H200s to certain Chinese customers. For each sale, the US took 25%, but it seems that it was something that the Chinese Big-Tech wanted to take on because they need, at least currently, that NVIDIA technology. And the GPU company itself increased production expecting two million orders above normal. The problem is that everything moved very quickly. without China, really, having said anything. Because here it is not just a question of whether the United States lets it sell, but whether China wants its companies to buy. In a tense calm that left requests halted and thousands of H200 in limbo, China has finally made a move. According to Reuters, and as we told a few days agothere are companies that will be able to place orders for the H200. There is a “but”. It is not carte blanche for anyone to place an order. According to WSJ, Chinese authorities have indicated that each purchase must be for a use considered “necessary.” That includes advanced research or development in AI. Because two factors come into play here: On the one hand, it seems that there are Chinese companies that are pressuring the Government to let them access the technology. NVIDIA was allowed to sell the H20 to Chinese customers, but if these customers can now buy the H200 – six times more capable – they want to take advantage of it. But China does not want everyone to throw themselves into the arms of NVIDIA because, precisely, they have been building their own semiconductor industry for five years with SMIC and Huawei in the lead. China’s goal is to stop depending on the US, and if everyone starts buying US chips like crazy, they will not advance on the technological roadmap that the country marked a long time ago. That is to say, it seems that Chinese regulators are going to evaluate which companies can or cannot buy the H200 depending on the use they want to give it. It has been reported that, for example, ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent will be able to import 400,000 H200 chips. But there is a twist to all this. deepseek. China’s quintessential artificial intelligence model is one that has turned both NVIDIA and the United States upside down. The question was how it was possible that, without access to the latest technology, DeepSeek could optimize its AI so much. On the one hand, ingenuity to circumvent the CUDA standard. On the other hand, there are those who are clear that DeepSeek has been trained with NVIDIA cards… smuggled. Accusations of smuggling are nothing new in this commercial and technological war, but precisely, and according to Reutersthe company that joins NVIDIA’s massive H200 order along with ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent is… DeepSeek. Officially, and without restrictions, they will be able to access the H200. “We have given China the argument to launch its own industry and, at the same time, we are giving them access to ours again” – Samuel Bresnick Whiplash. I really liked this concept that Wired uses to define American policy in this regard. They are the ones who started the conflict and their position has been pivoting about tariffsbut with more or less lax measures depending on the moment. It seems clear that, now, they are at a point where they have had to think “if China is going to somehow reach the technology, at least we sell it and earn something along the way.” Samuel Bresnick is a researcher at the Georgetown Center for Security and Technology and comments in Wired that the worst thing you can do is “come and go,” noting that “we have given China the argument to launch its own industry and, at the same time, we once again give them access to ours.” Get your batteries. And meanwhile, there’s Jensen Huang. The CEO of NVIDIA has taken a mass bath in recent days in both China and Taiwan, where he has met with some of the companies that move the semiconductor sector. NVIDIA sat at the same table, TSMCFoxconn or Asus, and Huang came out, half joking, half seriouswith one request: you need wafers and RAM. Regarding the purchase of the H200, China is walking on eggshells, and it makes perfect sense. It is at a point where it does not want to be left behind, and to do so it needs its … Read more

The world is amazed by Moltbot (formerly Clawdbot). It turns out that China had already invented it almost a year ago

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The phenomenon of the end of January has been Molbotformerly known as Clawdbot. It is one of the AI agents most powerful of the moment, to the point that it warns of its own risks even before being installed. An agent who seemed to have no competitor and to be one of a kind. We were wrong. TARS-1.5. Although it has not made as much noise, in April 2025 it was launched UI-TARS-1.5an open source multimodal agent capable of performing all types of tasks within desktop environments. UI-TARS-1.5 is a multimodal agent designed to interact with the digital world through graphical interfaces, using the screen, mouse and keyboard. It came into the hands of Bytedance, a company behind giants like TikTok and one of the main players in the development of artificial intelligence in China. The difference. 1.5 is an AI agent designed to use a computer as a person would do. See the screen, identify visual elements and act using mouse and keyboard. Unlike Moltbot, it does not execute code or commands directly on the system, but rather interacts with the PC from the outside, at the interface level. It’s safer by design, because you can’t break the system by running arbitrary code. In addition, it reasons before each action, which reduces errors accumulated in long tasks. UI-TARS does not control your computer. He uses it. Moltbot does not use your computer. He controls it. What can you do? UI-TARS interacts “talking” with your computer. It is capable of executing tasks in our interface by analyzing what is in it. Serves as a programming assistant. It can behave like a human to test apps. It works as a tutor to perform complex tasks. You can manage desktop tasks and PC management. Why is it important. The new war for AI will not focus exclusively on models like Gemini, ChatGPT or Claude: the next step is to achieve a local AI capable of acting like a human, but with certain security guarantees. Moltbot, UI-TARS, Kimmi K2.5 (also Chinese)… Although agentic AI sounds distant, the war to make it part of our daily lives has been brewing for years. Image | Xataka In Xataka | Studying with AI without thinking teaches nothing: these tips can help you take advantage of it and really learn

China is telling us what a future full of electric cars looks like. And we already know which are the most reliable brands

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The conquest of China in the automobile industry global has made us increasingly pay attention to the country’s manufacturers and the models that are coming out every year. China leads in new energy vehiclesalthough the reliability of their cars has always been questioned. The latest report Quality test launched by the analysis firm LandRoads offers us a very interesting perspective, as it studies the models that have initially caused the least problems since their purchase. In this aspect, the ranking places the Xiaomi SU7 as the most reliable large sedan, while the Tesla Model 3 dominates among the midsize models. Below these lines we tell you all the details. What is the ranking about?. LandRoads has published its annual report on quality in electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles in the Chinese market, analyzing 6,950 incidents reported by users. According to the report, 3,687 were quality problems and 3,263 were design-related. In the overall ranking by brand, AITO tops the list with a quality risk index of 123 points, followed by Mercedes-Benz (126) and Tesla (146). Image: ChinaEVHome. Source: LandRoads Why does it matter? The Chinese electric vehicle market is immersed in a frenetic race to incorporate more technology and functions. However, the study gives us clues that not all manufacturers are facing this battle completely well. The three main problems reported were noise (24.6% of complaints), exterior components (18%) and failures in intelligent systems (17.3%). Together they represent more than 60% of incidents, pointing out the critical points where the industry needs to improve. Categories. Highlights of the report indicate that: In medium-large sedans and above, the Xiaomi SU7 wins with an index of 108 points, well ahead of the Stelato S9 (218) and the IM L6 (237), according to LandRoads data. In midsize and compact sedans, the Tesla Model 3 leads with 104 points, followed by the Nio Firefly, BMW i3, Geely Galaxy Xingyuan and BYD Seal 06 GT. Among large SUVs, the top three spots go to AITO models: the M9 (88 points), M8 (98) and M7 (135), with the Li Auto L8 and Voyah FREE completing the top five. In medium and compact SUVs, the Avatr 07 stands out (92 points), ahead of the BYD Sealion 05 EV, Yuan UP, Tesla Model Y and Yuan Plus. In MPVs, the Voyah Dreamer records the best result with 192 points. Balance. The report also points out a phenomenon he calls a “high-equipment, high-risk concentration zone.” And according to LandRoads, as some manufacturers rapidly accumulate new features, the maturity and stability of the systems does not advance at the same pace, amplifying the risk of vehicle quality. According to the study, AITO, Xiaomi, NIO, Zeekr, Li Auto and Voyah have managed to maintain low risk rates despite offering high levels of equipment. More mature electronic architectures, better coordination with suppliers and exhaustive validation systems in all types of scenarios come into play here. Looking long term. LandRoads concludes in its study that the electric vehicle industry is moving from simply adding features and functions to the integration capacity and long-term stability of all these novel systems. Furthermore, seeing Aito above manufacturers like Mercedes or Tesla gives us clues about the transition we are experiencing and the ability of Chinese manufacturers to produce a product that lives up to it. Cover image | aboodi vesakaran and Aito In Xataka | Aid for electric cars is complicated: the Auto+ Plan comes with less money, more demands and a key question to resolve

Tesla popularized “invisible” car door handles. China has just handed down its death sentence

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In China they have been wanting for a long time ban retractable handles of the vehicles, a design commonly popularized by Tesla. It is no wonder, since over the last few years we have witnessed serious fatal and safety incidents involving this type of handles. The regulations will force many of the best-selling models on the market to be redesigned. what has happened. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China has approved a new safety regulation that will come into force on January 1, 2027. The regulation prohibits door handles recessed in the body and requires that all vehicles have visible handles and a mechanical opening system on each door, according to they count from Financial Times. Why is it important. The hidden handle design has become popular in recent years in electric cars. In China they had been following Tesla’s example for a long time, looking for a more minimalist aesthetic and small aerodynamic improvements. Virtually all of the major electric car manufacturers in China have models with retractable handles. However, these designs have proven to be dangerous in emergency situations. The trigger. A fatal accident in 2024 with Aito’s M7 SUV was one of the main triggers. Three people, including a two-year-old child, died after a crash. Videos shared on social media showed rescue teams breaking windows to try to save victims. As Aito explained in a statement, “the power and signal cables were immediately cut, preventing the handle controller from receiving the ejection signal.” The concern continued after two accidents with the Xiaomi SU7whose videos showed people struggling to open the vehicle doors to rescue those inside, without luck. What the regulations require. Just like they explain from CarNewsChina, the ‘GB 48001-2026’ standard states that each door must have a mechanical exterior handle located in specific areas of the door surface, with sufficient space for manual operation in emergencies such as deployment of restraint systems or battery problems. Electric handles must include independent mechanical mechanisms capable of withstanding forces of at least 500 N. On the other hand, inside, each side door must have at least one mechanical opening handle with graphic symbols of at least 100 mm × 70 mm and clearly visible instructions or pictographic symbols. Impact on the industry. The regulations will affect numerous models from manufacturers such as Xiaomi, BYD and others that have adopted designs similar to Tesla. Bill Russo, founder of Automobility, counted to FT that the standard will require changes to some models but not a complete redesign. “Many manufacturers already design alternative handle solutions for export markets with different regulations,” he explains. “With the new regulation, we will be ready to change any handle as the government wants,” Stella Li, executive vice president of BYD, told Bloomberg TV. Outside China. Perhaps the most notorious case is in the United States, where the issue of hidden handles is also being investigated. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened investigations on Tesla Model Y and Model 3 over concerns about the accessibility of their vehicles in emergencies. A particularly serious accident in California that caused the death of three teenagers in a Cybertruckwhere neither the occupants nor anyone close to the incident could open the doors through the hidden handles and reinforced glass, prompted Congress to take action and Tesla to announce a redesign of its handles. Cover image | Eyosias G In Xataka | Putting solar panels on an electric car sounds like a total win-win: the reality of extra autonomy is a bucket of cold water

Tesla has revolutionized the industry with a 9,000-ton Giga Press. China has responded with the world’s largest

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Tesla has revolutionized car production. He has done it with the help of his Giga Press, a huge assembler capable of producing huge parts of the chassis to save time and money. In their race to lower costs, numerous brands have ordered their own. And a Chinese manufacturer has the largest in the world. What is a Giga Press? A Giga Press It is a machine capable of producing huge parts of a car chassis in a single process. Until now, those huge pieces have been (and continue to be for most manufacturers) assembled separately, slowly taking shape like a 10,000-piece puzzle. What is achieved with a Giga Press is to reduce the number of those pieces that have to be assembled. That is to say, simplify the puzzle. This is achieved with a huge press into which the material is injected to produce the part and the mold is pressed with great force to obtain the desired final part. Why is it so important? With the Giga Press, Tesla has managed to save time and money in the production of their vehicles. By simplifying the process, you can produce much more in less time and, therefore, amortize the investment more quickly. In fact, one’s own Tesla trusts in new evolutions to be able to reduce hypotheticals but also there are not a few companies that have ordered theirs with a view to achieving these same results. The largest in the world, of course, is in China. 16,000 tons. This is the figure that the Giga Press that Dongfeng has in its facilities in Wuhan (China) manages to apply, as reported in Car News China. This company has been working since last January with a new machine capable of casting parts with a pressure never before seen in the industry. The machine, they explain in the middle, has been designed, developed and produced entirely in China by LK Machinery which also provides these machines to other companies like XPeng. To give us an idea, Tesla’s Giga Press are capable of assembling parts with 9,000 tons of pressure. In this case, Dongfeng will dedicate the pressing to parts of battery casings of their electric cars. They assure that the machine will improve the rigidity of the assembly and the protection of the energy accumulator. Each piece moves forward every 135 seconds. And it’s not the only one. In parallel, Dongfeng will also have another press, this one capable of applying 10,000 tons of pressure. In this case it has a moving part and a stationary mold. The latter is filled with molten steel at a temperature of 720ºC and the moving part is placed on it. From there, pressure is applied until the new piece is shaped. The objective between both presses is to produce up to 600,000 pieces annually to incorporate into your cars. For now, in the first phase, up to 200,000 pieces will be counted and the objective is to gradually scale production until reaching the desired cruising speed. Both machines are the result of a clear commitment to this type of machines in China in recent years. Already in 2021, InsideEVs It stated that local manufacturers were looking for their own and, above all, that Tesla had managed to locate the supply of its suppliers in China so the materials used in the Shanghai machine did not have to be imported from third countries. It has its problems. Although the mass pressing of parts has revolutionized the industry and many manufacturers have sought their own machines, the truth is that this type of production It also has its negative side. And millions of copies are needed to amortize the set and get economic return on a very important investment. This also requires maintaining a design for a long time because any variation in the part forces the production line to stop for too long until the desired original mold is found. That “slave” design of the brand itself is one of the problems that Tesla has encountered, which is that it cannot launch cars on the market with new variations beyond small aesthetic touches. Photo | LK Machinery In Xataka | Tesla was supposed to be a company that sold cars. And the problem is that it is stopping selling them at full speed

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