Europe

Europe has an expiration date for traditional air conditioners and is already considering alternatives: air without refrigerants

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While half of Europe fights the heat with a fan and air conditioning, in France, some businesses They have experienced real avalanches of buyers desperate to get their hands on a device before it runs out, according to they collect in Wired. Turning on these devices in half of Europe is precisely the type of situation that the European Union prefers to avoid for reasons of security. energy efficiency and consumption. However, a group of scientists and companies were already working on air conditioners that completely dispense with refrigerant gases. The first prototypes are already leaving the laboratory to be tested in real buildings. Air conditioners without refrigerants. Several research teams, most based in Europe, have developed cooling systems based on materials that change temperature by subjecting them to an external force (whether pressure, electric current or magnetic fields), instead of resorting to the traditional cycle of compression and expansion of gases. This technology is known as solid-state cooling and, according to the researchers themselves, it could completely change the way we cool our homes. Why does it matter? Conventional air conditioning works basically the same as it did a century ago, that is, a refrigerant gas circulates between a liquid and gaseous state to extract heat from a room and expel it outside. The problem is that many of these gases are extremely polluting. Fluorinated gases, the most common, can have a warming potential thousands of times greater than CO2 if they escape into the atmosphere, which is why the European Union approved in 2024 a regulation to progressively eliminate them. “In the next few years, air conditioners and heat pumps that use these gases will not even be able to be sold here,” explained to Wired Fabian Voswinkel, energy efficiency analyst at the International Energy Agency (IEA). The alternatives are not perfect either, as propane is highly flammable and ammonia is toxic. In detail. One of the most advanced projects is led by Paul Motzki, a professor at Saarland University in Germany, at the head of an EU-funded consortium working with a nickel-titanium alloy. According to they collect In the middle, by stretching and releasing this metal, it recovers its original shape by absorbing heat from the environment, a phenomenon known as the elastocaloric effect. Just like account Motzki told Wired, the system could cool rooms by between 5 and 10 degrees and do so more efficiently than current equipment. The team, which collaborates with the Irish company Exergyn, is already testing a prototype in the laboratory and hopes to install it in new buildings in the coming years. If confirmed, Motzki himself describes it as a technology that “could represent a disruption, even a paradigm shift,” due to how different it is from current systems. It is not the only path that is being explored. And just as stand out In the middle, the New York company Mimic Systems tests a heat pump based on semiconductors that moves heat using electric current, with a prototype installed in a Vancouver apartment. The German firm Magnotherm, a startup that was born from the Technical University of Darmstadt, uses magnetic fields and will test its system this year in a German supermarket chain before making the leap to domestic air conditioning. And in the United Kingdom, Barocal, born from the University of Cambridge itself, is experimenting with flexible plastic crystals that release heat when compressed and decompressed. In this case, the startup has recently raised $10 million in an initial round of financing, as highlighted in TechCrunch. Between the lines. None of this is yet ready for the mass market. Lindsay Rasmussen, who works with startups like Mimic Systems and Magnotherm at climate accelerator Third Derivative, recognize that these technologies are “promising, but unproven on a large scale.” Its takeoff, he adds, will depend on whether large air conditioning manufacturers (giants like Daikin or Samsung, which already closely monitor this type of advance) decide to adopt them and produce them in volume. unbearable heat. All this happens because Europe it’s warming up faster than any other continent, and countries with traditionally mild summers are beginning to suffer increasingly intense heat waves. A study by Nicole Miranda, a researcher at the University of Oxford, point because countries such as the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway or Finland could soon experience much more demand for cooling than in any other country if global warming reaches 2 degrees compared to the pre-industrial era. Still, just about 20% of European households has air conditioning (4% in the case of the United Kingdom), very far from 90% in the United States, according to IEA data. Miranda herself warns that the solution is not to buy inefficient portable devices en masse, but to offer “efficient, equitable and intelligent” refrigeration. And now what. Both Miranda and Voswinkel defend what they call a “hierarchy of cooling”, that is, first preventing buildings from overheating through trees, shade, reflective materials or natural ventilation, and only then resorting to active air conditioning, prioritizing spaces such as schools, hospitals or residences. As an example of this planning, Voswinkel cites the case of pariswhich expanded its district heating network to also distribute cold water from the Seine River through underground pipes and thus cool public buildings, ahead of the 2024 Olympic Games. Cover image | Dmitrii E. and Antonio Vallejo In Xataka | Carlos Llull, air conditioning technician: “Leaving the air conditioning on all night can cost around one euro in electricity”

OnePlus is preparing to leave Europe and the United States. I had been sending signals for months that this was going to happen.

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OnePlus and Oppo are going to announce in the coming days a total withdrawal from two large markets such as the United States and Europe, according to the German media has advanced WinFuture. Neither of the two companies has confirmed it in public yet, but the evidence has been accumulating for months and this time they all fit. What has happened. WinFuture cites internal sources who speak of “fundamental changes in strategy” that will be communicated this week, a classic euphemism to say that OnePlus is going to stop selling new models in two of its historical markets. There have already been press conferences behind closed doors with specialized media in which neither OnePlus nor Oppo have wanted to explain the reason for the closure. There will be no new launches of mobile phones, tablets or wearables in Europe or the United States. He stocks What remains will be settled in the coming weeks. Devices already sold will maintain software support until the end of their life cycle. India and China are left out of the announcement, although the brand will lose its independence there and will become a cheap line within Oppo. The context. This doesn’t come out of nowhere. In January, a report –without clear sources– he was already talking about dismantling and OnePlus denied it. In March, 9to5Google public that the global withdrawal could come in April. In April, the brand itself admitted that it was “evaluating its roadmap” in Europe, while also cutting its workforce in the region, with layoffs focused on communication, marketing and sales. The team that explains, advertises and sells a brand to the public is not fired if that brand is going to continue to need to be explained, advertised and sold. Then came the rumor of a merger with Realme, the leak that OxygenOS would be integrated into ColorOS (Oppo’s software) and, finally, OnePlus’ own websites in Germany, Spain and France They began to redirect buyers towards Oppo products. Between the lines. The replacement plan has an obvious crack. Oppo wants to fill the gap left by OnePlus in Europe, but its phones do not cost exactly the same. OnePlus built its entire brand on the promise of delivering high-end specs at a mid-range price tag, the “flagship killer” with which it was born in 2014. Replacing that proposal with a more expensive catalog is not a change of logo but a change of a brand’s target audience. There is another fissure that is caused by those who are still their clients. In several EU countries Complaints about unfulfilled guarantees have multiplied: users whose OnePlus headphones damaged under warranty receive compensation a voucher of 199 euros for an online store that barely has stocksand which also does not allow the voucher to be applied to the few remaining discounted products. Some have already opened complaints with the European Consumer Center. When after-sales service begins to systematically fail months before an unconfirmed closure, it stops being a customer service problem and becomes an exit signal. We saw it in Spain with BQ. Yes, but. OnePlus already denied similar rumors in 2023 and did so again in January of this year. Neither of the two denials has aged very well. Neither OnePlus nor Oppo have confirmed anything yet an official confirmation. From Xataka We have contacted Oppo and their response has been to explain to us that they are in talks with the regional teams, waiting to get more information to share. They neither confirm nor deny it, something that says a lot after years of categorical denials every time this rumor arose. Meanwhile, the accumulation of coincidences (execution departures, website redirects, software merger, empty store, guarantees that They are paid with hardly usable vouchers…) leaves little room for the benefit of the doubt. Why is it important. OnePlus was born in 2014 selling the promise that you didn’t have to pay more to have the best, and that promise ended up costing it its own identity: the brand was absorbed by Oppo in 2021which pushed its co-founder Carl Pei to leave to found Nothing. Since then, OnePlus has been losing room for maneuver within the group until it has become, by all indications, more of a label than a company with its own criteria. Its disappearance in the West closes the cycle of an idea (that of the premium mobile without a premium) that the market itself has been eroding as the differences between ranges have become smaller and Chinese brands have preferred to compete by volume rather than by differentiation. And now what. He OnePlus 15 It remains as the brand’s probable last major launch in Western markets. In parallel, similar rumors are circulating about other second-rate Chinese brands, but this week we could have the official announcement of the OnePlus outcome. In Xataka | Nothing is the most fascinating mobile phone brand in years for a very simple reason: it doesn’t sell mobile phones Featured image | Xataka

A driver has crossed one of the longest tunnels in Europe at more than 170 km/h. He is now banned from driving in all of Switzerland.

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A 22-year-old German has starred one of the most talked about chases of the last few weeks in Switzerland. And his journey through the gotthard tunnelone of the busiest arteries in Europe on the way to Italy, ended with an average speed that was triple the permitted limit, a positive drug test and a permanent ban on driving throughout the country. Below these lines we tell you all the details. what has happened. According to informed Uri cantonal police, the driver was driving south on the A2 motorway at dawn when, before reaching the northern portal of the St. Gotthard tunnel, he overtook another vehicle on the right, invading a delimited area. Once inside the tunnel, he wanted to continue freaking out. Accumulating fines. Once inside the almost 17 kilometers of tunnel, the young man carried out up to 21 overtaking maneuvers on a road with a double continuous line. Their average speed, calculated by the agents, was 171.8 km/h, more than double the limit allowed in the tunnel, which is 80 km/h. Normally, it would take a driver around 13 minutes to go through the tunnel. This guy did it in six minutes. Between the lines. The Gotthard tunnel is one of the most important mountain passes of Europe and one of the preferred routes for German tourists traveling to Italy, especially in the summer months. Precisely because of its intense traffic and its two-way route, any overtaking maneuver poses a risk of collision. The tunnel also has more than a hundred cameras and sensors that allow these types of violations to be captured in detail. So there was little he could do to escape the historical burden that fell on him. The consequences. The Ticino cantonal police finally managed to intercept the driver at the exit of the tunnel, immediately imposing a driving ban on him throughout Swiss territory. In addition, they demanded bail of several thousand euros, an amount that has not been revealed. Added to this is that the rapid drug test to which he was subjected tested positiveso now a blood test is also pending. Crime. The young man faces a complaint for serious speeding violation. According to collect According to the Berliner Zeitung newspaper, since a legal reform in 2023, Swiss courts have more room for maneuver when imposing sentences, which in some cases allows the prison sentence to be replaced by a fine if it is a first offense. Even so, according to the media, the law contemplates in these cases a minimum penalty of one year in prison, in addition to a fine and withdrawal of the license, and in the most serious cases the vehicle used may even be confiscated. The driver is now free, although he remains under investigation while the judicial proceedings progress. Cover image | Google Maps In Xataka | Electric car sales in Europe, on a revealing map with a devastating peninsula. Spoiler: it is not the Ibérica

Guadix was one of the last corners of Europe where people lived in caves. Today they have become a climate refuge

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Moors, outlaws and expelled populations occupying caves, carrying pickaxes and candles. That was the realityunromantic, from Guadix. The rural escape chic It would take three centuries to arrive. Visiting the streets and hills is free, of course; spending the night there is something else. In Granada, Andalusia, going down the A-92, next to the Zalabí Valley and at more than 900 meters above sea level, there is a town that looks like something out of Star Wars. Guadix, “the town of the cave houses”, is actually a city that converted flight, poverty and climatic rigor into bioclimatic architecture. And, centuries later, in designer troglottourism. An entire neighborhood underground. Around Guadix, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, there are more than 2,000 homes excavated in red clay hills. “European Capital of Caves“, says the press of a neighborhood that was born around 1550 around the Maese Pedro Fountain and San Marcos Street. In fact, more than 4,500 Accitani live in this neighborhood alone. It is a landscape of hills literally emptied from the inside, whitewashed facades and chimneys that are lime fumaroles and appear like periscopes. And, to top it all off, an interior temperature that remains around 20 degrees all year round. It takes approximately three months for outside air to “seep” into the walls, which softens extreme winters and summers. And of course, this comfort and acoustic insulation has made this architecture passive. forward the letter one of the most requested tourist places in Spain. Today you will get on a tourist train and sleep in a cave house for prices ranging from 60-70 euros to more than 120 euros per night, depending on whims and jacuzzi. Your cave, my Airbnb. Airbnb and aggregators like cozycozy list the “hammam cave”, “la Tita del Pan cave” or “Casa Cueva Los Mosaicos”, with jacuzzis, swimming pools and outstanding ratings. 9.5 on Booking and 4.2 out of 5 on Airbnb. The region is sold under the premise of sleeping like a Neanderthal, but with Wi-Fi and a hot tub. Today, live in one of these caves It’s not easy. Renting it is something else: tourist trains, interpretation centers and guided routes are part of this troglottourism, under the coordinates of sustainability and introspective experience. What were once medieval shanties today stand as beautiful enclaves that defy the harsh climate. It was always there. Guadix has always been a territory of soft land and natural shelters, used since the Bronze Age. Archaeological studies identify human occupations that they used these bad lands or gullies on the edge and bed of the Guadix river to protect themselves from the elements. During the Middle Ages, this landscape intersects with the Nasrid front and, after the capture of the city by the Catholic Monarchs, it becomes a place of refuge: after the expulsions of 1570 and 1609, the hypothesis places the origin of the great neighborhood towards the end of the 15th century, when Moors, outlaws and populations expelled from the medina clandestinely occupied these caves and perfected, with pick and shovel, the technique of excavating entire hills following the knowledge of the builders. The Accitan historian Carlos Javier Garrido emphasizes that this refuge of persecuted people was also a social response to a city dominated by oligarchies. A silent rebellion. Confiscation and new rules. In 1920, the neighborhood housed 60% of the city’s population. It was not until the 1950s when massive excavations expanded and inaugurated new cave houses, already intended as normal homes in another neighborhood. The traces of the Civil War are also notable: the town was left without a hermitage. There is a lot to see, in any case: the Cathedral of La Encarnación, the Palace of the Marquises of Villaverde or the Islamic citadel itself, from the 11th century, added to the Ermita Nueva, in nuclear white and a chapel completely carved under rock. With the arrival of national roads bordering the mountains, electricity, television and emigration, local families converted these old nested slopes into a “summer house” to escape the heat. It was then that the neighborhood began to be seen from the outside more as a picturesque landscape than as a space of marginality. Progress arrived and the BOE. Until recently, in urban terms, cave houses lived in a limbo: they were housing, but they did not fit into the standard categories of the regulations. The new Law to Promote the Sustainability of the Territory of Andalusia (LISTA) and its regulations dedicate for the first time an entire title to the troglodytic habitat, defining what a cave is, what a cave neighborhood is and what a “troglodytic municipality” is (Article 421). The standard establishes minimum conditions of safety, health and habitability: water and sanitation services, minimum surface area of ​​30 m², sufficient ventilation, adequate drainage of rainwater and guarantees of stability of the excavated land. General management plans are now required to indicate measures for their protection, conservation and improvement, from maintaining the outer layer of soil to preserving natural rain drainage channels. See the caves. He average itinerary It includes a panoramic view of the center, the Roman Theatre, the Arab wall, the Alcazaba, the historic and Jewish neighborhoods and, finally, a stop of about 45 minutes in the troglodyte area to visit viewpoints, a unique cave church and the Caves Interpretation Center. Of course, whoever makes a reservation rules over whoever shows up randomly: visits to the cave neighborhood fill up, especially in the mornings and on weekends. The train usually operates with departures every 40–60 minutes in the morning schedule. The tour takes about 75 minutes, with recorded comments in several languages. He Interpretation Center It reopened in April 2026 with new hours: Monday to Saturday it is open from 9:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and from 4:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., and on Sundays until 2:30 p.m. To sleep under the hill. The other experience is to literally spend the night underground. A night as a couple usually costs around 110 euros per … Read more

Electric car sales in Europe, on a revealing map with a devastating peninsula. Spoiler: it is not the Ibérica

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If tomorrow your car breaks down and you have to buy a new one, the million dollar question is: Would it be a combustion car, a hybrid or an electric car? Obviously, there is also another respectable alternative that makes a lot of sense in the face of a future full of uncertainty and skyrocketing prices: bet on second hand (however, the question remains the same). Saying goodbye to old combustion and welcoming electricity (in any form) is a complex issue where factors such as tax policies, infrastructure and income come into play. The transition to electric has been here for a long time, but it is not advancing in the same way throughout the continent. The map you see below these lines represents the percentage of new electric car registrations in Europe in 2025which includes pure electric and plug-in. Another important consideration: it only collects new cars, not the existing fleet, that is another much more modest story where electric cars currently represent only around 5%. Its creation is the work of The World in Maps, an informative project specialized in cartographies and infographics. To prepare it, use the report Global EV Outlook 2026 from the International Energy Agency (IEA), published in 2026, that is, the world reference report on electric mobility. Electric cars (EV and PHEV) registered in 2025. AIE On the old continent, sales of electric cars (EV + PHEV) increased by 30% last year, above the global trend, which grew by 20% to exceed 20 million units. That is to say, if in the world one in four cars is electric, in Europe it is almost one in three. In fact, Europe has surpassed China as the fastest growing electric car market, with notable increases in Germany, Spain and Italy. But the colorful map suggests a very heterogeneous panorama on the continent and part of the blame lies with state policies: public support for electric vehicles, in the form of direct subsidies, tax incentives and tariff exemptions, has been progressively decreasing in the last decade as sales have increased, although Denmark, Norway and Turkey continue to have the most favorable scenarios due to their strong tax exemptions. A Europe at two speeds Electric Europe is made up of the Nordic countries and the Netherlands, where the highest quotas are concentrated: Norway (97%), Denmark (71%), Sweden (61%) and Iceland (62%). The recipe for success is a high per capita income, strong taxation on fossil fuels, historic exemptions for electricity and a highly developed charging network. Norway takes the cake, where fully electric cars reached a record share of 96% of all car sales in 2025, although from 2026 the tax advantages have been cut. The Europe of fuel comes from the east, with Russia (2%), Bosnia (5%), Romania and Bulgaria (6%) as markets where the electric car has barely penetrated, conditioned by lower purchasing power, scarce charging infrastructure and absence of relevant tax incentives. In fact, Croatia, Greece and much of the Balkans move in similar figures, between 5% and 15%. This ancient Europe lives under the restraint of increasingly strict EU regulations. These data matter because road transport is one of the major sources of emissions of carbon dioxide in Europe and the speed of electrification attacks it directly, stepping on the accelerator towards achieving the EU’s climate objectives. But it also has industrial implications: the automotive sector, a true historical bastion on the continent, is adapting and planning based on demand. The jump to electric also has its economic and geopolitical reading where one country leads the way: China. In Xataka | Europe’s passenger car industry, in a revealing map that makes it clear who is the real “engine” of the EU In Xataka | All the car plants in Europe (including the few battery-electric ones), on a map Cover | The World in maps

The US taught that access to advanced AI can be cut off. China is studying the same thing, according to Reuters, and Europe is watching from the outside

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When the United States activated export controls which ended up leading Anthropic to deactivate Fables 5 and Mythos 5 For all its users, a reality that was difficult to ignore was exposed: access to advanced AI may be cut off. Not because the model disappears, nor because it stops working technically, but because a national security decision can convert an available tool into a conditioned capability. Things have changed slightly since then: controls on Fable lifted after new safeguards and Mythos was limited to a few trusted American organizations, but the precedent is still there. Now that question returns from the other side of the board. Reuters reports that Chinese authorities have held meetings over the last month with the country’s major technology companies to study possible restrictions on foreign access to their most advanced AI models, including some that have not yet been launched. Alibaba, ByteDance and Z.ai participated in those meetings, according to three people familiar with the conversations. At the moment there is no approved measure, no fixed calendar, nor definitive scope. Perhaps more revealing, Beijing is discussing how far it wants to open up its most advanced AI products. What was discussed in those meetings goes beyond closing an API or limiting access to a specific product. According to the agency, participants talked about putting limits on the most advanced models, both closed and more open versions, and also about toughening the consequences for what they call leaks or thefts of proprietary AI technology. One of the sources consulted indicated that these leaks could be treated as crimes linked to China’s strict national security law. New restrictions were also raised on who can fund domestic AI startups. Advanced AI enters the logic of strategic control There are several reasons why what was mentioned does not remain solely within Chinese borders. Since the emergence of DeepSeek R1, remember, AI developed in China has gained ground outside the country thanks to a very attractive combination for many companies: low costs and increasing capabilities. Alibaba has Qwen, ByteDance features Doubao and Z.ai has attracted attention in Silicon Valley with GLM-5.2a model that comes close to leading American offerings at a fraction of the cost. If Beijing limits that access, many businesses and users could find themselves with fewer options and, presumably, higher bills. The Chinese AI sector also seems interested in developing cybersecurity-oriented systems equivalent or superior to those in the United States. Zhou Hongyi, founder of 360, a cybersecurity company with weight among government and enterprise clients, has said that China needs to develop its own Mythos. The company came to present Tulongfeng as a Chinese response to that type of system, stating that it is capable of detecting a large number of vulnerabilities. This is where the most delicate part of the debate appears when viewed from Europe. When the Anthropic case brought to the table the possibility that access to American models would be conditioned by Washington, some raised the Chinese models as a possible alternative: cheaper, increasingly capable and, in certain cases, available through API or with open weights. The new information from Reuters introduces an important nuance in that reading. Changing suppliers can reduce costs or open up new technical options, but does not eliminate the dependency if the critical capacity continues to live under a foreign jurisdiction. Europe, moreover, had already been thinking about this kind of risk before Anthropic and China occupied the center of the discussion. The Commission has defended the need to reduce dependencies on cloud, artificial intelligence and semiconductors, and has linked that agenda with the autonomy and digital resilience of the continent. In that discussion, Brussels has come to warn of the risk of “kill switches”: the possibility that a foreign supplier or a government with the ability to pressure can interrupt essential technological services. That is why Europe looks from the outside. The United States preserves some of the most advanced models in the world and has already made it clear that access to them may be conditioned by a political or national security decision. China, for its part, has gained ground with cheaper and increasingly capable modelsand now I would be studying my own restrictions. The Old Continent is in another place: it has regulation, sovereign ambition and promising companies, but it does not yet seem to have an equivalent in commercial weight, global adoption and strategic capacity to the products that today set the technological bar. Images | Xataka with Nano Banana | Arthur Wang In Xataka | Alibaba’s Qwen AI model is the new crown jewel. The only problem is that they don’t make money from it.

China’s best-selling car has just headed to Europe. It has several arguments beyond being electric

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Europe has already begun to fill in one of the boxes that was most difficult to resolve in the electric car: that of small, urban and somewhat more rational models. There are proposals like the Renault 5 electriche Citroën ë-C3 or the Dacia Springeach with its own recipe to bring electric mobility closer to more everyday use. He wants to enter that fight now Geely with the E2but with an unusual cover letter. It does not come as a proposal without a commercial route, but as the European name for a car that in China has already shown that it can sell a lot. Geely Auto Europe already shows it on its website as a model that “will arrive soon” and presents it as a compact electric hatchback for everyday use. It is a relevant confirmation, but still incomplete: the brand has not detailed in which countries it will be sold, when exactly its marketing will begin, what versions will arrive or what price it will have in the European Union. The Chinese bestseller that wants to make a place in Europe An important fact is not in a European promise, but in what the car has already done in China. Geely assures that the Xingyuan, which is how it is known in its original market, was in 2025 the best-selling model in the country in all segments, with 465,775 units. That nuance is relevant because we are not talking about a residual category, but rather about a pure electric car that came to lead the Chinese market as a whole. As additional context, the brand also positions it as the world sales leader within the A/B segments, that is, between small and utility cars. The name change is not a rarity for this model, but rather a fairly common practice in the automotive industry: manufacturers selling cars on the same basis, or practically identical ones, with different names depending on the market. In this case, the Xingyuan retains its Chinese identity at home, but when going abroad It moves under the names EX2 and E2. In the European Union, the brand is already using E2, while the United Kingdom appears associated with EX2 and its own calendar. Geely’s European page already makes it clear where it wants to sell the E2. The brand presents it as a compact electric hatchback for everyday use, with a speech based on three ideas: dynamism, space and safety. It also ensures that the chassis is tuned specifically for European roads, a phrase designed to answer a common question with Chinese cars that arrive on the continent: how they will behave outside their original market. In the absence of the definitive record for this market, Geely’s Chinese website It allows us to define the starting car quite well. The Xingyuan measures 4.14 meters long and has a 2.65 meter wheelbase, figures that clearly place it in the urban territory, but not in that of microcars. The brand also talks about a frunk of 70 liters and a trunk of 375 to 1,320 liters, depending on load configuration. For Europe, the reference available on CarNewsChina points to a 39.4 kWh battery, an 85 kW/rear motor 114 HP and 317 km WLTPalthough final specifications for the EU will be known closer to launch. The temptation would be to look at the Chinese price, convert it to euros and draw a quick conclusion. It is advisable not to do so. In its domestic market, Geely places the Xingyuan between 64,800 and 94,800 yuan, about 8,350-12,200 euros at the exchange rate, but that figure belongs to China and responds to very different industrial and commercial conditions. For Europe it only serves as a clue of origin: the car is born as an affordable proposal, although its real price here will depend on the final version, import costs, homologation, logistics and Geely’s strategy. And here appears the closest unknown: Spain. We have entered the Spanish Geely website and, for now, the E2 is not among the brand’s visible models; what appears are the Starray EM-i and the Geely E5. That doesn’t mean the E2 isn’t coming, just that Geely hasn’t added it to its local showcase yet. If it finally lands in this market, furthermore, it would not be another SUV within the range, but rather an entry into a different terrain: that of the urban and compact electric car. The arguments are on the table, but the decisive part is still missing. We know that it comes from a model that has worked massively in China, that Geely already shows it on its European page and that its format fits into an increasingly competitive category. We do not yet know how much it will cost, what versions will arrive, if Spain will be among the first markets or how it will respond to already known rivals. That is why the most prudent reading is not that he is going to repeat his Chinese success, but that he arrives with sufficient reasons for us to look at him closely. Images | Geely In Xataka | Anti-electrics lose an argument about car batteries: a study confirms that they are more durable than previously believed

Europe believed that the Russian ghost fleet moved oil. Report points to something much worse: drone “aircraft carriers”

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During the First World War, the United Kingdom created the called Q-ships: Seemingly harmless merchant ships that hid cannons under their decks to attract German submarines and surprise them when they approached. The idea of ​​turning a commercial ship into a weapon It wasn’t new.. The striking thing is that, more than a century later, it could have evolved much more than we imagined. It all started with some drones. At the end of 2024 they began to register drone raids on several American military bases in England and, shortly after, on other strategic facilities in Germany. The devices appeared and disappeared without a trace, forcing investigations to be opened that they never identified publicly to those responsible. Those flights seemed like another episode in Europe’s growing hybrid war, although a new report maintains that the true origin could have been much further from the coast. Capture of the IISS report The hypothesis. a study from the International Institute for Strategic Studies maintains that it is “highly probable” that Russia used ships linked to its well-known ghost fleet as platforms to launch and recover drones. This network of oil tankers and merchants had been associated until now with crude oil transportation to avoid Western sanctions. If the hypothesis ends up being confirmed, those ships would have also played a military function much more sophisticated covert. A tanker can become an aircraft carrier. They counted TWZ analysts that the great advantage of a merchant ship is precisely that no one expects it to act as a military platform. A ship can remain for days in international waters, discreetly approach the coast, launch a reconnaissance drone and continue its trade route without raising suspicion. Compared to an aircraft carrier, whose presence is impossible to hide, a cargo ship offers perfect cover for operations that are difficult to attribute. The chosen bases. The targets included facilities such as RAF Lakenheathwhich is being prepared for host nuclear weapons American, as well as RAF Mildenhall, RAF Fairford, RAF Feltwell and Ramstein air base in Germany. The researchers collected around of 170 citizen noticesof which approximately half were considered credible after being corroborated by several witnesses or images. They also detected coordinated flight patternsdifferent types of aircraft and trajectories incompatible with recreational use. The sea offers an explanation. The report poses that some drones were able to take off from Russian-related ships located out of visual range of the coast. Among the possibilities is the Orlan-10a military drone with sufficient autonomy to cover these distances and equipped with intelligence sensors, surveillance, reconnaissance and even electronic warfare capabilities. The authors themselves recognize that using an identifiable military model would increase the risk of attribution, so they do not rule out the use of modified commercial drones to make it even more difficult to trace their origin. The boss worries. Plus: the study’s authors admit that their conclusions rest on a combination of cluesknown capabilities and geographical coincidences, not on definitive public evidence. No European government has officially linked a specific ship to a specific incursion, although various policymakers have called for new investigations. For their part, both the British Ministry of Defense and the US Air Force in Europe have confirmed drone flights, but remain silent on any intelligence information related to their possible authorship. The hybrid war. If the hypothesis is correct, the problem would no longer be solely the existence of a ghost fleet dedicated to transporting Russian oil. Europe would also have to assume that some of those same ships can serve as discrete platforms for espionage operationsreconnaissance or electronic warfare hundreds of kilometers from the front. In other words, the biggest threat of the report is not to identify who launched those drones, but to propose that a simple merchant ship could play part of the role that until now was only attributed to an aircraft carrier. Image | Google In Xataka | Europe has encountered a problem bigger than Russia: drones cannot be stored for more than eight weeks In Xataka | Cities such as London or Madrid appear on Russia’s new objective map. The reason: drone production

Nintendo confirms when the new Switch 2 revision will arrive in Europe. And also that it will have less battery and more weight

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nintendo has confirmed that, starting this fall, a new revision of the Switch 2 will arrive in Europe. The idea is that, to comply with European regulations, the user can more easily replace the console’s battery. Although this change We already knew him for a few monthsNintendo has now offered more details about the release window of this new revision and how it affects the rest of the devices. Why is this happening now? The European Union approved in 2023 battery legislation that requires consumer products with integrated batteries to allow them to be easily removed and changed starting in February 2027. Nintendo, like any manufacturer selling hardware in the region, has to adapt before that date, and that is why it has already begun to make moves. In detail. According to has explained Nintendo itself through its official technical support, starting this summer several of its products in Europe will begin to be replaced “in a phased manner” by versions with replaceable batteries. The company assures that there will be “no difference in operation” between the current and revised models, although we will surely have to wait for this new revision to end up reaching stores to confirm that statement. The calendar you have shared is the following: Joy-Con controllers (some colors): since this summer, without changes in weight or battery capacity. Nintendo Switch 2 console: since autumn, weighing about 411 grams (10 grams more than the current model) and up to 548 grams with the Joy-Con 2 attached (14 grams more). Its battery goes from 5,220 mAh to 5,172 mAh, around 1% less capacity. Joy-Con 2 (separately): since this winter, with 2 grams more weight for each controller, without changes to the battery. Switch 2 Pro Controller: from this winter, with a 16% smaller battery (897 mAh compared to the current 1,070 mAh), although the controller will weigh 7 grams less. N64 and GameCube controllers for Switch 2: in early 2027, with slight changes in weight and, in the case of the GameCube controller, a slightly larger battery. Between the lines. Not all Nintendo products will go through this process. As they collect from VGC, the original Switch, the Switch Litethe OLED switchthe classic Switch Pro controller and other retro accessories such as NES, SNES or Mega Drive controllers. In addition, the user will not be able to choose which version they buy, so when the stock of the current model runs out, stores will begin to offer the revision with a replaceable battery. On the other hand, Nintendo has also announced that it will put battery replacement kits on sale for each product, although it has not yet given a date or price. Goodbye to the original Switch in Europe. As the company tells us, Nintendo has decided not to launch a new version of the original Switch in Europe. And instead of adapting it to the regulations, it will directly remove this console from sale in the region when appropriate. That doesn’t mean it’s now, but maybe in Europe we can already prepare for the end of Nintendo’s transition to Switch 2. And now what. Availability will not be the same in all European countries at the same time, according to recognize Nintendo. Furthermore, as could not be expected otherwise, Spain is among the markets where these reviews will arrive, as confirmed by the company. From here, what remains to be seen is whether these slight changes in weight and autonomy generate any real difference in the daily use of the console. In Xataka | In 1993, no one could find the supposed red ninja from ‘Mortal Kombat’. There was a reason: it didn’t exist yet

The war and the unbearable heat have led Europe to unprecedented spending. And Türkiye has become the perfect supermarket

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For centuries, in the Mediterranean, white was much more than an aesthetic question: whitewashed facades, light roofs and narrow streets helped reflect solar radiation and keeping homes several degrees cooler long before the invention of air conditioning. Two thousand years later, Europe once again discovers that fighting the heat has become a priority. Europe is paying two unexpected bills. For decades, Europe built its prosperity on one premise: that the continent would enjoy a relatively stable environment, both in climate and security. That scenario has changed at high speed. Heat waves are increasingly intensewar has returned to the continent, and both phenomena are forcing governments to spend billions in two needs that previously seemed secondary: cooling their cities and strengthening their armies. Air conditioning as critical infrastructure. Heat waves have ceased to be exceptional episodes and have become an economic factor permanent. Schools, hospitals, companies, data centers and industries need air conditioning systems capable of maintaining their activity even during extreme temperatures. Air conditioning has ceased to be a domestic luxury and has become a essential infrastructurewhile countries in central and northern Europe discover a need for which they never prepared their buildings. Türkiye had been preparing for years. It happens that, while Europe was beginning to discover the problem, Türkiye already had a powerful air conditioning industryextensive manufacturing capacity and an enormous logistical advantage over Asian competitors. The result is that Turkish exports of air conditioning, heat pumps and other refrigeration systems they are growing to the heat (pun intended) of a continent that needs to modernize millions of buildings and also do so under criteria of energy efficiency and sustainability. The other great urgency: rearmament. I counted the weekend the Washington Post that the climate is not the only front that is strengthening the Turkish position. The progressive withdrawal of the United States from European security and increase in military spending have placed the Turkish arms industry in a privileged position. Its drones, armored vehicles, ammunition and other defensive systems have demonstrated competitiveness, availability and attractive prices just when many European countries are looking for new suppliers to accelerate their rearmament. From awkward partner to supplier. For years, Türkiye was viewed with suspicion within NATO for the purchase of the Russian S-400 systemthe tensions with Greece, its policy in Syria or the temporary blockage of Sweden’s entry into the Alliance. However, the context has changed profoundly. Europe needs weapons. It needs to control migratory flows. And now it also needs technology to adapt to a much more hostile climate. That combination has notably reduced public criticism of Ankara and reinforced its diplomatic weight within the Alliance. Trump and Erdogan’s position. Plus: the good relationship between Donald Trump and Erdogan has added another layer to this change of scenario. The American president has publicly praised the Turkish leader and has left the door open to unblocking old disagreements, such as the one related with F-35 fighters. At the same time, the upcoming NATO summit in Ankara will serve to showcase Turkey as one of the essential actors in the new Western security architecture. The great European paradox has a clear winner. Thus, the two great crises that today condition the future of Europe seem to have no relationship with each other. One comes from the atmosphere in form of heat waves increasingly extreme. The other comes from the deterioration of the geopolitical scenario and the return of war to the continent. However, both converge on the same point: they force Europe to buy what it needs most. And few economies seem so well placed to take advantage of both trends. like the turkish. While the continent seeks how to protect itself from the heat and military uncertainty, Türkiye is establishing itself as one of the major providers of solutions to both problems. Image | Wikimedia In Xataka | The map that splits Europe into two when the heat arrives: where there is air conditioning and where there isn’t In Xataka | The Rhine is running out of water due to heat waves. And that is a logistical and energy disaster for Europe

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