Germany

Tesla urgently needs to make its electric cars cheaper. And their plan is to produce batteries in Germany

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Tesla will take the production of batteries for its European Tesla Model Y to Germany. This is what the German press agency DPA assures, information that has been echoed by German media such as Handelsblatt. “From battery cells to vehicles, everything must be produced in one place,” a spokesperson told DPA. For now, the statements remain somewhat cautious. The company talks about a three-digit investment (speaking of millions of euros) and that the decision will be confirmed “if the framework conditions are adjusted”. It must be taken into account that Elon Musk already assured in 2020 that they would raise “the largest battery factory in the world” in Germany which, of course, has not been carried out. Tesla’s intentions are to make the production of the Tesla Model Y as cheap as possible in order to face European competition. Right now, the company has to import its batteries to Germany from the United States, an environment that is also complicated in production due to the tariffs that the country has raised on components that arrive from abroad. If consolidated, Tesla aspires to produce batteries worth 8 GWh, a figure that is far from the 50 GWh it aspires to produce. Stellantis with CATL in Aragon. Why does an electric car have less autonomy than advertised? Between the bad and the worst If we take the month of October as a reference (the last analyzed by ACEA), Tesla has fallen almost 40% in sales in Europe in the first eight months of the year. The figure has left the company with 117,000 units sold compared to the 192,439 units it had registered last year in the same period of time. Obviously, its weight in the market has also fallen, to the point that it has been reduced by almost half. Right now, 1.3% of the cars purchased in Europe are Tesla vehicles when the company reached a market share of 2.2% and in 2024 it will make the Tesla Model Y the best-selling car in the world. Suzuki, Nissan or SAIC (owner of MG) have overtaken Tesla this year. However, 2025 is being a fateful year for the company. Especially in Europe where Elon Musk’s political positioning has squandered the brand image in countries like Germany and France. The company is facing new proposals from its rivals that are close in price and already offer a real alternative to Tesla cars. To solve it, and no smaller, more affordable versions on the horizonTesla has launched the Standard versions of its Model 3 and Model Y. They are versions with reduced equipment that try to reduce prices to keep both cars as attractive options. At the same time, yes, the price of the rest of the versions has increased to increase the gap and force the customer who does not want a shortened version to spend more money. The announcement also comes in a strange context in the European Union. media like Bloomberg They emphasize that the announcement has been made at a time when solutions are being sought to lower the limits of polluting emissions, but the truth is that European manufacturers They still need to sell many electric cars even if the measures proposed by the European Commission were approved. What is true is that Tesla is manufacturing its batteries in the United States but they have had to face an extra cost for them because the country has raised harsh tariffs on all components arriving beyond its borders. Although Tesla has been one of the least affected manufacturersthe extra cost appears to be high enough for the company to invest in Europe. And Tesla itself has pointed out that producing batteries on our continent continues to have such a high price that its profitability is doubted. Therefore, the only reason for Tesla to continue investing in Germany and not opt ​​for other European countries such as Spain (as it has done CATL with Stellantis or the Volkswagen Group) is because It already has part of the structure assembled in the German country and it would be a matter of increasing the productive land on their land. Furthermore, it is to be hoped that the European Union will further pave the way for attract investments in terms of battery production. Our continent is still far behind the United States but, especially from China and the most renowned attempts have been a total failure like Northvolt. It remains to be seen to what extent this movement allows Tesla to make its vehicles cheaper and continue to stand up to increasingly stronger European manufacturers. And some Chinese companies that hope that the negotiations between their country and the European Union to lift tariffs come to fruition. What Tesla is surely looking for are more stable policies than those of the United States, something complex in such a changing geopolitical context. Photo | In Xataka | Car manufacturers bend their arm to the European Union: we will have combustion engines in 2035

Europe is looking for a place to light its “artificial sun” and Spain only has to defeat Italy and Germany to achieve it

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For decades, nuclear fusion has been the distant horizon of energy: an almost mythical promise, always thirty years ahead. A future without a map. In full electrification of the economy and with demand pushed by the digital industry and data centers, Europe has begun to set coordinates for that promise: where to build the first commercial centers. For the first time, the “artificial sun” is no longer just a scientific experiment and it becomes a problem of territory, infrastructure and industrial planning. And in this new European energy map, Spain appears among the best positioned countries. A new path. Gauss Fusion, the European company created to power the first generation of commercial fusion plants on the continent, has completed the first comprehensive European study of potential sites for this technology, in collaboration with the Technical University of Munich (TUM). The study culminates in a map that did not exist until now. A map that indicates 150 industrial clusters and up to 900 potential sites spread across nine European countries. Behind each point there is an analysis of geology, seismicity, meteorology, refrigeration, access to the electrical grid and existing infrastructure, aligned with standards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Spain on the horizon. It appears as the third country with the most identified clusters: 17, only behind Germany (53) and Italy (22), and ahead of France, Austria, the Netherlands or Switzerland. This is not a political decision or a formal candidacy, but rather a strictly technical diagnosis: where it would be possible to build a first-generation fusion power plant if it had to be done tomorrow. “That Spain appears as the third country with the most potential clusters is due solely to technical criteria,” emphasizes Milena Roveda, CEO of Gauss Fusion, in an interview with Xataka. “The study follows an objective methodology consistent with international standards. There are no strategic weightings or quotas per country,” he emphasizes. And that nuance is key. The map does not look for winners or distribute investments: it identifies where the minimum physical and industrial conditions already exist to host a fusion power plant. But why Spain? On the one hand, its fusion ecosystem. Spain is one of the European countries with greater historical involvement in ITERhouses the headquarters of Fusion for Energy in Barcelona and has achieved key industrial contracts for national companies. Added to this is the role of CIEMATuniversities with leading groups in plasma physics and materials, and the beginning of the construction of IFMIF-DONES in Granadaa critical infrastructure to validate materials for future reactors. On the other hand, their regulatory experience. “Spain has a nuclear regulatory body with extensive prestige and experience,” highlights Roveda. From an industrial point of view, Roveda insists that Spain should not limit itself to being a host: “It has the potential to be a key piece in the merger value chain. Companies like IDOM already have demonstrated that can design and deliver extremely complex systems. Where could these clusters be? The map does not draw isolated points, but rather broad areas. The study identifies regional clusters capable of containing multiple viable locations. In Spain, they appear spread over a good part of the territory – from Andalusia and Extremadura to Castilla y León, Aragon, Catalonia, Galicia, the Basque Country and the Valencian Community – and are concentrated in industrial areas with high electrical demandgood network connectivity and, in some cases, close to old energy enclaves that could reuse part of their infrastructure. Frédérick Bordry, CTO of Gauss Fusion, explains to Xataka that the objective of the map is not to select a specific place, but “to have a broad database that allows collaboration with authorities, companies and other interested parties.” The final decision, remember, will not come until the end of 2027. What would a commercial fusion center be like? Talking about commercial fusion is no longer talking about experiments like ITER. Gauss Fusion works with the concept of a GIGA plantcapable of producing 1 gigawatt of electricity. This implies very specific industrial requirements. “Assuming an efficiency of 30%, a plant of this type must safely evacuate about 2 GW of heat,” explains Bordry. In practice, this requires access to rivers, reservoirs or the sea, as well as robust electrical infrastructure. Unlike fission, fusion does not produce chain reactions, is self-limiting, does not emit CO₂ and does not generate long-lived radioactive waste. “Due to its safety features, it could and should be integrated near urban and industrial centers,” says Bordry, even supplying waste heat for industrial uses or district heating. This aspect connects with a trend that is already seen in Europe: heat recovery in district heating networks, as happens in Finland with data centerseither the use of large industrial heat pumps. The process now enters a delicate phase. According to Gauss Fusion, the goal is to reduce the European map to between two and five final locations by the end of 2026, and make the final decision in 2027. But the technical criteria will not be the only ones. “Political will, the regulatory framework and social acceptance will be essential,” emphasizes Roveda. In his opinion, Europe needs policies that promote fusion as a new industrial engine, and regulations “adapted to the real risk of these facilities.” Social acceptance will also be key. “Transparency and citizen participation are essential,” he says. “We have to explain well what fusion is and what it is not.” A project that covers a lot. For Bordry, no European country can tackle a project of this magnitude alone. The merger will require a continental industrial alliance, something that Roveda defines as a “fusion Eurofighter”, in which Spain should play a central role, not only as a location, but as a technological and industrial supplier. In a context in which European electricity demand could grow up to 75% by 2050fusion is beginning to be seen not as a distant promise, but as one more piece of the energy puzzle, complementary to renewables, storage and electrification. An open closure, but with a … Read more

close a factory in Germany

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The history of Volkswagen goes a long way. So much so that Its origins must be sought in Nazi Germany when the State commissioned Ferdinand Porsche to create a Volkswagen. That is, a car for the people. It was 1934 but with all the state machinery working overtime, in 1938 the first stone of the Wolfsburg factory, taking as an example Ford factory in Dearborn, United States. Since then Volkswagen has not stopped growing. With its good moments and also his bad momentsthe truth is that the company has established itself as the second largest producer of cars in the world, only surpassed by Toyota and in a comfortable position compared to Hyundai-Kia, which remains in third position. In these ideas and comings, the company has maintained a recipe: the German industry is not touched. Until now. In the midst of the reconversion of the European automotive industry, Volkswagen seems to have crossed a red line. Why does an electric car have less autonomy than advertised? for the first time It was 2018 when in Xataka we went for the first time to the Volkswagen glass plant in Dresden. There, the company had been producing its Volkswagen Phaeton, a luxury sedan that It ended up being a million-dollar hole. and, above all, a resounding sales failure. The company had converted the space into a laboratory to produce the first e-Golfone of the first steps that the company took in the purely electric car market. Its productive volume was almost ridiculous If we compare it with any current plant: 72 cars a day. In 2022, we had the opportunity to return. The factory had changed completely. At least in his spirit. It was still producing electric Golfs… more or less. And that’s where their ID.3Volkswagen’s first big bet that had been born with the spirit of being its first best-seller and position itself as the new electric Golf. Production had already fallen by half, to about 35 cars a day. Now, Volkswagen has shelved the plant. The glass space is converted into a university center. The movement has much more to say in the symbolic field than in the practical one. The 230 workers have three options on the table: dismissal with negotiated compensation, retirement or transfer to another factory. But the closure of the German plant goes much further. For the first time, Volkswagen has to cease production at a plant in Germany. Its production, as we have seen, was very low and the center was intended more for development and innovation than for nourishing the German fleet. However, the move is important because it demonstrates the extent to which the company is struggling. Dresden wasn’t just a car plant, it was status. It was a declaration of intent, the confirmation open to the world that Volkswagen invested in cars that were not profitable in the short term but from which they could extract knowledge in the future. Thomas Schäfer, CEO of Volkswagen, has indicated that the closure of the factory “it was essential from an economic perspective”. A little over a year ago, Volkswagen already announced that it intended to cut its production in Germany, to the point that it assured that “all factories in Germany are in danger”. They were the first blows of a savings plan of 10,000 million euros three years ahead. The company had decided to bet heavily on the electric car but European demand It does not seem to have been enough until it grew very recently. In Europe, Tesla has swept with force until last year but, above all, customers They didn’t seem interested. in the most affordable Volkswagen electric cars like the ID.3. Not even in the most expensive ones, like the Audi e-tron which ended with the closure of a plant in Brussels. Porsche is already retracing its path of electric car investments. Volkswagen has encountered a perfect storm with three open fronts. In Europe, as we said, the customer is not buying the expected electric cars, which puts the amortization of investments at serious risk. In the United States, the tariffs applied by Donald Trump’s Government have caused losses of 1.5 billion dollars in the last quarter alone, it reported. The New York Times. And in China the client has turned his back to the European product. That has put too much pressure on cash flow, forcing Volkswagen to get rid of space that went far beyond a car plant by renting it out to the local university. The problem is that when financial difficulties force us to think about readjustments in the short term, what suffers are long-term investments (just what was being studied in Dresden), which implies less competitiveness in the future. A wheel from which it is only possible to escape if, once again, it is possible to sell what the public asks for, with sufficient profit margins to reinvest in the future. And so, believe in germanyimplies taking steps back in electrification. Photo | Volkswagen In Xataka | In 2017, the owner of an electric car installed a charger with his neighborhood community against him. The Supreme Court has spoken

Europe had chosen the electric car as the only solution for the future. Germany is about to knock him down

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There is no official confirmation. It should arrive on December 10, but there is already a first warning that it is possible that the communication will be delayed until January 2026. “For good reasons,” the political leaders assure us. The same people in charge who already advance the guidelines that the review of the 2035 objectives will follow: allowing cars with combustion engines to remain alive. A preview. This is what Apostolos Tzitzikostas, European Commissioner for Transport, gave to the German newspaper Handelsblatt. Like almost everything in this life, neither the time nor the place chosen is coincidental. In this interview, the European official points out that in the European Commission “we are open to all technologies”, which already suggests that this ban on selling combustion engines in 2035 is close to falling. In the absence of knowing all the specific and official details, what it does say is that “the role of zero-emission fuels (known as efuels) and with low emissions and advanced biofuels.” And this is where some doubts arise. Why does an electric car have less autonomy than advertised? No emissions? What the European Union has to resolve is to what extent it is willing to open its hand. The efuels or synthetic fuels They have been sold as an alternative solution because, it is assumed, they do not generate CO2 emissions. When the car burns said fuel it does generate these emissions but they are neutral because the same or greater amount of CO2 is trapped in their production. The European Union has already opened the door to this possibility changing the wording of the ban. We went from talking about banning combustion engines that produced emissions to combustion engines that were not carbon neutral. The difference is subtle but key because with the burning of any fuel (including hydrogen) polluting emissions beyond CO2 are produced, such as NOx or the dangerous ones fine particles which, in both cases, are harmful to humans. “Low emissions”. Now the European Commissioner also speaks of “low-emission fuels.” It remains to be known what these low emissions are and in what quantities they will be allowed. And the alternative that was put on the table was to allow the sale of combustion engines as long as they were associated with highly electrified options. This would lead, for example, to extended range electric. Cars with long electric ranges but that, in essence, are plug-in hybrids because they have a gasoline tank for emergency use. One of the latest proposals is that the car itself, through software, cape the power when a specific number of kilometers has been traveled without recharging the vehicle. Another technically viable possibility is to geofence the cities. That is, using the vehicle’s navigator, the car always moves in completely electric mode when passing through a city or especially sensitive areas of it (hospitals, schools…). This alternative has been contemplated by some plug-in hybrids for years, like BMW’s. And why all this? Because, according to Tzitzikostas, Europe is risking part of its industrial and economic future. “We want to maintain our objectives, but we must take into account all the latest geopolitical events. We must try not to jeopardize our competitiveness and, at the same time, help European industry maintain its technological advantage,” he points out in the interview. In reaching this conclusion it seems that German pressures have had their effect. “Chancellor Merz’s letter has been very well received,” he told the German media. And Germany has been pushing for some time to go back in the face of the “all electric” that seemed decided for Europe. The German industry is facing one of the worst crises in its history and it is estimated that, in just the last two years, about 55,000 jobs have been lost. When will it be official? The idea is that in December we should already know what will happen to this ban in 2035. In recent days the idea had gained strength that it would be December 10 when the European Commission would confirm all these details but the person in charge of transport has already announced that it is possible that this communication will be delayed until January 2026. Photo | Sophie Jonas and Angelo Abear In Xataka | The Government presents the Auto Plus Plan to forget MOVES III: direct aid for the purchase of electric cars with doubts to clear up

Germany has spent three nights copying Taiwan. If Russia decides to invade it, it has had an idea: surprise them underground

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Last July, the Taiwan subway experienced an unusual day: Instead of passengers loaded with purses and suitcases, soldiers, soldiers and more soldiers armed with anti-tank missiles began to arrive at Taipei stations. The reason was twofold: to send a message inside and outside (China) of the country. That idea seduced Germany, and now that it has begun its rearmament it has launched in Berlin. A disturbing return. The exercise Bollwerk Bärlin III Last week, he returned to the German capital a scene that seemed banished to the memories of the 20th century: soldiers descending U-Bahn stairsjumping onto the tracks and advancing through smoke, simulated gunshots and cars taken over by “saboteurs.” For three nights, between 1 and 4 in the morning, about 250 members of the Wachbataillon (a unit known for its ceremonial role but with infantry functions) transformed stations like Jungfernheide into a real underground battlefield to practice assaults, close combat, evacuation of civilians and protection of critical infrastructure in a realistic environment in which nothing is altered or mocked up: the narrowness of the tunnels, limited visibility and changes in light are the same as they would find in a real war scenario. In the background: Russia. They remembered the TWZ analysts that this return to urban warfare in tunnels and stations, without embellishments or theatrical simulations, symbolizes a profound change in Germany’s strategic priorities and revealed the extent to which the shadow of a possible conflict with Russia has penetrated into the very heart of Germany. his military planning. The metamorphosis. The battalion in charge of displaying honors on state visits had been conceived for decades as a symbol of institutional stability, not as a combat force. However, its real operational mission (protecting the federal government and its facilities in the event of a crisis) today takes on an urgency that has not been seen for a long time. Hence the direct tone of his commanderlieutenant colonel Maik Teichgräber: Berlin is your area of ​​operations and they must prepare for “the worst case scenario,” which means training where you would really fight. The use of stations closed to the public allows practice quick entriesassaults on trains, neutralization of enemies and immediate removal of wounded, integrating snipers, perimeter security and coordination between units in a densely urbanized environment. The presence of additional scenarios (such as the former Rüdersdorf chemical plant or the Ruhleben police complex) underlines the desire to turn the capital’s defense into a multidimensional exercisecapable of absorbing everything from internal sabotage to coordinated incursions that seek to paralyze the political center of Germany. Global dimension of the trend. Which happens in Berlin It is also reflected in other regions of the world. How we countTaiwan uses its subway as a defensive artery during the Han Kuang exercises, aware that, in the event of a Chinese invasion, underground infrastructure they would be vital to move troops and supplies while the surface becomes a continuous target. In parallel, the United States has raised the underground war a priority for its special forces, responding to the proliferation of fortified tunnels, dense urban areas and the expansion of drone swarms that force troops to seek refuge underground. The growing autonomy of unmanned systems, already present in Ukraine, accelerates this trend: in a future where aerial surveillance will be almost constant, defending in depth will mean dominating not only streets and buildings, but subways, tunnels, pipelines and interconnected bunkers. The war of the future, according to these emerging doctrines, will be fought both upwards (against drones, sensors and loitering munitions) and downwards, in an underground network that takes on strategic value. Echoes of the Cold War. He training on the U-Bahn inevitably refers to a divided Berlinwhen the city was a western enclave surrounded by Warsaw Pact forces. At that time, the United States, the United Kingdom and France were rehearsing urban operations aimed at slowing down an invasion to gain political time, aware that holding the city indefinitely was unrealistic. Units like the (secret) Detachment A They practiced sabotage and unconventional warfare techniques from the shadows. Even stations, such as Pankstraße or Siemensdamm, were designed like nuclear shelters for more than 3,000 people for weeks, with armored doors and air filtering. The reunified Germany had left behind that architecture of fear, and today, faced with a panorama of uncertainty, it returns to study how to reactivate these civil protection capabilities. The contrast is evident: what in 1994 seemed unnecessary is once again considered a strategic necessity. Historical rearmament. we have been counting. The exercise is also part of a context transformation unprecedented german military apparatus. By 2029, Berlin plans spend 153,000 million euros per year in defense (around 3.5% of GDP), an enormous jump from the levels that for decades were a source of friction with Washington. It is a rearmament designed not only for modernize capabilitiesbut to adapt the country to threats that They are no longer theoretical: What happens 900 kilometers away, in Ukraine, conditions the entire strategy. This budget increase has led NATO to consider a symbolic turn that would have been unthinkable during the Cold War: that Germany would command the allied forces in Europe. Although that moment has not arrivedthe expectation underscores the pressure on Berlin to demonstrate that it can take on top responsibilities and is willing to prepare its military for complex scenariosfrom urban sabotage to large-scale conventional warfare. Strategic warning. Teichgräber put it clearly: Nobody can guarantee that the war that is currently devastating Ukraine will not one day reach German territory. That phrase sums up the background of Bollwerk Bärlin III. The Bundeswehr trains in the subway tunnels because it understands that contemporary conflicts do not respect borders or capitals. The hybrid warcoordinated attacks on critical infrastructure and the massive use of drones They make the interior of cities as vulnerable as their borders. If you like, what is at stake is not only the defense of Berlin, but Germany’s capacity to react facing a moment in which the strategic … Read more

Germany is trying to stop its electricity dependence on China. The question is whether that is even possible.

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Almost four years ago, Germany learned a painful lesson: your industry cannot depend on the energy of a geopolitical rival. The Russian gas crisis after the invasion of Ukraine forced the Germans to make more than one sacrifice while the country’s energy model was transformed. Now, at the gates of 2026, Friedrich Merz’s government faces a déjà vu disturbing. The same stone twice. Germany may have become independent of Gazprom’s gas pipelines, but its solar panels and grid technology bear, directly or indirectly, China’s stamp. Good: Berlin has just hit the brakes. The collapse of a seemingly innocuous financial operation last week has revealed that Germany is carefully reviewing every watt that enters its system to avoid repeating the historic Russian gas mistake. The trigger. The Italian company Snam SpA intended to acquire a minority stake in Open Grid Europe (OGE), one of the largest gas network operators in Germany. On paper, it was an investment between European partners. In practice, the German Economy Ministry saw the shadow of Beijing. The problem was not Snam, but its shareholders. The state-owned State Grid Corporation of China owns 35% of Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, which in turn owns a third of Snam. For the Merz government, that was risk enough. Given Berlin’s refusal to accept the proposed solutions, Snam withdrew its offer last week. A clear message. Berlin does not want companies with Chinese state participation to have access to the country’s energy arteries, even indirectly, which marks a change in doctrine compared to the era of Olaf Scholz, who at the time allowed the Chinese shipping company Cosco to enter the port of Hamburg. The current executive is much more defensive: national security takes precedence over capital. The question is… Too late? If blocking the purchase of a gas network is relatively simple, unraveling technological dependence on China is a logistical and economic nightmare. 95% of the photovoltaic cells installed in Germany come from Chinese manufacturers. And almost the entire wind industry, especially offshore, depends on rare earths controlled by China. The German energy transition is based on Asian hardware. Germany needs Chinese technology to meet its climate goals. And he doesn’t hide it. The German government has already raised this concern in international forums, denouncing the Chinese overcapacity in sectors such as electric mobility and solar energy. Technology that is needed but now considered a “systemic risk.” Is decoupling possible? In 2018, the German government already had to intervene so that the state bank KfW bought a stake in the network operator 50Hertz, preventing it from falling into the hands, again, of the Chinese State Grid. Seven years later, the strategy of “patching” individual acquisitions seems insufficient in the face of structural dependence. If the experience with Russia is any guide, Berlin seems to have decided that, this time, the price of security must be paid in advance, before anyone decides to turn off the tap. But today, the reality of the market is stubborn: replacing Chinese hardware means, almost invariably, paying more and taking longer to deploy renewables. Image | rawpixel In Xataka | If you were expecting cheap electricity this winter, we have bad news: Holland

Spain, France and Germany could not depend on the “button” of the F-35. So the future European fighter aims for something else

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In the month of September the future European fighter in which Spain participates began to disfigure publicly. Germany threatened to open FCAS to new partners if there was no agreement with France, while Spain joined Berlin with Indra and, on the opposite sidewalk, a continental bet appeared, the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP) that brought together Italy, the United Kingdom and Japan around a different philosophy. Now, in a new twist of the script, the European fighter is aiming for something else. An overflowing program. He Future Combat Air System (FCAS), conceived in 2017 as Europe’s great bet to build the combat air ecosystem of the second half of the 21st century and put aside the american dependencyis going through its crisis deeper. Germany and France, political and industrial drivers of the project, they study abandoning the most symbolic piece (the new generation fighter) to take refuge in its only still viable element: the combat clouda command and control network based on artificial intelligence capable of integrating manned aircraft, swarms of drones, radars, sensors and naval and land systems in the same operational environment. The shift does not seem like a simple technical reorientation, but rather a tacit recognition that the differences between Airbus and Dassault Aviation They have reached a point of no return. At a time when Europe wants to demonstrate strategic autonomy after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the largest military program of the continent is at risk of fracturing due to the inability of its two main contractors to share responsibilities, cede control and coordinate incompatible industrial visions. The Airbus-Dassault divorce. The conflict between Dassault and Airbus it’s not recentbut it has now reached an intensity that makes advancing the fighter impossible. Dassault, creator of the Rafale and a family-owned company, demands total authority on the design of the aircraft and selection of suppliers. For its part, Airbus (which represents Germany and part of Spain) considers that a European project of this magnitude should be governed by a balanced distribution of work. Negotiations have been stalled for years, with each party accusing the other of breaking agreements. While Dassault threatens to continue alone because “it has all the necessary experience”, the temptation to replace France grows in Berlin through the United Kingdom or Swedentwo partners who already participate in the rival Tempest program. The result is a vicious circle: without trust, there is no cooperation, without cooperation, there is no plane, and without plane, the FCAS becomes an empty shell supported only by the idea. from combat cloud. FCAS The German temptation and the French dilemma. The pressure is not symmetrical. Germany, which has relaxed its spending limit to rearm on a large scaledoes not want to be held hostage by a French company that is blocking progress. According to the Financial Timesin the environment of Chancellor Friedrich Merz an increasingly clear message is heard: if collaboration does not work, Berlin has the resources to continue without Paris. France, for its part, shows caution: its nuclear deterrent It depends on the replacement of the Rafale starting in the next decade, and an abrupt divorce could delay a key system for its strategic security. Although Macron hoped to rebuild trust after years of disagreements, even French voices admit that the project is “immobilized and almost dead,” and that the only real way out is through direct intervention by the president on Éric Trappier, the powerful CEO of Dassault. Combat Cloud The combat cloud as a strategic refuge. Just because the plane stalls doesn’t mean FCAS is meaningless. The most transformative piece of the program is not the fighter, but the AI-based distributed command and control system: a combat cloud european that allows any platform (Rafale, Eurofighter, long-range drones, naval sensors or ground radars) to share data in real time. This system, developed by Airbus (Germany), Thales (France) and Indra (Spain), is the only thing that everyone agrees on: Europe can (co)live with several planes, but not with incompatible networks that depend entirely on the American technological umbrella as was the case with the F-35. That is why it is proposed to accelerate the entry into service from the cloud to 2030a decade ahead of schedule, and armor it as a common pillar even if the joint fighter disappears. For many European countries, having their own cloud is the only way to guarantee that, if Washington one day looks the other way, the continent’s armies can operate in a cohesive and autonomous manner. Failure with implications. If he FCAS collapsesit will not just be an industrial setback, but a devastating geopolitical message. Europe has been proclaiming its desire for military autonomy for years, but every time it tries to create its own capabilities it runs into problems. same obstacles: competition between nations, political misgivings, absence of common governance and divergent priorities. This crisis also comes at a critical moment, when the war in Ukraine has demonstrated that technological superiority it is played onlinethat reaction time is vital and that Western systems must interoperate seamlessly. That the largest European defense project could collapse for corporate disputes shows the extent to which the dream of an integrated defense continues to depend on fragile foundations. What is played in a few weeks. The Financial Times recalled that the calendar is tight. Paris, Berlin and Madrid must decide before the end of the year whether to finance the airplane demonstration, an investment of several billion that no one wants to approve while the project remains blocked. The meetings between the French minister Catherine Vautrin, her German counterpart Boris Pistorius, Merz and Macron will be decisive: or the FCAS is redefined around to combat cloud or formally disintegrates. Everyone repeats that the Franco-German bilateral relationship should not be damaged, but the reality is that companies have carried out the program to the limit. The FCAS was born to symbolize defense Europe, but today only the combat cloud keeps that symbol alive as the last possible bridge between two industries that no longer … Read more

The most German museum in Germany laughs at its visitors. And it is triumphing

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Imagine booking a guided tour of a museum and the guide being an arrogant, resentful and rude know-it-all. It certainly sounds very unpleasant, but there is a museum in Germany where people are lining up and paying to live the experience. Grumpy guide. This is how the museum Kunstpalastlocated in Dusseldorf, advertises this curious guided tour format, which they describe on their website as a “highly unpleasant” experience. During the visit, which lasts 70 minutes, the guide challenges visitors to name works, and then ridicules their knowledge. He does not insult the visitors directly or comment on their physique, but he does ridicule them as a group. He also scolds them if they use their cell phones or sit down and criticizes artists who, in his opinion, should not be on the walls of the museum. Waiting list. They count in Guardian that the grumpy guide’s visits have been a complete success and the waiting list extends until 2026. It is true that this guided tour format only takes place twice a month, so it is not that there are many tickets, but the museum claims that they have managed to sell them all out since they launched it in May of this year. Tickets cost 7 euros. Pay to be insulted. The museum director admits that he was inspired by Karen’s Dineran Australian restaurant chain where the waiters are very unfriendly and unpleasant to customers. There are more restaurants of this type in which you pay for an experience beyond the food, like a kind of dinner-show in which the fun is being treated badly. There are even more extreme cases such as This Japanese restaurant where waitresses slap customers in exchange for 3 euros. There is a goal behind it. The visits with ‘grumpy guide’ have not been a mere occurrence, but are part of a European initiative to attract young audiences and look for fresher and less elitist formats. The Kunstpalast museum has its unfriendly guide, but there are other curious initiatives such as Stuggart History Museum Nudist Tours or the sock tours of the Vooorlinden museum in Holland. Image | Pexels, Unsplash In Xataka | No wonder the theft of jewels from the Louvre has been so easy: the museum’s security has been a disaster for more than a century

Germany wants to end the plug-in hybrid scam. Your industry is at stake

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We do not know how much plug-in hybrids consume and it is not very clear what they pollute. We do not know because it is very difficult to understand how the driver of a vehicle of this type behaves and, intrinsically, it is just as difficult to replicate these conditions in a laboratory test. That is why plug-in hybrids consumed just one liter of fuel according to official approvals. That’s why they now consume much more. And that is why for entities like Transport&Environment, they are cars that They consume seven times more than they say. All of this has put in the spotlight a technology that looks like the perfect bridge to jump from combustion car to electric. With plug-in hybrids that travel more than 100 kilometers in purely electric mode, the solution seems perfect for those clients who they do not dare to take the step to a pure electric car. With Europe determined to make the jump to the electric car and some clients who do not fully embrace this new paradigm, Germany has chosen to position them as the logical evolution. To convince the rest of Europe, he wants to put a stop to those who use the plug-in hybrid as a pure combustion vehicle. And why do you take this step? Because your industry is at stake. More combustion please Just a few days ago, Germany and Italy presented themselves to Europe as the guarantors of the combustion engines from 2035. In front they have Spain and France who have teamed up so that we forget about this type of mechanics from 2035 if they are not neutral in carbon emissions. This would leave out plug-in hybrids. The plan goes through a review of objectivesan analysis of how the European Union is adapting to the new regulations. A process that Germans and Italians want to take advantage of to modify the regulations already approved. Germany’s latest proposal has been launched from the VDA association (Verband der Automobilindustrie), which encompasses German industry manufacturers. These manufacturers, including those who said they would make the leap to electric cars even before 2035 (such as mercedes either Audi) are now committed to maintaining combustion engines. They assure that there is not enough demand of electric cars to guarantee production and anticipate massive layoffs if the jump to “neutral in carbon emissions” is made. What is now proposed is to keep plug-in hybrids alive in exchange for the driver being obliged to recharge the car in a specific kilometer cycle. Although it has not been specified how long that number of cycles would be, the punishment has been proposed: limiting the power of the car. Technically, the car would have a software that counts the number of kilometers that the vehicle has not been used in purely electric mode. At a certain point, if the car is not recharged, the vehicle’s power is limited as a clear reminder that the time has come to plug in the car. The obvious intention is to prevent someone from buying this type of car and never using the car in electric mode. Although from a purely economic point of view it doesn’t make much senseright now in Spain if you buy a plug-in hybrid you can receive a minimum of 2,500 euros discount with the MOVES III Plan (if the car does not exceed 45,000 euros before VAT is applied) but counts as an electric car if the range is greater than 90 kilometers, increasing the aid to 4,500 euros discount and 7,000 euros if a vehicle is scrapped. In addition, many cities have advantages such as free parking in zones with limited hours, entering the interior of the ZBE or using the lane Bus-HOV despite only having one passenger inside. In return for maintaining combustion engines, Germany wants to put a stop to traps that operate in a similar way to AdBlue, for example, which prevents starting a diesel car whose tank is completely empty. It is not the first proposal to arrive for plug-in hybrids either. On other occasions the possibility of fence cities using GPS so that this type of automobile can only operate in completely electric mode within the city or very specific places in it (schools, hospitals…). This is something that can already be done and German manufacturers such as BMW has been mounting it for years with options in the browser that allow you to move only in electric mode within the municipalities and they save battery (or even produce it by converting the car into an electric generator) if passing through a city is contemplated on the route. Photo | bmw In Xataka | That people don’t charge their plug-in hybrid cars is not good for Toyota: so they have decided to change our habits with an app

The most pacifist city in Germany lived off its legendary train factory. Now they will make it from a gigantic tank factory

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Görlitz was known for its neat historic center, its post-war memory and a practical inclination towards pacifism. For decades, the city on the eastern border fit on the German map as a haven of caution and resigned industrial melancholy, a place where work and tradition maneuvered away from military power. But that calm is beginning to show cracks that force its inhabitants to rethink what it means to maintain peace when the world seems to want just the opposite. From the steel of peace to that of war. For more than a century and a half, the town of Görlitz, on Germany’s eastern border, lived off the rhythmic sound of trains. The wagon and locomotive factories They provided work for entire generations and defined the identity of this working-class region of the former East. But that era is coming to an end. After 176 years of railway production, the historic Alstom industrial complex is being converted by the arms consortium KNDS to manufacture components Leopard II tanks and Puma armored vehicles. What was once a symbol of civil mobility and reconstruction, today is transformed in gear of the German military machine. This metamorphosis does not arise from nowhere, of course: it responds to the country’s strategic shift towards rearmamentmotivated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, fear of a withdrawal of American security guarantees and a economy in decline desperately looking for new sources of employment. Between pacifism and necessity. I was counting last week the new york times that, in Görlitz, industrial reconversion divide feelings. The population, aging and punished by decades of deindustrialization since reunification, sees the production of tanks as a lesser evil. In this area where the far-right AfD party (openly pro-Russian and opposed to helping Ukraine) concentrates almost half the voteseven its local leaders have accepted the change with resignation. “It is not a cause for celebration, but we cannot oppose having work either,” recognizeaware that the loss of employment would be even more devastating than the moral dilemma of manufacturing weapons. Reconversion. The factory, which once had more than 2,000 employeesbarely kept 700 before the sale, and KNDS agrees to keep half of them and plans to multiply it in the future. In fact, the unions, led by IG Metall, were the ones who promoted the idea of ​​reorienting the plant towards the defense sector to avoid its definitive closure. In a territory marked by youth exodus and economic frustration, the arms industry has ended up offering something similar to a second chance. German military reindustrialization. The Görlitz case reflects a broader phenomenon: German rearmament as a driver of a new industrial reconversion. Since 2020, Berlin’s defense spending has increased about 80%exceeding 90,000 million euros, and the demand for specialized labor has skyrocketed. Companies such as Rheinmetall, Diehl Defense, Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems or MBDA have added more than 16,000 workers since the start of the war of Ukraine and plan to hire 12,000 more before 2026. The sector’s profits are so high that its managers increase dividends while exploring the purchase of automobile plants in decline, as that of Volkswagen in Osnabrück. The “logic”. The message from its CEO, Armin Papperger, summarize the logic of the new defense economy: if taxpayers’ money finances national security, jobs must stay in Germany. In this context, the factory conversion like Görlitz, it is perceived as an industrial policy with a dual purpose: to sustain the productive fabric and strengthen the country’s strategic autonomy. The moral dilemma. Despite the economic relief that the renaissance of the arms sector represents, it persists in German society a deep tension between the pacifism inherited from the post-war and the need to guarantee European defense. For many East Germans, who already experienced a first deindustrialization after the fall of the Wall and now suffer the loss of energy and manufacturing jobs, manufacturing tanks is a bitter way of survival. Some fear that the weapons produced will end up on the Ukrainian front, others that the rise of the business depends on the continuity of the war. “Will it be sustainable to manufacture tanks? I hope not. I hope the wars end soon,” admitted to the Financial Times a union representative. However, the reality of the market and geopolitics point in another direction: defense has become the new industrial hub European, and Germany (due to history, technological capacity and allied pressure) leads that transition. Goodbye train, hello tank. Thus, the old Görlitz factory, with its warehouses blackened by decades of metallurgical work, symbolizes the change of era that crosses Europe. Where wagons were previously welded to transport passengers, steel shells will be assembled for combat vehicles. What began as a strategy to save jobs threatens to redefine the industrial soul of the country: from civil ingenuity to military power, from the steel that united continents to that which now armors them. And a profound paradox: in a fractured political landscape, where the fear of war coexists with the need to prosper, the workers of Eastern Germany are once again the involuntary protagonists of history. Its destiny, between nostalgia for trains and the pragmatic acceptance of tanks or battle tanks, summarizes the dilemma of a nation that tries to reconcile its pacifist past with a present that pushes it, once again, to manufacture weapons to ensure its future. Image | Norwegian Armed Forces, State Ministry for Economic Affairs, Labor, Energy and Climate Protection In Xataka | The US no longer has to worry about Spain or the rearmament bill in Europe. Germany had a plan B In Xataka | The “rearmament” of Europe has begun at a Volkswagen factory in Germany: instead of cars they will produce tanks

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