Valencia

Ford and Geely reach an agreement to manufacture four cars in Valencia

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Ford and Geely have reached an important agreement for the plant that the American company has in Almussafes (Valencia). The facilities have been operating at half throttle for a long time but the agreement with Geely is a lifeline for a team that feared for its future. Here are all the details. an agreement. Geely and Ford have reached “an agreement to establish a joint venture for Europe at Ford’s production center in Valencia.” To move forward, yes, they remember that the next step is “waiting for the corresponding regulatory authorizations.” With this agreement, Geely and Ford should share facilities in the first half of 2027 but the first vehicles will not leave the facilities until 2028. This joint venture will be 34% controlled by Geely and 66% by Ford. What will be manufactured? The press release sent to the media states that the joint venture will bring about “a new generation of low- and zero-emission vehicles destined for European markets.” That is, cars with plug-in hybrid and electric technology will come out of the Valencia plant. It is also specified that “the joint venture is planned to manufacture two multi-energy vehicles from the Ford brand and two electric models from the Geely brand, starting in 2028” but no further details are offered that point to the names of said vehicles or whether deeper integrations are contemplated. The possible scenarios. With the information that is confirmed, there are different possibilities: Ford and Geely share facilities but do not share models. One line brings out the “Ford multi-energy models” and another “the Geely electric ones.” The integration of Ford and Geely is greater because one of the “electrics” of the latter company is an extended range electric, a solution in which a combustion engine is used and that fits within the definition of “electric car” and “multi-energy car.” What does Ford gain? For years, Ford’s production in Europe has been in clear decline and Almussafes has been operating at half throttle for some time. The possibility of closure has been raised on several occasions, but closing a factory involves a lot of money in layoffs, compensation to suppliers, and leaves facilities for which a buyer must be sought. Ford had already confirmed that Valencia will manufacture a new Bronco “European style” (that it will have nothing to do with with the one produced in the United States) and a multi-energy Kuga. Despite this, the factory would be released in part because it has the capacity to put half a million vehicles on the road annually. The American company is going through a bad time in Europe. It already has a agreement with Volkswagen for your mid-size electrics (explorer and Capri) and another with Renault for sister versions of the Renault 5 and the Renault 4. With all that covered, the company did not seem interested in making the necessary investments to produce more cars in Europe. What does Geely earn? The benefits for Geely are numerous. First, it will have an already built plant that requires money to modernize but which is already built. This will allow them to produce in, they say, a year and a half. It is less time than it takes to obtain permits to build a factory, build it from scratch and start producing. The second thing is that it buys European land. And with the European soil, a good part of the tariffs that are currently imposed on their cars are eliminated. Especially if we take into account that Geely will manufacture cars and will not assemble them using parts from China. (like Chery does in Barcelona)a solution that the European Union believes not enough to eliminate tariffs. What does Valencia gain? The opportunity to once again have a factory that increases its production and extends its useful life. When the rumors started Of a possible association of Geely with Ford, the doubt remained as to whether Almussafes was going to be the option chosen in the possible agreement between the companies. And Ford already has a plant capable of manufacturing completely electric models. However, if both companies do not share assembly lines and only share facilities, Valencia is an excellent opportunity for Geely since it will be able to manufacture at lower costs than in Cologne (Germany) where Ford has its electric car plant. This should result in a more attractive price, greater chances of success in the market and a clearer horizon for the future. Photo | Geely and Ford In Xataka | Volkswagen’s turbulence also affects Sagunto: the long-awaited battery factory is delayed

A company from Valencia manufactures Mercadona mochis. They have grown to 165 million euros

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Who is the company behind Mercadona’s addictive dochis? From battle ice cream to vegan mochis and plants in Cheste, if you have heard of Estiu you will have heard of a success story to be very proud of. Helados Estiu went from being the typical discreet cheap ice cream factory to a central player in the most powerful supermarket in Spain. “Estiu” is summer and in the summer was when they moved, one from 1997, to the highway Manises-Ribarroja km 11.1. From there they sell dozens of liters of ice cream every year and now they are destroying that Trojan horse that is “dochis”, their own version of mochis with crushed cookies. Yes, I have two boxes in the freezer. The white label has known how to bet on the Japanese dessert and has been eaten, in industrial volumeto other legendary companies in the sector such as Frigo or La Lechera. Manufacturing for the leader. Helados Estiu was born in 1983 with a clear idea of ​​producing battle ice creams, a summer campaign and always low prices. During the first decades it worked with various partners, national and European, without completely taking off. It is in 2013 when the large injection of capital begins to expand lines and improve structures: warehouses are expanded, water efficiency is improved, formats are diversified and logistics automation is implemented with Pallet Shuttle. Not for nothing was the ‘mini chocolate cookie’ a hit that ate Maxibon’s toast. But the turning point came in 2002, when they closed their supply agreement with Mercadona and entered the circuit of “screw supplier” by Hacendado. From that turning point today come things as different as chocolates, sandwiches, frozen cakes and the coconut and mango mochis that serve as a bridge between Japan and the supermarket aisle. Can a single manufacturer really shape what a country eats? It seems so. And they are addictive. Or that’s how their numbers explain it. In 2019 it had a turnover of around 61 million euros and sold 27.7 million liters of ice cream. In 2023 it was already at 138 million euros (+30% over 2022), 44 million liters and a average staff of 473 people51% more than the previous year. In 2024 it will reach around 150 million in turnover, 45 million liters and 8.8 million in profit. In 2025 it will reach 165 million, with more than 46 million liters sold and exceeding the 9 million in net profits. The white label, the cat in the water. In the Spanish ice cream market, white label rules. In 2024, Kantar estimated the value share of private labels in ice cream at 68.5%, compared to names that previously seemed untouchable such as Frigo, La Lechera or Häagen-Dazs. In mass consumption, private label has gone from representing 20% ​​of the value in 2003 to touch 44% in 2024and experts see room for it to approach 70% in many categories. And Mercadona is the epicenter of this shift, with a food distribution share that represents a third of the Spanish market, and with those Hacendado ice creams with a wide and very high rotation of styles and flavors. And its price has cost it: the plant in Cheste cost more than 31 million euros, with specific lines for mochis and vegan ice creams, and another 26 million investment is expected in three years. In exchange, of the 65 types of ice cream that Mercadona sells in Madrid, 22 are manufactured by this Valencian company. 34% of the ice cream catalog of the giant Juan Roig. Mochi is the passport. It is true that for the average consumer, Estiu does not exist. What you see is a black cream-flavored chocolate, the mini-sandwich (so you don’t feel so guilty consuming twice as many calories as the standard format) or the coconut mochi at 2.90 euros for a box of six. Estiu entered this format eleven years ago, replicating the Japanese sweet with rice dough and filled with coconut, mango or pistachio ice cream under the Hacendado brand. The invention worked so well that they ended up exporting it: Wao Mochi is the own brand that, in 2019, began selling in Holland, Ireland, Ukraine, Finland, Latvia, Germany and Armenia. At first it was almost an experiment, a small fraction of the business. Vawaii, its vegan ice cream brand, occupies the plant-based niche and today more than 26,000 boxes of frozen mochis are sold daily in its three main flavors, and with that surprise called Dochi Cheesecake. Although the favorite of many is still the banoffee: banana, the crunchy cookie and the dulce de leche filling. The best of the flash remains. Growing by selling cheap, this has been its key. None of this would make sense without a very aggressive pricing policy. All their ice creams are systematically below the benchmarks of famous manufacturers, between 2 and 4 euros for complete boxes of 6 products. A frozen hook, a treat for the after-dinner meal that has built a small empire and aims to continue growing. Ironically, mochis travel from hot Spain to Finland. Images | Summer Ice CreamFlickr (Nina Ding) In Xataka | Fernando Sáenz, one of the best ice cream makers in the world, puts the dots over the i’s: “Mercadona has changed the palate of the Spanish people” In Xataka | Italy has taken the “gourmetization” of ice cream to the extreme with a €95 cone. Now the country debates whether that is “idiots”

a 1 MW floating catamaran that is already in Valencia

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The Port of Valencia just received an infrastructure that marks a turning point in the race for offshore renewable energy in our country. This is ‘Paiporta’, the first marine solar platform in Spain, which marks an engineering milestone by opening the door to generating renewable energy taking advantage of the entire marine area. It has already arrived. The project is promoted by the Spanish startup BlueNewables, with the support of Naturgy. After being built in the San Enrique shipyard, in Vigo, the structure has arrived to anchor outside the southern contradock of the Valencian site and begin its imminent testing phase. which will tell us if these types of installations are truly efficient for our electrical system. A great challenge. Taking photovoltaic technology to the open sea is not an easy task, since the continuous waves, extreme salinity and oceanic winds require very different solutions than those we see in terrestrial plants where the plate remains static, at least. To solve this challenge, the platform uses an innovative catamaran-type design optimized for the ocean environment. The advantage that this system offers is that it allows the use of more efficient floats and the panels to be placed at a higher height above sea level. This improves overall system performance and facilitates maintenance by better protecting equipment from the sea surface. Your generation system. One of the great characteristics of this system is that the panels generate energy not only with the direct solar radiation they receive from the sun, but also by capturing the light reflected on the sea water itself, which increases its efficiency. But also, ‘Paiporta’ is only the first half of the project, since this initial unit has 500 kW of power, but it is expected that a second unit will arrive at the end of summer to complete the installation and reach the megawatt of total power. A small nuance. Although they tell us that this is the first marine solar platform in Spain, the reality is that it is the first on a pre-commercial scale. This means that in 2023 a first prototype will be tested in the same port in order to begin conducting experiments on its viability. Now, the arrival of ‘Paiporta’ means taking the big leap from that basic test bed to a mature infrastructure that is almost ready to be commercialized. A legal labyrinth. Getting to this point has not been an easy path for these companies, since Spain has had to create a clear regulatory framework to organize ocean energy. Specifically, this regulation comes from a Royal Decree published in 2024 that regulates the production of electrical energy from renewable sources in facilities located at sea. This is the strongest regulatory reference today, since it dictates how projects subject to competitive competition should be processed compared to purely innovative ones, setting the rules of the game. Two years of exam. The platform project in Valencia has subsidies from the IDAE, financed by NextGeneration EU European funds, and is part of the Renmarinas Valenciaport program. The objective of the Port Authority is twofold, since, on the one hand, they want to move towards emissions-neutral ports and, on the other, they also want to convert their waters into a permanent testing platform for marine technologies. From now on, Naturgy and BlueNewables have a two-year monitoring period ahead of them. During this time, they will collect and share critical data on performance, operation, maintenance costs and potential technical issues. Only through this examination in real conditions will we know if floating ocean photovoltaics are prepared to accompany offshore wind in the energy revolution of the Spanish coast or if it remains an attempt that has gone wrong. Images | Naturgy In Xataka | We have been thinking for years that solar panels were destroying the countryside: it turns out that birds and insects live much better under them

Valencia has found a way to prevent fires like someone watering a garden: huge fire cannons

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Like someone watering a garden. 10,000 liters per minute at 42 meters away. The Valencian Community has a unique weapon to fight fire: fire cannons that are activated as soon as the environmental sensors detect the slightest outbreak of fire. And these sentinels are armored to entire neighborhoods. In the Devesa The Salerin Valencia city and under red notice due to high temperatures, eight fixed towers have been set up on Gola del Pujol avenue and a set of portable cannons that move through the natural park. The municipal forecast is to reach about 40 towers in 2031. The system began in the Colonia Santa Marina urbanization (Carcaixent), where the Forest Fire Defense System (SIDEINFO) already installed similar cannons in 2006 for collective defense against a neighborhood surrounded by mountains. Entrusted to Neptune. Guardian is the name of this project and it has no other purpose than to serve water cannons to create “green barriers” around key developments. The objective now is to expand in areas such as Masia de Traver, Els Pous, La Canyada (north and south) and Valencia La Vella. In Torrent, for example, the Vedat has been protected for more than a decade by 24 cannons distributed throughout the “green lung” of the city, covering more than 50 hectares of forest. They are activated automatically or manually when the risk increases, and the city council itself is considering bringing this same methodology to Serra Perenxisa using hydrants and pipes on forest trails. and it works. Already prevented a fire from spreading in the Túria Natural Park, dumping more than 218,000 liters of water in just over half an hour. Companies such as Hidraqua, Cetaqua, Medi XXI, along with the universities of Valencia are involved in this enormous project. In fact, Medi XXI also sells domestic and portable versions of these cannons for isolated homes and small urbanizations. While other communities face the same wave of fires with extreme confinement, as is the case of the entire population of Albeldain Castillonroy, resorting to the essential ES-Alert warnings and massive deployments of brigades and UME, Valencia has found another less reactive model. What is a fire cannon. It all starts with the SIDEINFO tower system. They are water monitors that measure between 12 and 16 meters high, shoot water about 42 meters away and mobilize almost double the discharge of a Canadair-type amphibious plane (about 6,000 liters at a time). They are fixed cannons, connected to tanks of about 500 m³ and pumping houses, integrated into a home automation network with sensors and weather stations that allow simulating the evolution of a fire and activating the irrigation/reinforcement system when the risk index demands it. In addition to moving large flows of water, they can also project foam with a range greater than 30-40 meters and can vary between manual, motorized or remote control. A difference between communities. The Valencian Community has become a testing laboratory. And the case of El Saler is quite unique: the city has been investing since 2023 in a system patented by the consulting firm Medi XXI GSA. The nucleus resides at that point where the CV-500 highway and the urban center intersect the forest. The engineer Ferran Dalmau argument that this system only makes sense at very specific points of the urban-forest interface, where opening large firebreaks would be unfeasible. Such an evacuation would cause a huge landscape impact, because it would leave a mountain with a giant bald patch. Although not everyone thinks the same: WWF Remember that these sprinkler systems are anecdotal for now and they are not clear that they work against high intensity fires. Once again, early detection, cleaning of perimeter vegetation and neighborhood self-protection plans are essential preventive guidelines. Protect yourself against maximum risk. In Valencia, where wind conditions can fan any spark, sometimes a fire overcomes the barriers of surveillance, forest management, mobile firefighting devices and, in short, the Special Plan against the Risk of Forest Fires (PEIF) itself. These cannons are, de facto, a reinforcement system. During the last few weeks, tracks and roads have been closed to traffic, the device has been reinforced with a forest nursery, El Saler Fire Station, Local Police and Civil Protection volunteers. This year, the deployment has mobilized 4,401 troops and 20 air resources throughout the Community, with 2,313 professionals in the province of Valencia, 56 forest firefighting units and 65 observatoriesten of them with 24-hour surveillance. Only in El Saler has a reinforcement of five firefighters and two extra patrol teams been activated. The Stop al Foc device of the Valencian Community brings together almost 1,700 professionals – 724 in the province of València, 470 in Castellón and 434 in Alicante – for a stage that, statistically, 68% is attributed to human activity (38% intentional, 30% due to negligence). The Albelda case. Some are saved and others burn? The difference with Huesca is clear: fewer water options, more unpopulated areas of territory and environmental conditions more conducive to fire. The declared fire at 18:15 In agricultural and forestry land, it devastated 100 hectares in a few hours and forced the Government of Aragon to raise the PROCINFO plan to operational situation 2. They cut off the N-230 and A-140 roads and the Military Emergency Unit (UME) is already there. It is already controlled, luckily, but the entire Tamarite de Litera area is at risk and the figures point to more than 400 hectares burned. All precautions are insufficient: the 2026 fire map is presented as the one with the highest incidence of forest fires in the EU. The Copernicus and FIRMS records speak of some 56,000 hectares burned, which represents almost 40% of the burned surface in the entire Union. The data from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition is somewhat lower (39,700 ha until June 21, you can consult here updated data), but they agree that June has been the most destructive month. Doubling the numbers. What’s more, 19 fires have been recorded from July 2 alone until … Read more

Francisco Valencia, CEO of Secure&IT, on the challenge of AI attacks

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Yesterday morning I went to a new edition of the cybersecurity conferences of Secure&IT in Madrid with a fairly clear idea: to listen to how companies are using the artificial intelligence to better defend yourself and make life difficult for cybercriminals. It was a reasonable expectation. AI has become one of the great promises of the sector and it seemed logical to think that a good part of the conversation would revolve around its new defensive capabilities. But the day left a much deeper reading. What is moving is not just another technological layer on top of the usual systems. It is the mental framework of cybersecurity itself. The speed of change, the sophistication of attacks, and the entry of new algorithm-based tools are forcing companies to rethink everything from how they patch software to how they anticipate threats. The feeling there, listening to the speakers, was clear: we are not facing a simple update of tools, but rather a change of era. Francisco ValenciaCEO of Secure&IT, who I was able to interview a while agoput that idea on the table as soon as it began with a particularly graphic phrase: “We have always said that in cybersecurity we are one step behind cybercrime and we are now 10 steps behind cybercrime“The statement was surprising for its crudeness, but it also helped to organize the conversation. Looking at this disadvantage head-on, without selling false certainties, may be the first step to understanding what is coming. Cybersecurity was waiting for an ally, but cybercrime has also found one The key is that AI has not only changed the available tools, but also the balance of the game. Valencia put it crudely because, from his point of view, cybercriminals have taken off while many companies are still trying to decide how to use AI in a safe, useful and governed way. This difference in rhythm explains a good part of the diagnosis. Attackers don’t need to resolve every internal debate in an organization, justify every deployment, or wait for a perfect corporate policy. They just need to test, automate and exploit what works. The speaker began by addressing one of the most disturbing pieces of this new scenario: the Dark LLM. LLMs, or large language models, are the technical layer that powers applications such as ChatGPT, Copilot or Gemini: systems capable of interpreting instructions, helping to program or solve complex tasks. The companies that develop them introduce limits, filters and guardrails to prevent harmful uses, both for safety and for the ethical criteria with which they design these systems. The Dark LLM, such as FraudGPT and WormGPTstart from a much more dangerous logic: offer similar capabilities, but without those barriers. The interesting thing is that this logic does not always depend on creating a new model from scratch. Valencia also spoke of jailbreaka way of trying to avoid the limits of conventional AI through carefully constructed instructions. It’s not simply asking a system to do something forbidden, but wrapping that request in a context that pushes it to respond where it should stop. In practice, the result can be similar: capabilities of a powerful model put at the service of uses that large companies try to block. This leap is very well understood when we move from the tool to deception. For years we have associated many fraud campaigns with clumsy, massive and easy-to-detect messages, but AI allows us to change the scale without giving up personalization. The CEO of Secure&IT summed it up with a very clear phrase: “I don’t need to send the Nigerian’s spam to 20 million people saying that I have fallen in love with 20 million people to see who will bite. I send the same email to 20 million, but I tell each one what they want to hear“That’s the difference: the attack can still be massive, but it no longer has to seem generic. The attack may still be massive, but it no longer has to feel generic. During the presentation a term also appeared that caught my attention: malware polymorphic. It may sound very technical, even more typical of a conversation between analysts than an article to understand what is happening, but it helps to land something important. We are no longer just talking about a malicious program that enters a computer and tries to repeat itself on other computers with the same behavior. It is something much more sophisticated: a threat capable of reaching a machine, reading the environment, identifying what defenses are in front of it and generating a version adapted to that specific scenario. The consequence for security teams is obvious: if each machine receives a different variant, detecting patterns, relating signals and reconstructing the attack becomes much more difficult. It is no longer just a matter of finding a malicious file and following its trail across the network. In a scenario where “the virus on each computer is different“, the campaign can have the same objective, but leave different traces on each team. And when the traces change, the analysis is no longer linear. Secure&IT dedicated its cybersecurity days this year to analyzing how AI is changing the sector Valencia’s message about automation was one of the clearest of the day: AI is taking time away from defense. For years, companies have had some margin between detecting a vulnerability, creating an exploit, and actually exploiting it. That margin could be imperfect, but it existed. It allowed you to organize analysis, prioritize patches and update systems every certain number of months. The phrase that best condenses the change is direct: “Until now time was a weapon to defend ourselves and now time is no longer a weapon to defend ourselves.” The consequence is very practical. If before an organization could carry out vulnerability analyzes every several months and plan updates with some calm, that scheme is beginning to fall short. According to experts, an AI tool can search for a vulnerability, identify it, prepare the attack path, and run it … Read more

The traffic jams in Valencia are hell. And a bridge over the Turia aspires to resolve the chaos between the V-30 and the A-3

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Traffic jams for miles and with a regularity that seems almost infallible. Valencia has a problem with traffic jams and the connection between the V-30 and the A-3 is one of the hot spots every morning. They explain in The Provinces that the growth of the city leaves 800,000 residents inside… surrounded by 800,000 residents of the surrounding towns. With some infrastructure built decades ago For a much smaller number of residents, roads and the main Valencian roads are clogged with an assiduity that punishes the neighbors day after day. But of all the roads, V-30 is the most marked. The road has problems along its entire length. The new port terminal anticipates more complications looking to the future but other hot spots such as the connection with the A-3 is one of the critical steps usually indicated. To begin to alleviate the situation, the Ministry of Transport has given the green light to the construction of a remodeling of the link between both roads to facilitate traffic between the A-3 and the V-30. A new bridge to alleviate the situation The Ministry of Transport has published approval for the action on the link between V-30 and A-3, which includes a lane expansion and the construction of a new bridge. In total, nine structures will be affected, of which six are newly built. The project will have a budget of 56 million euros (VAT included) and will try to unclog an area that is constantly overwhelmed, especially during peak hours. The remodeling, They explain on the ministry’s websitewill have the following interventions: New planned structures: Bridge parallel to the existing one over the Turia riverbed that will also serve to bridge the crossing over the V-30. Underpass at the A-3 junction and the Puerto-Madrid branch (2 structures). Cycle-pedestrian underpass under the Valencia-Puerto branch. Cycle-pedestrian walkway over the Valencia-Barcelona branch. Existing drinking water pipe protection structure. Planned expansions on existing structures: Expansion of the underpass of 9 d’Octubre Avenue. Extension of the pedestrian walkway over the branches: Madrid-Barcelona, ​​Puerto-Madrid and the V-30 service road. Expansion of the pedestrian walkway over the A-3. In the case of the action on the A-3, the road will be expanded to four lanes towards Madrid. These lanes will be available to drivers from the interchange to the airport access. The objective is to facilitate the flow of traffic on a link that, right now, has become a bottleneck. in the diary Levant They explain that the situation is so complicated that, like a domino effect, the traffic jam usually extends to the V-31 highway as drivers try to find some other alternative route to the junction that forms there. In addition, the expansion of the lanes is also good news in order to save the high volume of trucks that begin their journey in the city port and take this road to begin their route to Madrid. Right now, the volume of cars is so high that the traffic jam is not only found on the A-3 towards Madrid. The branch from V-30 requires a long turn that reduces the speed of the cars. Between an A-3 with very dense traffic and slow access, the right lane of the V-30 ends up suffering all the punishment, being completely collapsed during rush hour. In addition, the residents of Xirivella, next to the road, will have acoustic screens and trees installed to reduce the sound of traffic and mitigate the visual impact of the structures. This was a demand that citizens had been demanding for some time and that had not been executed. Photo | Google Maps and Ministry of Transportation In Xataka | The great dream of Tres Cantos and Colmenar Viejo literally passes over El Pardo: “close” the M-50

Catching an offender on a scooter on foot is impossible. So the Valencia police are going to chase them on scooters

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Yes, electric scooter users have to respect traffic rules. In fact, in recent years specific regulations have been created for them. But there is a problem: “catching” an offender on a scooter is almost impossible. And that is why in Valencia they have gotten to work creating a new unit. One who rides a scooter. on scooter. “We are convinced that this unit is going to be a success and will be a benchmark. There are already town councils from all over Spain that have asked us and want to know how it works,” The words are from María José Catalámayor of Valencia, at the presentation of the city’s new municipal police unit. The objective will be to ensure that users of scooters and other personal mobility vehicles circulate in compliance with traffic regulations on the city’s bike lanes. Their powers range from fining those who circulate incorrectly to those who do so with tricked out scooters or under the influence of alcohol. The scooter in Valencia. The information presented by the Valencia City Council specifies that the city has 200 kilometers of bicycle lanes and that between 2019 and 2023 the use of this means of transport skyrocketed, growing by 186% in those years. Creating a specific group with 12 officers to control traffic while patrolling on scooters is the latest decision by a city that is trying to bring non-compliant users into line. In 2024 they already presented their own machine to control which scooters complied or did not comply with the regulations in a kind of mobile MOT. According to data from the City Council collected by elDiario.esaccidents involving scooters have skyrocketed. In 2019, 346 incidents were recorded where they were present but in 2025 they will already reach 1,192. That is, at least three incidents daily throughout the year. Escapism. The press release that the Valencia City Council has published to confirm this information makes it clear what one of the problems they are facing in the city is: The use of the VMP allows a patrol integrated into the urban mobility network, with greater capacity for direct observation and precise detection of infractions such as inappropriate speed, improper circulation or dangerous maneuvers. Its small size and great maneuverability facilitate rapid approach to conflict points and inspection of the state of the lane, signage and safety elements. In interventions with offending users, VMPs offer the necessary agility to safely reach and detain those who try to evade police action. This unit efficiently and sustainably reinforces the police presence in spaces where traditional citizen security vehicles show operational limitations. And the agility and speed with which an electric scooter moves makes it very difficult for an agent to stop it unless, at that very moment, it is riding a bicycle. Even by car, a patrol can have problems if, for example, an offender steps onto a sidewalk or travels on a segregated bike lane. good money. It must be taken into account that, although you do not need a driving license of any kind as is the case with a bicycle, using an electric scooter requires compliance with basic traffic rules. For example: The user must wear a helmet Only one person can circulate per scooter Driving on sidewalks and pedestrian crossings is prohibited. Driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs is prohibited Mobile phone use prohibited It is prohibited to wear headphones It must be taken into account that some of the above infractions are classified as serious or very serious within the Traffic Law and, therefore, a user who drives under the influence of alcohol cannot have points removed from his or her driving license but can be fined 500 euros. More watched. In recent years we have seen how electric scooter users are beginning to be more vigilant. It must be taken into account that we are talking about a device that, almost by default, can circulate at a maximum speed of 25 km/h, which is obliged to move on asphalt and bike lanes but which on many occasions we find them on the sidewalk. This has led the DGT to create a record of all scooters soldwith a type of license plate that must be present on the chassis of the vehicle to demonstrate that it complies with the legal technical characteristics. In addition, users will have to have civil liability insurance for their use. Photo | Valencia City Council In Xataka | Arrested for driving an electric scooter capable of going 111 km/h: more than four times the permitted speed

This is how climate change multiplied the devastation of the DANA in Valencia

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October 29, 2024 was marked as one of the most tragic days in the recent history of Spain due to the DANA that hit the region of Valencia and left 230 fatalities, billions in economic losses and rainfall that shattered records. And it is no wonder, because in stations like Turís, they accumulated 771.8 mm in just 16 hours and the national record for rainfall in one hour was broken with 184.6 mm. And now investigations are emerging about it. Climate change. We know that this effect is altering the hydrological cycle at a global level, but now a new and exhaustive published study in Nature led by researcher Carlos Calvo-Sancho, has managed to measure exactly how and how much this storm was ‘doped’ by blame for anthropogenic global warming. And the most interesting thing is that it opens the door to the fact that these phenomena may be more common in the coming years. Pure physics. Days after the disaster, rapid attribution initiatives such as Attribution and ClimaMeter They had already estimated, according to the most basic parameters, that this meteorological event had been twice as likely and 13% more intense due to climate change. Although at that time it was simply preliminary data that required confirmation and above all ‘sitting down’ to analyze it well. That analysis has arrived many months later in a new work that goes far beyond these quick figures and focuses on the physical fundamentals. Here the researchers used very high resolution simulations under an approach called ‘Pseudo-Global Warming’. A simulation. This approach is nothing more than recreating the October 2024 storm on a computer to see the devastation that occurred and then simulating it again by removing the effects of global warming from the formula. This is achieved by returning the atmosphere to the conditions of the pre-industrial era, which is like a reference point when talking about climate change. The data. By comparing both simulated worlds, the supercomputer results showed the tremendous impact of the human hand on the storm. The most interesting results that were obtained can be summarized in four different points: Six-hour rainfall rates intensified by 21% under current weather conditions. The territory affected by rains exceeding 180 liters per square meter, which for the AEMET is the red notice limit, was expanded by 55%. The total volume of water falling directly on the Júcar River basin increased by 19%. The intensity of rain in one hour increased at a rate of 20% for each degree Celsius of temperature, something that is very relevant. And to understand it, we have to go to the Clausius-Clapeyron relationship, which dictates that the atmosphere should retain 7% more water vapor for each extra degree of temperature. Something that was duplicated here. Because?. Here the question that many people can ask, both from the affected areas and from other parts of Spain, is clear: Why did it rain so much more than what the basic theory dictated? Here the science suggests that it all started with unusually high temperatures on the surface of the Mediterranean Sea, which reached record levels in the summer of 2024. This injected a huge amount of water vapor into the system, and when comparing the current simulation with the pre-industrial one, the scientists detected, among other things, an 11.9% increase in the water that could precipitate or 11.9% more violent and faster updrafts. The perfect cocktail. In short, the greater amount of water evaporated in the sea by high temperatures and air not only caused more rain, but also triggered an aerodynamic and thermal domino effect that made the storm much larger, longer lasting and more destructive than could be expected. Towards the future. These findings are important to understand exactly what happened here, but they also raise a big warning: extreme hydrometeorological phenomena in the western Mediterranean are evolving aggressively. In this way, the study highlights that the future scenarios projected by climatologists are already here, making it urgent and vital that we rethink our urban planning and our adaptation strategies to prepare for storms that are going to be increasingly more aggressive, as we keep seeing. Images | EMU Chris LeBoutillier In Xataka | Some say worrying about climate change is a “first world problem.” A macro survey proves him right

They are eight more than the Roig Arena in Valencia

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On September 6, the Roig Arena, the stadium of the owner of Mercadona. It is a covered venue that will be the new home of Valencia Basket and also the new reference center for events and concerts. It has 20,000 seats, which makes it the covered venue with the largest capacity in Spain. Now Madrid has proposed taking the title away from them. Well, me more. Isabel Diaz Ayuso has presented a Self-Protection Plan with which the Movistar Arena will be able to increase its capacity, which is currently 17,543, to 20,008 spectators. The capacity of the Roig Arena is 20,000 seats, so Madrid would only overtake it by 8 seats. Until the inauguration of the Mercadona owner’s stadium, the largest covered venue in Spain was the Palau Sant Jordi with 18,500 seats. Why it is important. Concerts have become the favorite cultural event of the Spanish. According to SGAE datathe music business grew 77% this year, compared to declines in other cultural sectors such as cinema or television. The macro concerts that saturate ticket sales platforms and the exorbitant resales They are clear symptoms of this exacerbated culture of eventism. Ayuso’s plan is a declaration of intentions: to become the city with more, better and larger venues. TObasketball forum Ayuso’s plan also includes increasing the number of seats for sporting events from the current 13,000 seats to 15,000. During her visit to the venue, the president of the Community of Madrid stated that the change will be a boost for the celebration of Eurobasket in 2029 and that it could open the door to major sporting events, such as NBA games. However, in the case of basketball, the Movistar Arena will not be able to say that it is the venue with the largest capacity since the capacity of the Roig Arena is 15,600 seats. A short, but intense career. Since its inauguration on September 6, the Roig Arena has already received more than 1 million spectators, as noted in Lift-EMV. Of all of them, 600,000 have attended concerts, many of them with the sign ‘sold out’. Currently, there are already events scheduled until January 2027 and among the confirmed artists are Aitana, Amaia, Rod Stewart and Hans Zimmer. It is a fact: the Roig Arena has become one of the country’s leading music venues in record time. Madrid and the concerts. As we said, this plan underlines the importance of being the reference city for holding large concerts. A year ago Madrid believed it had its mega-concert cathedral at the Santiago Bernabeu. Pharaonic works were carried out to hide the grass and make an underground parking lot to accommodate all visitors. The problem came with sound problems, specifically poor soundproofing that has forced cancel concerts and move them to the Riyadh Air Metropolitan. While this is resolved, Madrid’s plan is to praise another of its reference venues. Images | Roig Arena, Movistar Arena In Xataka | The problem with concerts in Spain is not the lack of audience, it is the distribution of money. And Wegow is the best example

We have been wanting to see how diseases moved in real time. The first steps are taking Valencia

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Epidemiology is a science with delay. We know it well, We learned it in the worst way: Since a pathogen begins to move through a region until we collect, analyze and interpret the data that allows us to say that an epidemic is incipient, weeks spend. A few weeks that would be vital to introduce measures capable of reducing their impact and saving many lives. What happens is that, until now, that has been a chimera: bacteria and suspension viruses They are invisible. Although there are initiatives such as analyzing fecal waters, the idea of ​​seeing how pathogens move around the world seems almost science fiction. An increasingly close science fiction, yes. A curious idea. Now, a joint team of the University of Valencia (UV) and the University University of València (UPV) They have developed The first example of a biosensor capable of detecting air changes quickly, easily and cheaply. The small antenna works without additional reagents, or laboratory tests: only small electrical circuits. That is the interesting thing. Valencian researchers have tried the concept with the M13 virus, a well -known microorganism, but the results are promising and extrapolable to any other aerial transmission pathogen. The two key factors. As explained David Giménez (professor of the Department of Chemistry-Physics of the UV) in Levante, are “its price” that “facilitates its scalability and integration into early alert systems, both in Smart Buildings as in devices Weareables“And its” immediacy “because” by not needing additional reagents, this method allows you to instantly detect the presence of real -time pathogens, avoiding long sampling and laboratory analysis processes. “ And now what? Now a lot of work to do. It is true that a network of this type of sensors that were able to monitor in real time the air of train stations, wagons, schools, shopping centers or jobs would give us vital information. The problem is that, of course, there is still much to reach that point. Maybe more than we would like. Do not forget that, between 1980 and 2010, the annual number of infectious disease outbreaks He tripled worldwide and causative diseases almost folded. In addition, none of the “public health emergencies of international importance” (with the nuanced exception of COVID-19) that we have suffered since 2007 was caused by a new and unknown infectious agent. We live in the “Pandemics era“And everything suggests that we are not prepared for it. Of course, the good news is that, despite the increase in the total number of outbreaks,” global improvements in prevention, early detection, control and treatment are increasingly effective. “ And this of Valencia is a good example of this. Or it is better for us because we have the enemy at the doors. Image | Jon Tyson Image | The ‘era of epidemics’ has already begun: are we prepared to face them?

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