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China’s energy and auto giant BYD has announced an ultrafast EV charging system that it says is nearly as quick as a fill up at the pumps.BYD, China’s largest EV maker, said Monday that its flash-chargers can provide a full charge for its latest EVs within five to eight minutes, similar to the amount of time needed to fill a fuel tank. It plans to build more than 4,000 of the new charging stations across China.Charging times and limited ranges have been a major factor constraining the switch from gas and diesel vehicles to EVs, though Chinese drivers have embraced that change, with sales of battery powered and hybrid vehicles jumping 40% last year.BYD’s news appeared to give Tesla a jolt on Monday, as the U.S. EV maker’s share price sank 4.8%. BYD, which stands for build your dreams, began presales of its Han L and Tang L models, which are upgraded versions of earlier models.The Chinese company started out making batteries and has been refining its battery and energy storage technology while building an auto empire that is expanding outside China. It says its 1 megawatt flash chargers can provide power for 400 kilometers (nearly 250 miles) in five minutes.Ultrahigh voltage and a large current are required to maximize charging speeds, BYD’s founder Wang Chuanfu said in a statement.“To completely solve users’ anxiety over charging, our pursuit is to make the charging time for EVs as short as the refueling time for fuel vehicles,” Wang said.The company also said that its flash-charging system relies on silicon carbide power chips with voltage levels of up to 1,500V that it developed on its own. Its Blade lithium-ion phosphate battery is perhaps the world’s safest and most efficient EV battery, with Tesla opting to use it in some of its EVs, industry analyst Michael Dunne said in a recent report.BYD reported it made just over 4.3 million “new energy vehicles” last year, up 41% from a year earlier, including 1.8 million battery electric vehicles and 2.5 million plug in hybrids. The price of its shares traded on China’s smaller market in Shenzhen has surged nearly 50% in the past six months.While BYD’s fanciest, latest premium models are expected to sell for up to about $40,000, it also makes much less expensive EVs including the Seagull, which sells for around $12,000 in China.BYD barely nudged ahead of Tesla in production of battery-powered EVs in 2024, making 1,777,965 compared with Tesla’s 1,773,443.In early January, Tesla said its sales dropped in 2024, a first in more than a dozen years, as rivals such as BMW, Volkswagen and BYD gained market shares with competitive EVs.But BYD has weaknesses as well, Dunne said, noting that JD Power’s 2024 China New Energy Vehicle Initial Quality Study ranked the BYD Seal and BYD Song Plus battery electrics at the bottom of its rankings. Elaine Kurtenbach, AP Business Writer
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E-Commerce
Greenpeace used malicious and deceptive tactics to disrupt the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline and keep it from going forward, an attorney for the company behind the project said Monday.But attorneys for the environmental advocacy group said during their closing arguments that Greenpeace had little involvement with the 201617 protests that are central to the case.A North Dakota jury began deliberating Monday after a weekslong trial over Dallas-based Energy Transfer’s argument that Greenpeace defamed the company and disrupted the project. What is the case about? The energy company and its subsidiary Dakota Access accused Greenpeace International, Greenpeace USA, and funding arm Greenpeace Fund Inc. of defamation, civil conspiracy, trespass, nuisance, and other acts, and is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.Nine jurors and two alternates heard the case after it went to trial in late February. Their verdict will include what damages, if any, to award.Trey Cox, an attorney for the pipeline company, highlighted damages per claim totaling nearly $350 million.The lawsuit is linked to the protests against the oil pipeline and its controversial Missouri River crossing upstream of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation. The tribe has long opposed the pipeline as a risk to its water supply. The pipeline has been transporting oil since mid-2017. What did the company say? Cox said Greenpeace exploited a small, disorganized, local issue to promote its agenda, calling Greenpeace “master manipulators” and “deceptive to the core.”Greenpeace paid professional protesters, organized or led protester trainings, shared intelligence of the pipeline route with protesters, and sent lockboxes for demonstrators to attach themselves to equipment, Cox said.Among a number of alleged defamatory statements were that the company deliberately desecrated burial grounds during construction, which Cox said was done to harm Energy Transfer’s reputation in the international investment community. The company made 140 slight adjustments to its route to avoid disturbing sacred or cultural sites, he said.Greenpeace’s “lies impacted lenders,” Cox said. Energy Transfer suffered $96 million in lost financing and $7 million in public relations costs, he said.The pipeline was delayed by five months, and the company lost $80 million because it couldn’t turn on the spigot on January 1, 2017, when oil was to start flowing, Cox said.He asked the jury to find the Greenpeace entities liable.“It needs to be done for Morton County. It needs to be done for Morton County’s law enforcement and the next community where Greenpeace exploits an opportunity to push its agenda at any cost,” Cox told the jury, referring to the county where the protests were centered. How did Greenpeace respond? Attorneys for Greenpeace said Energy Transfer didn’t prove its case or meet its legal burden for defamation or damages, that Greenpeace employees had little or no presence or involvement in the protests, and that Greenpeace had nothing to do with the company’s delays in construction or refinancing.A letter signed by leaders of Greenpeace International and Greenpeace USA and sent to banks involved in the project’s construction loan contained the alleged defamatory statement about desecrating burial grounds, which Cox equated to digging up dead bodies.Greenpeace International attorney Courtney DeThomas said the other side hasn’t shown how the one act of signing a letter with 500 other organizations damaged them, and that the letter would have been sent to the banks with or without Greenpeace’s name on it. Thousands of protesters were already at Standing Rock by the time the letter was signed, she said.Greenpeace USA attorney Everett Jack Jr. disputed the company’s claims as including costs from months before and years after the protests, with no witnesses to say that the Greenpeace entities were the cause.Jack also said no law enforcement officers or any of Energy Transfer’s security personnel testified that Greenpeace was the cause of any violence or property destruction, or was a leader, organizer or instigator in the protests. He said law enforcement “did a phenomenal job of watching the protests.”Greenpeace representatives have criticized the lawsuit as an example of corporations abusing the legal system to go after critics and called it a critical test of free speech and protest rights. An Energy Transfer spokesperson said the case is about Greenpeace not following the law, not free speech. Jack Dura, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
In the past week, law enforcement agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have issued a warning about the ongoing threat of Medusa ransomware. Heres what you need to know about the threat and how you can protect yourself. What is Medusa ransomware? Ransomware is a type of software that is designed to compromise your information, allowing hackers to steal it. Once these bad actors have your data, they then contact you (or the software contacts you on their behalf), and they inform you that unless you pay a ransom, your data will either be deleted, sold to the highest bidder, or released publicly for all to see. Medusa ransomware is a specific type of ransomware that is currently making the rounds. According to a cybersecurity advisory published by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Medusa ransomware is a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) that has been going around since at least June 2021. The advisory states that Medusa relies on a double extortion modelthat encrypts the data on a victim’s hard drive so they cant access it, as well as threatens to decrypt the data and sell it to third parties or release it publicly. Users must pay a ransom in order to gain access to their encrypted files again and/or in order to ensure that the files are not disseminated to additional parties. Ransom payments can range anywhere between $100 to $1 million. The CISA says that as of February 2025, Medusa has impacted over 300 victims from a variety of critical infrastructure sectors, which include medical, education, legal, insurance, technology, and manufacturing. How can I protect myself and my company from Medusa? The advisory posted on the CISAs website states that Medusa is primarily spread through phishing campaigns to steal victims’ credentials. The ransomware can also infiltrate a system through unpatched software vulnerabilities. With that in mind, the notice states that there are several steps an individual and organization can take to mitigate threats from Medusa. These include: Using long passwords on accounts. Implementing multifactor authentication (also known as MFA or 2FA) on accounts. Keeping software and operating systems on all devices up to date. Use VPNs to protect your traffic. Have multiple copies of sensitive data backed up on more than just one device. Finally, its always a good idea to practice common sense measures that help reduce your vulnerability to phishing attempts. This includes never clicking on a link that is emailed or texted to you if you dont recognize the sender. Likewise, never open attachments you receive from an unknown sender. And even when a sender appears legitimate, it is always best to contact them via another channel to ensure that they, indeed, were the one who sent you a link or attachment. A common phishing tactic bad actors use is to send emails to victims that appear to be from valid or known email addressesbut when you look closely at them, youll see that a character or two might have been changed. For example, an I in an email address might have been changed to a 1). At first glance, the email looks legitimate, but the change is a giveaway that someone is trying to misrepresent who they actually are. The CISA maintains a webpage with myriad tips detailing how to further protect yourself from ransomware.
Category:
E-Commerce
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