 |
|
|
|||||
The fastest-growing car brand in the U.K. is BYD, the Chinese automaker behind electric cars like the new 16,000 ($21,600) Surf. Last month, the brand outsold Tesla in Europe for the first time. BYD is also the fastest-growing car brand in Brazil, where EV sales jumped up 85% last year. In the capital city of Brasilia, BYD now outsells all other cars, whether theyre gas or electric. In Nepal, where seven out of every 10 cars imported last year was an EV, BYD’s electric models vie with those from Tata, an Indian brand. In Thailand, another Chinese company called Changan is quickly gaining market share with its electric cars. The world is going electric: The International Energy Agency recently projected that one in four cars sold this year will be an EV. But the U.S. is lagging behind, and the Trump administrations assault on EVs will slow down the industry more. That doesn’t bode well for the future of American automakers. Probably the most dire scenario is that the U.S. becomes somewhat isolated in an idiosyncratic market, with lots of big pickups and SUVs that don’t sell in any other market, and that are still predominantly fossil fuel, says John Paul MacDuffie, a management professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. And we’re not exposed to competition from some of the new manufacturers or some of the new technologiesnot only electric but autonomous and connected. China already had a long head start Even before Trumpwho has said that Bidens support for EVs was a Marxist hoaxAmerican car companies were behind their Chinese counterparts on the path to electrification. One factor was China’s continuous support, which started more than 15 years ago. There were changes to the policy and subsidies, but generally it [was clear] that the government thinks this is good technology, says Ilaria Mazzocco, deputy director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan think tank. So if youre going to buy an electric vehicle, its not like in two years things are going to change dramatically. Before China started pouring billions into the sector and made EV competitiveness a national priority, BYD was already innovative and lobbying for government support. The company, which had been founded in 1995 as a battery manufacturer, was entrepreneurial and ready to take up the challenge, Mazzocco says. Electric cars also got early support in the U.S.Tesla got a $465 million low-interest loan from the Department of Energy in 2009, benefitted from EV tax credits for consumers, and got a major boost from Californias zero-emission vehicle credits. But Chinas support went farther and faster. Around 60% of new car models sold in China are now electric, five times more than what’s available in the U.S., according to the IEA. From the beginning, Chinese automakers were laser-focused on the cost of EVs. By 2023, around 60% of electric cars in China were cheaper than their gas equivalents without subsidies, the IEA says. In many cases, the technology is more advanced than EV tech from some Western automakers, as Chinese companies race to improve batteries and software. Chinese companies are 30% faster than legacy automakers at developing new EV models, according to one analysis. Ford CEO Jim Farley admitted last year that hed been driving an electric car from Xiaomia Chinese smartphone manufacturer that started making EVsand said he doesnt want to give it up. “There’s no doubt” the future is electric Still, American automakers know that their future is electric. Theres no doubt about it, says Ellen Hughes-Cromwick, the former chief economist at Ford. Companies have already spent billions on the transition. But right now, the legacy automakers face cost challenges. Engineering new batteries and new vehicles obviously has a steep capital cost, versus the depreciated capital costs for continuing to make internal combustion engine cars. And although EV sales grew faster last year than gas car sales, they aren’t growing as quickly as automakers hoped. Ive done the math, Hughes-Cromwick says. Its not great right now for our domestic manufacturers, because theyve got low volume but high fixed costs on the new technology, and low capital costs and high volume on the old tech. As more EVs sell, companies can get to cost and pricing parity. Policies could help make the transition easier, she says, such as keeping tax credits in place for EVs. Instead, the federal government is pushing hard in the other direction. Trump froze billions in spending on EV charging infrastructure, and blocked subsidies for factories making batteries, despite the fact that those factories were creating American jobs. Congress is trying to get rid of the consumer tax credit and add a new annual fee for EV owners (though the fee is meant to replace the gas tax, the total cost would be higher than drivers with gas cars currently spend on it). Congress is also trying to block Californias plans to transition to zero-emissions vehicles. Tariffs have added to the economic pressure. Despite all of this, the long-term strategy for U.S. automakers isnt likely to change. The time horizon for product cycles, facility planning, and supply chain planning is very long, says MacDuffie. Theyre global companies, so theyre not just planning for the U.S. market. I have been predicting that U.S. companies will continues to pursue a long-term strategy which is premised on electrification hitting most markets and most products. I think it would take years of a hostile economic and policy environment for them to back away from that in a big way. It’s too early to count out American automakers, Hughes-Cromwick says, noting that they could pull forward on software, for example. But as Trump pushes for anti-EV policy, companies are slowing some electric investments, and are likely to keep falling behind as Chinese companies race forward. A year ago, the IEA predicted that EVs would hit 50% of car sales in the U.S. by 2030; the agency has now revised that to 20%. With steep tariffs keeping cheap Chinese EVs out of the U.S., theres less incentive for American automakers to innovate as quickly on electric vehicles. The current tax bill also reduces spport for EV battery makers and slashes funding for research and development of new battery tech through the Department of Energy. Meanwhile, Chinese EVs are spreading around the rest of the world. Last year, BYD surpassed Tesla in global vehicle sales. BYD’s stock price has climbed around 59% on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since the beginning of 2025, while Tesla’s has declined around 11% on the Nasdaq, despite some recovery in recent weeks. In Brazil, BYD is now rebuilding a former Ford factory, on a street that a local politician wants to rename from Henry Ford Avenue to BYD Avenue. Once consumers have access to these vehicles, theyre really interested, says Mazzocco. For a growing middle class in emerging countries, their first car might be a Chinese electric vehicle.
Category:
E-Commerce
One of the world’s most distinctive new buildings is now poking out of the center of a small village in the Swiss Alps. The structure, a cylinder of bone-white columns topped by a dome, wasn’t built in the traditional sense. It was 3D-printed. It’s now the tallest 3D-printed tower in the world, and it could offer a technique for other 3D-printed buildings to rise even higher. Standing on the base of an existing building, the tower rises to a height of 98 feet, with four floors connected by a central staircase. The tower itself is all structure, with 32 tree-inspired concrete columns forming a cage-like shell that’s open to the air. Gradually widening as it rises, the tower’s top floor is a double-height space with a wide circular platform that can hold dozens of people. [Photo: Birdviewpicture/Nova Fundaziun Origen] The tower is envisioned as a performance space for Mulegns, a village of just 11 people in southeastern Switzerland. The roof of an adjacent building has also been used as the base for tiered grandstand seating that faces the tower. [Photo: Birdviewpicture/Nova Fundaziun Origen] Known as Tor Alva, or White Tower in the local Romansh language, the project is a collaboration between the Swiss cultural foundation Nova Fundaziun Origen and the university ETH Zürich. It was designed by architect Michael Hansmeyer together with Benjamin Dillenburger, a professor of digital building technologies at the university. Possibly more consequential than its height, the tower’s columns are also load-bearing, which enables the structure to rise so high. A special concrete mixture had to be developed to make the project possible, and represents a novel solution to the problem of reinforcing 3D-printed concrete, which can be difficult to do without sacrificing the speed and cost-efficiency of additive manufacturing. Most other 3D-printed concrete buildings are single-story structures as a result. [Photo: Benjamin Hofer/Nova Fundaziun Origen] This new technique involves a combination of two robots: One robot acts as the 3D printer, applying concrete in layers, while the other places a ring-shaped reinforcement in the new structure every 20 centimeters. Additional rebar is added after printing. In total, it took five months to print the 32 main columns of the tower, each of which has a unique spiraling ornamentation. In total, the tower is made of 124 3D-printed pieces and has a vague resemblance to a layered cake. [Photo: Birdviewpicture/Nova Fundaziun Origen] This cake-like appearance is a reference to the region’s history of confectioners, who developed new cake and candy-making approaches and brought them to other parts of Europe. The village Mulegns was once a center of confectionary arts, but is now depopulating. Tor Alva is seen as a new tourist attraction. Tor Alva is planned to sit in the village for around five years, after which it can be dismantled and reconstructed elsewhere. So, not only is it the tallest 3D-printed building, it could also be the first 3D-printed tower to pick up and move.
Category:
E-Commerce
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested 11 people after their court hearings at the San Diego Immigration Court last Thursday as part of a new nationwide operation to try to fast track deportations. Beginning on Tuesday, May 20, in courts including those in Santa Ana and Las Vegas, attorneys representing the U.S. governmentwho are also employed by ICErequested that immigration judges close cases of some people who had been in the U.S. for less than two years and who had shown up without attorneys. Normally a closed immigration court case would mean that the government is no longer trying to deport someone. But instead, ICE officers waited outside courtrooms to arrest those people and put them into expedited proceedings that do not require a judge. Going to immigration court is your chance to be heard, said Michelle Celleri, an attorney and legal rights director of Alliance San Diego. It is your right. It is part of due process. Celleri said that arresting people who show up for their hearings would discourage others from coming to immigration courts. ICE and the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which runs the immigration court, did not respond to requests for comment from Beyond the Border. ICE has told other news outlets that it is detaining people who are subject to a fast-track deportation authority. That fast-track deportation process is called expedited removal. In expedited removal, an immigration officer, rather than a judge, gives the deportation order. In an executive order issued in January, President Donald Trump called for officers to use the process on anyone who has been in the U.S. for less than two years. With expedited removal, they can deport them tonight, said Ginger Jacobs, a private immigration attorney in San Diego. Theyre short-cutting the due process these folks came here to receive in immigration court. But not everyone detained in San Diego last Thursday had closed cases. ICE arrested several people who had received future hearings dates from the immigration judges they appeared before, according to their attorneys and friends. Ruth, a volunteer with the grassroots group Detention Resistance who asked not to be fully identified because of concerns about potential retaliation, said she had accompanied her friend, a man from Colombia who has been in the U.S. for just under a year, to court Thursday morning. She said that when her friend left the courtroom to go to the bathroom, officers tried to detain him even though his hearing hadnt happened yet. During his hearing, Ruths friend told the judge that he was afraid of being arrested when he went back outside the courtroom. The judge told her friend that he wasnt affiliated with ICE and couldnt control what they did, Ruth said. Her friend turned in his asylum application, and the judge gave him another hearing date. When her friend left his hearing, ICE officers took him into custody. He came in good faith keeping with his asylum process, Ruth said. Now we dont even know whats going to happen to him. Ruth said her friend has been active in the San Diego community and getting involved as a volunteer to help others in need. Tracy Crowley, an immigration attorney with Immigrant Defenders Law Center, took on Ruths friends case as he was being detained. She said she was still trying to figure out the legal reason for taking him into custody. Its wild, Crowley said. The warrants are very bareboned and dont include the legal basis for detaining them. Crowley was among a group of lawyers who jumped in to try to represent people in their court proceedings throughout the day in an effort to avoid additional arrests. Jacobs, the private immigration attorney, said her office took on four cases on May 22, including that of a young woman from Turkey who seemed terrified by the officers presence. In the afternoon, Jacobs helped a mother and her teenage son, quickly getting to know them in the courtroom in the moments before the hearing began. Outside in the hallway, more than 10 officers waited. ICE also called in two private security guards and two Federal Protective Services officers because of the presence of journalists, attorneys, and community members documenting their actions in the hallway. After the family left the courtroom, ICE appeared to follow them to try to detain them. Jacobs followed after the officers, and she said that ICE decided to let the family go. Jacobs said ICE let the family go because the son had accompanied his mother. ICE officers in San Diego mistakenly attempted to arrest two additional people that same day. The officers later acknowledged the error. In one case, an attorney from the American Bar Association Immigration Justice Project accompanied his client out of the courtroom. When ICE moved to arrest the client, the attorney objected, asking to see a warrant. Officers shoved themselves between the attorney and his client. Two officers took hold of the man and he ended up on the ground. Beyond the Border witnessed him begin to gasp for air and hyperventilate. The attorney asked to be allowed to help his client, but ICE officers kept him away. A man kneels in the hallway outside immigration court after being detained by ICE on May 22, 2025. [Photo: Kate Morrissey] May I please see a warrant because the warrant you provided is not that person, the attorney said after ICE showed him their documentation. You are making an unlawful arrest. ICE continued to keep him away from his client, saying that the man was having a medical emergency. Hes having a medical emergency thanks to you, the attorney replied. Another attorney in the hallway called for an ambulance, and eventually ICE backed away from the man. The attorney helped his client down the hallway to the elevator, holding the mans arm over his shoulders to support his weight so that he could move away from the officers. I will help my client at this point, the attorney said as they left. You guys have done enough. Several people who had accompanied family members to their hearings were left in the hallway in tears as they watched loved ones being taken away. Celleri worried about family members who werent there and would have no way of knowing what had happened. For those who are unrepresented, to their family they have just disappeared, and they are not going to know where they are for 48 hoursand thats if they know how to find them, Celleri said. Officers told attorneys in the hallway that those arrested on Thursday would be taken to Otay Mesa DetentionCenter in San Diego. Lindsay Toczylowski, an attorney and CEO of Immigrant Defenders Law Center who was among the first to publicly call attention to the ICE operation, called the arrests a bait and switch. By detaining people in courtrooms, we are discouraging people from doing what we have always asked them to do, Toczylowski said. We have always stressed how important it is for people to show up to court, to avail themselves of the system to follow the rules that are set out. She said courts in Santa Ana, Chicago, Phoenix, and Miami also saw arrests this week. Celleri said people with upcoming hearings should know that if they dont come to court, they will likely be ordered deported in their absence. She said that if ICE attempts to arrest someone, that person should make sure the officers have the correct name and that if that person has already paid bond to get out of immigration custody, the person should not be detained again. By Kate Morrissey, Capital & Main This piece was originally published by Capital & Main, which reports from California on economic, political, and social issues.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||