The Chinese automaker is racing ahead of global competitors--but don't expect to see those gains in the US anytime soon. Somehow, the whole thing got even faster. Earlier this month, Chinese automaker BYD announced that its Flash Chargers, first rolled out a year ago, can now charge some electric vehicle batteries from around 10 to 70 percent in five minutes, and from 10 to full in about nine. That's more than 600 miles of range in the time it takes to order a cappuccino and leave a nice tip. The new BYD chargers can add miles super quickly because they deliver up to 1,500 kilowatts (kW) per charge.

Steve Rose goes for a spin. Steve Rose goes for a spin. 'We don't tell the car what it should do': my ride in a self-driving taxi Driverless'robotaxis' will be accepting fares in Britain's biggest city by the end of next year. Can they deal with London's medieval roads, hordes of pedestrians and errant ebikers? 'I'm really excited to show you this," says Alex Kendall, the CEO of Wayve, as he gets behind the wheel of one of the company's electric Ford Mustangs. The car pulls up to a junction at a busy road in King's Cross, London, all by itself. "You can see that it's going to control the speed, steering, brake, indicators," he says to me - I'm in the passenger seat. "It's making decisions as it goes.

An engineer at the AgiBot factory in Shanghai, China, where the 5,000th mass-produced humanoid robot had rolled off the production line. An engineer at the AgiBot factory in Shanghai, China, where the 5,000th mass-produced humanoid robot had rolled off the production line. How close are we to the sci-fi vision of autonomous humanoid robots? C hen Liang, the founder of Guchi Robotics, an automation company headquartered in Shanghai, is a tall, heavy-set man in his mid-40s with square-rimmed glasses. His everyday manner is calm and understated, but when he is in his element - up close with the technology he builds, or in business meetings discussing the imminent replacement of human workers by robots - he wears an exuberant smile that brings to mind an intern on his first day at his dream job. Guchi makes the machines that install wheels, dashboards and windows for many of the top Chinese car brands, including BYD and Nio. He took the name from the Chinese word, "steadfast intelligence", though the fact that it sounded like an Italian luxury brand was not entirely unwelcome. For the better part of two decades, Chen has tried to solve what, to him, is an engineering problem: how to eliminate - or, in his view, liberate - as many workers in car factories as technologically possible. Late last year, I visited him at Guchi headquarters on the western outskirts of Shanghai. Next to the head office are several warehouses where Guchi's engineers tinker with robots to fit the specifications of their customers. Chen, an engineer by training, founded Guchi in 2019 with the aim of tackling the hardest automation task in the car factory: "final assembly", the last leg of production, when all the composite pieces - the dashboard, windows, wheels and seat cushions - come together. At present, his robots can mount wheels, dashboards and windows on to a car without any human intervention, but 80% of the final assembly, he estimates, has yet to be automated. That is what Chen has set his sights on. As in much of the world, AI has become part of everyday life in China . But what most excites Chinese politicians and industrialists are the strides being made in the field of robotics, which, when combined with advances in AI, could revolutionise the world of work.

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. T he smell was strange . The concrete wall was too close. One of my kids was standing on the sidewalk next to our car--not crying, just confused. The seat belt had held. The crumple zone had crumpled.

The EV manufacturer is supported by a robust online community. But Elon Musk's politics and overblown hype about Full Self-Driving are turning some loyalists away. This month, Tesla customers erupted in outrage over what some called a " bait and switch " by the electric vehicle manufacturer. Initially, the company had offered to transfer the Full Self-Driving feature, which is now only available through a subscription model but could once be purchased for a "lifetime" fee that ran as high as $15,000, to any new Tesla purchased by March 31. The deal was most tempting for drivers already enticed by a new base Cybertruck model that cost just $59,990, a price that CEO Elon Musk soon clarified would only last for 10 days, leaving potential buyers a very small window to make up their minds. Then Tesla quietly amended the language of the FSD transfer agreement, stipulating that customers would need to take delivery of a Tesla by March 31 in order to swap their FSD from their last vehicle to the next.

U.S. self-driving startup Nuro begins testing in Tokyo While Tokyo is becoming a kind of test bed for the world's leading robotaxi ventures, Japan is lagging when it comes to the regulatory framework needed for autonomous vehicles to gain traction. Self-driving car startup Nuro has begun testing its technology in Tokyo, the U.S. company's first location abroad after partnering with Uber Technologies and Lucid Group. Backed by the likes of Nvidia and Toyota Motor, California-based Nuro aims to compete with other driverless operators such as Google parent Alphabet's Waymo and Amazon.com's Obviously there are a number of Japanese OEMs that are very interesting potential customers to us in the future," Andrew Chapin, Nuro's chief operating officer, said in an interview, using an industry term for car manufacturer. He declined to name any possible partners or confirm if Nuro is currently in talks with a Japan-based automaker.

A new wave of theft is rocking the luxury car industry--mixing high-tech with old-school chop-shop techniques to snag vehicles while they're in transport. When Sam Zahr first saw the gray Rolls-Royce Dawn convertible with orange interior and orange roof, he knew he'd found a perfect addition to his fleet. "It was very appealing to our clientele," he told me. As the director of operations at Dream Luxury Rental, he outfits customers in the Detroit area looking to ride in style to a wedding, a graduation, or any other event with high-end vehicles--Rolls-Royces, Lamborghinis, Bentleys, Mercedes G-Wagons, and more. But before he could rent out the Rolls, Zahr needed to get the car to Detroit from Miami, where he bought it from a used-car dealer. His team posted the convertible on Central Dispatch, an online marketplace that's popular among car dealers, manufacturers, and owners who want to arrange vehicle shipments. It's not too complicated, at least in theory: A typical listing includes the type of vehicle, zip codes of the origin and destination, dates for pickup and delivery, and the fee. Anyone with a Central Dispatch account can see the job, and an individual carrier or transport broker who wants it can call the number on the listing. Zahr's team got a call from a transport company that wanted the job. They agreed on the price and scheduled pickup for January 17, 2025.