That's Harder Than It Sounds Proposed regulations in China would mean the end of flush handles on car doors, with precious little time to roll out the changes. Car door handles seem innocuous. Tesla's electronic, retractable ones--since imitated by plenty of global automakers--have become a symbol of the automaker's willingness to work from design-first principles, reimagining what the car of the future might look like, electric-style. But in September, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched an investigation into the Tesla 2021 Model Y's door handles. More than 140 consumers have complained to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) about the door handles, according to a Bloomberg report published last month.

For more than a decade, the Chinese government has been working to push the Chinese manufacturing sector up the value chain. More recently, the push from the central government has become more formalized, resulting in the 2015 issuance of the State Council manufacturing modernization manifesto: Made in China 2025《中国制造2025》(State Council, July 7, 2015). Made in China 2025 focuses less on the types of products to be manufactured and more on the methods of manufacturing. It is okay to continue making rubber duckies, so long as the process for doing so is modernized. That is, massive automated factories churning out thousands of identical items with minimal human intervention.

China will unveil a slate of policies, including tax cuts and setting up national artificial intelligence innovation centers, to beef up support for AI and clear legal risks, local media reported. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is teaming up with other ministries and related departments to draft new policies to better cultivate the AI industry, Economic Information Daily reported on Thursday. Favorable tax policies will be rolled out to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises that are working on AI. More efforts will also be made to open government data and experiment with new ways to tap into data, the report said. Meanwhile, new policies will be unveiled to channel more resources into AI research, in the hope of advancing innovation capability.