LinkerBot makes dexterous robotic hands for as little as $600. It wants to become the standard for humanoids and automated factories--and eventually replace human labor altogether. If you could buy a humanoid robot for less than a smartphone, would you? Would you buy several robots to handle cooking, cleaning, babysitting, and even your job? This is the pitch being made by Zhou Yong, the 40-year-old founder and chief technology officer of LinkerBot, one of China's leading manufacturers of dexterous humanoid hands.

The world's carmakers are struggling to compete with China Global carmakers are facing a reckoning as US, European and Japanese brands lose ground to Chinese rivals setting the pace not only in electric vehicles, but also in batteries, design and software. The BBC visited factory floors in Beijing and Hefei on the sidelines of Auto China 2026 - the world's largest car show - and found striking levels of automation and software development speed, leaving foreign brands that once dominated the Chinese market struggling to keep up. We have no chance against this, Honda chief executive Toshihiro Mibe told Japanese media after visiting a highly automated factory in Shanghai. Ford chief executive Jim Farley has also warned that Western carmakers, are in a fight for our lives as Chinese rivals expand globally. After decades spent investing in joint ventures with Chinese partners to build vehicles, foreign carmakers are now changing the nature of those partnerships to stay competitive.

Ford and GM are backing away from electric vehicles and moving into the battery storage business. And it all comes back to AI. Automakers make cars--it's in the name. But lately, politics, current events, and Wall Street's latest preoccupation, artificial intelligence, have them looking a lot more like energy companies. The pivot, analysts say, could give US auto manufacturers struggling through a transition to electric vehicles an easier path over the next few years. Whether it works will come down to the same technology that automakers once promised would power the majority of their lineups: batteries .

Japanese car giant Honda made its first annual loss in 70 years as its investments in the electric vehicle (EV) market failed to pay off. Demand for EVs has not been as strong as the company forecast, with Honda reporting a total operating loss for the year ending March 2026 of ¥423bn ($2.68bn: £1.99bn.). The firm said it was scrapping some of its EV production targets and would source parts from China, where prices are lower, to keep costs down. It cited changes in US policy as adding to its losses, including tax incentives having been taken away for US consumers purchasing EVs, and the imposition of tariffs. US consumers could previously receive up to $7,500 (£5,500) in tax credits if they purchased a new EV, but this was scrapped by President Donald Trump in September 2025.

The cars that debuted at the Beijing Auto Show demonstrate that the Chinese market is now at the forefront of electrification and intelligence. These are the 19 most intriguing models we saw. The newest concept car from Lynk & Co was revealed at the 2026 Beijing Auto Show. While major motor shows in Europe and the United States are being forced to downsize or change their format, those in China continue to expand. With 1,451 vehicles on display, including 181 world premieres, the 2026 Beijing International Automotive Exhibition 2026 (also known as Auto China 2026) has become the largest auto show in history--and that's in terms of both exhibition space and the number of vehicles on display. This fact itself reflects a shift in the center of gravity of the automotive industry, but that's not all. A much larger structural transformation is actually taking place in China today. Previously, the focus was on low-priced electric vehicle models, but now price is no longer the primary point of competition.

Chery sold 10,064 of its Jaecoo 7 crossover SUVs in March. Chery sold 10,064 of its Jaecoo 7 crossover SUVs in March. 'Temu Range Rover': what the bestselling Jaecoo 7 says about China's electric car ascendancy T he UK is no stranger to foreign cars. The bestseller lists in recent years have been dominated by the US's Ford Puma, Japan's Nissan Qashqai, Korea's Kia Sportage and occasionally even Tesla's Model Y. But in March the top 10 provided a shock: a Chinese car leapt into the lead.

China's economy was just starting to open up in the late 1980s when a determined high school dropout made his way to Beijing with 600 pairs of shoes. Ding Shizhong had them made in a relative's factory and now he was going to sell them. The money he earned paid for his first workshop where he began making footwear for other companies. The 17-year-old was one of China's many newly minted entrepreneurs as capitalism took off under the watchful eye of its Communist Party rulers. But, as it turns out, Ding had much bigger plans.

The recent surge in fuel prices due to the war in Iran has spurred demand for electric vehicles around the world, and Chinese car makers are making the most of the opportunity. China is the world's top producer of EVs, and while its manufacturers remain largely shut out of the major car market of the United States, they are benefiting from an uptick in interest and orders via dealerships across Asia and elsewhere. BYD, which overtook Tesla as the world's largest seller of electric vehicles last year and is expanding aggressively overseas, is at the centre of this shift in focus. We survive and are successful without the US market today, BYD executive vice president Stella Li told the BBC at the Beijing Auto Show. Instead of aiming for US customers, the company says its challenge is meeting increased demand in other regions, including Brazil, the UK and Europe.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Investigation: RAM prices are falling. A few price dips don't mean the memory crisis is over -- AI demand, tight supply, and a jittery market could keep PC upgrades expensive. Rising prices are the biggest tech story of 2026 . Well, the biggest tech story, anyway -- the biggest story in a broader sense is "AI" in general.

What if training a robot to handle dirty, dangerous work on the factory floor was as simple as showing it how? Czech startup RoboTwin is doing exactly that, helping factory workers teach robots new skills by demonstration. Instead of writing complex code, workers perform the job once and RoboTwin's technology turns those movements into a robot programme - opening the door to automation for smaller manufacturers. Founded in Prague in 2021, RoboTwin builds handheld devices and no-code software that capture human movements and translate them into instructions for industrial robots. The aim is to make automation faster, simpler and more accessible to manufacturers that do not have specialist robotics programmers.