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The cold truth about EVs: Freezing weather slashes battery mileage

Bashir Ahmad sold his wife’s gold jewelry to buy an electric three-wheeler that would revolutionize his apple business in Kashmir. Until winter arrived and killed it. On a freezing morning,...

© Nasir Kachroo/NurPhoto/Getty Images

A boy pushes an e-rickshaw in a snowbound area of Rafiabad, Jammu and Kashmir, India, on January 19, 2025. (Photo by Nasir Kachroo/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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Silicon Valley led the quest for driverless cars. But Chinese robotaxis are catching up fast

Chinese and American companies have long led the costly endeavor of developing autonomous ride-hailing services. Now, robotaxi firms are taking the competition global.  The Alphabet-owned Waymo, which launched the world’s...

© Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

A “safety driver” sits in Baidu’s Apollo robotaxi at the Apollo Park in Beijing, China.
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The trade war is delaying the future of humanoid robot workers

As viral clips of robots doing flips, kung-fu, and running a marathon rack up views online, U.S. and Chinese firms are locked in a more high-stakes race: deploying humanoid robots...

© Florence Lo/Reuters/Redux

An employee works on a desk near displays of humanoid robot parts, at the office of developer Ex-Robots in Dalian, Liaoning province, China June 6, 2024. REUTERS/Florence Lo
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The secret sauce of Chinese social media apps

In the days leading up to the January 19 deadline for TikTok, users in the U.S. scrambled to find alternatives. But instead of YouTube, X, or Instagram, the so-called TikTok...

© Rest of World

Chinese owned apps that specialize in social commerce like Lemon8, Xiaohongshu and TikTok have dominated American attention.
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