>>> Barrons Weekend Summary

Cover:
-The number of seniors living alone is increasing, raising concerns about their nest eggs, Social Security, and Medicaid. The government safety net is in flux, and costs for health services and long-term care are increasing. Single retirees face challenges in managing household finances, dealing with health issues, and warding off loneliness, which is a risk factor for physical and mental health. In 2020, 11% of all U.S. households had people aged 65 and older living alone, up from 9% in 2010. The number may rise as more adults reach retirement without a partner or spouse. Experts argue that the US is ill-equipped to handle the growing population of seniors, and the singles among them, who may need more health services, long-term care, and financial resources. The country's safety nets, such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, may be facing cuts, making it more difficult for people to access their earned benefits.

Interview:
-No update

Tech Trader:
-Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang presented a compelling vision for the artificial-intelligence industry at the annual GTC developers conference in San Jose, California. Despite the excitement, Nvidia shares have been trading at just 26X forward price-to-earnings, an undemanding valuation for a company projected to boost revenue by 57% this year. The company's shares have been impacted by concerns about AI chip demand softening after the release of Chinese start-up DeepSeek's efficient models, rising chip competition from Broadcom AVGO, and uncertainty over President Donald Trump's threats to impose tariffs on chip imports. Huang defended Nvidia's bright prospects, stating that the reasoning capability in DeepSeek's AI model is driving a substantial increase in demand for resources. He emphasized that the amount of computation needed due to agentic AI is 100X higher than it was last year.

The Trader:
-Airlines stocks have experienced a long history of disappointing investors, with the S&P 500 Airlines Industry index returning 1.4% a year since 1990. However, this time, the stocks soared 95% from their August low to January high, with analysts predicting positive news for legacy carriers like Delta Air Lines, United Airlines Holdings, and American Airlines Group. The airlines index needed to gain just 25% to reach its all-time high. However, the stocks have tumbled due to uncertainty around tariffs and trade policy, which crush consumer and corporate confidence. United, Delta, American, and Southwest Airlines have provided warnings about the first quarter this month, and the sudden weakness in demand is coming from all quarters.
-The stock market struggled to make significant gains this week, but smaller, cheaper stocks helped neutralize losses in Big Tech. The S&P 500 index advanced 0.5%, while the Nasdaq Composite inched up 0.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.2%. Tariffs remain the biggest concern as consumers, businesses, and investors remain uncertain about policy changes as President Donald Trump's April deadline approaches. The Federal Reserve emphasized uncertainty on Wednesday, with Chair Jerome Powell's remarks only to some extent soothing some nerves. The lack of clarity has continued to weigh on Google parent Alphabet, Amazon.com, Apple, Facebook parent Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla, the former stars of the rally. The weakness is starting to call into question the American exceptionalism trade, with Société Générale's head of global asset allocation questioning whether the long-awaited 'Great Rotation' out of US assets has begun.

Features:
-Nvidia has announced plans to build a quantum computing research center, NVAQC, to address some of the field's most challenging problems by integrating quantum hardware with supercomputers. The center aims to pave the way for accelerated quantum supercomputing. Researchers at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre in Germany are integrating an Advantage system from D-Wave Quantum with Europe's first exascale supercomputer. The integration enhances the efficiency of both types of systems, which build upon each other's strengths. The NVAQC will tackle some of quantum's most pressing issues, including qubit noise, which has hindered their commercial adoption. Partners on the project include Quantinuum, Quantum Machines, and QuEra Computing.
-A BlackRock infrastructure fund agreed to buy the Panama Canal ports, which had sparked President Donald Trump's ire for China's control of the waterway. The transaction, due to be completed in early April, would be a windfall for Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings, netting it over $19B in cash for the Panama Canal terminals and other ports around the world. The price is equal to about 85% of the company's market value for a business that generated less than 15% of its profits. However, the high-profile sale could be in jeopardy because Chinese leader Xi Jinping is displeased that CK Hutchison didn't consult him before negotiating the deal. CK Hutchison owns extensive international infrastructure assets, including electric power, natural gas, renewable energy, and water. It also controls a large group of retailers selling health and beauty-care products throughout Asia, including AS Watson. The company's founder, Li Ka-shing, draws comparisons to Warren Buffett. The Hong Kong-listed shares trade at about 45 Hong Kong dollars, while the US-listed shares fetch just seven times projected 2025 earnings, carry a roughly 5% dividend yield, and trade for about a third of the company's book value and estimated net asset value.

Europe:
-The European Union (EU) is deferring retaliatory tariffs against US products, covering €26B ($28.2B) of exports, until mid-April. The first phase of the levies is set to take effect on April 1, targeting items like lingerie and soy products. A second phase is scheduled for mid-April. Trump has threatened a 200% tariff on European wine, champagne, and other alcohol. In 2024, the US imported $6.8B worth of wine, with 80% coming from EU countries. Some wine-producing nations, such as Italy and France, have criticized the EU's response to the steel and aluminum tariffs, warning against intensifying the trade war. The EU is considering aligning the timing of the two sets of countermeasures to allow for simultaneous consultation with Member States on both lists.

Emerging Markets:
-No update

Commodities:
-Freeport-McMoRan stock has been upgraded to Buy by J.P. Morgan analysts, citing the risk of levies on copper as a potential winner from President Donald Trump's trade policies. The stock has a 30% upside, raising its price target to $52 from $48. Trump imposed 25% levies on steel and aluminum imports last month, and the market believes copper may be next. Since then, the gap between copper prices on the US COMEX exchange and the London Metal Exchange has widened, with prices in the US up over 25% this year and 13% on the London Metal Exchange. This premium means an additional boost for Freeport copper sold in the US. Despite the uncertainty, analysts believe Freeport stock can still outperform even if copper levies don't materialize.

Streetwise:
-The managed futures industry is seeking funds that can beat other assets during a crisis, but 60/40 investing is not suitable for this purpose. Instead, a go-anywhere, long/short, derivative trend-trading quantitative model is needed. Futures are contracts used to bet on the direction of stock indexes, government bonds, commodities, and currencies. Commodity trading advisors (CTAs) follow diversified futures strategies, including trend-following, which involves using software and charts to bet on rising and falling markets. Managed futures have been around for over 75 years, but the rise of exchange-traded funds and their promotion as tools for ordinary savers is new. BlackRock recently launched the iShares Managed Futures ETF, promising a unique source of return to diversify a portfolio. Managed futures have made money through various stock mishaps, such as the dot-com crash and the 2007-09 financial crisis.

>>> Weekend Press Summary

FINANCIAL TIMES
-Heathrow Airport has experienced disruptions due to a fire that shut down the country's busiest airport, causing 1,300 flight cancellations and raising questions about the resilience of the UK's infrastructure. The airport reopened for flights on Saturday morning, but disruption is expected as carriers restart operations with planes, crews, and passengers scattered across the world. British Airways, Heathrow's largest airline, is expected to cancel about 15% of its flights at the airport. The fire at a local electricity substation caused a power outage, forcing inbound flights to divert to other hubs or return to their original airports. London's Metropolitan Police is leading enquiries due to the incident's impact on critical national infrastructure.
-President Trump's administration is questioning the values and arrangements of the US economy, which has outperformed other advanced countries in recent years. The US is home to leading tech companies, leading research in artificial intelligence, and a start-up-friendly culture. However, the future of this dominance is uncertain, with research capacity in the public sector and US universities being strained. The future of skilled migrants and investment in America is also uncertain due to policy uncertainty and doubts about the rule of law.
-US President Donald Trump has canceled security clearances for Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton, his former rivals for the White House, as part of his campaign of retribution against political opponents. Trump announced the move, which includes Fiona Hill, a Russia expert who has been critical of Trump's stance on the war in Ukraine. Trump has already included Joe Biden and some of his top aides, including Jake Sullivan and Antony Blinken. This move highlights Trump's use of the first months of his second presidency to target political foes, including Democrats and Republicans who have opposed his return to office. Trump has also targeted Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, and Letitia James, the New York State attorney-general, after they brought legal cases against him, including one that led to his conviction for falsifying business records last year.
-Argentina's former leftwing president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, has been barred from entering the US due to her involvement in "significant corruption." This comes amid a Trump administration crackdown on immigration and targeting leftwing opponents domestically and internationally. Rubio, a former Florida Republican senator, has been a longtime critic of leftwing political figures in Latin America.
-Turkish bankers have reported that officials lost control of the market early on Wednesday, leaving a scar on investors' confidence. JPMorgan Chase also noted impaired lira liquidity amid large outflows. The central bank likely continued intervening in the market on Thursday and Friday. Policymakers have taken steps to soothe markets, including holding an emergency central bank meeting on Thursday, increasing a key overnight interest rate to keep local savers in lira accounts.
-Elon Musk has reassured Tesla's employees that the future is bright and urged them to keep their shares despite declining sales, safety recalls, and vandalism caused by his political activism. This communication came after Donald Trump's commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, urged Fox News viewers to "buy Tesla" amid a 51% drop in Tesla's shares since mid-December. Musk said that he understands if employees don't want to buy Tesla products, but they shouldn't burn them down. Tesla and its dealerships have been the target of protests in the US and Europe due to Musk's influence in the White House, his attack on the US federal government, and his support for the far-right AfD party in Germany.
-Alcohol consumption in the US has dropped by 3% last year, the largest drop since the prohibition era a century ago, according to Bernstein research. Drinking is now at its lowest level since 1962, down 20% on its 1980s peak. The World Health Organization has recommended that drinks carry prominent labels warning consumers of the link between alcohol and cancer, a recommendation Ireland will make in May next year. This comes as declining alcohol consumption, growing health awareness, and the effects of weight-loss drugs on drinking habits cement a negative narrative around the industry. Analyst Trevor Stirling is discussing the question of whether alcohol is the new tobacco.
-Global investors are withdrawing money from Southeast Asia due to concerns over the region's largest economies and a shift towards Chinese equities. Indonesia and Thailand, the region's two largest economies, have seen foreign equity outflows in the year to date, with their stock markets performing poorly. Indonesian stocks fell to their lowest in four years, while the rupiah is near five-year lows. The MSCI Indonesia index is down about 16% from the start of the year in US dollar terms, while the MSCI Thailand is down just over 12%. The sell-off, driven by economic concerns in both countries, has been exacerbated by a global trade war sparked by US President Donald Trump and regional fund managers shifting their money towards China. Foreign investors have pulled $1.3B from Indonesian markets and $500M from Thai equities this year, while putting $13B into Chinese equities.
-President Trump has chosen to entrust Boeing for the development of the next-generation US stealth fighter jet. The F-47 will replace the F-22 Raptor, a stealth fighter deployed in Syria and Iraq from 2014. The Air Force plans to spend up to $20B on research and development for the F-47 through 2029. Boeing has a history of developing fighter jets in partnership with Lockheed Martin, and has already bet billions on the Next Generation Air Dominance program. The company's stock rose 5.3% at $182 after Trump's announcement. Boeing built new production facilities in St Louis in hopes of winning the F-47 contract, a victory for the company after losing the F-35 contract to Lockheed Martin in 2001 and facing cost overruns and delivery issues with the KC-46 aerial refueling tanker and the next-generation Air Force One.

NEW YORK TIMES
-Columbia University has agreed to overhaul its protest policies, security practices, and Middle Eastern studies department in a concession to the Trump administration. The agreement could signal a new stage in the administration's escalating clash with elite colleges and universities, as Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Michigan face federal inquiries and fear similar penalties. Columbia's response to the White House's demands may set a dangerous precedent. The University of Pennsylvania was also targeted by the Trump administration, which said it would cancel $175M in federal funding due to the university's failure to protect students and faculty members from antisemitic violence and harassment.
-Donald Trump and Columbia University have been in a 25-year conflict over free speech, academic freedom, and federal government funding. The first battle involved a lucrative real estate deal. Trump's administration has demanded Columbia to turn over control of its policies and curricular decisions to quell antisemitism on campus and has canceled federal grants and contracts valued at $400M. Former university officials are questioning if this conflict sparked Trump's current focus on Columbia.
-A federal judge in Washington has expressed skepticism about the Trump administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan immigrants. Judge James E. Boasberg suggested that the White House had stretched the meaning of the statute by applying it to scores of Venezuelan immigrants, accusing them of being members of a violent street gang. The administration flew them to El Salvador last weekend with little or no due process. The judge is concerned that President Trump had sought to use the law when there was neither an invasion taking place nor a declared state of war, and that the people the government had sought to deport have no way of contesting whether they are actually gang members.
-President Trump has issued a memo rescinding security clearances and access to classified information for former opponents such as Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, Joseph R. Biden Jr., and any other member of Biden Jr.'s family. The list of names reads like President Trump's enemies list, from Letitia James to Liz Cheney. The move comes as a payback for Biden's actions after leaving office in the days after the Jan 6. attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Trump administration has previously said it planned to remove his predecessor's access to classified intelligence briefings, as it was payback for Biden's actions after leaving office.
-The Trump administration has cancelled a contract funding legal representation for over 25,000 children who entered the US alone, leaving them vulnerable to swift deportation. The move will fast-track their court cases, leaving many without counsel in adversarial immigration proceedings. Advocates argue that children as young as 2 who are survivors of trafficking, trauma, and abuse, often too young to understand their legal rights, would be returned to countries where they could face harm. The termination of the contract was up for renewal on March 29.
-President Trump denied that Elon Musk was to be briefed on top-secret military plans in the event of war with China, stating that he wouldn't show it to a businessman. The Pentagon scuttled Musk's planned visit to a secure room in the Pentagon after The Times published an article on the matter. Trump denied the briefing had been planned but also made clear that he thought Musk should not have access to such war plans. The report has shaken Washington and seemed to surprise President Trump by surprise. Musk's planned visit to a secure room in the Pentagon was called off after The Times published its article on the matter.
-Critics argue that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is manipulating the courts and media to tighten his grip on power, and is now trying to prevent a top contender from running for president. This comes as voters are angry about persistently high inflation, his political party's popularity has sunk, and his opponents have coalesced around the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, who made it clear that he was gunning for the presidency. On Wednesday, just four days before the mayor was set to be designated as the political opposition's presidential candidate, dozens of policemen arrested him at his home on accusations of corruption and terrorism. This has led to a decline in democracy in Turkey, with opposition parties accusing Erdogan of manipulating the courts and media to tighten his grip on power. The arrest of Imamoglu has raised concerns about the erosion of democracy in Turkey.

NEW YORK POST
-Former Vice President Kamala Harris is the preferred 2028 presidential candidate by a wide margin, according to a survey of Democratic voters. Harris received 36% support from Democratic and Democratic-leaning independent voters in the early 2028 primary poll conducted by Morning Consult. She has a double-digit lead over her closest potential competitor, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who garnered just 10% support from his party. Harris has yet to announce any intention of running it back in 2028. Despite raising over a billion dollars from Democratic donors during her campaign, Harris suffered a crushing loss to President Trump in November. Since her defeat, Harris has reportedly told allies to keep her political options open and is believed to be mulling a run at the California governorship in 2026.
-JPMorgan, led by Jamie Dimon, has rebranded its Diversity, Opportunity and Inclusion (DEI) program to avoid a crackdown on corporate policies that the Trump administration has deemed discriminatory and illegal. The bank is replacing the controversial "Equity" component of DEI with "Opportunity," according to a memo obtained by The Post. JPMorgan's Chief Operating Officer, Jenn Piepszak, stated that the bank aims to comply with current laws and regulations. The bank plans to reduce training on DEI topics and consolidate activities, councils, or chapters to streamline its process and engagement strategy.

Le Monde : Timothy Garton Ash, historien : « Les Européens sont face à un triple

Timothy Garton Ash, historien : « Les Européens sont face à un triple choc » géopolitique

Timothy Garton Ash est essayiste et historien britannique, professeur d’études européennes à l’université d’Oxford (Royaume-Uni). Son dernier ouvrage, Europes. Une histoire personnelle (Stock, 617 pages, 26 euros, numérique 18 euros), qui retrace l’histoire du continent depuis la fin de la seconde guerre mondiale, vient d’être publié en français.

Comment décrire la période actuelle ?

Une nouvelle période s’est ouverte, le 24 février 2022, avec l’invasion de l’Ukraine par la Russie. En matière d’histoire, les commencements sont aussi importants que dans les histoires d’amour. Dans les cinq années qui suivirent la seconde guerre mondiale, toutes les institutions internationales dont nous disposons aujourd’hui ont été créées. Dans les cinq ans suivant la chute du mur de Berlin, les orientations relatives à l’après-guerre froide ont été prises. Nous entrons actuellement dans la quatrième année d’une nouvelle ère, et la direction que nous allons prendre reste très peu claire.

Pour les Européens, cette période se caractérise par un triple choc. Un choc Poutine, d’abord, avec le retour à une guerre interétatique majeure en Europe et la prise de conscience d’une Russie revancharde. Vladimir Poutine est prêt à tout pour restaurer l’empire russe, y compris à reprendre la Crimée en 2014, comme il l’avait annoncé dès 1994, quand il était maire adjoint de Saint-Pétersbourg. Il est sur le point d’atteindre nombre de ses objectifs de guerre en Ukraine, grâce à Donald Trump.

Le deuxième choc, c’est la découverte que nous, Européens, sommes entrés dans un univers post-occidental : la Chine, l’Inde, la Turquie, le Brésil ou l’Afrique du Sud se réjouissent de faire des affaires avec la Russie dans un monde de transactions entre puissances. Malgré les sanctions occidentales sans précédent prises depuis trois ans contre l’économie russe, celle-ci connaît une croissance supérieure à la nôtre, car les pays non occidentaux disposent de la capacité et d’argent pour nous contourner.

Depuis le 20 janvier, les Européens sont de surcroît confrontés au choc Trump, celui de la confirmation du désengagement américain en Europe, au profit d’un repli intérieur ou d’un pivot vers l’Asie. Nous connaissions déjà cette tendance, mais la personnalité de Trump amplifie ce phénomène. Le président américain est prêt à liquider l’Ukraine, à basculer du côté russe, à devenir une puissance transactionnelle, plutôt qu’à défendre l’ordre libéral. Pour les Européens, la question est de savoir comment répondre à ce triple choc.

Il faudrait bâtir l’Europe puissance. Elle est déjà une grande puissance non hégémonique en matière d’économie et de régulation. Pour la première fois, je suis prudemment optimiste, car, ces dernières semaines, nos dirigeants ont exprimé un sens de l’urgence. Cela se traduira-t-il par des actions concrètes ? Un problème fondamental est que nous avons besoin de politiques européennes, mais que nos démocraties restent nationales. Cette contradiction complique les décisions, à l’heure où les pays européens doivent investir des milliards d’euros pour leur défense et la modernisation de leurs économies.

Les Etats-Unis de Donald Trump sont-ils devenus un adversaire de l’Europe ?

Donald Trump est certainement un adversaire de l’Europe. C’est évident sur le plan géopolitique – comme on le voit face à la Russie au sujet de l’Ukraine –, et sur le plan économique avec les menaces d’augmentation des droits de douane. Sur le plan idéologique, J. D. Vance a prononcé, ni plus ni moins, un discours électoral en faveur de l’AfD [le parti allemand d’extrême droite], lors de la Conférence sur la sécurité, à Munich, en Allemagne. Le prochain discours de ce type pourrait avoir lieu en France, en faveur de Marine Le Pen. Il s’agit d’un triple assaut contre l’Union européenne [UE]. Cela dit, je ne dirais pas encore que les Etats-Unis sont devenus un adversaire de l’Europe, car plus de la moitié des Américains sont sous le choc de ce que fait Trump. C’est une révolution qui, comme chaque révolution, va commencer par générer du chaos aux Etats-Unis mêmes, voire à dévorer ses enfants.

Dans ces conditions, est-il possible de rester atlantiste ?

L’hostilité est là, mais l’Alliance demeure. Il est nécessaire de faire la distinction entre Trump et les Etats-Unis, car la réalité est que l’Europe ne pourra pas se défendre seule de sitôt. Sa défense repose encore, objectivement, sur l’OTAN [Organisation du traité de l’Atlantique Nord]. C’est pourquoi il faut défendre un « churchillo-gaullisme ». Cela signifie d’abord que, si nous voulons la paix, nous devons préparer la guerre. Ensuite, que nous devons bâtir une Europe plus forte pour nous défendre, tout en maintenant nos liens avec les Etats-Unis. Il nous faut faire la synthèse entre l’approche gaulliste classique et l’approche atlantiste.

Il s’agit de partir de la base dont nous disposons, c’est-à-dire de l’OTAN dominée par les Etats-Unis, pour aller aussi vite que possible vers une Europe capable de se défendre elle-même. Cela doit passer par l’européanisation de l’Alliance atlantique, ainsi que par une défense propre à l’Union européenne, et par des coalitions d’Etats volontaires, comme celle que Keir Starmer et Emmanuel Macron cherchent à mettre en place pour l’Ukraine.

Que signifie l’européanisation de l’OTAN ?

Cela veut dire une OTAN dans laquelle les Européens auraient un rôle accru et où la contribution américaine serait réduite. Il faudra des années pour que la force de réaction de l’Alliance, destinée à renforcer la protection de notre frontière orientale, devienne une opération essentiellement européenne en matière de chaîne de commandement, de renseignement, de satellites, de capacités aériennes, de transport lourd… Cela nécessite un chantier énorme.

Trump affaiblit pourtant la crédibilité de l’Alliance et de son article 5 d’assistance mutuelle…

Cette crédibilité de l’OTAN doit être renforcée autant que possible. C’est pourquoi nous devons avoir une discussion sur la dissuasion nucléaire française et britannique. Qui aurait pensé, il y a quelques mois, que le premier ministre polonais, Donald Tusk, et le prochain chancelier allemand, Friedrich Merz, parleraient publiquement de la nécessité pour eux de disposer d’un parapluie nucléaire franco-britannique ? La dissuasion britannique est, en principe, déjà dédiée à la défense de l’ensemble du territoire de l’OTAN. Elle est indépendante sur le plan opérationnel : le premier ministre britannique décide seul de l’activer, sans veto possible côté américain. Son problème est que la production des missiles demeure aux Etats-Unis.

Le gouvernement britannique reste très discret sur la question nucléaire. Est-il partant ?

Il est discret mais prêt à engager cette conversation. Pour moi qui ai toujours pensé que le Brexit était une tragédie, voir les autorités britanniques en première ligne pour la défense et la sécurité de l’Europe est quelque chose de très fort. Néanmoins, une certaine incohérence dans les intentions du gouvernement peut poser problème. Le Royaume-Uni veut être aux avant-postes européens en matière de sécurité, mais continue d’être tenté par sa « relation spéciale » avec les Etats-Unis sur le plan économique et technologique. Il est comme une personne écartelée entre deux planches sur une mer déchaînée, et il va devoir faire un choix stratégique.

Pour l’encourager, ses partenaires européens doivent eux aussi faire preuve de cohérence. Or, ils considèrent le Royaume-Uni européen quand il s’agit de déployer des soldats en Ukraine dans la perspective d’un éventuel cessez-le-feu. Mais ils ne le jugent plus européen dès lors qu’il s’agit de soutenir par des fonds de l’UE l’acquisition d’équipements militaires produits sur le continent. Pour être sérieuse, la défense européenne doit intégrer le Royaume-Uni dans ses programmes.

Europe suscite un intérêt grandissant de la part des alliés
Le rapprochement franco-britannique est-il assez fort pour porter le sursaut européen en matière de défense ?

Il est nécessaire mais pas suffisant. Deux autres partenaires sont essentiels : l’Allemagne et la Pologne. Le prochain chancelier allemand parle d’un groupe de contact entre l’Allemagne, la France, le Royaume-Uni et la Pologne. C’est exactement ce qu’il faut. L’Europe a avancé grâce à la combinaison de dirigeants forts à la tête des institutions – ce que nous avons avec Ursula von der Leyen – et d’une coalition stratégique d’Etats membres. La principale difficulté est de savoir où et comment mener cette discussion. Chaque Etat dispose de sa propre défense, avec sa stratégie nationale de sécurité – ce qui complique la situation. Quant à l’OTAN, elle est dirigée par les Etats-Unis. Le grand défi est de savoir comment rapprocher tout cela, pour réduire cette fragmentation.

Le réarmement de l’Europe est-il une bonne nouvelle, compte tenu des partis d’extrême droite qui progressent ou sont aux portes du pouvoir, en Allemagne, en Pologne et en France ?

Oui et non. Après trente ans qui furent comme une « parenthèse de l’histoire », on ne peut pas se réjouir d’avoir à dépenser beaucoup plus pour la défense. Mais cela est nécessaire, même si je n’aurais jamais pensé que l’on se féliciterait un jour de voir l’Allemagne produire des chars plutôt que des voitures. Le plus grand danger n’est pas de voir des partis d’extrême droite gouverner des pays voisins bien armés, mais que le nécessaire ne soit pas fait pour augmenter les dépenses militaires parce que nos sociétés sont habituées à des niveaux de dépenses sociales élevés. C’est pourquoi il faut confisquer les avoirs russes gelés, mais aussi décider d’un nouvel emprunt européen, pour financer ce dont nous avons besoin. Cela constituera une sorte de stimulus keynésien pour nos économies qui, combiné à la rationalisation et à la consolidation de nos industries de défense, encouragera l’innovation. Sans cela, je ne pense pas que nos électorats soient en mesure de supporter le fardeau.

Jusqu’à présent, Donald Trump a-t-il réussi à unir les Européens ou plutôt à les diviser ?

A ce stade, je dirais plutôt qu’il a réussi à les unir, à l’exception de Viktor Orban en Hongrie, de Robert Fico en Slovaquie, de l’AfD en Allemagne et du parti Droit et justice [PiS] en Pologne. Quant à [la présidente du conseil italien] Giorgia Meloni, elle est face à un dilemme proche de celui du Royaume-Uni. Elle veut être des deux côtés à la fois, l’Europe et les Etats-Unis.

L’autre problème – on l’a vu avec le discours de Vance à Munich – est que l’administration Trump essaie de mobiliser cette autre Europe, les partis populistes, nationalistes, anti-européens. J. D. Vance et Elon Musk sont plus idéologiques que Trump, qui est à la fois transactionnel et inconsistant. Pour Washington, il s’agit bien sûr de défendre des intérêts économiques, mais cela va au-delà et traduit une guerre culturelle qui s’observe aux Etats-Unis, mais aussi au sein de l’Europe.

TechCrunch : Meta has revenue sharing agreements with Llama AI model hosts, fili

Meta has revenue sharing agreements with Llama AI model hosts, filing reveals

In a blog post last July, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that “selling access” to Meta’s openly available Llama AI models “isn’t [Meta’s] business model.” Yet Meta does make at least some money from Llama through revenue-sharing agreements, according to a newly unredacted court filing.

The filing, submitted by attorneys for the plaintiffs in the copyright lawsuit Kadrey v. Meta, in which Meta stands accused of training its Llama models on hundreds of terabytes of pirated e-books, reveals that Meta “shares a percentage of the revenue” that companies hosting its Llama models generate from users of those models.

The filing doesn’t indicate which specific hosts pay Meta. But Meta lists a number of Llama host partners in various blog posts, including AWS, Nvidia, Databricks, Groq, Dell, Azure, Google Cloud, and Snowflake.

Developers aren’t required to use a Llama model through a host partner. The models can be downloaded, fine-tuned, and run on a range of different hardware. But many hosts provide additional services and tooling that makes getting Llama models up and running simpler and easier.

Zuckerberg mentioned the possibility of licensing access to Llama models during an earnings call last April, when he also floated monetizing Llama in other ways, like through business messaging services and ads in “AI interactions.” But he didn’t outline specifics.

“[I]f you’re someone like Microsoft or Amazon or Google and you’re going to basically be reselling these services, that’s something that we think we should get some portion of the revenue for,” Zuckerberg said. “So those are the deals that we intend to be making, and we’ve started doing that a little bit.”

More recently, Zuckerberg asserted that most of the value Meta derives from Llama comes in the form of improvements to the models from the AI research community. Meta uses Llama models to power a number of products across its platforms and properties, including Meta’s AI assistant, Meta AI.

“I think it’s good business for us to do this in an open way,” Zuckerberg said during Meta’s Q3 2024 earnings call. “[I]t makes our products better rather than if we were just on an island building a model that no one was kind of standardizing around in the industry.”

The fact that Meta may generate revenue in a rather direct way from Llama is significant because plaintiffs in Kadrey v. Meta claim that Meta not only used pirated works to develop Llama, but facilitated infringement by “seeding,” or uploading, these works. Plaintiffs allege that Meta used surreptitious torrenting methods to obtain e-books for training, and in the process — due to the way torrenting works — shared the e-books with other torrenters.

Meta plans to significantly up its capital expenditures this year, largely thanks to its increasing investments in AI. In January, the company said it would spend $60 billion-$80 billion on CapEx in 2025 — roughly double Meta’s CapEx in 2024 — primarily on data centers and growing the company’s AI development teams.

Likely to offset a portion of the costs, Meta is reportedly considering launching a subscription service for Meta AI that’ll add unspecified capabilities to the assistant.

Updated 3/21 at 1:54 p.m.: A Meta spokesperson pointed TechCrunch to this earnings call transcript for additional context. We’ve added a Zuckerberg quote from it — specifically a quote about Meta’s intent to revenue share with large hosts of Llama models.

WSJ : Oil Companies Seek Trump’s Help to Thwart Climate Lawsuits, Superfund Laws

Oil Companies Seek Trump’s Help to Thwart Climate Lawsuits, Superfund Laws
Fossil-fuel industry wants to avoid the financial penalties tobacco companies faced

Now that a pro-fossil-fuel president is in the White House, the oil industry is pushing to make some of its biggest legal headaches go away.

Oil-and-gas executives raised their concerns about recent state laws that will fine them for contributing to greenhouse-gas emissions, at a White House meeting Wednesday with President Trump. They also discussed the dozens of climate lawsuits filed by state and local governments against Exxon Mobil XOM -0.35%decrease; red down pointing triangle, Chevron CVX -0.01%decrease; red down pointing triangle, Shell SHEL -0.82%decrease; red down pointing triangle and others, according to people familiar with the matter.

Trump appeared to agree with the industry that the states’ actions had the potential to undermine his energy-dominance agenda and signaled he would consider ways his administration could help the industry, the people said. The chief executives of Exxon, Chevron, ConocoPhillips COP -0.38%decrease; red down pointing triangle and Hess were among those in attendance at the meeting.

Fossil-fuel interests contributed tens of millions of dollars to help Trump get elected, hoping he would help the industry lock in demand for their products for years to come. While frackers have been unnerved by his first weeks in office, Trump has started making good on their demands to undo environmental regulations, open up more U.S. land for drilling, and help them export more natural gas.

Now, the industry hopes to put its legal woes on Trump’s radar as it faces mounting threats.

The industry is making a case for the Justice Department to file briefs in support of its lawsuits, or file its own suits against Vermont and New York. Last year those states passed climate superfund laws designed to collect fees from fuel-burning oil companies to help cover costs for environmental projects and infrastructure.

The industry thinks the Justice Department might have grounds to file suits against states it sees as encroaching on the territory of the U.S. government on climate policy.

Separately, oil-and-gas lobbyists are urging members of Congress to consider granting legal protection for oil companies against lawsuits over their contributions to climate change.

The fossil-fuel industry has learned from the mammoth lawsuits that clobbered tobacco companies and wants to avoid the same fate. Executives are seeking a predictable environment to navigate, and think that now is the time to push back against claims, people familiar with the lobbying push said.

Oil-and-gas companies are facing a deluge of climate actions emanating from state and local governments.

The superfund law passed in New York last year authorizes the state to levy billions of dollars in fines on fossil-fuel companies for their contribution to greenhouse-gas emissions. The bill charges fossil-fuel companies a total of $3 billion a year for 25 years, which the state plans to use to pay for climate change adaptation efforts.

Exxon, Shell, Petróleos Mexicanos, BP, Chevron and Peabody Energy could each owe upward of $150 million annually, according to a memo co-written by New York Sen. Liz Krueger, a co-sponsor of the bill.

California lawmakers introduced a superfund bill last month, saying oil companies should help pay for extensive damages from the Los Angeles wildfires. Vermont passed the first such law in the U.S. but has since inspired lawmakers in states including Massachusetts to set up similar funds.

Opponents have argued states don’t have the authority to regulate emissions, companies shouldn’t be charged retroactively for emissions that were legal at the time, and it is unfair to focus solely on fossil-fuel companies and not energy consumers. More than a dozen states, including West Virginia and Texas, and oil-and-gas associations have challenged the New York law in court.

“We will continue to make that case in the courts, and we are exploring all options to correct this overreach by certain states,” said Justin Prendergast, a spokesman for an oil lobbying group, the American Petroleum Institute.

Heightened interest in climate superfund legislation is driven in part by the slow progress of lawsuits brought by states and cities seeking compensation from fossil-fuel companies, according to legal scholars.

The lawsuits, some of which date to 2017, seek financial damages based on claims that range from public nuisance and negligence to consumer deception and racketeering.

Several states, including Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island, and dozens of municipal governments have accused the world’s largest energy companies of playing down the industry’s contributions to climate change.

The Supreme Court in 2023 turned away appeals by the companies seeking protection from potential liability under state laws for harms caused by climate change. The decision allowed a number of cases to move forward under state laws that the industry sees as less favorable than federal environmental statutes.

Trump can’t do much about the climate lawsuits without help from Congress. In his first term, the Justice Department expressed its views about the climate litigation in briefs. The oil industry is hoping lawmakers include legal protection against climate lawsuits for oil companies in a coming Trump-endorsed bill.

Congress passed legislation two decades ago that granted gun manufacturers some legal protection against lawsuits. But with slim Republican majorities in Congress, such legal protections for oil companies could be difficult to obtain.

Oil companies say the myriad lawsuits have made doing business in the U.S. more difficult to navigate. Last year, California’s attorney general filed a lawsuit—the first suit of its kind—against Exxon accusing the company of misleading consumers about the recyclability of plastic products and polluting the state.

Exxon filed a defamation lawsuit against California attorney general Rob Bonta and environmental groups, saying their “false statements” had led to prospective business falling through.

FT : Heathrow reopens after blaze but airlines warn of more disruption

Heathrow reopens after blaze but airlines warn of more disruption
Dozens of flights cancelled because planes, crews and passengers are scattered across the world

Heathrow airport reopened on Saturday morning following a complete shutdown caused by an electrical outage, but airlines warned of further disruption as they restarted operations.

The airport fully reopened for flights on Saturday morning and the first aeroplanes took off just after 6am.

Heathrow said it was “open and fully operational”, but airlines had cancelled nearly 100 of Saturday’s flights by 8am as they began the logistical challenge of restarting their operations with planes, crews and passengers out of place and scattered across the world.

Thomas Woldbye, Heathrow’s chief executive, on Saturday said he was “proud” of the airport’s response to the electrical outage and predicted no “major disruption”.

However, some airline executives were privately frustrated at the airport’s messages that it had fully recovered, given that they were still cancelling flights and dealing with stranded passengers.

British Airways, by far the largest airline operator at Heathrow, said it expected to cancel about 15 per cent of its schedule to and from Heathrow on Saturday, which would be about 90 flights.

“To recover an operation of our size after such a significant incident is extremely complex . . . it is likely that all travelling customers will experience delays as we continue to navigate the challenges posed by Friday’s power outage at the airport,” the airline said.

Heathrow was closed in the early hours of Friday after a fire at a local electricity substation in west London caused a power outage at the airport.

The airport and National Grid both face intense scrutiny over how the failure of one of the three substations could lead to Heathrow’s closure for nearly 24 hours.

Willie Walsh, the former boss of BA and a long-standing critic of Heathrow, said there had been a “clear planning failure” by the airport.

Woldbye said the airport’s backup power supplies for its critical functions including the runway lights and control tower had kicked in, but that these were not designed to power the entire airport.

“We would need a separate standby power plant on the site . . . I don’t know of an airport that has that,” he told the BBC.

“We will of course look into this and say can we learn from this, do we need a different level of resilience if we cannot trust that the grid around us is working the way it should.”

National Grid on Saturday said it was taking steps to improve resilience on its network.

The FTSE 100 company owns and operates the North Hyde substation in Hayes, west London, which caught fire late on Thursday night, triggering questions about the vulnerability of the UK’s critical infrastructure.

The cause of the fire is still being investigated but National Grid said power had now been restored to all customers.

“Power supplies have been restored to all customers connected to our North Hyde substation, including Heathrow, allowing operations to resume at the airport. We are now implementing measures to help further improve the resilience levels of our network,” it said.

About 1,300 flights were cancelled on Friday and flights already in the air were either turned around to their original airport or diverted to other hubs around Europe.

That has left airlines facing a big challenge as they restart their schedules: many of their planes, pilots and cabin crew are in the wrong places, while many staff will also be unable to work because of strict rules on rest between flights.

“All these long-haul aircraft — particularly BA’s — have ended up at airports they were never supposed to be at. If there are no crews there to pick them up, then airlines will struggle to get their aircraft moving again as normal,” said John Strickland, an aviation consultant.

“Crew will also need a day or two’s rest before they can restart, and every additional day is extra cancellations running into the days ahead. It's a domino effect.”

Heathrow said it has added an extra 50 take-off and landing slots to its schedule, which would enable a further 10,000 passengers to travel on Saturday, if airlines can find planes and crew for them.

London’s Metropolitan Police’s counterterrorism command continued to lead enquiries into the fire at the substation, but on Friday evening the Met said they were not treating the incident as suspicious.

The Information : The Information’s Database of the Tech Moguls Who Own Sports T

The Information’s Database of the Tech Moguls Who Own Sports Teams
Sports leagues have proliferated just as Silicon Valley has gotten incredibly wealthy.

Last June, the Boston Celtics clinched their 18th NBA Championship, making them the most decorated pro basketball franchise of all time. On Thursday, Symphony Technology co-founder Bill Chisholm reached an agreement to buy the team at a valuation of $6.1 billion, giving the Celtics yet another title: the most expensive U.S. sports club ever sold.

Once the transaction is approved, it’ll mark the latest American sports team sold to someone rooted in the world of tech. There have been many such transactions lately. To mark this moment, we’re debuting a new searchable database of all the tech titans with majority stakes in U.S. sports franchises: a list of around five dozen people across 11 sports leagues.

Taken together, the list presents a definitive picture of how sports and tech have become increasingly intertwined. Just in the last five years, the number of sports teams bought by tech moguls has roughly doubled, according to our dataset.

The uptick corresponds to both the overall growth of the sports industry—with the emergence of new leagues in cricket, pickleball and other sports—as well as the rapidly appreciating valuations for top teams, leaving tech and venture capital billionaires on the short list of those who can afford to buy clubs outright.

Qualtrics co-founder Ryan Smith is one such figure. In 2020, he bought the NBA’s Utah Jazz, and last year he added the NHL’s Utah Hockey Club. Smith is now an emerging leader in the sports industry, of which he says, “Where we are going, the tech expertise is really a benefit.” He now serves on the NBA’s media committee, which last year approved a record $76 billion broadcast rights package to Disney, Comcast and for the first time Amazon.

Our list also reveals interesting patterns of where tech ownership is concentrated. Of the big four leagues, the NBA reigns supreme: 11 of its 30 teams feature at least one owner from the tech world. On the opposite end, the NFL and the MLB have just two tech owners each. In women’s leagues, four of the WNBA’s 14 existing and expansion clubs have tech owners, and so do five of the 15 National Women’s Soccer League clubs.

For the list, we included only the people who have controlling ownership in teams, and we examined both major and emerging leagues. And we took a broad definition of who qualifies, including tech founders, board members, C-suite executives and venture capitalists.

Other prominent sports owners who made their fortunes in tech include former HP and eBay CEO Meg Whitman, Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai and SAP co-founder Hasso Plattner.

Many in sports and tech credit the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen with starting the trend of Silicon Valley titans buying into sports when he bought the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers in 1988 and the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks in 1996. Indeed, Microsoft is the institution with the largest representation of current and former executives on our list. There’s Satya Nadella (a co-owner of Major League Cricket’s Seattle Orcas), Steve Ballmer (the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers) and board member John W. Stanton (MLB’s Seattle Mariners), to name just a handful.

Two of the three owners of the WNBA’s Seattle Storm are also Microsoft alums. One is Lisa Brummel, who worked at Microsoft for 25 years and who laughed when asked if there was a “Microsoft Mafia” running sports these days. While they don’t have a quippy name for themselves, “we do talk to each other quite a bit,” she said. In fact, she and Ballmer make a point to attend one another’s games each year, and she trades frequent notes with Stanton as a fellow owner of a Seattle-based pro club.

Across town, Nadella, two more Microsoft alums—Sanjay Parthasarathy and Soma Somasegar—and a clutch of other tech vets launched cricket’s Seattle Orcas in 2023.

Unlike owners in more established U.S. leagues, the Orcas crew are betting they can take a globally popular sport with scant infrastructure in the U.S. and build a league from the ground up. Cricket attracts serious investment overseas—the Indian Premier League was valued at $16.4 billion last year. With the sport returning to the Olympics in 2028 in Los Angeles, Somasegar senses an opportunity.

“If I dream the dream, there is no reason why we shouldn’t be at least as big economically as the IPL,” he said.

The surge in techies buying teams reflects dual phenomena in the sports industry. First, investors like Somasegar are building new leagues from scratch. Cricket, pickleball, table tennis and golf have all established new professional competitions since the start of the pandemic. And second, existing leagues are seeking owners with tech expertise to round out their board of governors as they navigate the future of live sports in the streaming era.

Smith, the Jazz and Utah Hockey Club owner, said the NBA and NHL, respectively, enlisted him to buy both franchises.

In hockey, Smith came in as a surprise buyer of the troubled Arizona Coyotes franchise last spring, which he relocated to Utah within five months at the request of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, he said.

“Gary called up and basically said, ‘Can you start?’” said Smith. “He wanted a little bit of that forward thinking—that big tech component.”

Like Smith, former AOL president Ted Leonsis has built a multiclub ownership model within a single metropolitan area: He bought the NHL’s Washington Capitals in 1999, then the NBA’s Wizards and the WNBA’s Mystics.

He also serves on the NBA’s media committee, where he said the focus is building the best broadcast model for the next quarter century. “All roads are leading toward: It has to be digital. It has to be global. India has to be as important as Indiana for the next generation,” said Leonsis, who has also integrated AI software into club operations, including for roster modeling.

While tech is only increasing its foothold in sports, there have already been some notable exits. Mark Cuban, for example, sold his majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks in late 2023, which is why he doesn’t appear on our list. And last year, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian sold his controlling stake in the NWSL’s Angel City FC last year. Nonetheless, we’re including Ohanian as a team owner in Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s new Tmrw Golf League.

Ultimately, the tech executives who have stuck around in sports say there is a lot of overlap between building or investing in a startup and running a team. Brummel, the Storm owner, said people who have worked in the tech industry are already adept at thinking about where innovation could happen and where the returns could come from.

“There’s a lot of like thinking between what you do in tech and what you’re doing in sports,” she said. Understanding the economics of both sectors “helps you go from one to the other more easily than another industry might.”

TechCrunch : Anduril might build a weapons factory in the UK

Anduril might build a weapons factory in the UK

Factories are all the rage in defense tech: Anduril announced a billion-dollar “megafactory” in Ohio earlier this year, while Saronic said last month it’s planning its own factory to mass-produce autonomous warships.

Now, Anduril is considering building a factory in the U.K. as it expands beyond U.S. defense contracts.

“If we get enough orders, absolutely we are planning to open a facility in the UK,” Rich Drake, Anduril’s general manager for U.K. and Europe, told Bloomberg.

Anduril would use the factory for drones and R&D and might choose somewhere near Oxford and Cambridge, Sifted reported earlier.

European defense budgets are breaking records as the U.S. winds down aid to Ukraine, so there’s plenty of opportunities.

Anduril, which is based in California and is reportedly in talks to raise at a $28 billion valuation, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

TechCrunch : Anthropic appears to be using Brave to power web search for its Cla

Anthropic appears to be using Brave to power web search for its Claude chatbot

Earlier this week, Anthropic rolled out a web search feature for its AI-powered chatbot platform, Claude, bringing the bot in line with many of its rivals. It wasn’t immediately clear which search index might be powering the feature — one possibility was that Anthropic had developed its own. But evidence suggests it’s Brave Search, the search engine maintained by browser developer Brave.

As spotted by software engineer Antonio Zugaldia on Friday, Anthropic added “Brave Search” to the “subprocessor list” in its documentation this week — the list of Anthropic partners who process Claude data. British programmer Simon Willison reports that at least one search in Claude and Brave returned identical citations. Willison also found that Claude’s web search function contains a parameter called “BraveSearchParams.”

We’ve reached out to Anthropic and will update this post if we hear back.

Brave underpins at least one other chatbot’s search functionality: Mistral’s chatbot platform Le Chat. In February, Brave and Mistral announced that Le Chat would use Brave’s search API for live web results.

Some AI companies keep info about their search index partnerships close to the chest, possibly for competitive reasons. OpenAI has a partnership with Bing but uses other undisclosed sources to power the search experience in ChatGPT as well.

TechCrunch : How BYD plans to make EV charging as fast as filling a gas tank

How BYD plans to make EV charging as fast as filling a gas tank

Chinese auto maker BYD made waves this week when it announced its new Han L sedan could add as much as 248 miles of range in as little as five minutes.

Unfortunately, the company was light on details, and it did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for clarification. So instead, we’ve scoured the web for information, filling in the gaps to determine exactly how BYD was able to make an EV that apparently can recharge as quickly as it takes to refill a gas car.

What we found mostly supports the auto makers claims, with a few caveats.

Battery pack
Central to the Han L’s fast charging is its internal electrical infrastructure. It starts with the battery, which according to CarNewsChina citing regulatory documents, is an 83.2 kWh lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) pack that operates at 945 volts. (In its marketing materials, the company appears to have rounded up and lists it at 1,000 volts).

The battery chemistry is likely central to the car’s fast-charging capability. LFP batteries have long been regarded for their stability and safety; they don’t catch fire nearly as readily as other types like nickel manganese cobalt (NMC). They can also charge faster because of some electrochemical quirks inherent in the cathode-anode design of an LFP cell. (There’s a great slide deck from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory that explains why in more detail.)

To top it off, BYD has been working with LFP for years, and its latest battery architecture, known as Blade 2.0, is expected to debut in the new car. That experience has probably given the company’s engineers a good sense of how far they can push both the batteries and the electrical architecture.

Electrical system
Feeding the battery pack is a high-voltage electrical system that runs at 945 volts. Automakers have been pursuing ever higher voltages because higher voltages generates less heat, allowing more power to be delivered safely and efficiently. Currently, Lucid runs a 900-volt architecture in its cars, and several others like Hyundai Kia and Porsche operate 800-volt in many of theirs. With Teslas, it depends on the vehicle: The Cybertruck uses an 800-volt architecture while the remainder operate at around 400 volts, give or take, depending on the model.

Add it all up and the Han L can charge at up to 1 megawatt, or 1,000 kilowatts. The fastest widely available EV chargers in the U.S. today deliver only 350 kilowatts.

But even when running at 945 volts or 1,000 volts, the amount of heat generated by 1 megawatt charging is significant, and the cables to support it would have to be incredibly thick. Even slower, fast, charging cables like the ones that are attached to 350 kW chargers are wrapped in liquid cooling, further increasing their bulk.

Perhaps in an effort to make the charging cables more manageable, BYD has adopted what it is calling a dual gun approach: The car has two charging ports, each of which can plug into a 500 kW charger simultaneously.

Together, they deliver 1 megawatt.

Range shenanigans
According to BYD, that allows the car to add 248 miles of range (400 km) in five minutes.

Unfortunately, drivers are unlikely to travel that far after such a quick charge. That’s because the Chinese equivalent of the EPA test cycle, the CLTC, is notoriously optimistic. It’s about 35% higher than EPA ratings, according to InsideEVs, which themselves are either spot on or optimistic depending on how much highway driving is involved.

Realistically, drivers can probably expect around 160 miles of range from a five-minute charge and around 280 miles from a full battery. For a more apples-to-apples comparison, it’s helpful to look at how long it takes to charge from 16% to 80% (10 minutes) or from 16% to 100% (24 minutes). No matter how you slice it, that’s pretty fast.

Charging strategy
But an EV’s charging speed is only as good as the chargers and how widely available they are. To that end, BYD is pledging to install more than 4,000 of them throughout China. Each charging station will require significant grid upgrades, though, as a 1-megawatt power draw would likely strain the existing infrastructure.

When will we see this in the U.S.? Don’t count on being able to buy a BYD Han L anytime soon, even if the approximately $37,000 starting price would give the market a welcome jolt. Chinese-made EVs are currently subject to a 100% tariff, raising prices to the point where they’re not competitive.

But that doesn’t mean similarly fast charging will remain out of reach for Americans. Cars for sale today already can charge from 20 to 80% in 18 minutes, so it’s only a matter of time before automakers bring those times down.