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- Siemens' Depot360 Managed Services to optimize charging and ensure stable operations for Unibuss' electric bus fleets at two depots

- Part of Siemens Xcelerator, the AI-powered solution addresses the unique challenges of operating large EV fleets, especially in harsh winter conditions

- Enables data-driven decisions to lower energy costs, reduce cost-per-mile, and increase route completion rates

- Contract marks the first Depot360 customer in Norway

- Enabled by the Depot360 AI Platform, Siemens' expert team at its 24/7 Network Operations Center (NOC) continuously leverages fleet-centric algorithms to monitor and manage the charging infrastructure's performance. This allows for the identification and proactive resolution of issues based on data-driven decisions. Load shifting and peak shaving features will enable further energy cost reductions for Unibuss.

- Unibuss, a subsidiary of Oslo's municipal transport company Sporveien AS, transports 70 million people annually across its 51 bus routes. The company boasts one of the Nordics' largest electric bus fleets with 259 electric buses.

The luxury titan and Louis Vuitton's Pietro Beccari attended the trophy ceremony on Saturday, capping off an eventful edition of the elite yachting competition.

Luxury and fashion titan Bernard Arnault gave sports another big vote of confidence over the weekend, handing the Auld Mug to Emirates Team New Zealand on Saturday night as the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup wound up two months of high-level yacht racing in Barcelona.

At his side was Vuitton chairman and chief executive officer Pietro Beccari, who earlier in the day — wearing the same navy Vuitton windbreaker as Arnault — joined the winning team on their boat to hold a banner as the New Zealand flag, and a “thank you Barcelona” message, rose swiftly up the 115-foot mast.

“You have the impression of standing on a UFO. It was pretty cool,” Beccari related a few hours later, still elated from a nail-biter of a race day that saw Emirates Team New Zealand edge out challenger Ineos Brittania by 37 seconds to win elite sailing’s biggest prize for the third time in a row. “With their advanced technologies, these flying boats are closer and closer to Formula 1, which you know [LVMH] embraced recently. So I think there is a lot of synergy and a lot of great leverage in terms of image that we can take from the Cup.”

Jeroboams of Moët & Chandon were popped, sprayed, and sipped before the AC75 monohull foil yacht was towed back to shore amid a swarm of spectator boats ferrying jubilant sailing fans.

Attending an America’s Cup final for the first time, Arnault captured the moment on his smartphone, congratulating Grant Dalton, CEO of Emirates Team New Zealand, and taking in stunning vistas of Port Vell on a sunny, breezy afternoon.

“To have Mr. Arnault with me, it was a great honor and a great moment in my career that I will always remember,” Beccari said of LVMH’s chairman and CEO.

“All the teams have loved it, the conditions here were great,” Dalton, who is also CEO of the America’s Cup, told broadcasters from the speed boat towing the Kiwi ship. “An amazing event….Many millions of people around the world have watched it.”

Arnault and Beccari changed into dark suits for the open-air awards presentation, the tall silver trophy housed in a bespoke Vuitton trunk dressed in Monogram canvas, and hand-painted with a graphic red “V” for “Victory.”

“What a beautiful and magnificent America’s Cup in Barcelona, and what a fantastic final today,” Arnault said, congratulating the New Zealand victors. “Your skill, determination and innovation have set a new standard of excellence.”

The Frenchman also had words of praise for the British team: “You pushed boundaries, showing resilience and the relentless pursuit of victory inspiring us all.”

Emirates Team New Zealand selected Barcelona for the 37th edition of the race, and “as both the defender and organizer of this year’s event, you have demonstrated exceptional skill on and off the water, setting a high bar for future hosts,” Arnault said, prompting cheers from the audience. “This year’s America’s Cup gave an example of ambition, innovation and excellence, and we share with the America’s Cup the same values which have driven our partnership since 1983.”

He called the yachting competition “a symbol of human ingenuity, teamwork and an inspiration for future sailors. Louis Vuitton remains committed to this magnificent sport, and we look forward to many more years of thrilling competition and unforgettable moments like today.”

Taking over the mic, Beccari revealed that he put the gears in motion to return as title sponsor of the America’s Cup in November 2022, placing a call to Dalton when he had not yet officially made the move from the management helm of Dior to Vuitton, where he worked earlier in his career.

Prior to that, Vuitton was last the title partner of the America’s Cup in 2017 in Bermuda.

“I think we know the Cup is better with Louis Vuitton, and Louis Vuitton is better with the Cup,” Beccari declared.

With fireworks shooting up behind them, Arnault and Beccari handed the Auld Mug to New Zealand skipper and helmsman Peter Burling and co-helmsman Nathan Outteridge, and the crowd erupted in cheers.

Preliminary attendance figures suggest more than 2.8 million people witnessed the regattas IRL from viewing areas around Port Vell and Port Olimpic, on beaches overlooking the race area, and at dedicated fan zones, hospitality suites and the race village.

The broadcast reach is still being tabulated, though organizers said they are confident of having increased the total audience by more than 50 percent versus the 2021 event in Auckland.

The latest races were broadcast free of charge in 208 countries via americascup.com, YouTube and Facebook.

The event got under way on Aug. 22, with four other boats — Alinghi Red Bull Racing, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, NYYC American Magic and Orient Express Racing — battling it out on the water.

Vuitton’s affiliation with yacht racing dates back to the birth in 1983 of the Louis Vuitton Cup, awarded to the winner of the eponymous qualifying-stage competition, which Ineos Brittania claimed on Oct. 4.

The luxury powerhouse has played a role in America’s Cup races in the U.S., Australia, Bermuda, Hong Kong, Dubai, France and Spain, burnishing the regattas’ visibility and prestige.

In an interview on Saturday, Beccari acknowledged that yacht racing is still something of an emerging sport, even if the Auld Mug Cup is considered the oldest international sports trophy in the world, first handed out in 1851.

A documentary in the works about this latest edition of the America’s Cup could do for sailing what the Netflix series “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” did for car racing — fan its global popularity, and attract younger generations and more women to the sport.

Beccari said the film, with “Free Solo” directors Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin on board as executive producers, is to be released sometime in 2025.

“This documentary should really give us a lot of visibility, hopefully, and a lot of goodwill to this sport, which is still not as known as many other sports,” he said.

He noted the competition offered drama galore, with several near collisions and a nosedive at high speed by Luna Rossa that caused catastrophic damage to that boat’s fairing. “They repaired it with Scotch tape, and they won the regatta. That was really an incredible moment that they lived here in Barcelona,” Beccari said.

LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton has been at the forefront this year in tightening ties between fashion and sports: signing on as a premium partner of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which wound up mid-September, and the day after Paris Fashion Week wound up Oct. 1, unveiling a deal as Formula 1’s global luxury partner for the next 10 years, starting with the 2025 season that begins next March with the Melbourne Grand Prix.

What’s more, Arnault family holding Agache recently confirmed it’s in exclusive talks to buy a majority stake in the Paris FC soccer club.

Meanwhile, many of LVMH’s flagship brands have tightened ties with athletes, from Maria Grazia Chiuri conscripting an elite archer for Dior’s spring 2025 women’s show, to Vuitton signing up a host of high-profile ambassadors including tennis player Carlos Alcaraz, basketball player Victor Wembanyama, and rugby player Antoine Dupont, all of whom won medals at the Paris Games.

Beccari estimated that Vuitton hosted a few thousand top clients during the Louis Vuitton and America’s Cup races, and that such affiliations increase the desirability of the brand.

“They were amazed, enthusiastic, and I think their loyalty is strengthened after they just spent time with us here,” he said.

A nautical-themed capsule collection in honor of the America’s Cup has virtually sold out since it went on sale online and in Vuitton boutiques in mid-July.

But moreover, “the values of the Cup are very close to the heart of Louis Vuitton, as it represents this desire to go beyond your capacity, to surpass yourself, and to innovate continuously,” Beccari said. “At the next edition, gosh knows what type of boats we are going to see.”

Asked when Vuitton might decide if it is to continue as title partner, Beccari repled: “When I will know the location, when I will know the type of boats on which they will race, and when I will know the economical conditions that [Dalton] and the defender team will present to us, so probably between now and the end of the first quarter of 2025.”

The America’s Cup typically takes place every three or four years. As defender and host, Emirates Team New Zealand is to establish the rules, boat design, racing format and location for the 38th edition.

Dalton has already confirmed that Great Britain’s Royal Yacht Squadron has stepped forward as the challenger of record. Great Britain founded the Cup, but has never won it.

In Moldova, a Pro-Russian Oligarch With a Criminal Past Tries to Derail Path to Europe

Ilan Shor fled to Russia after being convicted in a $1 billion bank heist. Now he aims to topple Moldova’s government

CHISINAU, Moldova—At a padlocked storeroom here in the Moldovan capital, under close police guard, there sits a mound of pro-Russian propaganda that authorities say was part of an unprecedented Moscow-led attempt to sway a historic vote on the country’s future.

Officials say the illegal campaign material, amounting to a million leaflets and newspapers, was churned out to derail Sunday’s presidential election and a referendum on constitutional changes meant to bring the former Soviet republic closer to joining the European Union.

The seized material should have been clearly marked as campaign related to align with the country’s election laws. But an unknown amount is still circulating as part of what police say was part of a massive, Russian-backed effort to skew the vote led by a Moldovan oligarch convicted of his role in a $1 billion bank heist.

“What they’ve been trying to do on a large-scale nationwide feeds off similar tactics they tried during previous elections,” said Moldova’s police chief Viorel Cernauteanu, as he swiped through slides on a tablet showing a web of money and connections he says lead from Moscow to Moldova.

Moldovan law enforcement services say the campaign was spearheaded by Ilan Shor, a fugitive Moldovan businessman and politician who now lives in Moscow and openly campaigns to reject closer ties to the EU.

Hundreds of Shor operatives brought suitcases of cash from Moscow, they said, inundated Moldovan smartphones with anti-EU audio messages, and helped transfer funds to some 130,000 residents in exchange for their pledge to vote against making joining the bloc part of the country’s constitution.

The tactic might have swayed the outcome. Polls early on Monday morning indicated a majority of Moldovans against the pro-EU constitutional changes, and indicated that pro-Western President Maia Sandu will have to contest the vote in a second round early next month.

In a speech as late results came in, she said the country had faced an “unprecedented assault.”

“Criminal groups, working together with foreign forces hostile to our national interests, have attacked our country with tens of millions of euros, lies, and propaganda,” Sandu said, without naming Russia.

With key parliamentary elections scheduled for next year, and ample evidence that Shor’s multifaceted campaign has fueled anti-EU sentiment in this poor country on Europe’s edge, officials in Chisinau say the $100 million spent by Moscow on this vote was just a taste of what is to come.

“The real threat will come next year,” Cernauteanu said.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has strained the economies of former Soviet states that were once staunch allies of Russia, forcing many countries that once deftly played Moscow off the West to choose sides.

Moscow has seen much of its influence in the region erode. Armenia has said it would pull out of a Russia-led regional military bloc after Moscow failed to back it in a recent war with Azerbaijan. The Baltic states have restricted entry for Russian citizens in a bid to limit Moscow’s influence.

Yet Russia appears to be gaining a geopolitical edge elsewhere.

The Caucasus nation of Georgia, which is preparing for a parliamentary election next week, has violently cracked down on protests against Russian-style legislation passed by its pro-Moscow government. Belarus, which saw a wave of opposition protests nearly topple its president in 2020, is now a client state of Moscow.

In Moldova, landlocked between Romania and Ukraine, those strains have come to the fore over the course of the referendum campaign.

Sandu was first elected in 2019 on a promise of steering closer to Europe as Moldovans, frustrated by corruption and worsening poverty, looked for a new direction. The Harvard graduate has positioned Moldova firmly on Ukraine’s side in the war with Russia, whose missiles have sometimes passed through Moldovan airspace.

The EU granted Moldova official candidate status, and last week pledged the equivalent of $1.96 billion in economic support, a huge sum for a poor country of 2.5 million people.

But the country has been hit hard by the war. Russia slashed deliveries of natural gas that used to flow via Transnistria, a breakaway Russian-backed state in Moldova that hosts a military base with 1,500 troops loyal to Moscow. Fuel prices surged, driving inflation higher. Pro-Russian parties seized on a massive influx of Ukrainian refugees to raise turnout at antigovernment rallies and sharpen internal divides.

“Moldova was by far the most affected country by Russian aggression, besides Ukraine itself,” said Moldova’s Foreign Minister Mihai Popsoi.

The referendum is Sandu’s effort to cement support for the EU; polls show that the majority of Moldovans support membership. But some of her challengers have described it as a ploy to boost her popularity, and even some supporters have warned the risky vote could backfire if it fails to pass.

Sandu’s government has blocked a network of pro-Russian television channels in Moldova, and barred a number of Moscow-backed politicians from contesting elections, saying they had violated election laws or illegally received funds from abroad.

That left Shor to lead the charge for Russia, from his new base in Moscow.

Now 37 years old, he left Moldova after being convicted in absentia in 2017 for his role in a heist that resulted in $1 billion being taken out of the country from Moldovan banks, equivalent to some 12% of the country’s gross national product. He has since been sanctioned by the EU and the U.S. for his alleged role in destabilizing the country’s politics, and has become a prominent fixture on Moscow’s political scene.

For Cernauteanu, the police chief, the clearest sign that Shor was planning to influence Sunday’s vote came in August, when Moldovan delegates returned from a political conference hosted by Shor in the Russian capital. Police seized some $1 million cash carried in more than 100 suitcases the delegates brought back. Many of the travelers had freshly minted Moldovan passports, and had never been abroad.

The following month, Shor proxies in Russia transferred around $15 million to Moldovan citizens via accounts in a Russian state bank sanctioned in Moldova and the West, which the citizens could only withdraw with help from relatives in Transnistria or in Russia. The funds came in exchange for a commitment to vote “no” in the EU referendum, Cernauteanu said.

Moldova has blocked some 200 Telegram channels it says are tied to Shor, and arrested pro-Russian politicians on corruption and related charges.

Shor has denounced the arrests as part of a political crackdown. On Friday, Cernauteanu says Shor’s followers began sending audio messages to tens of thousands of Moldovan phone numbers, encouraging the recipients to vote against the EU.

“We thought we had seen it all,” said Olga Rosca, a foreign-policy adviser to Sandu. “But this has been an unprecedented attempt to hijack our democratic process.“

Shor has denied paying for votes. He didn’t respond to a request for comment. Responding to the allegations leveled by Cernauteanu’s team, he wrote on social media: “You count like preschoolers, and it’s even offensive: our scale is much larger.”

From exile, he has been pumping out his pro-Russian and anti-EU message, promising free gas and electricity if Moldovans partner with Russia and threatening Sandu and other government officials with prison if the political grouping he backs ever comes to power.

“The dictatorship of the pro-Western puppet regime, wars, gay parades—all of this will come to our land with the European Union, and all of this has been brought already by Sandu,” he posted last week.

Moscow has denied any attempts to interfere with Moldova’s election, but it has repeatedly described Sandu’s government as a client state of the West. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned last year that Moldova could become “the next Ukraine” because of its aspiration to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“Russia’s goal is to keep Moldova as a weak country with weak institutions, weak defenses, and a population that will not entirely oppose Russian domination here,” said Valeriu Pasa, who runs a think tank allied with the government. “They’re now fighting to keep their instruments of influence.”

The chances of significant unrest in Moldova remain small, at least for now.

Russia’s military resources are tied down in its costly war in Ukraine, and Sandu’s government has successfully marginalized Shor’s network of pro-Russian politicians. A Shor ally who serves as leader of Gagauzia, a region in east Moldova, is under investigation for helping funnel illicit Russian money to the country.

But officials in Chisinau say the real risk will come during parliamentary elections next year, when the pro-Western government assembled by Sandu will be severely tested. They warn that the narrative peddled by Shor and other Moldovan politicians backed by Russia resonates with many residents of a country where the average monthly wage is around $750.

A case study of Shor’s outsize influence is Orhei, a town of 20,000 residents where he served as mayor for four years. Shor spent lavishly on infrastructure in the town 30 miles north of Chisinau, building new roads, scrapping transport fees, and opening a chain of discount stores named after himself.

On the outskirts, he opened a free amusement park with advertisements for his TV channels and the foundation he runs from Moscow. In a country where many older residents have nostalgia for the Soviet Union, such initiatives tap in to a belief that the government should fulfill people’s every need.

“People are used to a paternalistic state,” said Eugenia Mustea, a 33-year-old doctor who on Sunday was visiting her native Orhei from France, where she lives with her French husband, Charles, and 2-year-old daughter, Erika.

Mustea, a member of Moldova’s million-strong diaspora abroad, voted in favor of the EU, but warned: “It’ll take time, and many generations, to change people’s mindset and way of thinking.”

She no longer discusses politics with her parents, who are Russian speakers who look to Moscow.

For now, parts of Moldova remain susceptible to Shor’s influence.

Rumors abound in Orhei of locals being paid off by Shor, who remains popular in the town despite his conviction for large-scale theft. Zinaida Muravska, a former accountant who now relies on a pension of $150 that she says barely covers her food and medication needs, rejected the pro-EU changes on the ballot she cast on Sunday.

The pro-Russian material seized by Moldovan police appeared in Orhei months ago. One is a newspaper with Soviet-style red lettering and images of Shor throughout. Another carries a stark warning in Russian and Romanian, Moldova’s official language, about a massive auction of Moldovan land to foreigners if the country votes for the EU.

Muravska says she has written letters to Shor asking him to make changes in the town. She said she qualifies for an extra pension payment he promised ahead of the referendum to those who oppose EU membership, but it never arrived in her account for reasons she can’t explain.

“If we weren’t this poor,” she said as she picked through fruit at a market in the town, “then we wouldn’t be so easily bought.”

China cuts interest rates in battle to hit year-end growth target

Beijing steps up efforts to reboot economy amid mounting pressure to achieve goal of about 5% growth

China unveiled some of its biggest cuts to benchmark lending rates in years as the government stepped up efforts to reboot the economy and hit its year-end target of about 5 per cent GDP growth.

The People’s Bank of China said on Monday that the country’s one-year loan prime rate would be reduced to 3.1 per cent from 3.35 per cent, the biggest reduction on record, and the five-year LPR would be cut to 3.6 per cent from 3.85 per cent.

The rates have acted as the underlying reference for consumer or business loans and mortgages, respectively, since 2019. They were last cut in July and follow a blitz of easing measures announced in late September that mark the government’s most forceful intervention since the pandemic.

Widely anticipated against that backdrop, Monday’s cuts underscore growing urgency among policymakers to restore confidence in an economy grappling with a property slowdown, deflationary pressures and weak consumer demand.

“Today’s move echoes our view that the PBoC will be cutting rates more decisively,” said Becky Liu, head of China macro Strategy at Standard Chartered.

The September package, which included reduced mortgage rates and support for the stock market, came amid mounting pressure on policymakers to hit a GDP growth target of about 5 per cent for 2024.

Economists have widely called for more intervention, including fiscal stimulus and more support for households. China’s latest GDP figures on Friday showed growth of just 4.6 per cent in the third quarter.

“A meaningful turnaround in economic growth would require a larger fiscal response,” said Zichun Huang at Capital Economics, in response to the cuts.

Monday’s cuts were at the upper end of a range signalled by Pan Gongsheng, PBoC governor, on Friday when he reiterated the prospects of further easing before the end of the year.

In September, he announced cuts to China’s seven-day repo rate, another lending benchmark. The reserve requirement ratio, which influences bank lending, was cut 50 basis points that month, leaving the average rate across banks at 6.6 per cent. It could be cut by another 25-50 basis points.

Liu at StanChart pointed to a September statement from the politburo, China’s top leadership group, on the need to “implement forceful rate cuts”, which were “the first time ever for such precise guidelines on central bank interest rates”.

UBS on Monday raised its full-year target for China’s GDP growth to 4.8 per cent. “Both household and corporate confidence may be helped by expectations of more policies and property market stabilisation,” said the bank’s chief China economist Tao Wang.

China’s CSI 300 index of Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed shares rose 0.3 per cent in volatile early trading on Monday. The CSI 2000 index of small-cap companies outperformed with a 2.8 per cent gain. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost 1.2 per cent.