How 'copycat' phone maker Xiaomi became a force in China's EV market
Xiaomi rapidly became one of the world's biggest phone makers. Then it made an EV that sold fast and outperformed cars made by veterans, including Porsche and Tesla. American automakers like Rivian and Ford have noticed. Xiaomi's new crossover could be a serious threat to competitors--especially the Model Y. But it faces fallout from a recent crash--and China's EV market is unforgiving.
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39 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Elon Musk backtracks on Trump criticism. How will the tech world react?
Days after a fiery online feud seemed to signal an end to the relationship between Elon Musk and President Donald Trump, the tech billionaire has backtracked. In a social media post early on Wednesday, Musk expressed regret for the very public feud, saying he went 'too far.' Musk also shared he thinks it was 'worth it' to have his net worth drop while he worked with the Trump administration on the Department of Government Efficiency. After becoming one of the leading voices of the MAGA movement before and after the 2024 election, the dispute between the president and Musk shocked their Republican supporters. While Trump has made a few comments about the fight on social media and to the press, including firing off a few warnings Musk's way, he's mostly sidestepped questions from reporters. Now, Musk seems ready to reconcile, but whether Trump is ready to repair the relationship is less clear. The relationship between Musk and Trump, and Trump and other tech industry titans, seemed to indicate the political maturation of Silicon Valley as they work to shape public policy to their benefit. But Musk's rise and fall is also a warning to those same titans, a clear example of the risks of engaging in the messy world of politics. Musk's posts come just days after the president told NBC News that the former DOGE leader was 'very disrespectful to the office of the president.' During their spat, Trump threatened that Musk's company SpaceX could face a termination of government contracts and potentially other retribution. It's unlikely that Trump will cancel SpaceX's contracts 'anytime soon,' Dan Grazier, a senior fellow at a national security think tank, told NPR. Musk in response threatened to decommission SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, but later walked it back. The feud began over Musk's displeasure with the Trump-backed 'big, beautiful bill,' which cleared the House last month. The bill would cut electric vehicle credits and could hurt his other company, Tesla. But John Helveston, a professor at George Washington University, told NPR the end of federal EV credits may not hurt Tesla as much as its competitors. Musk, a multibillionaire serial entrepreneur, spent much of the last several months positioned beside the president. His role in the Trump administration sparked concern among critics over what sway he had over Trump's decision-making, but hope among those who thought the duo could change the way Washington works. Peter Loge, a public affairs and political communications professor at George Washington University, said it may have seemed like Musk's influence on the president was 'higher and different' than other advisers, but, in reality, there's historical precedence. In the past, railroad titans, industrialists and shipping magnates have all sought to have power over government and its policymaking. Now, it's the tech sector, Loge said. 'It's a small collection of really rich people who get a lot of attention and who think they know best; they try to exert their force over public policy,' he told the Deseret News. Trump's inauguration ceremony was striking, as a string of powerful tech CEOs from Silicon Valley, including Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, and Musk, sat behind the president during his address. This growing influence comes at a time of significant change for the industry. 'A lot of these companies like crypto and AI are new to Washington and are new to trying to influence public policy. They could ignore Washington and do their own thing, and they discovered what Google, Microsoft and every other organization coming out of Silicon Valley discovered in the past decades, which is that you ignore Congress at your own peril,' Loge said. Pundits have also pointed to other tech giants who may step in to replace Musk, including venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who already has a relationship with Trump. Thiel has long been in Trump's orbit, endorsing his 2016 campaign and signaling the relationship between the tech world and Trump-era politics. There's a spiderwebbing impact that stems from Thiel, as Fortune highlighted in a report. Musk may now rely on his relationships in the tech world and with others in the administration, like Vice President JD Vance, to try to get back into Trump's favor. Meanwhile, the tech world will need to decide how far to lean into their political relationships. 'I'm heartened to see that we have, over the past two decades, seen a significant increase in terms of our political influence and engagement and we hope it continues to grow,' Ahmed Thomas, the CEO of the nonpartisan business association Silicon Valley Leadership Group, said. However, Thomas noted that going forward, he believes the tech industry should focus on emerging technologies, workforce development opportunities and be less dependent on the loudest voices in the room. 'I think for so many people, there's a focus not on opportunity, but rather where we have … more personalities and conflict,' he said. Regardless of whether Trump cuts out Musk entirely, or shifts his attention to another major tech player, Loge noted that Musk's dramatic rise and fall in the Trump administration is representative of a larger conversation about the relationship between wealth and political power. 'I think that, even as we wrestle with this new question, right, 'What about Elon Musk? What about crypto? What about AI?' It's important to remember that these are in many ways, very old questions about the connection between truth, persuasion, power and democracy,' Loge said.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Could 76-seat, two-class American Airlines jets soon be based at Harrisburg Int'l Airport?
HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) — It still has fewer flights and higher fares than larger airports, but that has been changing at Harrisburg International Airport, which also has something few other airports its size have: an airline's maintenance and crew base. Since 2022, Piedmont Airlines, which flies the 50-seat ERJ-145s commonly seen at the airport ('ERJ' stands for 'Embraer regional jet'), has based dozens of pilots and flight attendants at the airport, complementing a maintenance base that opened years earlier. Piedmont — which is headquartered in Salisbury, Maryland, and is a subsidiary of American Airlines — also has a Harrisburg-based human resources team. The Harrisburg presence means a lot of direct jobs and — although this part is harder to quantify — indirectly perhaps some flights that might not otherwise exist, because American has to route planes through Harrisburg for maintenance and to get its people to and from work. For perspective, Delta operates three daily flights to its Atlanta hub, which is the world's busiest airport, according to an abc27 analysis of Cirium schedule data; American operates seven daily flights to Charlotte. (Delta, operating larger aircraft, offers about half as many seats to Atlanta as American offers to Charlotte despite having fewer than half as many flights.) But there was an important potential problem for Piedmont's future — and thus for the future of its base in Harrisburg: Manufacturers haven't produced 50-seat jets in years, and airlines have been phasing them out in favor of larger regional jets, which passengers generally find to be more comfortable and airlines generally find to be more economical to operate. Piedmont currently operates 69 ERJ-145s, which are on average almost 22 years old, according to an abc27 analysis of Cirium airline fleet data. That meant one of two things: Sooner or later, either the airline would have to either phase in new planes — or phase itself out of existence, as other regional airlines have done (most recently Silver Airways just Wednesday, which once flew small planes branded 'Continental Express' for United's predecessor Continental Airlines). Fortunately for Piedmont — and by extenstion, for Harrisburg — the far better outcome is emerging: Piedmont announced it'll get 76-seat Embraer 175s, known as E175s, beginning in 2028. Unlike the current all-economy 50-seat jets, Piedmont's E175s — like others already flown for American by other regional airlines — will have 12 business-class seats in addition to 64 economy seats. 'So seeing that they're getting an upgrade in aircraft that allows them to continue their mission of flying for American and being part of the Central Pennsylvania community is really good news,' Scott Miller, Harrisburg International Airport's spokesman, said. 'The expansion represents a significant investment by parent company American Airlines Group,' Piedmont said in a statement of the 45 eventual E175s it expects to receive. During the transition, the airline plans to continues operating its 50-seat jets 'well into the 2030s,' the statement said. 'They provide all of our service to Philadelphia, to Boston, as well as some to Charlotte,' Scott Miller said of Piedmont. 'So upgrading to larger aircraft — more comfortable aircraft — is a huge benefit for the airport, for the region and for those who fly American.' Download the abc27 News+ app on your Roku, Amazon Fire TV Stick, and Apple TV devices Harrisburg is just one of three crew bases for Piedmont, alongside much larger Philadelphia and Charlotte, which are both American Airlines hubs. Piedmont has maintenance bases at those three airports plus Salisbury; Albany, New York; and in Virginia, Richmond and Roanoke. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
an hour ago
Trump is expected to sign a measure blocking California's vehicle emissions rules
WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump is expected to sign a measure Thursday that blocks California's first-in-the-nation rule banning the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035, a White House official told The Associated Press. The resolution Trump plans to sign, which Congress approved last month, aims to quash the country's most aggressive attempt to phase out gas-powered cars. He also plans to approve measures to overturn state policies curbing tailpipe emissions in certain vehicles and smog-forming nitrogen oxide pollution from trucks. The timing of the signing was confirmed Wednesday by a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity to share plans not yet public. The development comes as the Republican president is mired in a clash with California's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, over Trump's move to deploy troops to Los Angeles in response to immigration protests. It's the latest in an ongoing battle between the Trump administration and heavily Democratic California over everything from tariffs to the rights of LGBTQ+ youth and funding for electric vehicle chargers. 'If it's a day ending in Y, it's another day of Trump's war on California,' Newsom spokesperson Daniel Villaseñor said in an email. "We're fighting back." According to the White House official, Trump is expected to sign resolutions that block California's rule phasing out gas-powered cars and ending the sale of new ones by 2035. He will also kill rules that phase out the sale of medium- and heavy-duty diesel vehicles and cut tailpipe emissions from trucks. The president is scheduled to sign the measures and make remarks during an event at the White House on Thursday morning. Newsom, who is considered a likely 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, and California officials contend that what the federal government is doing is illegal and said the state plans to sue. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin are expected to attend, along with members of Congress and representatives from the energy, trucking and gas station industries. The signings come as Trump has pledged to revive American auto manufacturing and boost oil and gas drilling. The move will also come a day after the Environmental Protection Agency proposed repealing rules that limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants fueled by coal and natural gas. Zeldin said it would remove billions of dollars in costs for industry and help 'unleash' American energy. California, which has some of the nation's worst air pollution, has been able to seek waivers for decades from the EPA, allowing it to adopt stricter emissions standards than the federal government. In his first term, Trump revoked California's ability to enforce its standards, but President Joe Biden reinstated it in 2022. Trump has not yet sought to revoke it again. Republicans have long criticized those waivers and earlier this year opted to use the Congressional Review Act, a law aimed at improving congressional oversight of actions by federal agencies, to try to block the rules. That's despite a finding from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan congressional watchdog, that California's standards cannot legally be blocked using the Congressional Review Act. The Senate parliamentarian agreed with that finding. California, which makes up roughly 11% of the U.S. car market, has significant power to sway trends in the auto industry. About a dozen states signed on to adopt California's rule phasing out the sale of new gas-powered cars. The National Automobile Dealers Association supported the federal government's move to block California's ban on gas-powered cars, saying Congress should decide on such a national issue, not the state. The American Trucking Associations said the rules were not feasible and celebrated Congress' move to block them. Chris Spear, the CEO of the American Trucking Associations, said in a statement Wednesday: 'This is not the United States of California.' It was also applauded by Detroit automaker General Motors, which said it will 'help align emissions standards with today's market realities.' 'We have long advocated for one national standard that will allow us to stay competitive, continue to invest in U.S. innovation, and offer customer choice across the broadest lineup of gas-powered and electric vehicles,' the company said in a statement. Dan Becker with the Center for Biological Diversity, in anticipation of the president signing the measures, said earlier Thursday that the move would be 'Trump's latest betrayal of democracy.' 'Signing this bill is a flagrant abuse of the law to reward Big Oil and Big Auto corporations at the expense of everyday people's health and their wallets,' Becker said in a statement.
