Latest news with #GREGBAKER
Forbes
16-05-2025
- Automotive
- Forbes
Chinese EVs Now Almost As Affordable As Gasoline Cars
A man takes a photo of an electric Porsche Macan Turbo at the Beijing Auto Show in Beijing on May 3, ... More 2024. (Photo by GREG BAKER / AFP) (Photo by GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images) Newly released data from the International Energy Agency shows how advanced the Chinese electric vehicle market has become in an international comparison. Next to the limits of charging infrastructure and range, the higher price of electric vehicles has been a major hurdle for buyers all over the world. In China, however, there are now almost as many affordable electric car models as there are cheap traditional gasoline cars on offer. The analysis shows that in 2024, 45% of internal combustion engine car models in China cost under $25,000. For electric cars, this was the case for 39% of models. High end models were actually more common among traditional cars in China, with 21% prices at more than $50,000, compared to 15% of EV models. In the mid-ranges, electric cars still ran a little bit more pricey in the country. This chart shows the share of available electric and combustion cars models in 2024, by price range ... More (in percent). Chinese EVs have started to successfully disrupt international, specifically European, markets and due to their lower price points, this is not a surprise. In Europe and the United States, electric car models on offer in 2024 were on average still much more expensive than combustion cars. Only 3 percent of models in Europe and none in the U.S. were priced below $25,000 last year. Only 6% and 3%, respectively, cost up to $30,000 in the two markets—an overwhelming difference to Chinese models. The report by the IEA also shows that production by Chinese car makers had started up in Europe, making up around 8% of European Union EV production last year. The picture in the U.S. is drastically different, as no Chinese companies have set up shop in the country and individual importing is almost impossible due to U.S. law. President Joe Biden in 2024 also introduced a tariff of 100% on the import of electric vehicles, targeting the Chinese market. An outlook of announced models until 2026 potentially shows some cheaper EVs coming up for Europe, but no discernable change in the United States. The change in Europe could be in connection to Chinese price pressure, but it seems that adjustments would be too little to late in light of the drastically different price policy for Chinese EVs. The IEA's outlook on EV affordability is mostly positive, with the report highlighting the advantages of 'falling battery prices, intensifying market competition and carmakers reaching economies of scale'. The authors note that while Chinese car makers were able to pass the factor of falling battery price on to consumers, American and European producers did so to a lesser degree or failed to do so completely. The intense competition in the Chinese small car market was responsible for advantageous consumer price outcomes, according to the report, with 95% of Chinese small car sales already electric in 2024. But even in the SUV segment, which is the most popular car category in China, EV models reached price parity with combustion cars last year, again showcasing the radically different reality for Chinese EV buyers. Charted by Statista
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
China eases monetary policy to boost ailing economy
China's economy has struggled to fully recover since the Covid-19 pandemic (GREG BAKER) China on Wednesday eased key monetary policy tools in a bid to boost its ailing economy as it struggles with the effects of weak consumption and Donald Trump's trade war. The country's leaders are battling to reignite growth, which has not fully recovered since the Covid-19 pandemic, crippled by sluggish domestic demand and a protracted property sector crisis. That has been compounded by a punishing trade standoff that has seen the US president impose tariffs reaching 145 percent on many Chinese products and Beijing retaliate with 125 percent duties on imports from the United States. On Wednesday, the head of China's central bank Pan Gongsheng told a news conference that Beijing would cut a key interest rate and lower the amount banks must hold in reserve in order to boost lending. He said Beijing's policies aimed "to support technological innovation, boost consumption, and promote inclusive finance, among other areas". A persistent crisis in the property sector -- once a key driver of growth -- also remains a drag on the economy. In an effort to boost demand, Pan also said the bank would cut the rate for first-time home purchases with loan terms over five years to 2.6 percent, from 2.85 percent. The moves represent some of China's most sweeping steps to boost the economy since September. - More help needed - But analysts pointed to a continued lack of actual stimulus funds needed to get the economy back on track. "The policy measures released today are positive for the market and the economy," Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, said in a note. "What is missing in this conference is new fiscal policy measures, which I think may be reserved for the future, if the economy suffers from the trade war and shows clear signs of slowdown," he added. Gary Ng, senior economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis, told AFP "it will take more to support growth". "If economic data does not improve, we will likely see more actions down the road," he said. Economists have warned that the disruption in trade between the tightly integrated US and Chinese economies could threaten businesses, increase prices for consumers and cause a global recession. Beijing last month blamed a "sharp shift" in the global economy for a slump in manufacturing. And exports soared more than 12 percent in March as businesses rushed to get ahead of Trump's swingeing tariffs. Beijing has said it is targeting annual growth this year of around five percent -- the same as last year and a figure considered ambitious by many economists.
Forbes
06-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Google Doubles Down On Malaysia With $236 Million Data Center Deal Awarded To Gamuda
The Google logo is seen outside a building housing Google offices in Beijing on February 4, 2025. ... More (Photo by GREG BAKER / AFP) (Photo by GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images) Alphabet's Google is doubling down on its data center investments in Malaysia by awarding Gamuda—a construction company cofounded by tycoon Lin Yun Ling—a second contract worth 1 billion ringgit ($236 million). A unit of the Kuala Lumpur-based company, Gamuda DC Infrastructure signed an agreement with Google's Pearl Computing Malaysia for the construction of a hyperscale data center in Port Dickson, about 90 kilometers south of Kuala Lumpur, according to a stock exchange filing on Monday. Under the deal, Gamuda DC will also build a water treatment plant to supply 65 million liters of water per day needed to cool the data center. Separately, Gamuda DC also agreed to sell 389 acres (157 hectares) of land to Pearl Computing for 455 million ringgit ($107 million). The property will be the site of the data center project. In May 2024, Google awarded Gamuda a 1.7 billion ringgit deal to handle the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing works for Pearl Computing's data center project at Elmina Business Park in Selangor, northwest of Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia is rapidly emerging as a key hub for data centers, fueled by the region's AI boom. Google announced a $2 billion investment to develop its first data and cloud centers in the country last year. Other global tech giants, including Microsoft and Oracle, are also pouring in funds—bringing total investment commitments to over $23 billion. Gamuda is one of Malaysia's leading infrastructure and real estate companies. It was founded in 1976 by Lin and his partner Koon Yew Yin. While based in Malaysia, the company also has projects in Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, the U.K., and Vietnam.
Business Mayor
04-05-2025
- Business
- Business Mayor
Business Tech News: Google Workspace Has New AI Features For Your Business
TOPSHOT – The Google logo is seen outside a building housing Google offices in Beijing on February … More 4, 2025. China on February 4 said it would probe US tech giant Google over violations of anti-monopoly laws after Washington slapped 10 percent levies on Chinese goods. (Photo by GREG BAKER / AFP) (Photo by GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images Here are five things in tech that happened this week in business tech news and how they affect your business. Did you miss them? This Week in Business Tech News Business Tech News #1 – Google Workspace introduces new AI features across Gemini, Chat, Gmail, and Slides. Google Workspace has released several AI-powered enhancements across its suite of tools, aiming to boost productivity and streamline workflows for business users. Gemini App enhancements include Canvas – a new interactive workspace that allows users to draft documents and collaborate with AI for feedback, tone adjustments, and formatting. Audio Overviews allows users to generate podcast-style audio summaries of documents or Deep Research reports, facilitating information consumption on the go. Google Slides Enhancements – a consolidated design sidebar offers quick access to new templates, pre-formatted building blocks like agendas and quotes, an expanded stock photo and GIF library, and AI-generated images, simplifying the creation of visually compelling presentations. To review the entire list of updates, visit the link. (Source: Small Business Trends) Why this is important for your business: The problem most business office suites like Google Workspace or Office 365 is under-use. Microsoft and Google keep rolling out new features and yet most of us don't spend the time learning them. Many of my clients still use these products like they did 20 years ago – for basic word processing or spreadsheet analysis. But as more AI features are introduced it becomes even more important to take the time (and invest the money) get training from consultants and other professionals familiar with these features as many of these capabilities can have a significant impact on productivity. Business Tech News #2 – Autonomous robot designed to simplify warehouse inventory tracking. OmniScanBot – an autonomous robot developed by Kennesaw State University in collaboration with RugGear U.S. LLC – has been developed to streamline warehouse inventory tracking. Designed to 'simplify, speed up, and safeguard' inventory tracking in large warehouses, the technology uses RFID scanning – offering more accuracy than barcode scanning or manual counting. Equipped with cameras, LiDAR, and navigation software to autonomously map and move through warehouses, it resolves inefficiencies in traditional inventory checks, which are often inaccurate and prone to costly errors. (Source: Tech Xplore) Why this is important for your business: Robots like these will ultimately conduct cycle counting, stock check and safety analysis of products in a warehouse, just as people are doing now. This will be a huge advantage to my clients that can't find enough hourly warehouse workers, or workers that are conscientious enough to track quantities in this manner. Business Tech News #3 – USB flash drives are going extinct. Use these alternatives instead. USB flash drives are becoming obsolete due to their limited storage capacity, slower speeds, and outdated USB-A connectors. External hard drives are among the most popular alternatives. Other alternatives like cloud storage, and microSD cards offer better performance, larger capacities, and greater compatibility with current devices. They offer significantly more storage (up to 4TB and more), and SSDs in particular impress with their high transfer speed. These options provide faster data transfer rates and are more suitable for today's high-volume data needs. (Source: PCWorld) Why this is important for your business: I carry around a handful of USB flash drives and on my list of 100 top problems of the day, they're not on it. The drives have plenty of space to copy the kinds of files I need them for and the copy/paste process usually takes a few seconds. They're inexpensive, portable and adaptable to pretty much any device. I can't imagine carrying around a heavier, more expensive external hard drive, I'm not sure how to use microSD cards and have you tried saving/downloading from the cloud? It's way more time consuming. Bottom line (and at least for me) I'm not seeing USB flash drives become extinct anytime soon. Business Tech News #4 – Legal trends report: How law firms are adapting to digital payments. The article explores how law firms are embracing digital payments to enhance their financial health. Key trends that have been reported include, a shift to online payments as 66 percent of clients now prefer credit cards and online transactions. Digital payment solutions reduce processing time and improve cash flow, with firms seeing faster payments. Law firms are adopting secure portals for transactions, ensuring better data protection while AI and automation tools are proving to optimize billing cycles and reduce manual workload. (Source: Legal IT Insider) Why this is important for your business: The legal profession is by far (for me) the most difficult to implement new technologies. Lawyers are busy, in a rush and any time spent learning new technologies is time away from billable hours. Which goes to show how valuable some of these tools mentioned above can be if they're able to be rolled out to a firm's parnters. Business Tech News #5 – Wix and ActiveCampaign launch integration to enhance customer engagement and marketing automation. Wix and ActiveCampaign announced a new partnership this week that brings advanced marketing automation directly into the Wix platform. The integration lets businesses—from solopreneurs to franchises—seamlessly sync customer data, personalize campaigns based on user behavior, and automate marketing efforts without bouncing between tools. Users can also get centralized reporting and enhanced multi-location support through ActiveCampaign HQ. The company says its goal is to help small teams power smarter, faster growth without technical overhead. (Source: Benzinga) Why this is important for your business: I have a number of clients who use both Wix for website building and ActiveCampaign for their marketing -particularly email campaigns – and up until now both systems sat apart from each other like islands. Which means that companies – particularly smaller firms with fewer resources were forced to import/export or just re-enter data collected on their websites into their marketing campaigns manually, a time consuming process that oftentimes falls low on the priority list and when done incurs data entry errors. This kind of integration is a huge help for businesses using both platforms. Each week I round up five business tech news stories that impact your business (and mine) and explain why.
Forbes
04-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Business Tech News: Google Workspace Has New AI Features For Your Business
TOPSHOT - The Google logo is seen outside a building housing Google offices in Beijing on February ... More 4, 2025. China on February 4 said it would probe US tech giant Google over violations of anti-monopoly laws after Washington slapped 10 percent levies on Chinese goods. (Photo by GREG BAKER / AFP) (Photo by GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images) Here are five things in tech that happened this week in business tech news and how they affect your business. Did you miss them? Google Workspace has released several AI-powered enhancements across its suite of tools, aiming to boost productivity and streamline workflows for business users. Gemini App enhancements include Canvas – a new interactive workspace that allows users to draft documents and collaborate with AI for feedback, tone adjustments, and formatting. Audio Overviews allows users to generate podcast-style audio summaries of documents or Deep Research reports, facilitating information consumption on the go. Google Slides Enhancements – a consolidated design sidebar offers quick access to new templates, pre-formatted building blocks like agendas and quotes, an expanded stock photo and GIF library, and AI-generated images, simplifying the creation of visually compelling presentations. To review the entire list of updates, visit the link. (Source: Small Business Trends) The problem most business office suites like Google Workspace or Office 365 is under-use. Microsoft and Google keep rolling out new features and yet most of us don't spend the time learning them. Many of my clients still use these products like they did 20 years ago – for basic word processing or spreadsheet analysis. But as more AI features are introduced it becomes even more important to take the time (and invest the money) get training from consultants and other professionals familiar with these features as many of these capabilities can have a significant impact on productivity. OmniScanBot – an autonomous robot developed by Kennesaw State University in collaboration with RugGear U.S. LLC – has been developed to streamline warehouse inventory tracking. Designed to 'simplify, speed up, and safeguard' inventory tracking in large warehouses, the technology uses RFID scanning – offering more accuracy than barcode scanning or manual counting. Equipped with cameras, LiDAR, and navigation software to autonomously map and move through warehouses, it resolves inefficiencies in traditional inventory checks, which are often inaccurate and prone to costly errors. (Source: Tech Xplore) Robots like these will ultimately conduct cycle counting, stock check and safety analysis of products in a warehouse, just as people are doing now. This will be a huge advantage to my clients that can't find enough hourly warehouse workers, or workers that are conscientious enough to track quantities in this manner. USB flash drives are becoming obsolete due to their limited storage capacity, slower speeds, and outdated USB-A connectors. External hard drives are among the most popular alternatives. Other alternatives like cloud storage, and microSD cards offer better performance, larger capacities, and greater compatibility with current devices. They offer significantly more storage (up to 4TB and more), and SSDs in particular impress with their high transfer speed. These options provide faster data transfer rates and are more suitable for today's high-volume data needs. (Source: PCWorld) I carry around a handful of USB flash drives and on my list of 100 top problems of the day, they're not on it. The drives have plenty of space to copy the kinds of files I need them for and the copy/paste process usually takes a few seconds. They're inexpensive, portable and adaptable to pretty much any device. I can't imagine carrying around a heavier, more expensive external hard drive, I'm not sure how to use microSD cards and have you tried saving/downloading from the cloud? It's way more time consuming. Bottom line (and at least for me) I'm not seeing USB flash drives become extinct anytime soon. The article explores how law firms are embracing digital payments to enhance their financial health. Key trends that have been reported include, a shift to online payments as 66 percent of clients now prefer credit cards and online transactions. Digital payment solutions reduce processing time and improve cash flow, with firms seeing faster payments. Law firms are adopting secure portals for transactions, ensuring better data protection while AI and automation tools are proving to optimize billing cycles and reduce manual workload. (Source: Legal IT Insider) The legal profession is by far (for me) the most difficult to implement new technologies. Lawyers are busy, in a rush and any time spent learning new technologies is time away from billable hours. Which goes to show how valuable some of these tools mentioned above can be if they're able to be rolled out to a firm's parnters. Wix and ActiveCampaign announced a new partnership this week that brings advanced marketing automation directly into the Wix platform. The integration lets businesses—from solopreneurs to franchises—seamlessly sync customer data, personalize campaigns based on user behavior, and automate marketing efforts without bouncing between tools. Users can also get centralized reporting and enhanced multi-location support through ActiveCampaign HQ. The company says its goal is to help small teams power smarter, faster growth without technical overhead. (Source: Benzinga) I have a number of clients who use both Wix for website building and ActiveCampaign for their marketing -particularly email campaigns – and up until now both systems sat apart from each other like islands. Which means that companies – particularly smaller firms with fewer resources were forced to import/export or just re-enter data collected on their websites into their marketing campaigns manually, a time consuming process that oftentimes falls low on the priority list and when done incurs data entry errors. This kind of integration is a huge help for businesses using both platforms. Each week I round up five business tech news stories that impact your business (and mine) and explain why.
