EL PAÍS

The auto industry’s ‘annus horribilis’: Trump’s tariffs, Chinese rivals and EV slowdown drag the sector into heavy losses

Manu Granda — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 04:00:00 +0000

“Our business model has changed.” That’s what Oliver Blume, the chief executive of the Volkswagen Group, Europe’s largest automotive giant, said at a recent press conference in Madrid to present the new Cupra Raval. He was referring to the deeply challenging moment the industry as a whole is going through, one in which the center of innovation and production has shifted from Europe to China.

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Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury: ‘Do we want to achieve zero dependence on the U.S.? I’m not sure that’s the best approach’

Manu Granda — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 17:19:39 +0000

The Airbus factory in Getafe (Madrid) is the largest industrial facility in Spain, employing some 10,000 people. The center, which also serves as the company’s headquarters in Spain, is responsible for the design, manufacture, and assembly of components for both commercial and military aviation. The latter sector boasts excellent prospects due to European rearmament strategy.

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Trump reviews potential entry of Chinese automakers with US auto industry

Bloomberg, Manu Granda — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 08:14:10 +0000

Ford CEO Jim Farley has held talks with senior officials in the Trump administration to explore a framework that would allow Chinese automakers to enter the U.S. market. If this framework materializes, it would require Chinese manufacturers to produce locally while offering some protection to domestic automakers, according to sources familiar with the discussions consulted by Bloomberg. The idea — which members of Trump’s Cabinet discussed with Farley in January — would involve Chinese automotive companies entering the market through local partners and creating joint ventures in which the majority of the capital would remain in U.S. hands.

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Tesla, Google and China leave Europe behind in the race for self-driving cars

Manu Granda — Sat, 11 Oct 2025 04:00:00 +0000

WeRide, Pony AI, Apollo Go, Xpeng, May Mobility, Zoox, Lucid, Waymo, and Moia. All of these names, which are mostly unknown to the general public, are companies that could be key players in the automobile of tomorrow. This is because of the development of autonomous mobility, the new holy grail of the auto industry that promises multi-billion-dollar profits to anyone capable of mastering the technology and dominating the sector in the coming years. While it seems unlikely to become a widespread reality in the short term, both China and the U.S. are encouraging the launch of trials of a technology that has already left its mark. Last year, General Motors announced that it was abandoning the robotaxi business due to its high cost.

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From Campari to Louis Vuitton: The companies bowing to Trump and strengthening their US presence

Manu Granda, Santiago Millán Alonso — Sat, 03 May 2025 04:00:00 +0000

The tariff war launched by U.S. President Donald Trump against the rest of the world has had numerous negative consequences for the world’s largest economy: widespread declines on Wall Street, a worrying deterioration in the U.S. debt market, a weakened dollar, a downgraded growth forecast by the IMF for this year, and retaliatory tariffs imposed by other countries.

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Widespread power outage in Spain leaves thousands cut off: Calls and messages nearly impossible

Manu Granda — Mon, 28 Apr 2025 14:38:11 +0000

Telecommunications in Spain have been seriously affected by the widespread blackout that occurred around midday across the Iberian Peninsula. Numerous users have reported problems making calls, with many unable even receive dialed carrier calls. Meanwhile, the WhatsApp messaging service is operating at half speed. Some users are able to send messages, but many others are unable to even receive them, and are completely cut off. Numerous users are reporting on social networks like X (formerly Twitter) that their data services are functioning erratically.

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The green revolution, ‘made in China’: The two sides of Europe’s ecological transition

Guillermo Abril , Manu Granda — Sun, 08 Dec 2024 06:36:01 +0000

At the entrance to the factory, there’s an inscription on the wall: “Developing new energy vehicles is the only way for China to go from being a great automobile country to an automobile power. Xi Jinping.” That’s how things are in the People’s Republic: the communist leadership sets the course, develops five-year plans and — years later — the guidelines are translated into this incessant hydraulic clatter. You can hear the hum of the assembly lines and the chorus of metallic growls.

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Xiaomi’s Porsche look-alike EV triumphs where Apple failed

Manu Granda — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 15:06:16 +0000

The Chinese bid to conquer the automobile industry has just intensified. Xiaomi, a technology company known for affordable mobile phones, has entered the market with its SU7 electric car that looks like a Porsche but costs less than a Tesla. With the capability to accelerate from zero to 60 MPH in 2.78 seconds, it rivals the speed of the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT, the fastest EV at 2.2 seconds. The Taycan Turbo GT’s price hovers around $250,000 (depending on options), while Xiaomi offers the SU7 for $30,250-$41,450, taking direct aim at the Tesla Model 3, which starts at just under $39,000

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Safety concerns hinder the advancement of driverless cars in the US

Manu Granda — Wed, 27 Dec 2023 15:50:26 +0000

Traffic accidents resulting from failures in autonomous driving systems are posing an obstacle to the development of driverless cars in the United States, where some states already allow the circulation of fully autonomous vehicles. One of these states is California, where a woman was run over on October 2 by a person who fled the scene; the impact hurled the victim into the path of a driverless taxi which, instead of braking or performing evasion maneuvers, dragged her for 20 feet.

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Chinese automaker BYD goes after Tesla’s throne with more than 300,000 electric cars sold in a month

Manu Granda — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 11:28:20 +0000

Last October, the Chinese automaker BYD achieved an unprecedented feat: for the first time it managed to sell more than 300,000 plug-in vehicles in one month worldwide. The final figure, which includes pure EVs and plug-in hybrids, was 301,833 units, which is 38.4% more than during the same month in 2022, according to company data. In the first 10 months of the year, BYD sold 2.37 million plug-in passenger cars, which represents 41% of all the cars of this type — 5.7 million units — that it has sold throughout its history (it was founded in 1995, although it was much later that it began manufacturing electric vehicles).

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Jobs facing ax and millions in losses: How the Thomas Cook collapse affects Spain

Javier Salvatierra Rojas, Manu Granda — Tue, 24 Sep 2019 11:15:50 +0000

The collapse of Thomas Cook has left a huge hole in the Spanish tourism industry. The British travel group, which ceased activity on Monday after failing to secure funding, is one of the largest sources of tourists to Spain, bringing around 3.6 million passengers to the country every year.

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