Germanys

Credit: HoLa Consortium In the HoLa project, a total of eight high-performance charging points for trucks using the Megawatt Charging System (MCS) are being installed at five locations along the A2 between Berlin and the Ruhr region and used in real logistics operations. Recommendations for action have been derived from the research results available to date that contain important findings for a nationwide expansion of…

What happens in the school staffroom? What do the teachers talk about? As a child I remember standing just outside the door of the staffroom, waiting to carry the corrected notebooks for the class as some of the other teachers who had an off period, sat by themselves, or had a cup of tea. In Germany's Oscar nominee for Best International Film, The Teacher's Lounge, the same curiosity opens up a world of contradictions, accusations and power dynamics. Come unprepaded for İlker Çatak's nail-bitingly intense drama, and…

The European Space Agency (ESA) has picked Germany’s Exolaunch to provide critical launch services for its Artic Weather Satellite (AWS), as the agency looks to outsource more of its space missions to private companies.   Already built and currently undergoing testing in Germany, the AWS is expected to dramatically improve weather forecasts in the Arctic — a region that currently lacks data for accurate short-term forecasts. The microsatellite is due to launch in June this year aboard a SpaceX…

Major car suppliers in Germany say they are struggling with the high upfront costs of shifting to EVs and “slow demand,” with companies looking to lay off thousands of workers, as much as 20% of total staff in some cases, in the coming years. Bosch, the world’s largest automotive supplier for Ford, GM, Toyota, VW, and BMW, among others, said last week that as many as 1,200 employers in its software and electronics division would be fired by the end of 2026, and that 80% of those cuts would take…

Energy supply is one of the bigger issues impacting how technology will evolve over time — a challenge that might be feel closer to home when you consider the batteries of objects like mobile phones or electric vehicles but is definitely not constrained just to consumer tech. A startup called Instagrid is using software to scale that mountain when it comes to enterprise-grade portable chargers. It’s been getting a lot of attention, selling 30,000 units of its flagship “One” product to date and growing at 100%…

A Vay remotely-driven vehicle.German remote-driving startup Vay said on Wednesday it had launched its first commercial service in Las Vegas where a "teledriver", or remote driver, delivers electric short-term rental cars to customers then collects them after the rental.The service is currently available around the University of Nevada Las Vegas and the city's arts district renting out cars by the minute. Unlike autonomous vehicles, it relies on a remote human driver. CEO…

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Munich-based Infineon is considering moving a bigger chunk of its production to the US, the FT reports. The prospective move would be made to comply with the Biden Administrations’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) — a $369bn package of subsidies and tax incentives, aiming to accelerate domestic production of green technologies, which include semiconductors. Infineon is amongst the world’s biggest silicon chip suppliers for the automotive industry. It already operates six factories in the US, next…

Things are not looking good for Chinese smartphone makers in Europe, as another popular brand is banned from selling its phones and other products in Germany. Last year, OPPO and OnePlus were barred by the court from selling phones in Germany thanks to a patent dispute against them. Now, it is the turn of another Chinese brand, Vivo, to pack its bags and leave the country for the foreseeable future. According to the latest report, Samsung’s competitor Vivo has stopped selling its smartphones and other products in…

Oppo is going through a challenging period in Europe. Its phone sales in Germany have been paused for nearly a year and now the company’s official website in Germany is left empty without any listings for its products. The homepage has a single ad for Oppo’s ongoing partnership with the UEFA Champions League and a FAQ banner spanning one question concerning support for existing Oppo devices. Oppo DE homepage The new development comes after internal sources claimed the company might be exiting the French…