By The New York Times Dec. 17, 2025 Battery-swapping robots for carsLunch from the skyVery rapid transitTaxis that drive themselvesRobot trucks don’t need windowsSubways get a makeover NYT
To understand today’s penny-pinching Chinese consumers, behold the vicious price war playing out among the country’s coffee store giants. Luckin Coffee, a popular Chinese chain, rose to prominence and opened 10,800 stores by successfully undercutting Starbucks’s prices. But now, Cotti Coffee, an upstart rival started by the same two people who founded Luckin, is undercutting Luckin’s prices. Cotti has opened stores near Luckin shops, and it is charging — in some cases — 1 yuan, or 15 cents, less than its rival for the same drink. Earlier this year, Cotti…
Yang Wenhui should be a proud example of China’s rise from economic rubble to global powerhouse. Growing up poor, he ate so much cabbage that he didn’t touch it again for many years. He worked as a farmer and a construction worker before joining the country’s nascent logistics industry. In 2003, he started his own freight logistics company, striking gold as online shopping took off in the 2010s and products moved swiftly between provinces. Then the Omicron variant started spreading in China. In the government’s zealous pursuit of its “zero…