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Tesla Offers New China Rebate as Price Cuts Rock EV Market

Residents walk past a Tesla showroom in Beijing, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. (AP)
Residents walk past a Tesla showroom in Beijing, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. (AP)
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Tesla Offers New China Rebate as Price Cuts Rock EV Market

Residents walk past a Tesla showroom in Beijing, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. (AP)
Residents walk past a Tesla showroom in Beijing, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. (AP)

Tesla on Friday offered a new incentive to boost electric vehicle sales in China as it notified some workers making battery packs at its Shanghai complex of layoffs, according to a company announcement and a worker who had received the notice.
Tesla announced the cash rebate offer on new cars a day after joining 15 other companies, including Chinese EV makers Nio, Li Auto and Xpeng, in a pledge to avoid "abnormal pricing", interpreted by some to signal a truce in a price war that has threatened industry-wide profitability, Reuters said.
Taken together the developments point to the pressure Tesla and rivals face in China's EV market - the world's largest.
The pricing pledge signed by executives was organized by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
Output at Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory, the company's largest and most productive hub, would not be affected by the layoffs, according to people with knowledge of the operations at the factory complex that employs about 20,000 workers.
While a round of price cuts led by Tesla boosted sales earlier this year, the competition has put pressure across the board on automakers and suppliers to contain costs, analysts and executives say.
Tesla said on Friday it would offer new buyers of its Model Y and Model 3 vehicles a cash rebate of 3,500 yuan ($483) if they could cite a referral from an existing owner.
Separately, workers in Tesla's Shanghai complex assembling battery packs were informed of layoffs, according to a worker who had received the notice.
The layoffs were first reported by Chinese online news portal Deep Analysis on Thursday, which said fewer than 1,000 workers were employed on the factory's two battery pack production lines.
Bloomberg reported on the layoffs on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
It was not clear how many workers could be let go or reassigned, or the specific reason behind the layoffs.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
'UNHEALTHY' COMPETITION
Tesla sold a record 247,217 China-made vehicles in the second quarter, data released earlier this week showed. That was the highest since it started delivering vehicles from its Shanghai factory in early 2020.
Volkswagen's China CEO Ralf Brandstatter said in a speech last month at an event attended by Chinese Premier Li Qiang that China's EV market was marked by "high price discounts" and "an unhealthy competitive environment."
Hyundai Motor, the world's No. 3 global automaker by sales, said last month it would close a plant in China and look to sell it with a factory it shut last year.
Consultancy Alix Partners said this week that while China's EV market would continue to grow rapidly, intensifying competition and excess capacity would also drive a shakeout.
Only 25 to 30 out of the 167 companies registered to produce EVs or plug-in hybrids in China will survive by 2030, the consultancy forecast.
The firm also said 2023 would be the first year that Chinese brands would account for over 50% of cars sold in their home market, a first.
For the past four decades, China's auto market has been dominated by established global brands, such as VW, operating in joint ventures with Chinese partners.
Tesla is the only foreign automaker operating a plant without a local partner.
Since the start of 2023, Tesla has cut the base price of the Model 3 sedan in China by 14% and by 10% for the Model Y, its global best seller.
On Friday, Tesla also said new buyers would also have free access to its Enhanced Autopilot driver-assistance system for 90 days.
Tesla announced the new incentives on its Weibo account. It is continuing an offer it announced in June of 7,000-yuan rebates to buyers of its more expensive Model S and Model X vehicles.
A number of Tesla owners posted their referral codes online and invited others to use them on Friday, suggesting the new cash rebate could be widely available for new buyers.
Tesla's sales of cars produced in Shanghai in the second quarter accounted for over half of its global deliveries.
The company's shares have climbed almost 70% since early May, as investors reacted to indications its global price cuts and US government incentives were boosting sales and bet the EV maker would be able to stabilize its profit margin over time.
Earlier this week, Tesla cut prices on the Model 3 and Model Y by between 3% and 4% in Japan.

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Technology

Huawei Bets on Speed Over Shrinking Transistors to Sidestep US Chip Sanctions

A logo for Huawei is seen during the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe hosted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) in Paris, France, March 20, 2024. (Reuters)
A logo for Huawei is seen during the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe hosted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) in Paris, France, March 20, 2024. (Reuters)
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Huawei Bets on Speed Over Shrinking Transistors to Sidestep US Chip Sanctions

A logo for Huawei is seen during the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe hosted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) in Paris, France, March 20, 2024. (Reuters)
A logo for Huawei is seen during the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe hosted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) in Paris, France, March 20, 2024. (Reuters)

Huawei's new chip design principle focused on boosting transmission speed rather than continuing to shrink semiconductors offers a path for China to build cutting-edge chips despite US sanctions, though whether it represents a true breakthrough remains to be seen.

China has been barred since 2019 from importing ASML's most advanced extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines, curbing the ability of its chipmakers to keep up with global leaders like Taiwan's TSMC in relying on ever-smaller manufacturing processes that make chips more powerful.

For decades, the semiconductor industry has been governed by Moore's Law - the observation that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles roughly every two years.

Huawei this week unveiled an alternative approach: cutting the time signals take to move through chips and larger computing systems using a principle it calls the Tau Scaling Law.

Its central technique, LogicFolding, aims to arrange logic, analogue and memory circuits in stacked, more tightly connected structures, potentially improving density, efficiency and clock speeds over the next decade.

Proponents see it as ‌a way to ‌extend chip progress as manufacturing advances begin to slow.

"For Huawei, chips face two key constraints. ‌One ⁠is inevitable that Moore's ⁠Law will hit a physical 'wall' within the next decade," He Tingbo, the president of Huawei's semiconductor business, told China's People's Daily this week.

"The other is accidental because of the external restrictions that Huawei encountered this 'wall' earlier than its peers," she said, in a likely reference to US sanctions on importing advanced EUV machines.

But others argue that reducing latency has always been part of semiconductor design and that many of the underlying ideas resemble existing work in three-dimensional (3D) stacking, advanced packaging and system optimization.

"This is a breakthrough for Huawei, but it's not a threat for TSMC," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told reporters in Taipei on Thursday. "TSMC has been using die stacking and 3D packaging for how long now? Almost ⁠10 years. And so TSMC's technology is very advanced."

NOT A NEW CONCEPT?

In the race to ‌build more powerful computing systems, the chip industry has already embraced advanced packaging technologies ‌that stack chips vertically.

TSMC has been at the forefront with its packaging technology called SoIC, which enables more tightly integrated heterogeneous chiplets to reduce ‌size and improve performance.

Memory chip makers such as SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics also use advanced 3D stacking and packaging technologies ‌to produce multi-layer memory chips, a key component of AI chipsets, and to improve power efficiency and performance.

Huawei believes LogicFolding may actually go beyond the techniques commonly used in 3D integrated circuit stacking, thanks to "very finely and carefully split the critical paths of logic circuits across multiple layers," according to Liao Heng, chief scientist at Huawei Semiconductor.

But Bernstein analysts cautioned in a note that while stacking multiple chip layers boosts transistor density, it also increases power ‌density and risks overheating chips. Production yields and costs will be another barrier for adoption, they added.

Huawei's own roadmap also points to those challenges. Huawei's He said the approach would require ⁠new semiconductor design tools suited to ⁠folded chip architectures, as well as better ways to manage heat across devices ranging from smartphones to large AI data centers.

"With the methodology of not optimizing the area on a chip level, but on a system level based on time, that will dramatically change the capability requirements for the EDA (electronic design automation) vendors," said Handel H. Jones, CEO of International Business Strategies, during a panel discussion on Tau Scaling on Tuesday.

Mainstream EDA software produced by vendors like Cadence Design Systems and Synopsys plays a crucial role in creating blueprints for sophisticated semiconductor devices.

EYES ON NEW KIRIN CHIP

Huawei's most concrete claims centered on a new Kirin smartphone chip that will be launched later this year, which would be the first to use its LogicFolding architecture.

Compared with its earlier single-layer design, the new chip would improve power efficiency by 41%, and raise the chip's peak operating speed by nearly 13%, Huawei's He said in a speech on Monday.

Those figures would be significant if achieved at commercial scale. But Huawei did not provide production yield information, cost comparisons or a clear explanation of how the gains would compare with rival chips made using more advanced process nodes.

"There's nothing concrete that can be independently verified or benchmarked against other players at the moment," said Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at tech research firm Omdia.

Technology

Humanoids Dance and Thread Needles as Japanese Robotics Developers Look to Outdo Chinese

A humanoid robot poses for photo at the Humanoids Summit 2026 in Tokyo, Thursday, May 28, 2026. (AP)
A humanoid robot poses for photo at the Humanoids Summit 2026 in Tokyo, Thursday, May 28, 2026. (AP)
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Humanoids Dance and Thread Needles as Japanese Robotics Developers Look to Outdo Chinese

A humanoid robot poses for photo at the Humanoids Summit 2026 in Tokyo, Thursday, May 28, 2026. (AP)
A humanoid robot poses for photo at the Humanoids Summit 2026 in Tokyo, Thursday, May 28, 2026. (AP)

Mechanical hands dexterous enough to thread a needle, childlike dancing robots and adult-sized ones to help with deliveries were on display Thursday as the Humanoids Summit Tokyo opened.

Among the dozens of companies taking part, including well-known players like Boston Dynamics and Toyota Motor Corp., the big stars now were clearly the Chinese.

Chinese newcomers, like Booster Robotics and LimX Dynamics, took the technology initially developed in Japan and the US and fine-tuned it, often for cheaper mass production. It’s a repeat of what happened in other Japanese industries, from consumer electronics to cellphones and electric vehicles. In humanoids, Japan was initially ahead but then failed to produce major commercial solutions.

Tim Hornyuk, author of “Loving the Machine: The Art and Science of Japanese Robots,” who was at the event, categorized it as the so-called “Galapagos syndrome,” referring to how innovative Japanese products evolve in isolation and end up not translating for the international market.

“I really hope that Japan can come up with a Ford Model T-version of humanoid roots. But I think China has already stolen their lunch. It’s a bit too little too late,” he said.

The dancing and wiggling Mini Pi Plus robot from High Torque of China, for instance, still can’t help at an auto plant or do your dishes. But it’s cute. And it doesn’t come with an eye-popping price tag, starting at $5,500.

One telling example of Chinese robotics use in Japan was GMO, a Tokyo-based AI and robotics company working on a humanoid with camera eyes that will help with Japan Airlines cargo and other chores at an airport.

The key is to have the robot do the work in the same way as people so they would be interchangeable, an initiative meant to tackle the labor shortage problem that is increasingly serious in Japan.

The inner robotics workings were all courtesy of Unitree, a Chinese outfit, which is also working on a four-legged dog-like “stellar explorer.”

Experts say Japan, with its finesse in manufacturing, proved a good breeding ground for robotics development. The sociological backdrop of a public receptive to robotics also helped.

A recent Pew global survey showed that people in Japan are highly aware of AI but are less anxious about it, at about 28%, than people in the US at 50%.

Japanese automaker Honda Motor Co., a leader in robotics with its walking humanoid Asimo, first shown in 2000, was demonstrating a motorized four-fingered robotic hand that could screw on and off tiny bolts, or thread a needle.

It didn’t seem to bother Keisuke Tsuta, assistant chief engineer, that similar mechanical hands were on display galore near his booth, many of them from Chinese makers.

Japanese robotics show their prowess

The technology Honda had developed is more durable and powerful than rival offerings, and the Japanese have historically shown they can excel at quality mass production, according to Tsuta.

The looming threat of a Chinese robotics domination didn’t seem to phase Osaka University Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, who has worked on humanoids for decades, including one that’s his clone.

“What’s significant is that Japan has a culture that’s receptive to robotics. If we’re going to really start using robots in society, Japan is the ideal place,” he said, stressing that Japanese don’t discriminate against robots.

His robotic counterpart, dressed all in black like the professor, did as good a job, if not better, of answering a key existentialist question on the meaning of robots.

“I think robots will coexist with people. Robots are the mirror of human beings,” the robot replied in a slightly monotonous but human-like voice.

Earlier, the professor had answered a similar question, but a bit differently.

“No one is interested in me. All everyone cares about is my robot,” he said, sitting next to his twin-like humanoid.

“As long as people identify with what I have produced, I am a success,” he added.

Technology

Introducing Argus, a Robot with 20 Legs and Eyes Built to Move and See in Any Direction Instantly

Jiaxun Liu, a PhD student, works on a robot named Argus at Duke University's General Robotics Lab in Durham, NC, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP)
Jiaxun Liu, a PhD student, works on a robot named Argus at Duke University's General Robotics Lab in Durham, NC, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP)
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Introducing Argus, a Robot with 20 Legs and Eyes Built to Move and See in Any Direction Instantly

Jiaxun Liu, a PhD student, works on a robot named Argus at Duke University's General Robotics Lab in Durham, NC, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP)
Jiaxun Liu, a PhD student, works on a robot named Argus at Duke University's General Robotics Lab in Durham, NC, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP)

A robot being developed at Duke University is almost ready to face the world, in any direction.

Instead of trying to copy symmetrical shapes from nature by building robots that look like people, dogs or insects, engineering professor Boyuan Chen and his team focused on uniformity in action, or what he calls "dynamic symmetry."

The result was Argus. The roly-poly robot named after a mythological many-eyed giant has depth-sensing cameras attached to 20 telescoping legs that radiate from a central core. With no front, back, top or bottom, it can see and move in any direction instantly.

"Instead of measuring how your legs are arranged around a different part of your body, we’re measuring how fast you can move in any direction," Chen said. "Who said, you know, if you have a robot to help us in a most effective way, it has to look like us?"

In experiments, Argus has navigated sandy beaches and forest undergrowth, rolling over obstacles and stabilizing itself after being pushed. It can climb between parallel brick walls by alternating bracing and thrusting motions with its legs. If one or more motor dies or a leg breaks, it continues to function.

"Watching Argus move is unlike watching any other robot we’ve worked with," said Jiaxun Liu, a graduate student and co-author of a study about Argus published online Wednesday in the journal Science Robotics. "The first time we saw it navigate among trees and rough terrain, even under heavy collisions, we knew this was something different."

As part of their work, researchers developed a new design principle called dynamic isotropy that rates robots on a scale of 0 to 1 based on how uniformly they can accelerate in every direction. Most robots in use today, including humanoids and drones, score below 0.6. Argus scores 0.91.

"When a robot can accelerate equally well in every direction, it stops needing to face the world in any particular way," said Chen, who hopes the same principle could guide the development of search and rescue robots, underwater or aerial vehicles or robots with the ability to grip objects.

"Instead of building a robot hand that looks like a human hand ... one idea is to think about having Argus be the hand itself, and it can manipulate objects in any direction," he said. "The knowledge we can transfer to the rest of the world is much more deeper than building an existing robot or copying an existing species."