Jan 20 (Reuters) – T-Mobile (TMUS.O), the No.3 U.S. wireless carrier by subscribers, said on Thursday it was investigating a data breach involving 37 million postpaid and prepaid accounts and that it could incur significant costs related to the incident.
The company, which has more than 110 million subscribers, said it identified malicious activity on Jan. 5 and contained it within a day, adding that no sensitive data such as financial information was compromised.
However, some basic customer data — such as name, billing address, email and phone number — was obtained, and it had begun notifying impacted customers, said T-Mobile.
“Our investigation is still ongoing, but the malicious activity appears to be fully contained at this time, and there is currently no evidence that the bad actor was able to breach or compromise our systems or our network,” the company said.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has opened an investigation into the data breach, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing an FCC spokesperson.
FCC and T-Mobile did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment on the reported investigation.
“While these cybersecurity breaches may not be systemic in nature, their frequency of occurrence at T-Mobile is an alarming outlier relative to telecom peers,” said Neil Mack, senior analyst for Moody’s Investors Service.
“It could negatively impact customer behavior, cause churn to spike and potentially attract the scrutiny of the FCC and other regulators.”
Last year, T-Mobile agreed to pay $350 million and spend an additional $150 million to upgrade data security to settle litigation over a cyberattack in 2021 that compromised information belonging to an estimated 76.6 million people.
The Bellevue, Washington-based company’s shares fell 2% in after-hours trade.
Reporting by Eva Mathews and Lavanya Ahire in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila, Maju Samuel, Rashmi Aich and Savio D’Souza
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DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 19 (Reuters) – In the snow and ice on the main drag in Davos, the impact of the crypto winter is plain for WEF attendees to see.
Last May, the dressed-up shop fronts that line both sides of the Promenade street running through the Swiss ski resort were dominated by crypto firms, rolling in bitcoin.
Now there are just a handful and the executives who have made it to Davos have swapped their hoodies for blazers, despite sub-zero temperatures outside.
Some of those from the digital industry which have set up shop on the fringes of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting were quick to distance themselves from cryptocurrencies.
“I hope there’s an increased focus on utility value and practical applications of the technology, and less focus on retail investors chasing meme coins,” Jeremy Allaire, CEO of USDC stablecoin issuer Circle, said.
“There was a lot of nonsense,” Allaire told the Reuters Global Markets Forum.
Former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan believes last year’s plunge in digital assets allows investors to focus on the true value of the technology.
“We’re at the right place now in terms of crypto,” he said.
Executives in Davos said they are now all about blockchain technology, proper controls and regulation, and the promise of disruption that it holds for financial services and beyond.
“We are an infrastructure, plumbing play. We build infrastructure today for digital assets, which is crypto. Tomorrow it will be different assets,” said Dmitry Tokarev, chief executive of Copper, which provides custody services.
“I would question some of the stuff that I saw, ‘What is the return on that?'” Tokarev added, referring to the big presence of crypto companies at the last WEF meeting, which was unusually held in May as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We have been always ignoring the noise. All our partners were here last year. They are here this year,” Tokarev added.
The world of digital assets has changed drastically since May, with the value of the crypto market plummeting and some of the major crypto companies going under as investors pulled back from riskier assets in the face of rising interest rates.
The market capitalization of crypto currencies has shrunk by $1.4 trillion, a third of its value from peaks hit in late 2021 and some of the best-known crypto firms are under stress or have gone under, including the collapse of crypto exchange FTX.
“There is a place for trading use cases but they cannot be the singular focus, we need to move to more real use cases and put attention there,” said Denelle Dixon, CEO of Stellar Development Foundation, which supports the Stellar blockchain.
‘DODGED A BULLET’
While interest remains in the technology, the conversation is turning to responsibility.
Colm Kelleher, chairman of Swiss bank UBS (UBSG.S), told a WEF panel that blockchain technology will help reduce costs for banks. But he said the industry needed to figure out the basics, such as anti-money laundering controls.
“We kind of dodged a bullet,” Kelleher said, noting that the collapse in the value of crypto currencies had not caused systemic problems. “We did have investors who did want to invest in coinage. And we had to draw a line on what was suitable for those investors,” he added.
Yat Siu, co-founder of Hong Kong-based blockchain gaming developer Animoca Brands, was supportive of the firms in Davos.
“These are companies with serious cash positions and revenue generating companies,” Siu said. “They’re billion dollar enterprises.”
Crypto is trying to establish its presence, SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci said, adding “there’s nothing more establishment than the World Economic Forum.” Scaramucci maintains a bullish stance on crypto despite losses last year.
Back on the Davos Promenade, some signs of crypto’s lost swagger endure.
Parked right outside a pavilion promoting blockchain early in the week was a bright orange Mercedes.
On the hood, instead of the carmaker’s insignia was a copper-colored symbol for bitcoin.
The tires carried a slogan in white: “In Bitcoin we trust”.
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Additional reporting by Lananh Nguyen in Davos, Stefania Spezzati and Lisa Mattackal; Editing by Alexander Smith
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Jan 17 (Reuters) – Bitcoin is on the charge in 2023, dragging the crypto market off the floor and electrifying bonk, a new meme coin.
The No.1 cryptocurrency has clocked a 26% gain in January, leaping 22% in the past week alone, breaking back above the $20,000 level and putting in on course for its best month since October 2021 – just before the Big Crypto Crash.
Ether has also risen, by 29% this year, helping drive the value of the overall global cryptocurrency market above $1 trillion, according to CoinGecko.
“After a rough year last year for cryptos, we are seeing a form of mean reversion,” said Jake Gordon, analyst at Bespoke Investment Group, referring to the theory of asset prices returning to long-term averages.
Researchers said investor bets on a rosier macroeconomic picture were driving a jump in riskier assets across the board.
Few crypto tokens have benefited more than bonk, which was launched at the end of December on the Solana blockchain and had rocketed 5,000% by early January. It has since fallen back, though remains up 910% since the start of the year.
It is the latest entrant to the hyper-volatile world of meme coins, cryptocurrencies inspired by online memes and jokes, and is modeled after the same grinning Shiba Inu dog as dogecoin – which itself was catapulted to fame by Elon Musk tweets.
Bonk’s a puppy, though.
Even at its peak it was worth just $0.000004873759 with a market capitalization of about $205 million.
Other meme tokens are also up, with dogecoin and Shiba Inu up 19% and 27% respectively in 2023.
But buyers beware.
“Investors need to be especially cautious when it comes to coins like doge, Shiba Inu and bonk,” said Les Borsai, co-founder of digital assets services firm Wave Financial.
“They fall just as hard as they surge.”
Nonetheless, some market players pointed to the relative cheapness of these tokens – doge is worth about eight cents – as a reason why speculators were willing to place bets on them.
“Meme coins belong to crypto, it’s part of the culture,” said Martin Leinweber, digital assets product specialist at MarketVector Indexes. “It just takes a few lines of codes to create a meme token and if you have a community for it, people love that.”
RUMORS OF SOL’S DEATH EXAGGERATED
Bonk is a meme coin with a mission. It was created, in part, to support the Solana blockchain, which has seen an exodus of funds and users since crypto exchange FTX filed for bankruptcy in November, and its native Solana token drop over 37%.
The Solana token has now indeed jumped as bonk has gained traction: it’s up 131% in 2023, the biggest gainer among major cryptocurrencies.
“Rumors of Solana’s death seem to have been greatly exaggerated,” said Tom Dunleavy, senior research analyst at data firm Messari. “Despite the recent price appreciation seemingly being driven by speculation, the underlying ecosystem remains quite strong.”
Reuters Graphics
TOO EARLY TO CALL A CRYPTO REVERSAL
Some researchers chalked the crypto gains up to optimism that inflation had peaked, reducing the need for tighter central bank policy.
“Bitcoin and crypto tend to front-run everything, which is why we’ve seen notable relative strength in this asset class of late,” said Wave Financial’s Borsai.
There’s certainly been an increase in activity.
The dollar value of bitcoin trading volumes on major exchanges over a 7-day period jumped to $151 million, the highest in nearly two months, according to data from Blockchain.com.
Total bitcoin flows – representing all uses including trading and payments – have increased by 13,130 bitcoin on average in the last 7 days, the largest rise in 64 days, Chainalysis data showed.
However, market watchers warned against celebrating too soon, noting trading volumes remained low and the macroeconomic environment uncertain.
“It’s too early to declare a definitive reversal for the crypto market despite the recent strength we’ve seen of late,” said Aaron Kaplan, co-founder of Prometheum, a digital asset securities trading platform.
“If interest rate increases are below what the market expects, then risk assets will benefit and crypto prices will likely continue the uptrend, but there’s just too much uncertainty right now.”
Reporting by Medha Singh and Lisa Mattackal in Bengaluru; Editing by Pravin Char
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Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.
Jan 16 (Reuters) – Scientists in Chile’s Patagonia region are unearthing the southernmost dinosaur fossils recorded outside Antarctica, including remains of megaraptors that would have dominated the area’s food chain before their mass extinction.
Fossils of megaraptors, a carnivorous dinosaur that inhabited parts of South America during the Cretaceous period some 70 million years ago, were found in sizes up to 10 meters long, according to the Journal of South American Earth Sciences.
“We were missing a piece,” Marcelo Leppe, director of the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH), told Reuters. “We knew where there were large mammals, there would also be large carnivores, but we hadn’t found them yet.”
The remains, recovered from Chile’s far south Rio de las Chinas Valley in the Magallanes Basin between 2016 and 2020, also include some unusual remains of unenlagia, velociraptor-like dinosaurs which likely lived covered in feathers.
The specimens, according to University of Chile researcher Jared Amudeo, had some characteristics not present in Argentine or Brazilian counterparts.
[1/5] A man works at the area where scientists discovered megaraptor fossils at ‘Guido’ hill in the Chilean Patagonia area, close to Torres del Paine park, in Magallanes and Antarctic region, Chile in this undated handout photo provided by the Instituto Chileno Antartico on January 16, 2023. Instituto Chileno Antartico/Handout via REUTERS
“It could be a new species, which is very likely, or belong to another family of dinosaurs that are closely related,” he said, adding more conclusive evidence is needed.
The studies also shed more light on the conditions of the meteorite impact on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula that may have triggered the dinosaurs’ extinction some 65 million years ago.
INACH’s Leppe pointed to a sharp drop in temperatures over present-day Patagonia and waves of intense cold lasting up to several thousand years, in contrast to the extremely warm climate that prevailed for much of the Cretaceous period.
“The enormous variation we are seeing, the biological diversity, was also responding to very powerful environmental stimuli,” Leppe said.
“This world was already in crisis before (the meteorite) and this is evidenced in the rocks of the Rio de las Chinas Valley,” he said.
Reporting by Marion Giraldo; Writing by Sarah Morland, Editing by Alistair Bell
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Jan 15 (Reuters) – One year on from the massive eruption of an underwater volcano in the South Pacific, the island nation of Tonga is still dealing with the damage to its coastal waters.
When Hunga-Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai went off, it sent a shockwave around the world, produced a plume of water and ash that soared higher into the atmosphere than any other on record, and triggered tsunami waves that ricocheted across the region – slamming into the archipelago which lies southeast of Fiji.
Coral reefs were turned to rubble and many fish perished or migrated away.
The result has Tongans struggling, with more than 80% of Tongan families relying on subsistence reef fishing, according 2019 data from the World Bank. Following the eruption, the Tongan government said it would seek $240 million for recovery, including improving food security. In the immediate aftermath, the World Bank provided $8 million.
“In terms of recovery plan … we are awaiting for funds to cover expenditure associated with small-scale fisheries along coastal communities,” said Poasi Ngaluafe, head of the science division of Tonga’s Ministry of Fisheries.
SILENT REEFS
The vast majority of Tongan territory is ocean, with its exclusive economic zone extending across nearly 700,000 square kilometres (270,271 square miles) of water. While commercial fisheries contribute only 2.3% to the national economy, subsistence fishing is considered crucial in making up a staple of the Tongan diet.
The U.N.’s Food and Agricultural Organization estimated in a November report that the eruption cost the country’s fisheries and aquaculture sector some $7.4 million – a significant number for Tonga’s roughly $500 million economy. The losses were largely due to damaged fishing vessels, with nearly half of that damage in the small-scale fisheries sector, though some commercial vessels were also affected.
Because the Tongan government does not closely track subsistence fishing, it is difficult to estimate the eruption’s impact on fish harvests.
But scientists say that, apart from some fish stocks likely being depleted, there are other troubling signs that suggest it could take a long time for fisheries to recover.
Young corals are failing to mature in the coastal waters around the eruption site, and many areas once home to healthy and abundant reefs are now barren, according to the government’s August survey.
It is likely volcanic ash smothered many reefs, depriving fish of feeding areas and spawning beds. The survey found that no marine life had survived near the volcano.
Meanwhile, the tsunami that swelled in the waters around the archipelago knocked over large boulder corals, creating fields of coral rubble. And while some reefs survived, the crackling, snapping and popping noises of foraging shrimp and fish, a sign of a healthy environment, were gone.
“The reefs in Tonga were silent,” the survey report found.
FARMING REPRIEVE
Agriculture has proved a lifeline to Tongans facing empty waters and damaged boats. Despite concerns that the volcanic ash, which blanketed 99% of the country, would make soils too toxic to grow crops, “food production has resumed with little impacts,” said Siosiua Halavatu, a soil scientist speaking on behalf of the Tongan government.
Soil tests revealed that the fallen ash was not harmful for humans. And while yam and sweet potato plants perished during the eruption, and fruit trees were burned by falling ash, they began to recover once the ash was washed away.
“We have supported recovery works through land preparation, and planting backyard gardening and roots crops in the farms, as well as export crops like watermelon and squash,” Halavatu told Reuters.
But long-term monitoring will be critical, he said, and Tonga hopes to develop a national soil strategy and upgrade their soil testing laboratory to help farmers.
SKY WATER
Scientists are also now taking stock of the eruption’s impact on the atmosphere. While volcanic eruptions on land eject mostly ash and sulfur dioxide, underwater volcanos jettison far more water.
Tonga’s eruption was no different, with the blast’s white-grayish plume reaching 57 kilometers (35.4 miles) and injecting 146 million tonnes of water into the atmosphere.
Water vapor can linger in the atmosphere for up to a decade, trapping heat on Earth’s surface and leading to more overall warming. More atmospheric water vapor can also help deplete ozone, which shields the planet from harmful UV radiation.
“That one volcano increased the total amount of global water in the stratosphere by 10 percent,” said Paul Newman, chief scientist for earth sciences at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “We’re only now beginning to see the impact of that.”
Reporting by Gloria Dickie in London; Additional reporting by Kirsty Needham; Editing by Katy Daigle and Tomasz Janowski
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Model 3 price in Germany in line with Volkswagen’s ID.3
Jan 13 (Reuters) – Tesla (TSLA.O) has slashed prices on its electric vehicles in the United States and Europe by as much as 20%, extending a strategy of aggressive discounting after missing Wall Street estimates for 2022 deliveries.
The move, which prompted a 3.8% fall in Tesla’s shares in Frankfurt, came after CEO Elon Musk warned that the prospect of recession and higher interest rates meant it could lower vehicle pricing to sustain volume growth at the expense of profit.
The lower pricing across Tesla’s major markets marks a reversal from the strategy the automaker had pursued through much of 2021 and 2022 when orders for new vehicles exceeded supply. Musk acknowledged last year that prices had become “embarrassingly high” and could hurt demand.
The U.S. price cuts, announced late Thursday in U.S. time on the Model 3 sedan and Model Y crossover SUV, ranged between 6% and 20% compared with prices before the discount, according to Reuters calculations.
That is before an up to $7,500 federal tax credit that took effect for many electric vehicle models at the start of January.
Following is a table of the price cuts by model in Germany and the United States:
Reuters Graphics
Tesla also cut prices for its Model X luxury crossover SUV and Model S sedan in the United States.
In Germany, it cut prices on the Model 3 and the Model Y – its global top-sellers – by between about 1% and almost 17% depending on the configuration. It also cut prices in Austria, Switzerland and France.
For a U.S. buyer of the long-range Model Y, the new Tesla price combined with the U.S. subsidy that took effect this month amounts to a discount of 31%. In addition, the Tesla move broadened the vehicles in its line-up eligible for the Biden administration tax credit.
Before the price cut, the five-seat version of the Model Y had been ineligible for that credit, a designation Musk had called “messed up”. After the price cut, the long-range version of the Model Y will qualify for the $7,500 federal credit.
“This should really boost 2023 (Tesla) volumes,” Gary Black, a Tesla investor who has remained bullish on the company and its prospects through the recent, sharp share price decline, said in a tweet. “It’s the right move.”
Still, some users on Tesla fan forums online complained the price cuts disadvantaged customers who had recently bought their vehicle, leaving them with a lower-valued item on the second-hand car market.
“I’m not very pleased with these huge price sways. Just reducing 10,000 euros like that – definitely makes you feel that you just paid far too much,” one user wrote on a ‘Tesla Drivers and Friends’ forum on Friday.
In China, where Tesla cut prices last week by 6-13.5%, owners protested at delivery centres across the country, pressing Tesla for compensation.
Before the price cut, Tesla inventory in the United States, as tracked by the models its website shows as immediately available, had been trending higher. Prices on used Tesla models had also been declining, increasing the pressure on it to adjust new-car sticker prices.
For 2021, the United States and China combined had accounted for about 75% of Tesla sales, although the automaker has been growing sales in Europe, where its Berlin factory has been ramping up production.
Reuters Graphics
NEW SALES LEADERSHIP
The shift is the first major move by Tesla since appointing its lead executive for China and Asia, Tom Zhu, to oversee U.S. output and sales.
Tesla cut prices in China and other Asian markets last week. Along with previous price cuts announced in October and recent incentives, the Chinese price for a Model 3 or Model Y was down 13% to 24% from September after the recent move, Reuters calculations showed.
Tesla has also cut prices in South Korea, Japan, Australia and Singapore.
Analysts had said the Chinese price cuts would boost demand and increase pressure on its rivals there, including BYD (002594.SZ), to follow suit in what could become a price war in the largest single market for electric vehicles.
That pressure could be building in Europe as well.
Tesla’s Model 3 was the best-selling electric vehicle in Germany last month, followed by the Model Y, beating Volkswagen’s (VOWG_p.DE) all-electric ID.4. Volkswagen recently raised the price of its entry-level ID.3, putting it at parity with the now-discounted Model 3.
Tesla missed Wall Street estimates for fourth quarter deliveries. Full year growth in deliveries was 40% – also short of Musk’s own forecast of 50%.
Tesla shares under pressure
Reporting by Zhang Yan in Shanghai, Hyunjoo Jin in Seoul, Victoria Waldersee in Berlin; Writing by Kevin Krolicki in Singapore; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Kenneth Maxwell, Mark Potter and Alexander Smith
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Jan 11 (Reuters) – Russia said on Wednesday it would launch another Soyuz spacecraft next month to bring home two cosmonauts and a U.S. astronaut from the International Space Station after their original capsule was struck by a micrometeoroid and started leaking last month.
The leak came from a tiny puncture – less than 1 millimetre wide – on the external cooling system of the Soyuz MS-22 capsule, one of two return capsules docked to the ISS that can bring crew members home.
Russia said a new capsule, Soyuz MS-23, would be sent up on Feb. 20 to replace the damaged Soyuz MS-22, which will be brought back to Earth empty.
“Having analysed the condition of the spacecraft, thermal calculations and technical documentation, it has been concluded that the MS-22 must be landed without a crew on board,” said Yuri Borisov, the head of Russian space agency Roscosmos.
Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and U.S. astronaut Francisco Rubio had been due to end their mission in March but will now extend it by a few more months and return aboard the MS-23.
“They are ready to go with whatever decision we give them,” Joel Montalbano, NASA’s ISS program manager, told a news conference. “I may have to fly some more ice cream to reward them,” he added.
“SPACE IS NOT A SAFE PLACE”
The MS-23, which had been due to take up three new crew in March, will instead depart from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan as an unmanned rescue mission next month.
If there is an emergency in the meantime, Roscosmos said it will look at whether the MS-22 spacecraft can be used to rescue the crew. In this scenario, temperatures in the capsule could reach unhealthy levels of 30-40 degrees Celsius (86-104 degrees Fahrenheit).
“In case of an emergency, when the crew will have a real threat to life on the station, then probably the danger of staying on the station can be higher than going down in an unhealthy Soyuz,” Sergei Krikalev, Russia’s chief of crewed space programs, said.
The incident has disrupted Russia’s ISS activities, forcing its cosmonauts to call off spacewalks as officials focus on the leaky capsule, which serves as a lifeboat for the crew.
The leak is also a problem for NASA. The U.S. agency said last month it was exploring whether SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft could offer an alternative ride home for some ISS crew members, in case Russia was unable to launch another Soyuz.
Both NASA and Roscosmos believe the leak was caused by a micrometeoroid – a small particle of space rock – hitting the capsule at high velocity.
“Space is not a safe place, and not a safe environment. We have meteorites, we have a vacuum and we have a high temperature and we have complicated hardware that can fail,” Krikalev said.
“Now we are facing one of the scenarios … we are prepared for this situation.”
Reporting by Caleb Davis and Joey Roulette, editing by Mark Trevelyan
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Converted Boeing 747 takes off from Newquay, Cornwall
Rocket will be deployed over the Atlantic in next hour
‘Start Me Up’ mission will deploy nine small satellites
NEWQUAY, England, Jan 9 (Reuters) – Virgin Orbit’s “Cosmic Girl” carrier aircraft took off from Newquay’s spaceport in Cornwall, southwest England on Monday night, the initial stage of Western Europe’s first ever satellite launch.
The modified Boeing 747 with a rocket under its wing took to the air and then soared out over the Atlantic Ocean, where after an hour it will release a rocket at about 35,000 feet (10,668 meters).
More than 2,000 space fans cheered when the aircraft left the runway.
The “horizontal” launch has catapulted the resort in southwest England – population 20,000 and famous for its reliable Atlantic waves – into the limelight as Western Europe’s go-to destination for small satellites.
Virgin Orbit (VORB.O), part-owned by British billionaire Richard Branson, said nine satellites would be deployed into lower Earth orbit (LEO) from its LauncherOne rocket in its first mission outside its United States base.
($1 = 0.8213 pounds)
Additional reporting by Sarah Young; editing by Nick Macfie and Sandra Maler, Kate Holton
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Jan 8 (Reuters) – A mobile air-launched rocket system to be used in Britain’s first domestic satellite launch could sow the seeds for a globally dispersed rapid-response capability to put extra eyes in space in times of war, executives and analysts said.
Virgin Orbit (VORB.O), part-owned by billionaire Richard Branson, plans to launch nine satellites from a LauncherOne rocket attached under the wing of a modified Boeing 747, to be flown from a new spaceport in Cornwall on Monday.
Barring delays, it will be the first time a satellite has departed from western European soil.
For now the focus is on commercial payloads from companies such as Space Forge, which is developing in-orbit manufacturing.
But the launch is also seen by many as a blueprint for quicker launches of limited satellite capacity for tactical military purposes, in what planners call “Responsive Launch”.
“Ukraine woke up the world in a lot of ways,” Virgin Orbit Chief Executive Dan Hart told a news conference in southwest England on Sunday.
“Clearly there is a hope of a pan-European, as well as a U.S. collaboration … and that we have responsiveness so that if something happens in the world, we can get assets there right away,” he told the pre-launch briefing, monitored online.
Virgin Orbit said last year Britain’s Royal Air Force was doing exercises to demonstrate the value of “Responsive Launch”.
Britain had a brief foray into space launch activities in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when its Black Arrow rocket was cancelled after just one successful mission.
The rocket’s four launches took place in Australia in an era when commercial satellites barely existed.
Now, constellations of miniaturised satellites are heading an explosion of commercial activity in low Earth orbit.
‘FLEXIBLE AND AGILE’
Lobbing small satellites into low orbit at short notice would do little more than fill temporary gaps in coverage from large spy satellites, but experts say the technology has some dual civil and military potential and could spread costs.
“It gives you greater resilience or redundancy or duality of systems, whether that’s for position, navigation and timing or quicker access … as we’ve seen in Ukraine,” Ian Annett, deputy chief executive of the UK Space Agency, told Sunday’s briefing.
“It’s a natural transition that helps us develop security capabilities, but also, for government, keeps costs down whilst providing commercial opportunities as well.”
Elon Musk’s SpaceX activated its Starlink constellation over Ukraine after Russia’s invasion last February. Its communication links have been used by civilians and by Ukraine’s military.
Luxembourg said in October it had signed a letter of intent with Virgin Orbit to develop a “rapid and flexible response to different threats”, for NATO and other allies.
Its defence ministry has called for “new, more flexible and agile satellite launch procedures and techniques from Europe”.
Britain’s own 2022-25 space roadmap calls for dual-use capabilities in Earth Observation and Space Domain Awareness.
Virgin Orbit is also talking to Japan and Australia.
Questions remain, however, over how quickly the mobile launch concept could work its way into actual budgets, which are dwarfed by U.S. spending on space.
“Everyone is playing up military space as the next big thing,” said UK-based defence analyst Francis Tusa. “But ministries of defence have eyes larger than their stomachs.”
The system’s liquid propellant and final rocket assembly also require some local infrastructure, and Europe’s crowded airspace has thrown up significant regulatory obstacles.
“At the moment, it’s a bit bigger on the commercial side, but we see the defence and national security side growing so I think in this steady state, it’ll probably end up being 50/50,” Hart told Reuters.
Reporting by Tim Hepher; Additional reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by David Holmes
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SHANGHAI, Jan 7 (Reuters) – Hundreds of Tesla (TSLA.O) owners gathered at the automaker’s showrooms and distribution centres in China over the weekend, demanding rebates and credit after sudden price cuts they said meant they had overpaid for electric cars they bought earlier.
On Saturday, about 200 recent buyers of the Tesla Model Y and Model 3 gathered at a Tesla delivery centre in Shanghai to protest against the U.S. carmaker’s decision to slash prices for the second time in three months on Friday.
Many said they had believed that prices Tesla charged for its cars late last year would not be cut as abruptly or as deeply as the automaker just announced in a move to spur sales and support production at its Shanghai plant. The scheduled expiration of a government subsidy at the end of 2022 also drove many to finalize their purchases.
Videos posted on social media showed crowds at Tesla stores and delivery centres in other Chinese cities from Chengdu to Shenzhen, suggesting wider consumer backlash.
After Friday’s surprise discounts, Tesla’s EV prices in China are now between 13% and 24% below their September levels.
Analysts have said Tesla’s move was likely to boost its sales, which tumbled in December, and force other EV makers to cut prices too at a time of faltering demand in the world’s largest market for battery-powered cars.
While established automakers often discount to manage inventory and keep factories running when demand weakens, Tesla operates without dealerships and transparent pricing has been part of its brand image.
“It may be a normal business practice but this is not how a responsible enterprise should behave,” said one Tesla owner protesting at the company’s delivery centre in Shanghai’s Minhang suburb on Saturday who gave his surname as Zhang.
He and the other Tesla owners, who said they had taken delivery in the final months of 2022, said they were frustrated with the abruptness of Friday’s price cut and Tesla’s lack of an explanation to recent buyers.
Zhang said police facilitated a meeting between Tesla staff and the assembled owners at which the owners handed over a list of demands, including an apology and compensation or other credits. He added the Tesla staff had agreed to respond by Tuesday.
About a dozen police officers could be seen at the Shanghai protest and most of the videos of the other demonstrations also showed a large police presence at the Tesla sites.
Protests are not a rare occurrence in China, which has over the years seen people come out in large numbers over issues such as financial or property scams, but authorities have been on higher alert after widespread protests in Chinese cities and top universities at the end of November against COVID-19 restrictions.
‘RETURN THE MONEY’
Other videos appearing to be of Tesla owners protesting were also posted to Chinese social media platforms on Saturday.
One video, which Reuters verified was filmed at a Tesla store in the southwestern city of Chengdu, showed a crowd chanting, “Return the money, refund our cars.”
Another, which appeared to be filmed in Beijing, showed police cars arriving to disperse crowds outside a Tesla store.
Reuters was unable to verify the content of either video.
Tesla does not plan to compensate buyers who took delivery before the most recent price cut, a spokesman for Tesla China told Reuters on Saturday.
He did not respond when asked to comment on the protests.
China accounted for about a third of Tesla’s global sales in 2021 and its Shanghai factory, which employs about 20,000 workers, is its single most productive and profitable plant.
Analysts have been positive about the potential for Tesla’s price cuts to drive sales growth at a time when it is a year from announcing its next new vehicle, the Cybertruck.
“Nowhere else in the world is Tesla faced with the kind of competitors that they have here [in China],” said Bill Russo, head of consultancy Automobility Ltd in Shanghai.
“They are in a much bigger EV market with companies that can price more aggressively than they can, until now.”
In 2021, Tesla faced a public relations storm after an unhappy customer climbed on a car at the Shanghai auto show to protest against the company’s handling of her complaints about her car’s brakes.
Tesla responded by apologising to Chinese consumers for not addressing the complaints in a timely way.
Reporting by Brenda Goh, Zhang Yan and Casey Hall
Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Tomasz Janowski
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