#TechAways: Cars 🚗, body parts 🫀, AI scams 💸

Hello dear readers! 

This is Lucía – I’m thrilled to be the guest writer this month, tackling a topic that’s guaranteed to spark debate at any dinner table: the future of the automotive industry.  

I write to you as the Senior Public Affairs Manager at ACEA, the association representing Europe’s largest car and truck manufacturers. Funnily enough, I bike to work every day and sold my car before taking this job. Confused? Don’t be.  

The car industry is one of the most fascinating sectors to work in. As we champion the shift to electric mobility, we’re also navigating competition from China, plant closures, insufficient EV adoption by the public that could lead to massive fines to manufacturers, and recent bankruptcy of a major European battery player. And just when we thought we had enough to worry about—hello again, Trump has set his eyes on our cars. 

To address it, the European Commission unveiled its much-awaited Automotive Action Plan in March, a roadmap to keep Europe’s car industry competitive, innovative, and—hopefully—still breathing.   

But is it enough?   

Automakers have already invested more than €250 billion in electrification, but charging infrastructure is still insufficient, and the electrical grid isn’t ready to handle the demands of the transition. Subsidies have been cut in several Member States, and Europe continues to rely heavily on non-EU supply chains. At the same time, manufacturers are expected to bear full financial responsibility for compliance, facing multimillion-euro fines if CO2 targets are not met due to consumer reactions to this cold, hard reality.  

The Action Plan tries to mitigate this but lacks additional funding to make EVs more affordable and infrastructure more accessible. Without it, the EV adoption will remain slow. Empowering European battery supply chains production will also take more time than hoped. Developing the international partnerships and finding the money needed to make this work might take as long as a decade. 

There is space for more futuristic musings in the Action Plan, too: the development of autonomous and software-defined vehicles. Currently, EU legislation imposes too many legal complexities for the industry to develop and deploy autonomous vehicles. To truly develop European expertise in this sector, we need to accept that these technologies require dedicated testing grounds and innovation-friendly environments. 

Before this happens, the specific needs of commercial vehicles— the vans, trucks, and buses that make our continent run—must be properly addressed. These vehicles are fundamentally different from passenger cars and require targeted policies. If this doesn’t happen, the transport costs will rise, so will the price of goods across the EU. This will take the consequences of inaction far beyond the automotive sector and into the pockets of European citizens. 

The real challenge now is execution. Europe has set ambitious goals, but it must also ensure its industrial strategy does more than just manage the current challenges—it must set a clear vision for the future. 

Lucía 

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2025’s new plague: AI scams💸 [PCWorld] 

Phishing scams have always been annoying, but AI has turned them into a real nightmare. A new report reveals a 140% rise in browser-based phishing attacks and a 130% increase in zero-hour scams, which are impossible to detect yet with existing tools. Criminals are using AI to build realistic phishing sites, fake AI services, and even automated attacks that mimic human behaviour. This has led to stolen login credentials and infected PDFs being downloaded. On mobile devices, the situation is even worse, as the small screens make spotting red flags nearly impossible. What’s the lesson here? Triple-check before clicking on links, downloading files, or trusting a site that promises to “boost your résumé.”  Better to be safe than sorry! 

 

Body parts needed 🫀 [MIT Technology Review] 

While you might be familiar with the term “lab rat” and have definitely heard of medical experiments on mice, those breakthroughs often don’t translate into actual cures for humans. This is because of a shortage of ethically sourced human bodies. With many people waiting for an organ transplant, not much is left for researchers. Scientists might have come up with a workaround though: recent advancements in biotechnology would allow to grow living human bodies without the parts that give us consciousness or make us feel pain. While it sounds like something straight out of a horror movie, these “spare bodies” could not just be an answer to the organ shortage, but also keep numerous philosophers and ethics experts employed. 

 

How AI’s efficiency could lead to more energy consumption⚡[Ars Technica] 

AI is eating up electricity, and its appetite is  growing – one of the main reasons being data centres.  By 2028, they could account for 12% of the US’s total electricity consumption. To tackle this, researchers are trying to optimise energy efficiency without sacrificing performance. Some models already use up to 10 times less energy thanks to more advanced computing methods. However, there’s a catch: the more efficient we make AI, the more we tend to use it. Does this mean we’ll run out of electricity anytime soon? Not according to some experts, who believe that if we ever hit a point of energy shortage, progress will simply slow down. In the meantime, we need to push for more energy-efficient chips, improved software, and a stronger commitment to renewable energy. 

 

Are AI agents going to put us in trouble? 🚨 [MIT Technology Review] 

AI agents may sound like the perfect personal assistants, handling tasks from scheduling meetings to writing presentations. There are useful applications especially for those of us with hand mobility issues or low vision, as agents are able to complete tasks online in response to simple language commands. But as their autonomy increases, so does the risk of these systems spiralling out of control. Unlike chatbots, AI agents operate beyond chat windows, controlling multiple applications and acting independently. That could mean accidentally deleting files, impersonating users, or making unauthorised transactions. In 1980, human oversight stopped a false missile alert from triggering a catastrophe. If the decision had been left to machines, the outcome could have been disastrous. AI doesn’t need to replace us to help us – so let’s keep being AI’s boss, instead of its employee. 

 

In case you haven’t had enough: 

The Weight of the Internet Will Shock You [WIRED] 

Researchers say they’ve discovered a new method of ‘scaling up’ AI, but there’s reason to be skeptical [Tech Crunch] 

Italian newspaper says it has published world’s first AI-generated edition [The Guardian] 

Military vehicles to get mixed reality windshields controlled by human eyes [The Next Web] 

Should we be concerned about the loss of weather balloons? [Ars Technica] 

About this week’s editor, Lucía Martínez Maroto: 

I’m the Senior Public Affairs Manager at ACEA, the association representing Europe’s largest car and truck manufacturers. Funnily enough, I bike to work every day and sold my car before taking this job.