Philippa Kaur

Decarbonising the world’s electricity supply will take more than solar panels and wind turbines, which rely on sunshine and a steady breeze to generate power. Grid-scale storage offers a solution to this intermittency problem, but there is too little of it about. The International Energy Agency (IEA), an official forecaster, reckons that the global installed capacity of battery storage will need to rise from less than 200 gigawatts (GW) last year to more than a terawatt (TW) by the end of the decade, and nearly 5TW by 2050, if the world is to stay on course for net-zero emissions (see chart 1). Fortunately, though, the business of storing energy on the grid is at last being turbocharged. More

Triumphs are fleeting in China’s fast-changing economy. Earlier this month Colin Huang, the founder of Pinduoduo, a Chinese e-commerce darling, became the country’s richest man. The company, founded in 2015, rose to success by offering a gamified shopping experience where users can buy in groups to secure lower prices. Today it is China’s third-largest e-commerce firm by sales, behind only JD.com and Alibaba. More

When Southwest Airlines launched in 1971, flying three Boeing 737 jets between Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, few imagined the impact its business model would have on the aviation industry in America and beyond. In the decades that followed, low-cost carriers (LCCs) pummelled incumbents by offering cheap, no-frills fares to keep costs down and planes full, flying point-to-point rather than connecting through big hubs. More

Parked outside the front doors of a handsome 1920s brick building in a Parisian suburb is a bright yellow Renault 5, a new electric vehicle (ev) unveiled by the French carmaker in February. It is permitted this enviable spot because it belongs to Luca de Meo, the boss of the company, whose top brass occupy the building. Mr de Meo has brought a renewed confidence to Renault since taking over as its chief executive four years ago. He has turned the business around—and readied it to take on the Chinese carmakers that are looking to expand in the European market. More

For many, 2023 was the year of the chip. Just ask anyone holding shares in Nvidia, whose stock rose by 246%. But it was also the year of the Sloane Pant. The popular tailored trouser helped send the shares of Abercrombie & Fitch, a 132-year-old clothing firm, up by 274% (see chart). More

The one thing that managers reliably lack is time. They will often be doing their existing jobs as well as supervising others. They have bureaucracies to navigate—expenses to authorise, hiring requests to make—and mini-crises to solve. It is all too easy for the weeks to whizz past; suddenly it is September and the northern-hemisphere nights are drawing in again. But it is possible for even harried managers to ask themselves questions that force useful moments of reflection. For example: More

IMAGINE A beach where for decades people have enjoyed sunbathing in the buff. Suddenly one of the world’s biggest corporations takes it over and invites anyone in, declaring that thongs and mankinis are the new nudity. The naturists object, but sun-worshippers flock in anyway. That, by and large, is the situation in the world’s open-source community, where bare-it-all purists are confronting Meta, the social-media giant controlled by a mankini-clad Mark Zuckerberg. More

Soon after his private jet touched down on August 24th at Le Bourget airport, on the outskirts of Paris, Pavel Durov was arrested by French police. A statement later released by prosecutors said that the 39-year-old billionaire had been detained as part of an investigation into Telegram, the social-media app of which he is the founder and chief executive. French judges have until August 28th to decide whether to pursue charges or release him. More