Airbus postpones development of new hydrogen aircraft
PARIS (Reuters) -Airbus said on Friday it is delaying plans to develop a hydrogen-powered commercial aircraft by the middle of next decade, citing slower than expected developments in technology.
The delay marks a setback to the European aerospace group’s ambitions to pioneer the adoption of hydrogen fuel as aviation strives to curtail emissions, a goal strongly championed by CEO Guillaume Faury since it was first introduced five years ago.
Airbus did not give a new timeline for the project, but the Force Ouvriere union said that staff had been told earlier this week that the technology was running five to 10 years behind the pace needed to support the original 2035 target.
The delay was first reported by French news agency AFP.
Airbus said in an emailed statement,
Hydrogen has the potential to be a transformative energy source for aviation,
“However, we recognise that developing a hydrogen ecosystem – including infrastructure, production, distribution and regulatory frameworks – is a huge challenge requiring global collaboration and investment.”
Airbus officials have acknowledged the plan to produce a hydrogen-powered plane – most likely a turboprop – for 100 people was only ever expected to make a marginal contribution to the sector’s goal to reach net zero emissions by 2050, but argued it would pave the way for greater adoption in future.
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Japan’s Nissan Motor is open to working with new partners including even technology firms after merger talks with cross-town rival Honda Motor foundered, people familiar with the automaker’s thinking have said.
The pair were on course to create the world’s fourth-biggest automaker with annual production of nearly 7 million vehicles, just behind compatriot Toyota Motor, Germany’s Volkswagen and South Korea duo Hyundai Motor and Kia, according to 2024 sales data.
Nissan backed out after Honda proposed making its struggling peer a subsidiary, another person said.
Nissan suffered a bruising sales slump in the U.S. and China – two of its biggest markets – and last year responded with a turnaround plan involving job cuts and capacity reduction.
Tumbling profit has tightened liquidity, constraining electrification efforts necessary to fend off competition from BYD and other Chinese rivals which have upended the global auto market with cheap electric vehicles.
Nissan has been burning rather than generating cash since the financial year that ended in March 2024 due to heavy capital spending and shrinking profit. It also has around 1 trillion yen ($6.58 billion) of bonds maturing in the next two years, or around 43% of its total outstanding bonds, LSEG data showed.
Nissan has been hit harder than others by the EV shift having never fully recovered from years of crisis sparked by the 2018 removal and arrest of former chairman Carlos Ghosn.
Its market capitalisation is now five times smaller than that of Honda, which is about 7.6 trillion yen. A decade ago, the pair were both worth around 4.6 trillion yen.
Nissan’s share price has fallen nearly 30% over the past 12 months. Last year, it fell below 400 yen – the price French partner Renault valued the stock at to increase its stake in the Japanese automaker in 2002.
The price recovered in December after Nissan and Honda announced tie-up talks and was at 443 yen on Monday.
($1 = 151.9900 yen)
Donald Trump’s plan to slap fresh tariffs on the European Union could provoke retaliation in an unexpected way – not by taxing American goods, but by taking aim at the dominance of US tech firms in Europe’s digital economy.
The idea, outlined in a Goldman Sachs report released Monday, suggests that rather than responding with tit-for-tat duties on US exports, Brussels could exploit its growing trade deficit in services. By restricting American digital services, the EU could hit a sector that generates billions in revenue from European markets.
A new transatlantic trade war looming?
Trump vowed last Friday to impose “reciprocal tariffs” as soon as this week, fuelling fears of a renewed transatlantic trade war.
Goldman Sachs economists Giovanni Pierdomenico and Filippo Taddei said that they now expect expect the US to increase duties on European car exports by 25 percentage points and introduce a 10% tariff on a broad set of critical imports, ranging from metals and minerals to pharmaceuticals.
This move, they estimate, could impact EU exports worth €190 billion, or about 40% of the bloc’s total shipments to the US.
If tariffs are imposed, Goldman Sachs predicts the EU’s response will resemble the strategy it used in 2018, when Trump first targeted European steel and aluminium. At the time, Brussels retaliated with duties on key US products – including bourbon whiskey and motorcycles – covering about 40% of the affected EU exports.
second round of tariffs was prepared but never implemented, pending a World Trade Organization ruling.
This time, the EU is likely to tread cautiously once again.
Economists said,
We expect the EU to favour a de-escalation of trade tensions as much as possible and resort to strong retaliation only as a last resort,
The digital economy: A new front in the conflict?
Unlike in 2018, however, the EU now has an additional tool at its disposal: the Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI), a mechanism designed to counter economic pressure from third countries.
The ACI, which grants Brussels the authority to impose tariffs and restrict access to European markets in response to coercive trade measures, could provide a framework for action against Washington.
One area that could come under scrutiny is the digital economy. While the EU enjoys a significant trade surplus in goods with the US, it runs an annual trade deficit of nearly €150bn in services – half the size of its goods surplus.
A major factor in this imbalance is the dominance of American tech companies. These firms generate substantial revenues from European customers and repatriate earnings as royalties through low-tax jurisdictions like Ireland.
Goldman Sachs economists suggest that targeting this sector could be a way for Brussels to push back without resorting to a tit-for-tat tariff war on physical goods.
Goldman Sachs said, adding that any restrictions on these transactions could have a meaningful impact on the services trade balance.
Services imported by the EU from the US span different sectors, including the financial sector, but the lion’s share are IT services that are then invoiced as royalties channelled to the US from Ireland,
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Airbus postpones development of new hydrogen aircraft, source
