Mark Wakefield of AlixPartners, a consultancy, says the “wall” to keep out the Chinese gives American carmakers the runway and money to catch up. Despite everything, cashflow is buoyant at both GM and Ford. Although some factories once earmarked for ev production are being repurposed for petrol vehicles, Stephanie Brinley of S&P Global, an information provider, points out that ev investment is “shifting in scale but still happening”. Thus Ford’s “skunkworks” in California brims with software engineers and other techies. A new ev platform that can underpin several models is positioned to go “head to head” with the Chinese, says Andrew Frick, president of Ford’s petrol- and electric-car businesses. The first product, a $30,000 small pickup, is expected by 2027. At GM’s global tech centre in Warren, half an hour’s drive from HQ, work continues on developing batteries with novel lithium and manganese chemistry that will slash costs without hurting performance. Mr Filosa insists that Stellantis is not “abandoning evs” in America and that its large European business and collaboration with Chinese partners mean it will be ready to compete. “Europe is a laboratory for EVs.” Will this be enough, at least to stay ahead at home? The combination of tariffs, regulations to ban cars with Chinese software and hardware and—in a politically divided country—broad agreement on the threat of Chinese tech, seems a formidable defence. Mr Filosa reflects the thinking of many in Detroit when he says he doesn’t foresee Chinese carmakers in America “at least for a few years”. But the Chinese are far ahead and it is “only a matter of time” before they arrive, says Charlie Chesbrough of Cox Automotive, a data firm. They are patient. Chery, a state-owned carmaker, says it will launch in America at a “suitable time”. They already have toeholds. Geely, China’s second-largest car company, owns Volvo, a Swedish firm with a factory in South Carolina. It could produce cars there, even under its Chinese Zeekr and Lynk&Co brands. Several Chinese brands have design and R&D centres in America. Mr Trump also seems open to letting in Chinese firms. In January Detroit’s bosses were aghast when he declared in the city that it would be “great” if the Chinese built factories and provided jobs in America. Jim Farley, Ford’s boss, has said that admitting them would be “devastating”. He has reportedly
also suggested that Chinese carmakers be obliged to enter joint ventures under American control. They are already just across the borders. GAC, another state firm, is about to start assembling cars in Mexico, where Chinese imports have swiftly captured 15% of the market. BYD and Geely are said to be eyeing factories there. BYD is also considering a factory in Canada, which recently agreed to allow annual imports of 49,000 Chinese vehicles with minimal tariffs. Other foreign carmakers, battling the Chinese around the world, have also been forced to up their ev game. They will surely want to sell in America too. One way or another, competition is coming. The Big Three have their work cut out to live up to Detroit’s past grandeur. ■ To track the trends shaping commerce, industry and technology, sign up to “The Bottom Line”, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter on global business. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//business/2026/06/15/americas-carmakers-cannot-escape- chinese-evs-for-ever
Fox, Roku and the next phase of the streaming wars A $22bn deal creates a formidable new power in Hollywood June 18th 2026 One of the main winners of the streaming wars, Hollywood’s years-long content-spending free-for-all, has turned out to be a non-combatant. Fox kept its powder dry while companies such as Disney blew gazillions on building streaming services to compete with the likes of Netflix. The cable giant, which still makes most of its money from old-fashioned “linear” television, has been rewarded with a near-40% rise in its share price in the past five years, during which time Disney’s has fallen by a similar proportion. On June 15th Fox took a big step into the streaming business, with the surprise announcement that it had agreed to acquire Roku, an American firm
which sells streaming hardware and software and operates a streaming channel of its own. The deal, valued at around $22bn in cash and stock, signals a shift in strategy at Fox and suggests how the next phase of the streaming wars may be fought. Fox has been quietly building up its streaming capabilities for a while. In 2020 it acquired Tubi, a free, ad-supported service (known in the jargon as a FAST channel), for $440m. It has slowly grown the unremarkable entertainment channel into a platform accounting for 5% of streaming viewership in America (see chart), on a par with Paramount and NBCUniversal’s Peacock. Last year it launched Fox One, a paid- subscription streaming home for all of Fox’s news, sport and entertainment. Roku will expand Fox’s streaming operation significantly. Its own FAST service, the Roku Channel, will give Fox a combined share of 11% of streaming viewership in America, overtaking Disney to claim third place behind YouTube and Netflix. Cable will remain Fox’s bread and butter. But streaming will now be a serious chunk of its business mix: Tubi and Roku will contribute about 30% of total revenue, estimates MoffettNathanson, a firm of analysts, which sees the deal as “a way to ensure [Fox’s] future as streaming overtakes traditional distribution in the years ahead”.
The deal also demonstrates how advertising is becoming a battleground of the streaming wars. Subscription streamers such as Netflix, which initially shunned ads, have come to embrace them as they court members unwilling to shell out $20 a month for an ad-free plan. More than half of new streaming subscribers in America sign up for ad-supported plans, estimates Antenna, a research firm. Advertisers, for their part, are on the hunt for new places to sell their commercials, as viewership of traditional TV declines. FAST channels are where many are turning. Having Roku will improve Fox’s ad offering. Roku made $2.3bn selling ads last year on the Roku Channel and within its TV operating system. As well as scale, Roku will bring a trove of data. Its operating system powered 8m smart TVs sold in America last year, more than any of its rivals, which include Samsung, Alphabet and Amazon. Worldwide, more than 100m households use Roku’s streaming tech, providing it with information on their viewing habits which will help Fox to target ads across all its services. After several years with a streaming offering that was comparatively tame, Fox is suddenly looking rather ferocious.■ To track the trends shaping commerce, industry and technology, sign up to “The Bottom Line”, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter on global business. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//business/2026/06/17/fox-roku-and-the-next-phase-of-the- streaming-wars
The Iran war has boosted Equinor, Norway’s energy giant But it cannot turn a greying cash cow into a sprightly upstart June 18th 2026 RECENT EVENTS have been kind to energy firms outside the Gulf— including Norway’s Equinor, the largest supplier of hydrocarbons to Europe. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) usually flows, has pushed European gas prices up by 40% since February; Brent crude averaged $103 a barrel in the three months to May. Equinor’s share price is up by a quarter (see chart). So you might have expected cheer at Equinor’s capital-markets day on June 16th, the 25th anniversary of the company’s listing in Oslo and New York. Yet Scandinavian restraint prevailed—and not just because peace between
Iran and America will calm prices. Equinor remains caught between a greying fossil-fuel business and a green portfolio with clipped ambitions. Discovered but undeveloped oil and gas on the Norwegian continental shelf, the source of 65% of Equinor’s output, peaked in 1983. Most fields are now mature. To sustain production, in the next few years Equinor intends to deploy 60% of its capital expenditure at home. It will mostly go into small deposits near existing pipelines, wells or plants, to break even within two and a half years and at $35 a barrel or less. Equinor also aims to boost recovery from older fields. It expects Norwegian output to peak in 2027 at 1.4m barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d), declining gently to 1.3m boe/d in the early 2030s. But many analysts reckon it may drop faster. Operations abroad may offset decline at home. Equinor is ramping up Bacalhau, a big Brazilian field under a thick layer of salt; Raia, a similar asset, is expected online by 2028. The firm has also bought assets in America’s Marcellus shale basin. Equinor expects international production to grow by 30% by 2030, to 950,000 boe/d. But hopes that foreign ventures will transform its fortunes may be misplaced. Alastair Syme of Citigroup doubts that the Norwegian government, Equinor’s largest shareholder, favours global adventurism. The
firm is avoiding new countries and frontier exploration, preferring to boost cashflows. It expects $9bn, or 80% more, from international operations by 2030. Could its future be green? The firm’s renaming (from Statoil) in 2018 signalled a shift that way. Equinor intended renewables to make up 10% of its output by 2030, earmarking $23bn for green investments from 2021 to 2026. But after the pandemic, surging costs for components and supply- chain snags drove projects over budget, just as higher interest rates made financing dearer. Permitting delays and geopolitical uncertainty further squeezed returns. Target markets also grew more slowly than expected. Losses from renewables mounted. Since 2022 Equinor has scaled back, spending less than $3bn last year. It has quit projects, sold assets and written off $1.4bn. The firm retains three offshore-wind mega-projects, which it expects to be cashflow-positive by next year. It expects its power production to grow fourfold to 20 terawatt- hours by 2030, but mostly from existing projects. Conscious that this may fail to enthrall investors, Equinor is promising them lots of money. It intends to double share buybacks to $3bn in 2026, and to keep them at $2bn-4bn a year, while raising its dividend by more than 5% a year. The Iran windfall helps for now, but without a lasting bump in prices or new growth, such payouts will soon require borrowing. Equinor is settling down as a middle-aged cash cow. ■ To track the trends shaping commerce, industry and technology, sign up to “The Bottom Line”, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter on global business. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//business/2026/06/18/the-iran-war-has-boosted-equinor- norways-energy-giant