Ceasefire alarm: Iran and Israel trade strikes

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0:42Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. I'm Rosie Blore. And I'm Jason Palmer.

0:51Today on the show are BYD cars losing ground and the rise and rise of companion podcasts.

1:05But first...

1:13Two months after a ceasefire took effect between America and Iran... Missiles overnight.

1:26Iran struck northern Israel after attacks this weekend on Iran's proxies in Beirut. Israel responded with fighter jets and force, striking multiple sites across Iran. This morning, a frail ceasefire looks even frailer.

1:45Jason Palmer:This is the most significant violation of the ceasefire that we've seen since it took effect two months ago. Greg Karlstrom, our Middle East correspondent, is currently in Riyadh. It's the first time that Israel has gone back to carrying out attacks in Iran. It's the first time Iran has been firing missiles at Israel. And I think there's a risk here if the Americans don't intervene and pump the brakes in the coming hours that this could turn into a more significant resumption of the war. So Greg, just fill in for us exactly what happened overnight. So first we saw Iran launch several waves of ballistic missiles at Israel.

2:29Jason Palmer:This was late on Sunday night local time, which the Iranians said they were doing in response to Israeli airstrikes in the Lebanese capital earlier in the weekend. Israel said those missiles were intercepted. There were no reports of significant damage on the ground. And then a few hours later, we saw Israel launch a wave of airstrikes in Iran, attacked missile sites there, also a petrochemical plant and other targets in Iran. And then as we're speaking now on Monday morning, there are reports just coming out of Israel that sirens are going off and that there are more waves of incoming Iranian missiles aimed at both the north and the center of the country.

3:10Jason Palmer:There was an attack as well by the Houthis in Yemen, the Iranian-backed Shia militia there, which carried out an attack on Israel. So just give us the context for these Iranian missiles. Was it all because of the Israeli strikes on Beirut over the weekend? For two months since the ceasefire took hold in April, there's been a dispute between America, Israel and Iran over whether that ceasefire would also include Lebanon, a cessation of Israeli attacks on Lebanon. So if you go back to the first days of the deal in early April, once it was agreed, Iran said it wouldn't abide by the ceasefire unless Donald Trump restrained the Israelis in Lebanon.

3:55Jason Palmer:And he eventually did that. He didn't tell them to halt their attacks entirely, but he ordered Israel to halt the geographic scope and the intensity of its airstrikes in Lebanon. Now, obviously, Israel has always rejected this linkage. It understandably is unhappy about the idea that Iran could impose conditions on its war in Lebanon. And so Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, has always insisted that these two conflicts should be separate. And what we've seen over the past few weeks has been Israel intensifying its combat in Lebanon. Hezbollah has continued to fire at northern Israel. It has been using, in some cases, fiber optic drones that Israel doesn't have a reliable way to defend against to kill Israeli troops both in Lebanon and in northern Israel and to attack civilian targets in northern Israel.

4:47Jason Palmer:And this has put a lot of pressure on Netanyahu's government. And so seen him expand the scope of airstrikes in Lebanon, including the strike in Beirut, the capital, over the weekend. He's ordered Israeli troops further into Lebanon. And so for Iran now, the message that they are sending is that they insist on these two conflicts being linked. And if Israel does continue to carry out these attacks in Lebanon, it has threatened to carry out further attacks on Israel. And Israel, in turn, is now sending quite a clear message to Iran, right? It is. And I think particularly the strike on a petrochemical plant is significant for two reasons.

5:28Jason Palmer:One is the impact that it will have on the Iranian energy sector, the Iranian economy. And then there's also the question of how Iran views that attack and how they will retaliate for it. They have treated these sorts of attacks in the past as being major escalations. So will they follow a similar logic here, either attacking economically significant targets in Israel, or perhaps widening the war horizontally and going back to attacks on Gulf states. Now, I think it's riskier if they attack Gulf states because they risk America getting into the conflict as well, and they risk the ceasefire falling apart entirely.

6:06Jason Palmer:But there is a fear here in the Gulf this morning that they might once again find themselves on the receiving end of Iranian attacks. And Greg, where does Donald Trump stand in all of this? depends what time of day you reach him on the phone and what mood he's in. I mean, as usual, the public messaging that we've heard, both what Trump has said personally and the leaks that are coming out of the administration overnight, make it seem as if he's very unhappy with these Israeli strikes on Iran. A journalist from the FT called him up in the middle of the night. He answered, he said, Netanyahu has to accept whatever deal I impose.

6:44Jason Palmer:I call the shots. He doesn't call the shots. Remarkable thing for the president of the United States to say about Israel. Also remarkable that Trump is apparently taking phone calls from journalists in the middle of what you would think is a crisis situation in the White House. So we heard that from him and we've heard reports in Fox News and elsewhere that the president supposedly told the Israelis that he's had enough and this needs to stop. Now, that's what we're hearing in public. I don't know if that's what the Israelis are hearing in private. I would be surprised if Trump had laid down a clear red line for Netanyahu.

7:18Jason Palmer:I think more likely he is saying this in public to avoid antagonizing the Iranians, but in private, he told the Israelis they have a green light to retaliate so long as they stay within certain parameters. They don't do anything too massive in Iran. I suspect that is what happened here, despite the appearance of a conflict in public. So where does this leave the ceasefire between US and Iran? Hanging by a slimmer thread than at any point in the previous two months. You know, whenever we've talked about this ceasefire since April, I've been saying I think both America and Iran want to abide by the deal.

7:57Jason Palmer:They see it as being in their interests to reach a more durable agreement rather than to resume the war and go another even more destructive round of fighting. And I still think that's the case, even after what's happened over the weekend. America has not gotten involved directly. It hasn't carried out its own strikes in Iran. I think it is trying to somewhat restrain the Israelis behind the scenes. And Iran, not to minimize or dismiss the fact that it's firing ballistic missiles at Israel, but it has fired much larger salvos in the past. So I think it is trying to preserve a bit of an off-ramp here.

8:36Jason Palmer:The longer this goes on, though, the more they trade blows, the more there's a risk of significant damage on both sides, the harder this gets to control. So at some point, the onus here really is on the Americans, on the Trump administration. Are they going to call a halt to this? Are they going to tell Israel, you know, at this point, you cannot carry out any further attacks against Iran? Or are they going to let this keep going and risk, again, a possible resumption of the war, resumption of attacks on Gulf states? There's a lot riding here on the hope that there will be no significant damage caused by this exchange of fire.

9:13Jason Palmer:And this will stay within certain parameters. But the longer it goes on, I think the harder it's going to be to restrain this. Greg, thank you for talking to me. Thank you, Rosie.

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10:38Jason Palmer:So it's combined the technologies between the AI and the E3 technology together. Yeah. Today we will go to the... I took a trip to BYD's headquarters in Shenzhen recently. Don Wineland is our China business and finance editor. BYD is the world's largest electric vehicle maker. And the trip was really focused on all this new technology that the company is rolling out. One of those is its autonomous driving technology. I was asked to sit in the back of one of their sportier models and experience what they call hands-free drifting. For me, as an American, we call this spinning donuts. I sat in the back of the car.

11:26The driver climbed in. He said, OK, I'm taking my hands off the wheel and go. OK. OK. Suddenly the car starts spinning around. I was a bit freaked out. Oh, my God.

11:46So this kind of self-driving fireworks is a new foray for BYD? They've been doing self-driving for a while, but the real purpose of this event, where they flew in influencers and journalists from all over the world, really, was to highlight a number of key technological announcements. One of them was a semiconductor that they had designed in-house, and they claim is the world's most powerful chip for self-driving. The founder and CEO of BYD, Wong Chuan-Fu, thinks that this chip is going to differentiate BYD from all of its competitors. And for this company, differentiating itself now is becoming increasingly important because there are companies in China that are starting to catch up with BYD.

12:33Well, let's start with how it got to be the world's largest seller of EVs in the first place. So BYD started making batteries in the early 90s. By the mid-2000s, it's making cars. And from there, it starts focusing on becoming an EV giant. And by 2020, it's really taking off. One of the secrets of BYD is its vertical integration. It tries to control as many supply chains as possible within its company. Most companies that make EVs are not also going to do lithium processing and AI development at the same time. But that's exactly what BYD is doing. So it's able to lower its costs. It's often said that these types of companies can innovate faster because people in different divisions who are working on different things can collaborate a bit easier.

13:24And there might be some truth to that for BYD. It's clearly innovating very, very quickly. Some of its EVs have these crazy functions, like there's one that can float in emergencies. There's another one that jumps over potholes, if you can imagine that. And altogether, this company has really created an engine of innovation that is able to do all sorts of different things at the same time and move really, really quickly. But perhaps not as quickly as some of its rivals at the moment, you're saying. BYD is still incredibly successful. It overtook Tesla as the world's largest EV maker last year.

13:59But there are some clear signs that it's also under a bit of strain. Its profits, for example, fell for the first time in four years last year. Its EV sales have been declining year on year for the past eight consecutive months. And crucially, Geely, which is another massive carmaker in China, overtook it in EV sales at the beginning of the year. Now, BYD has since come back and reclaimed the top spot, but it's clear that there's a lot of competition at the top of the EV market in China right now. So what's changed then, Don? What is the model that got it to its top spot not still working? I think one problem is that BYD hasn't really changed enough.

14:43The Chinese EV market is dominated by tech-focused cars. Young EV buyers in China are really focused on the software and entertainment systems that are in the cars. They care less about some of these flashy functions like floating vehicles. And some of the biggest challengers like XPeng and Lee Otto, they were founded by internet tycoons, essentially. So you have these techie bosses that are driving EVs forward. In a way, BYD has not kept up with that tech growth. It's also not doing partnerships with other companies. When you run a vertically integrated company like BYD, you don't want to be tying up with a lot of other tech companies because that ruins your process.

15:33Everyone else in China is doing tech partnerships. So Huawei, the massive tech company, has become a provider of autonomous driving systems to lots of different car companies. Volkswagen, the German automaker, is tying up with local car companies to bring on their software. And at the same time, BYD just remains there by itself and is not pursuing this type of tech partnership. So it's sticking to what it knows. It's keeping things in-house. It's trying to weather this storm. Yes, it's definitely not changing its vertical integration model. So while I was on my visit to the company, I talked with lots of their engineers.

16:16And when I asked them, you know, like, okay, so you guys are developing these chips by yourself. You guys are developing these large language models for your AI systems all by yourself. The answer is always yes, of course, this is the most important thing. Keeping control of the entire process is the most important thing to them. So they're not changing this vertical integration model. I don't really think they can change that even if they want to. That would take a long time. So do you think it can weather the storm, that it can stick with its model and its batteries and come out on top in the end?

16:50You have to ask, can you be the best at everything? Can you be the best battery maker and the best AI company in China? I think the answer is no to that question. I think it's very hard for BYD to become the best autonomous driving system in China because there are many companies that are focused just on this. But I think it's definitely too early to say that BYD is losing its magic. This is still the world's largest EV maker. And its battery technology is still very, very good. It's created a rapid charging system that allows it to charge an EV pretty close to full in under 10 minutes. And it can actually do this at below 30 degrees Celsius.

17:32So this was a big problem with batteries. Hard to charge, hard to keep charged in very low temperatures. But BYD has cracked the code and figured that out. So yeah, possibly even on the tech side, it can prevail. We're going to have to wait a couple of months to see how drivers like these new autonomous driving functions. But BYD still has many good days ahead of it, most likely. Don, thanks very much for your time. Thanks, Jason.

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18:50When podcasts arrived on the scene, they really revolutionized the world of media and how people consume it. I noticed recently when I was watching one of my favorite TV shows that whenever the credits roll, I get targeted with watching a companion podcast. I thought as a podcasting legend, Jason, I could discuss this new trend with you. Oh, podcasting legend. You do flatter me. Lizzie Peet, researcher at The Economist and avid companion podcast fan. Is that fair? Yes, sure. Talk me through it. What is a companion podcast for a start? So they typically accompany some of the biggest, most popular shows out there.

19:26This year alone, you've seen them launch alongside the Netflix series Beef, the second season. I'm Lee Sung Jin, the creator, showrunner, executive producer, writer, and director of Beef. And now at long last, finally, thank God. The host of a podcast. There's also one about medical drama, The Pit, which has been running on HBO this second season. Welcome to The Pit podcast, the official companion to HBO Max's The Pit. And this month, HBO is also releasing a podcast that will talk about the eight Harry Potter films ahead of a much-anticipated remake coming out in December. No one, as far as we could tell, has actually totted them up.

20:02But we crunched the numbers, and according to our analysis, at least 17 have been released this year, which is triple the number. that came out in 2019. And so the companion podcasts then are really just sort of behind the scenes looks at the way these shows are made. Is that the idea? They're really for the true fans in these shows, because some of them can stretch eight, 10 hours long, almost the same length as the shows themselves. So you've got to be pretty devoted to get stuck in. They're typically for fans that may have questions about how the show was written, how it was filmed, the production behind it, interviews with the cast, etc.

20:36So for example, a companion podcast came out with The Last of Us, which is a really popular zombie apocalypse TV series. And one of the hosts was Neil Druckmann, who had developed the video game that the series was based on. A lot of our projects start with a narrative idea. And you know, with The Last of Us, it was,

20:56Jason Palmer:how do we through this interactive experience, get the players to feel the unconditional love a parent feels for their child. It was quite an interesting technical discussion of the adaptation process from a video game to a TV series. Why do you think it is that there aren't so many of these coming out? Why are they ramping up so much? That was sort of the question I was asking myself. So I spoke to Becky Rowe, who runs the podcast division at HBO, and she reckons that we're all living in this age of information, is what she called it, where audiences want to know how filmmakers have pulled off various stunts and how a character or story art came together.

21:30Obviously, within the internet age, People just kind of want to know everything about everything, particularly stuff that they're interested in. But that said, these aren't just put together randomly. A really good companion podcast should be insightful and immersive. It's not just a natter between cast and crew. So some of the podcasts that I mentioned earlier actually bring in experts in the field that the TV show is based on. One of the hosts of the Pit podcast is actually a doctor. So he delves quite deeply into the medical storylines of the show, which can be very complex. There was a Netflix show called Three Body Problem, a famous sci-fi book.

22:01That podcast was hosted by a space scientist who, again, took audiences much deeper into the science behind the show. Yeah, so in that sense, it goes beyond what I remember from a past media age. Those DVD extras at the end of the film, like here's the chat with the director and a couple of cut scenes, that sort of thing. This is tending to go deeper than that. Totally, but in a way, it's rehashing that whole concept. I mean, I'm old enough to remember owning box sets to TV shows like Friends that would have deleted scenes. They'd have interviews with the actors. That whole sector vanished when streaming came along and people stopped buying DVDs.

22:34So in a way, this is rehashing that fan demand for more inside knowledge about TV shows that we lost. But it also brings together another popular sector, fan-made podcasts that really blew up in the last decade or so. A really popular one, for example, was Gilmore Guys, where two comedians re-watched Gilmore Girls, which is a very popular mother and daughter show, an absolute cult classic. I'm Kevin. I'm Demi. We were the Gilmore guys, and we're sitting here at Luke's diner with Luke himself. It's kind of marrying these two ideas, but importantly, the networks themselves are making the podcast.

23:11So that enables a lot more exclusive access. It often acts as the cast will have it written to their contract that they have to sit down and give interviews and stuff like that. Speaking cynically, perhaps a way for them to squeeze more from their intellectual property. Totally. I mean, the networks themselves, this is a complete no-brainer. These podcasts are fairly cheap to produce. They boost retention and like all podcasts, they can be enjoyed on the move. Streaming platforms, they've captured our attention pretty well after work when we're sitting on a sofa, but they're missing that piece of the commute during the day walking the dog.