On SingaPaw Air’s flights, pets roam the cabin freely, sit beside their owners & are even offered meal options
There’s no sugarcoating it. A US$84,000 (S$108,000) flight to San Francisco with your pet is likely out of reach for most Singaporeans.
But that hasn’t stopped SingaPaw Air, which bills itself as Asia’s first pet jet-share service, from attracting a small and growing group of people willing to spend tens—and even hundreds—of thousands of dollars for the experience of flying with their pets in comfort and privacy.
On its flights, pets can roam the cabin freely, sit beside their owners, and are even offered meal options, much like any other passenger. Every detail, from check-in to in-flight care, is designed for the well-being of both animal and owner.
One recent customer paid just over US$30,000 (S$38,500) for a one-way trip from Singapore to Hong Kong for two people and four cats. Another spent US$15,000 (S$19,300) to holiday in Hong Kong with her toy poodle. And the airline is receiving more than 100 enquiries a day, with some customers booking up to a year in advance.
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There clearly is demand for the service—and it is one that founder Jamie Wong saw coming long before anyone else in the region did.
“For me, animals are family”
Wong’s path to building SingaPaw Air is not a straight line.
The 38-year-old started his career in medicine and used to work as a GP at Raffles Medical. But the pull of entrepreneurship eventually won out. He went on to build a five-branch medical aesthetics business and a telemedicine startup that completed two rounds of fundraising, both of which have since closed.
Image Credit: SingaPaw Air/ Jamie Wong
Throughout all of this, he was running TheAsianPawrent, an online community platform for pet owners in Asia, on the side—not as a business play, but out of genuine love for animals.
Wong shares his home with five cats and three dogs, has rescued birds and sent them to animal welfare charity ACRES for rehabilitation, and actively donates to local pet welfare communities. TheAsianPawrent started as a place where pet owners like him could come together to share knowledge, discuss issues affecting their animals, and find community around modern pet parenting in Asia.
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For me, animals are not a side interest. They are family. That belief has shaped the way I think about services, community, and the future of pet-related businesses.
Jamie Wong, founder of SingaPaw Air
The longer he ran that community, the more clearly one pain point kept surfacing: travel.
Pet owners across the region were hitting the same wall—restrictive airline policies, stressful cargo holds, banned breeds, and mountains of paperwork. The infrastructure simply hadn’t caught up with how people actually felt about their animals.
That insight, combined with a very personal moment during COVID-19, when Wong found himself unable to bring his family’s dog along on a private plane to Malaysia, became the spark for SingaPaw Air.
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“I realised that while I was able to fly over on a private plane, our dog obviously could not enjoy the same ease of travel,” he said. “That was the moment I realised there was a real-world problem that could potentially be solved.”
The business was initially self-funded
Wong founded SingaPaw Air about three years ago, in 2023. “The concept took shape over time, but that was when we began laying the groundwork to turn the idea into a real operating business,” he said.
The airline was initially self-funded, which meant that Wong had to “build carefully” in the early stages. This was followed by two rounds of angel investment, with the company beginning at a valuation of US$2 million (S$2.5 million), according to the founder.
Image Credit: SingaPaw Air/ Jamie Wong
Today, SingaPaw Air claims to be the first of its kind in Southeast Asia, with only a handful of comparable players globally, such as Bark Air and RetrievAir in the United States, K9 Jets in Europe, and Skye Pets in Australia.
While Wong does not come from a traditional airline background, his experience building businesses in regulated industries proved highly transferable.
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He also pursued a personal interest in aviation, spending time in flight simulators to practice piloting and understand aircraft operations. He even took some flight lessons, which helped him grasp the operational side of running an airline.
Although this experience was valuable, getting SingaPaw Air off the ground was far from simple.
Beyond registering the company and sourcing aircraft, a big part of the process involved securing the right approvals, including from Singapore’s Animal & Veterinary Service (AVS) and the Singapore Tourism Board.
At the same time, Wong also spent significant effort building an internal team that truly understood the emotional and practical challenges of travelling with pets.
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We intentionally built a team of pet owners because people who live with animals understand the anxiety, the logistics, and the level of care required in a very different way.
Jamie Wong, founder of SingaPaw Air
Prices start at S$7K, and that’s just for a short hop to KL
SingaPaw Air operates on a jet-share model, which allows customers to book individual seats rather than chartering an entire aircraft. This approach, Wong said, makes the experience much more accessible compared to a traditional private charter, which can cost upwards of US$100,000 (S$128,500).
By selling per-seat access, SingaPaw Air brings the entry point down to around US$10,000 (S$13,000) per seat.
Image Credit: SingaPaw Air/ Jamie Wong
Its current routes include Singapore to Kuala Lumpur from US$5,500 (S$7,000), Singapore to Hong Kong return from US$19,200 (S$25,000), Singapore to Tokyo return from US$34,400 (S$44,200), and Singapore to San Francisco one-way from US$84,000 (S$108,000), among others.
For those seeking a fully private experience, the airline also offers dedicated jet charters, where the entire aircraft is reserved fully for you and your pets.
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Prices for full charters are significantly higher, often reaching six figures for long-haul trips.
For example, a one-way flight from Singapore to San Francisco costs around US$330,000 (about S$424,000). Even shorter routes, such as Kuala Lumpur, can cost around US$30,000 (S$38,500) one way.
To manage these flights efficiently, SingaPaw Air employs a flexible operational model, including contract charters, membership charters, and block-hour arrangements. This allows the airline to tailor how planes and seats are allocated depending on demand, route, and booking type, while maintaining a consistent, pet-focused experience.
Currently, SingaPaw Air works with several licensed commercial flight operators, including Air7Asia, adjusting aircraft and service setups as needed.
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Not just a flight
(Left): A pet passport from SingaPaw Air, used to track a pet’s vaccinations; (Right): Boarding passes for SingaPaw Air flights./ Image Credit: @bentley_the_goodest_boi, @theasianpawrent_sg via Instagram
Onboard SingaPaw Air’s flights, a wide range of pets are allowed to fly beside their humans—there are no weight or size restrictions. The largest animal to board so far, according to Wong, was a Great Dane.
The airline also accepts breeds banned from cargo on most commercial carriers. Many airlines prohibit brachycephalic breeds—dogs with shortened snouts, such as French bulldogs and chow chows—due to a higher risk of respiratory distress in the cargo hold.
That said, SingaPaw Air takes extensive precautions to ensure these pets travel safely. Veterinary checks are conducted before every flight, and a certified canine first responder accompanies all journeys.
Pets also enjoy a streamlined clearance process that mirrors that of human passengers, with no need to arrive early. While animals must remain in carriers in the lounge, the aviation centre does not charge additional fees for them.
Image Credit: @bentley_the_goodest_boi, @air7asia via Instagram
What differentiates SingaPaw Air from simply “a charter with a dog on board” is its positioning as an end-to-end travel ecosystem. Beyond flights, the company handles complex paperwork such as vaccination records and import or export permits, processes that can take months for pet owners to navigate on their own.
Travel to Japan, for example, requires an eight-month documentation process, which SingaPaw Air manages in full, completely free of service charges.
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It also works closely with the AVS to coordinate inspections for arriving pets. Since SingaPaw Air flights operate from Seletar Airport, which lacks the dedicated animal inspection facilities found at Changi Airport, the team ensures a smooth process by working directly with AVS officers there.
“We work very closely with them to notify them of our arrival date and time, then they will send a team over here to ensure that the whole process, the inspection, is done smoothly,” Wong said in an interview with CNA.
Countries are categorised by AVS based on rabies risk. Destinations deemed rabies-free or low-risk, such as Hong Kong, Japan, and the US, allow pets to travel and return without quarantine.
Meanwhile, countries assessed as rabies-affected, including Thailand, Indonesia, and Cambodia, require a minimum 30-day quarantine on arrival, making them effectively one-way destinations for most SingaPaw Air clients.
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It’s still early days for SingaPaw Air, but the runway is long
While trust was initially the biggest hurdle, today SingaPaw Air receives over 100 enquiries a day, with repeat customers and pre-bookings up to a year in advance, showing that demand is genuine.
In the beginning, a lot of the challenge was proving that the model was real, safe, and professionally executed. Once people saw the first flights take place, confidence naturally started to build.
Jamie Wong
Image Credit: SingaPaw Air/ Jamie Wong
Currently, around 70 to 80% of SingaPaw Air’s flights are for relocation purposes. These aren’t frivolous holiday trips, but emotionally significant moves where, for many customers, putting their pet through cargo simply isn’t an option they’re willing to consider.
Wong shared that the most common feedback from customers is how calm their pets are when travelling alongside them. “That sense of calm and closeness is one of the clearest validations that [SingaPaw Air] is solving a real problem.”
For a growing segment of pet owners, this approach resonates. The shift in how people relate to their animals is real and accelerating. Pets today have Instagram accounts, birthday parties, and healthcare plans. The idea that travel should reflect that same level of care isn’t as niche as it once seemed.
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With demand building—Wong declined to share specifics, including profit margins—SingaPaw Air has begun expanding its offerings. Its latest addition is the pet discovery flight: a one-hour trip designed to acclimatise animals to altitude changes and engine noise ahead of a longer journey, starting from US$1,300 (S$1,700) for one passenger and one pet, with discounts for existing SingaPaw Air customers.
Looking ahead, the company is in the process of acquiring its own jet, reflecting Wong’s long-term goal to handle everything in-house, not just act as a middleman. The founder also has his eye on domestic pet travel within Indonesia and Malaysia—markets with strong pet ownership cultures but where affordable, regulated pet travel options remain scarce.
To support this growth, another round of fundraising is planned, potentially later this year or next, as SingaPaw Air expands its services and capabilities.
“The market is still in its early stages,” Wong said, “so rather than focusing purely on market share, our goal is to establish SingaPaw Air as one of the most trusted and category-defining names in pet aviation in the region. If we continue to solve real pain points, market share will follow naturally.”
Photo credit: RW Genting The First World Hotel, located in the Genting Highlands, some 50 kilometers north of Kuala Lumpur, stands out against the backdrop of the greenery. Its two main buildings and annex include a remarkable 7,351 rooms, which kept the Guinness World Record for world’s largest hotel under lock and key since 2015. People come via cable car or by making their way up the mountain roads, and then find themselves in a realm of continual motion, as you can’t help but keep going forward to the next surprise.
Construction began in the early 2000s, and the first major section opened in 2006, with over 6,000 rooms. Then, for a brief period in 2008, a Las Vegas property knocked it off the top rank, but the Malaysian crew returned in 2015 and added 1,233 additional rooms to restore the record permanently. Today, the hotel sprawls across three connected buildings, with dramatic horizontal streaks of color that stand out against the verdant hills. The design is deceptively basic but effective, transforming the entire structure into a landmark visible from miles away.
LEGO Boutique Hotel set for adults is a tribute to turn-of-the-century European architecture, celebrating 15 years of LEGO Modular Buildings
Authentic architectural details with 5 sections including guest rooms, penthouse, terrace and staircase, plus an art gallery and coffee cart
This LEGO hotel set includes 7 minifigures: porter, receptionist, coffee vendor and gallery owner alongside a selection of guests and staff
Room sizes vary to accommodate every type of visitor, with standard and deluxe options measuring 180 square feet. While compact, they are spotless and have everything you need for a short stay. Triple rooms include three beds, making family visits or group excursions possible without wasting space. The superior deluxes and World Club rooms offer a decent 320 or 430 square feet, ideal for couples or business travelers who desire a separate living area and a little extra comfort. Every one of them looks out onto vistas of the forest or the resort below, and the mountain air keeps the temperature a little cooler than in the city.
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The truth is that tourists rarely stay in their rooms for extended periods of time. A skybridge and walkways go directly into First World Plaza, which is essentially a mini-city for shopping and entertainment. Inside, the Skytropolis Funland has indoor rides, bumper cars, and arcade games that will keep the kids entertained for hours. Snow World then provides a wonderful contrast with its artificial snow and ice slides, which are ideal for escaping the hot heat outside. The plaza also has a bowling alley, a video game park, and a variety of dining options, from casual food courts to quick ice cream kiosks.
Next door to all of this, the resort continues to expand. Families who still have energy to burn can visit Genting SkyWorlds, a large outdoor theme park with roller coasters, cinema and adventure zones. A quick cable car trip brings everything together, allowing you to enjoy the huge thrill attractions in the morning, shop in the afternoon, and return to your room without ever leaving the site. The only legal casino in the country is also right on your doorstep, and it always draws large groups that fill the hotel nightly. [Source]
As a veteran engineer and product leader inside Microsoft Azure, Rohit Tatachar saw that many companies were building AI systems they couldn’t fully monitor or control in production.
In his new role at a Seattle startup, he’s doing something about it.
Tatachar is now co-founder and CTO of Glacis, which builds tamper-proof records of AI behavior — what CEO Joe Braidwood has called a “flight recorder for enterprise AI.” His arrival comes as Glacis launches new open-source tools for monitoring and controlling AI agents.
Glacis, first covered by GeekWire in November 2025, was started by Braidwood and Dr. Jennifer Shannon, a psychiatrist and adjunct professor at the University of Washington.
The company grew out of a difficult lesson: Braidwood’s previous startup, Yara, an AI-powered mental health tool, had to be shut down after he realized the models drifted from their intended behavior during extended conversations with vulnerable users.
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After he wrote about the shutdown on LinkedIn, regulators, clinicians, engineers and insurance executives reached out with the same observation: when AI systems make decisions, nobody can independently verify whether the safety controls actually worked.
That was the spark for Glacis.
How it works: The startup’s core product, called Arbiter, sits in the path of every AI inference call and creates a signed record of the input, the safety checks that ran and the final output.
The record can’t be altered after the fact. At scale, a system that Glacis calls the Witness Network notarizes those records into an auditable trail.
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Customers can choose to run the system in “shadow mode,” observing without intervening, or in enforcement mode, where it actively constrains the AI’s behavior.
Glacis co-founders Joe Braidwood (left) and Jennifer Shannon. (Glacis Photo)
Shannon, Glacis’ chief medical officer, said the stakes are especially high in healthcare. As a practicing child psychiatrist, she has seen AI-powered ambient scribes hallucinate content in her clinical notes, including fabricating medication prescriptions she never made.
“I would like to be able to go back and see every step of how that AI model made that decision,” she said. “If there’s no infrastructure for that, who is liable? Nobody’s going to sue AI. It’s me.”
The underlying challenge: Tatachar worked at Microsoft across two stints spanning nearly 19 years, most recently as a principal product manager on the Microsoft Foundry team, its platform for building and deploying enterprise AI applications and agents.
He said he saw companies building tools and running proofs of concept but struggling to move AI into production because they couldn’t explain or verify what their systems were doing.
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There are three dimensions to the problem, he said: the baseline state of a customer’s infrastructure, model behavior, and what’s known as “intent drift,” where a system behaves differently than what a customer intended, even if the underlying model is functioning normally.
Glacis monitors deployments across all three. “It’s only when you converge these three that a customer has a real view of what actually happened,” Tatachar said.
New releases: Glacis is releasing auto-redteam, an open-source tool that automatically attacks AI systems across a range of vulnerability categories, then generates fixes and verifies their effectiveness.
The company is also publishing OVERT 1.0, a standard for what it calls “observable verification evidence for runtime trust,” intended to give organizations a framework for building provable AI safety into their operations.
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The launches come at a volatile moment for AI agent security. OpenClaw, an open-source AI agent framework, has attracted hundreds of thousands of developers since its debut in late 2025, but its rapid adoption has outpaced its security architecture.
Major cybersecurity firms including CrowdStrike and Cisco have published analyses warning of security vulnerabilities in the framework. Braidwood said this shows the need for infrastructure that can enforce safety controls at runtime, not just test them before deployment.
Target market: The company is focusing on customers in healthcare, fintech and insurance.
It signed two pilot deals out of the JP Morgan healthcare conference earlier this year, with three more in the pipeline. Braidwood said the company sees healthcare as its entry point, but considers the problem ultimately universal to any deployment of AI.
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A new development this week: Glacis is also opening a waitlist for a $49-per-month starter plan covering red teaming, enforcement and cryptographic attestation for up to 10,000 AI events per month. A $499 pro tier covers up to 100,000 events.
Braidwood said the move is a deliberate shift toward making the technology accessible beyond the regulated enterprises and design partners the company has worked with so far.
Broader landscape: AI observability and security is a booming market, with well-funded startups and big companies offering runtime monitoring and guardrails for enterprise AI.
Braidwood said Glacis differentiates itself through its focus on cryptographic provability — not just detecting problems but producing tamper-proof evidence that safety controls ran, which he said could help companies negotiate insurance coverage and satisfy regulators.
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Funding: Glacis has raised $575,000 from a group of investors that includes Geoff Ralston’s Safe Artificial Intelligence Fund, Mighty Capital, Sourdough Ventures and the AI2 Incubator.
Team: Glacis has five employees, including the three co-founders and two engineers.
Tatachar said the company’s sixth “employee” will be an AI agent tasked with handling SOC 2 compliance work through Vanta. The team writes its core cryptographic code in Rust and uses Claude, Codex, and ChatGPT across its workflow.
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“We’ve got a 100-person company,” Braidwood joked. “Five of them are real, and the rest are in the cloud or on the desk.”
LinkedIn is facing allegations that it quietly scans users’ browsers for installed Chrome extensions. The German group Fairlinked e.V. goes so far as to claim that the site is “running one of the largest corporate espionage operations in modern history.”
“The program runs silently, without any visible indicator to the user,” the group says. “It does not ask for consent. It does not disclose what it is doing. It reports the results to LinkedIn’s servers. This is not a one-time check. The scan runs on every page load, for every visitor.” PCMag reports: This browser extension “fingerprinting” technique has been spotted before, but it was previously found to probe only 2,000 to 3,000 extensions. Fairlinked alleges that LinkedIn is now scanning for 6,222 extensions that could indicate a user’s political opinions or religious views. For example, the extensions LinkedIn will look for include one that flags companies as too “woke,” one that can add an “anti-Zionist” tag to LinkedIn profiles, and two others that can block content forbidden under Islamic teachings.
It would also be a cakewalk to tie the collected extension data to specific users, since LinkedIn operates as a vast professional social network that covers people’s work history. Fairlinked’s concern is that Microsoft and LinkedIn can allegedly use the data to identify which companies use competing products. “LinkedIn has already sent enforcement threats to users of third-party tools, using data obtained through this covert scanning to identify its targets,” the group claims. However, LinkedIn claims that Fairlinked mischaracterizes a LinkedIn safeguard designed to prevent web scraping by browser extensions. “We do not use this data to infer sensitive information about members,” the company says. “To protect the privacy of our members, their data, and to ensure site stability, we do look for extensions that scrape data without members’ consent or otherwise violate LinkedIn’s Terms of Service,” LinkedIn adds.
[…] The statement goes on to allege that Fairlinked is from a developer whose account was previously suspended for web scraping. One of the group’s board members is listed as “S.Morell,” which appears to be Steven Morell, the founder of Teamfluence, a tool that helps businesses monitor LinkedIn activity. […] Still, the Microsoft-owned site is facing some blowback for not clearly disclosing the browser extension scanning in LinkedIn’s privacy policy. Fairlinked is soliciting donations for a legal fund to take on Microsoft and is urging the public to encourage local regulators to intervene.
The report shows that many organisations are facing significant challenges as they work to implement generative and agentic AI.
Writer, a provider of AI agents for enterprise, has partnered with research firm Workplace Intelligence to release the second annual AI survey, AI Adoption in the Enterprise.
To gather the data Writer and Workplace Intelligence collected information from 2,400 employees and C-suite leaders from the US, UK, Ireland, Benelux, France and Germany. What was discovered is that organisations are still facing significant obstacles when it comes to implementing agentic and GenAI.
The report found that almost 80pc of contributing executives are struggling with problems related to lagging, ROI, strategy gaps and internal power struggles, with 38pc of CEOs reporting a high or crippling amount of stress around their AI strategy. In fact 64pc of CEOs worry that they could lose their jobs if they fail to navigate their organisation through the AI transition.
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As a result 92pc of c-suite participants said that they are actively cultivating a “new class of AI elite employees” as a means of getting ahead in the AI race. Nearly 90pc of contributing leaders are of the opinion that “AI super-users” are at least five times more productive than employees who have yet to embrace AI.
“The stakes are high for those who lag behind”, claims the report, which said “77pc of executives warn that employees who refuse to become AI-proficient won’t be considered for promotions or leadership roles and 60pc plan to lay off employees who can’t or won’t use AI.”
“This is a defining moment in AI adoption and the gap between super-users and laggards is widening fast,” said Dan Schawbel, a managing partner at Workplace Intelligence.
“We’re already seeing this play out, the super-users we surveyed were around 3 times more likely to have received both a promotion and pay raise in the past year, compared to employees who have been slow to adopt these tools. Top AI users are also saving nearly nine hours per week using AI, 4.5 times more than the two hours a week reported by AI laggards.”
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For May Habib, the CEO and co-founder of Writer, “layoffs are not a viable AI strategy”.
Habib said: “The leaders who are putting in the work to radically redesign operations with human-agent collaboration at the centre are the ones compounding their advantage in ways competitors can’t replicate.
“AI transformation is ultimately about people and the future belongs to the companies putting agent-building power directly into the hands of people closest to the work.”
C-suite challenges
A gap in strategy was among the challenges being navigated in the workplace, by c-suite personnel. 39pc admitted that they don’t have a formal strategy in place to drive revenue from AI tools and even in scenarios where strategies do exist, it was found that quality is lacking. Three-quarters of participants noted that their company’s AI strategy is more for show than for actual internal guidance.
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Security and governance was also found to be of concern to executives. 67pc of executives said that they believe their company has suffered a data leak or security breach because an employee used an unapproved AI tool. More than one-third concede they aren’t very confident they could “pull the plug” on a rogue AI agent if it started causing financial or reputational damage to their company.
There may also be an element of employee sabotage as the data suggested that rather than embracing AI, 29pc of employees, including 44pc of GenZ participants admitted to entering company information into public tools, using unapproved tools or refusing to use AI altogether. Moreover, three-quarters said that employee sabotage poses a serious threat to their company’s future.
For others, lagging ROI and confusion around the benefits of the tech are impacting adoption. Nearly all of the contributing executives (97pc) have said that AI has been beneficial, with three-quarters of the opinion that AI agents will be a part of their organisation’s c-suite within the next five years. However, nearly half said that AI adoption at their organisation has been a “massive disappointment”.
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It’s common for multiple auto manufacturers to be owned by the same parent company, such as how Stellantis Group owns Dodge, Fiat, Maserati, and countless others. It’s the same in the commercial vehicle world as well; Volvo Group has several badges under its aegis as well. Obviously, the best-known of these is the company’s namesake Volvo Trucks, which is a car brand that makes semi trucks, along with construction equipment, buses, and autonomous driving solutions.
For the U.S. market, Volvo offers six different variations on the traditional over-the-road style truck with a hood over the engine and the cab behind it. These include the aerodynamic VNL (shown above);’ the profitable, agile, and efficient VNR; the VNR Electric with up to 275 miles per charge; the VNX, stronger and built for heavier loads; the VHD that is ideal for garbage collection, concrete mixing, or firefighting applications; and the VAH, a specialized version designed for transporting automobiles.
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Production on the Volvo Trucks’ VNL started at the company’s Dublin, Virginia factory toward the end of 2024. Since then, around 15,000 of Volvo’s VNL trucks have been put into service on the roads and highways spanning Canada and the United States. One more feather in the VNL’s cap is its winning of the the 2025 Red Dot Design Award for Product Design in the category of commercial vehicles. Yet the automaker owns several other semi truck brands that are arguably just as successful, both in the Americas and around the world. You might just be surprised by these next four.
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Renault Trucks
Renault Trucks is a semi truck brand that’s been owned by Volvo for more than 25 years. The badge offers many types of commercial vehicles that range from light trucks up to heavy-duty trucks that are designed for long-haul trucking. Renault Trucks sold 25,000 vehicles in 2025 and employs 10,000 people. The automaker in its current form is actually the result of an ongoing series of mergers within the group of French commercial vehicle manufacturers. By 1978, these mergers had consolidated all of the remaining French truckmakers into a single company known as Renault Véhicules Industriels. The new company went on to acquire the Dodge Europe brand in 1983 as well as the well-known American Mack Truck brand in 1990 (more on that in a bit). Then, in 2001, Renault Trucks emerged after Renault Véhicules Industriels, later renamed Renault V.I., became a part of the Volvo Group.
Renault Trucks produces all of its trucks, and most of the parts that go into them, in France. Some locations in the Middle East and Africa use production partners that assemble Renault imported as a collection of parts and then assembled. While Renault Trucks does not have a presence in the U.S. or Canada, it is well-established in Central and South America, as well as Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
Renault Trucks has been in the forefront of semi truck electrification. The company announced in February 2024 that XPO Logistics of France had placed an order for 165 of the company’s electric trucks, 105 of which would be semi tractors. These electric-powered trucks are slated to replace diesel trucks on regional and suburban delivery routes.
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Mack Trucks
Mack Trucks became a part of the Volvo Group as a result of Volvo’s acquisition of Renault V.I. in 2001. The semi truck manufacturer’s current offerings for the U.S. market include the Anthem, Keystone, and Pioneer, all newer models. In addition to semi trucks, Mack also has a wide variety of rigid-chassis trucks that can serve as waste collection vehicles or other vocational purposes like fire trucks and concrete mixers. These trucks vehicles include the Granite, LR, LR Electric, MD, MD Electric, and the TerraPro. Mack Truck power sources include not just the company’s proprietary diesel engines but also natural gas engines sourced from Cummins and battery-powered electric drive systems.
The all-new Anthem semi truck, shown above on the left, began production in January 2026 at Mack Trucks’ Macungie, PA plant, where Mack’s Class 8 heavy trucks for both North America and export markets are built. An advantage built into the Mack Anthem is its shorter length of just 113.5 inches as measured from its bumper to the back of its cab, making it better suited to getting through the smaller spaces found in the urban environments where the Anthem will be operating. The Anthem’s hood was also designed for optimal driver visibility, which is important while operating in these tighter confines.
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Standard safety features found on the Mack Anthem include forward collision warning and a front airbag for the driver. Optional equipment consists of blind spot warning on driver and passenger sides, lane keep assist, side curtain airbags, and a digital mirror system.
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Eicher Trucks (joint venture)
In 2008, the Volvo Group and India’s Eicher Motors formed a 50/50 joint venture, which continues to the present day. The joint company is known as VECV, or Volvo Eicher Commercial Vehicles. The JV consists of five different businesses: Eicher Trucks and Buses, Volvo Trucks India, Eicher Engineering Components, VE Powertrain, and VECV Engines. Interestingly, Eicher also owns and makes the motorcycle brand Royal Enfield in India, in an operation that is completely separate from the Volvo JV.
The Eicher brand began back in 1948 as the Goodearth nameplate, which was created to import and sell tractors in India. The Eicher Tractor Corporation then became India’s first indigenous tractor manufacturer in 1959-60. In 1982, Eicher entered into a joint venture with Mitsubishi Motors of Japan to produce light commercial vehicles. Eicher expanded into medium-duty commercial vehicles in 1994, followed by its entry into heavy-duty commercial vehicles in 2002. Then came the Volvo Group joint venture in 2008.
Today, Eicher makes a full line of heavy-duty semi trucks for the Indian and Asian markets. These include tractor-trailers like the Pro 6040 rated at 39.5 tons, the Pro 6046 rated at 45.5 tons, and three models, the Pro 8055, the Pro 6055XP, and the Pro 6055XP (4×2), all rated at 55 tons. While the entry-level Pro 6040 is equipped with a 5.1-liter engine, the tractor-trailers above it have a 7.7-liter engine with additional horsepower, which varies with the specific truck.
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Dongfeng Trucks (joint venture)
The Volvo Group also has a joint venture with Dongfeng Commercial Vehicles Co., Ltd, of China, also known as DFCV. Volvo acquired 45% of DFCV in January of 2015, giving it a solid foothold in the Chinese medium-duty and heavy-duty truck markets. The objective of this joint venture, according to then-Volvo CEO Olof Persson, is to provide the company “with the opportunity to become involved in growing DFCV’s international business in a manner that will benefit us and our Chinese partner.”
Dongfeng started out back in 1969 as the Second Automobile Works, located in Shiyan in Hubei province. Its original mission was to produce military vehicles for the People’s Liberation Army while developing China’s local vehicle manufacturing capabilities. Dongfeng later transitioned to commercial vehicles and eventually went into passenger cars with its 1992 production of the Fukang sedan.
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In terms of heavy-duty semi trucks, the Volvo/Dongfeng joint venture currently has four different models available in the Chinese market. These are the GX Tractor, the KX Tractor, the KL Tractor, and the VL Tractor. The GX, shown above, is specialized for logistics and comes with a 13.5-liter, six-cylinder, 520-horsepower Cummins diesel engine. The KX, meanwhile, is available in several different configurations, with power outputs ranging from 480 to 560 horsepower. The KL, designed with reliability and classic aesthetics in mind, comes with engines producing either 420 or 465 horsepower. The VL has a choice of 420-horsepower or 450-horsepower engines.
There’s been a lot of virtual ink spilled in environmental circles about the cooling water requirements of data centers, but less consideration of what happens with all the heat coming out of these buildings. Naturally, it’s going to warm the surrounding environment, but how much? Around 2 C (3.6 F) on average, and potentially much more than that, according to a recent study on the data heat island effect.
It’s common sense, of course: heat removed from the data center doesn’t go away. That heat might go into a body of water if one is available, but otherwise it’s out into the atmosphere to warm up everybody else’s day. In some places — like a Canadian winter — that might not be so bad. In others, where climate change and urban heat islands are cranking up the summertime temperatures, it very much could be. Especially if you’re in the worst-case scenario micro-climate described by the paper, which saw a predicted increase of 9.1 C (16 F).
Now, these results are theoretical and need to be ground-truthed, but anyone who has huddled next to the air-exchange unit of a large building for warmth knows there’s something to them. Unfortunately there don’t seem to be before-and-after measurements available for existing data-centers — AI or otherwise — to show exactly what their heat output is doing in the real world, but the urban heat island effect from all the dark asphalt in our cities is well known. Cooling paint and green roofs can help with that, but they won’t do much for the megawatts being pumped out to keep your cousin’s AI girlfriend online.
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Some would argue that all this heat wouldn’t be a problem if we could launch the data centers outside the environment — just have a care the front doesn’t fall off.
A good set of quality tires can typically withstand everything from rough roads to bad weather, and a lot more. Of course, getting the most out of your tires means doing preventative maintenance as well, and that’s where regular tire rotations come into play. But it’s also a good idea to re-torque your wheels about 30 miles after your rotation. It’s a practice that can potentially save you from some problems later on.
“Re-torque” simply means to re-tighten, as your lug nuts can loosen over time. This can sometimes be caused by heat, but motion can be a big contributor as well. Even the weight of your vehicle can add to the problem. Despite how well the wheel was secured during your rotation, exterior forces can impact your tires. Because of this, you may end up with uneven tread wear, or possibly a loose wheel, which could make for a dangerous situation.
It’s important to note that your lug nuts may not move that much, if at all, when you re-torque them. After all, wheel and tire assemblies can vary, and if you don’t drive that often, you might be just fine. In fact, you may be able to go from one tire rotation to the next without an issue. But it’s better to be safe than sorry. When in doubt, stop by your local garage and have a technician take a look. It might cost you a little time, but it could save you some grief in the long run.
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The proper technique for re-torquing your wheels
Shine Nucha/Shutterstock
You might not rotate your own tires at home, but you can re-torque your own wheels. Before you begin, consult your vehicle’s owner’s manual. You should be able to find some useful information about the correct torque specifications for your make and model. This is important, because every vehicle is different in terms of how much force it takes to properly secure your wheels. Too little torque and your wheels could come loose. Too much, and you’re risking possible damage to the wheel.
If you’re re-tightening the lug nuts while your vehicle is on the ground, the weight of your car should keep the tires stationary. Be sure to park on a flat surface and put on your parking brake. Next, use a torque wrench to tighten each lug nut in a crisscross/star pattern to the proper specification according to your owner’s manual. But beware that if you use a tire iron, you won’t be able to achieve the exact torque as specified in your manual.
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If you do have access to a lift and want to tighten your lug nuts that way, the biggest difference is that your vehicle will be off the ground. This is where an actual torque wrench will come in handy, as the wheel would be less likely to move as much during the tightening process. Just follow the same crisscross pattern, tighten the bolts to the proper specifications via your owner’s manual, and you’re all set.
Defense startup Hermeus has raised $350 million to keep developing what it calls the “fastest unmanned aircraft,” in a funding round that has pushed its valuation to $1 billion.
The Los Angeles-based startup said Tuesday that it has raised $200 million in equity financing, led by Khosla Ventures. Existing investors Canaan Partners, Founders Fund, In-Q-Tel, and RTX Ventures also participated. New outside money is coming from the venture fund of media conglomerate Cox Enterprises, the publicly-traded closed-end management investment company Destiny Tech100, and others.
The remaining $150 million comes in the form of debt, which Hermeus co-founder and CEO AJ Piplica told TechCrunch will help the startup and its growing cap table maintain some control.
“We build a lot of hardware, we’re expanding our manufacturing capabilities, and if we can finance a large portion of our spend non-dilutively, it’s absolutely the way to do it,” he said in an interview.
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Hermeus’s raise comes at a time when venture and corporate investors are flooding money into defense startups. VC investment in defense tech crossed $9 billion over 265 rounds globally last year, according to PitchBook, with corporate investors contributing $2 billion across 28 rounds.
But for Hermeus, it’s not just about good timing.
Piplica attributes at least some of the fundraising success to a change Hermeus made on the technical side a few years ago. The startup had spent time and money developing its own engine, partially out of necessity, he said. After Hermeus courted RTX Ventures — the venture arm of RTX Corporation, the defense contractor formerly known as Raytheon — a new opportunity arose.
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Piplica and his team decided instead to work with RTX subsidiary Pratt & Whitney to modify the aerospace company’s F100 engine in order to power Hermeus’ hypersonic aircraft.
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This put Hermeus on a faster track with a proven and functional engine, making it easier to test and iterate while lining up new contracts with the U.S. government along the way. Instead of aiming at one big goal of building a Mach 5 aircraft, Hermeus was now able to diversify, according to president Zach Shore.
“This accelerates us to Mach 5, and also reinforces the economics of the business while satisfying near term demand from the from the Department of Defense,” he said. “I think in that way, you have a number of concentric circles overlapping simultaneously that reinforce the business, that reinforce the customer, and that, you know, reinforce the technology maturation.”
Last month, Hermeus flew a demonstrator version of its technology that was the size of an F-16 fighter aircraft. The startup has said it’s aiming to make the next iteration of that aircraft go supersonic. A third aircraft is in the works as well, Piplica said.
This rapid prototyping approach is hard to come by in aviation, Piplica said. He points to SpaceX as the industry standard for being willing to build, test, fail, learn, and repeat until it gets a vehicle right. That’s why the hardest challenge Hermeus faces is cultivating or developing talent, Piplica said.
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“There’s nowhere in the world where companies are building new full-scale aircraft on an annual basis, clean sheet or otherwise,” he said. “People used to do that, but they’re all dead, which means you have to go make those people in one way or another.”
The new funding round will also help Hermeus continue to build out its staff, which is already approaching 300 employees.
Hermeus has now had two successful test flights (it flew a demonstrator last year that was three times smaller). But Piplica stressed the need for Hermeus to be ready for some kind of failure — which, again, he sees as part of the rapid prototyping proccess.
“The challenge is, how do you pick the right kind of chunks of risk to take on and apply your capital to over time,” he said. “Like, yeah, we could crash an airplane, and I expect it’ll happen at some point in our development program. We’re set up to do that very safely. But this is also why, like, building more aircraft is super important. If you don’t build a lot, it takes you a lot longer, because you’re gonna go baby things. You know, we wonder why it takes us 20, 25, years to develop a new aircraft?”
Amazon is USPS’s biggest customer, worth around $6 billion annually
Amazon has continued to expand its own delivery network, opening it up to others
Amazon has struck a deal with the US Postal Service (USPS) which will see the latter lose a chunk of its business – but still come off better than previously anticipated.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal WSJ, the deal will mean USPS could still end up delivering around one billion Amazon packages a year – marking a roughly 20% decrease compared with the previously floated two-thirds reduction.
The renewed delivery agreement, pending regulatory approval, is welcome news for USPS, as Amazon is its largest customer, worth around $6 billion annually.
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USPS will retain more Amazon parcels than previously thought
Amazon was considering shifting toward more of its own network for deliveries, however ultimately both its performance for high volumes of parcels and USPS’s expertise in rural and last-mile delivery are equally highly valuable.
“We’re pleased to have reached a new agreement with USPS that furthers our longstanding partnership and will let us continue supporting our customers and communities together,” a company spokesperson said.
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As for USPS, the company has faced intense pressure in recent years, facing multibillion-dollar annual losses and placing a bit bet on Amazon as a customer. Amazon has continued to expand its own networks in that time.
For example, in April 2025, the company declared it would invest over $4 billion to expand its delivery network across rural America, effectively tripling the size of its rural delivery infrastructure by the end of 2026 and creating more than 100,000 jobs in the process.
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Besides being a delivery network for its own ecommerce business, Amazon also boasted in September 2025 that more than five billion products move through its network of global logistics, domestic freight and bulk warehousing annually – all of which from independent sellers.
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USPS introduced a last-mile delivery bidding process in December to help it determine the true value of the service, likely in a bid to address profitability, and it’s this process that prompted Amazon to reassess its partnership with the postal agency.
Bike Friday All-Day for $5,600: Bike Friday bills the irresistibly tiny All-Day (7/10, WIRED Review) as the world’s lightest Bosch-powered ebike, and it’s true. You can customize all the colors and components of this folding electric bike, and it has a surprisingly powerful motor for its size. The Brompton above is more widely available and easier to use, but I love this little bike a lot.
Radio Flyer Via Pro for $2,900: Editor Julian Chokkattu could not have had a better experience than this easy-to-use and easy-to-assemble class 2 electric cargo bike. For more info, check out our guide to the Best Electric Cargo Bikes.
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GoTrax Mustang for $1,799: We liked the Mustang, which is a surprisingly punchy little bike for just the right price. However, it only comes in one size, so you should try it if you can before you buy it.
Aventon Level 3 for $1,899: The Aventon Level 3 is an easy-to-ride ebike that features a clean, step-through design and every feature you could want in a standard-size ebike for riding around town. There are built-in fenders and lights, and a big color display shows you how much of the up to 70 miles of advertised range you have remaining. I have ridden it up to about 25 miles at a time with my heavy 6’2″ frame, easily ending my rides with 20 percent of battery left. The frame feels comfortable and sturdy, thanks to a double-walled construction and improved Shimano gears and brakes. The front suspension fork and semi-hidden suspension seat post add to comfort relative to other bikes I’ve tested in this price range, and I like that the Aventon app lets you set up things like remote locking and geofencing, so you can keep an eye on your expensive bike from afar. The built-in turn signals, which use the bike’s rear lights, are another bonus when riding in cities at night. —Parker Hall
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Tenways CGO800S for $1,799: This is a budget step-through city ebike. It boasts up to 50 miles of battery life, and I got more than 30. The torque sensor is smooth and responsive to pedaling at various speeds. However, there’s no throttle, and because this bike is meant to fit riders of a huge range of sizes (they say 5’1” to 6’3”), the frame was not as comfortable to pedal for me (5’11”) as some large-size bikes. —Martin Cizmar
Aventon Ramblas for $2,899: Aventon made a mountain bike! It’s a lot of bike for an affordable price, but just a little too heavy to take out for its intended use case. It makes a nice, rugged commuter, however.
Linus eDutchi for $1,799: Need a comfy cruiser? The Linus eDutchi is a comfy class 1 ebike with beautiful colors and loads of proprietary accessories.
Xtracycle Estoker for $4,499: This is probably the bike that I see most often in my Portland, Oregon, neighborhood. It has a durable, sturdy Chromoly steel frame and larger 24-inch wheels, along with a Shimano mid-drive motor that makes it perfect for more grueling conditions. Unfortunately, you do have to be over 5’6″ (which I am not) to ride it.
Gazelle Eclipse for $6,399: If you want to know just how great the Bosch system can be, the Eclipse (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is the more expensive version of the Radster Road above. It has a nicer shifter, a smarter motor—even the paint job is nicer. It’s just much more expensive.
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The Gocycle G4I+ for $5,999: Gocycle’s high-end, fast-folding luxury bikes are designed by a former McLaren engineer. This quieter, lighter iteration has better torque, a new carbon-fiber front fork, and an even more painful price.
Niu Electric Bike BQi-C3 Pro for $999: Commerce director Martin Cizmar tested this bike and had a litany of complaints. The riding position is too aggressive, and the bike frame doesn’t fit common components like a water bottle and his pannier. The disc brakes weren’t suited to stopping it from 28 mph.
FAQs
How Does WIRED Procure Ebikes?
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Bike companies reach out to me, and I request testers in my size. Once I have finished testing, I either return the bikes to the manufacturer, the shop that assembled them, or donate them to nonprofit organizations.
How Do You Secure an Ebike?
Many ebikes have removable batteries, displays, or built-in wheel locks that make securing your bike much easier. Other bikes, like the Specialized Turbo Vado SL 2, are also compatible with Apple Find My. Check out our Best Ebike Locks guide for more options.
Should I Build My Own Bike?
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Many affordable bikes now come direct-to-consumer—meaning that they are pre-tuned or partially assembled in a box. As Peter Flax recently noted in Bicycling magazine, these bikes do not get nearly the testing or vetting that bikes from a bigger manufacturer get. Unless you’re not riding much or for many miles, or are experienced with modifying your own bike, I recommend working with an established manufacturer that has a dealer network.
What Terrain Do You Live On?
If you live in a flat area, you’re probably fine with a 250-watt motor, which is the European speed standard. However, if you live near hills or haul a lot of stuff, you might want to consider a 500-watt or 750-watt motor and a few extras, like hydraulic disc brakes, which will help prevent you from skidding into traffic.
How Do I Prevent Bike Fires?
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The idea of your garage suddenly setting alight is terrifying, but don’t worry—the batteries that manufacturers use today are much safer than those of yore. We only write about bikes that have been certified safe by a third-party organization. Also, exercise a bit of common sense. Do not leave your bike battery charging overnight in a boiling hot garage. Don’t use aftermarket accessories to charge your bike. And don’t plug in a battery that has deformed or smells weird, or try to turn on a bike with a cracked display or computer.
Follow Some Basic Safety Tips
Not sure where to start? The biking advocacy group PeopleForBikes has a safety education program, E-Bike Smart, which it created in collaboration with the League of American Bicyclists and Bicycle Colorado. Do not let your children ride your bike unsupervised. An 80-pound child should not be piloting a 65-pound bike, even if the motor makes it possible for them to do so. And always wear a helmet, but you already know that. Right?
Over the past few years, WIRED’s Reviews team has tried almost every kind of electric bike, from the best heavy-duty cargo bikes to high-end mountain bikes. We review upward of 50 new ebikes a year by riding them on a variety of terrain for at least 40 miles over the course of at least two weeks. We test cargo bikes by hauling kids and groceries, we ride mountain and gravel bikes on trails, and we test commuter bikes while running errands on regular city streets (including up and down steep hills). In addition to our real-life testing, we also evaluate specs like weight, tire size, battery life, motor power, and the sourcing of key components.
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Whenever I talk to anyone about a possible ebike purchase, the biggest deterrent is usually the price. If this is you, check out our guide to the Best Cheap Ebikes. But I do want to say here that these are vehicles, not toys. When I’m carrying my kids to school or flying down a hill at 25 mph, I want the safest possible ride, and I think you should too.
Reasonable auto financing options are the only reason a $2,000 electric bike can feel prohibitively expensive while a $6,000 beater gas-powered car has easy monthly payments. Many states now feature incentive programs that offer rebates or tax credits for ebike purchases. Some bike manufacturers and retailers offer financing through companies like Affirm or PayPal. Your bank might cover ebikes under its vehicle loan program, and I also recommend looking at eBay locally, Craigslist, or local Facebook groups. You probably have more options than you think.
Ebike Classifications and Rules
Before you buy your electric bike, make sure you can actually use it! Many cities and states have laws regulating when and where you can ride an ebike. Check out our guide on the three classes of ebikes. At least 22 states now use this three-class system, and they may restrict when and where different classes of ebikes are used, depending on whether they have a throttle or can assist above 20 mph. Cities may also have laws about whether mountain ebikes are allowed on single-track trails. If your state classifies ebikes under the same laws governing motorcycles and mopeds, you may need a license to ride one.
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