Opening thoughts. The iconic Nürburgring racetrack is where the motoring worlds mix. Located in the Eifel mountains in Germany, it is the world’s longest, most sought-after and most famous permanent racing complex. It is also called ‘Green Hell’ because it is surrounded by dense forests. An automotive playground for car enthusiasts, supercar and sports car owners and there are weekends when it all gets relegated to the background as this historic racing venue must host a serious race. It is also the ultimate testing ground for global car manufacturers. A few days ago, a Xiaomi YU7 GT was passed around.
Timing of the YU7 GT, 10 minutes and 29.483 seconds. No big deal, you might say? Well, the official road-legal production car lap record is 6:29.090 and the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT completed the same lap in 6:55.533. The big thing is that there was no human driver driving the car. The YU7 GT, which Xiaomi configured with the Track Package, became the first car to set an official driverless lap record at the Nürburgring racetrack. The entire journey on this extremely difficult track, on autopilot. It produces markers for vehicle manufacturers.
For specific perspective, the YU7 GT electric SUV (there’s no mild stripped down trim, it’s that big) features Xiaomi’s proprietary “Super Motor V8s EVO” setup, which produces 1,003 horsepower (738 kW) and the company says it can accelerate from 0 to 62 mph (100 km/h) in just 2.92 seconds. It features an advanced 897-volt silicon carbide high-voltage platform paired with a 101.7 kWh ternary lithium battery pack, which has a special cooling architecture to protect the cells from overheating under rapid acceleration and extreme lateral g-forces.
First, on Wired Knowledge
editor’s margin
case of price rise
One reason for this is the avoidable West Asia conflict. One reason for this is the equally avoidable AI hype. Phones, PCs, storage devices and everything else is getting more expensive. This is because the cost of key components, including memory and storage, is now very high, and they are in short supply. Some have announced obvious price increases in recent weeks – Samsung, Xiaomi, Nothing, Dell, Lenovo – almost all. Some announced, some reflected directly on the shop floor.
Or in Sony’s case, there appears to be an artificial shortage of PlayStation 5 consoles for months as retailers are expecting further increases and are likely to hold stock for that moment.
Anyway, the reason to talk about this is because of Apple announcing price improvements in the Mac, iPad and Home line-up. iPhone, not yet. And this is where I expect other tech companies to move forward with another round of pricing reforms, which will ultimately elicit some form of outrage from Apple. The iPad, 11th generation, is now ₹₹15,000 more expensive—and that’s a significant change for an entry-point product (it’s now approx.) ₹Rs 49,900 instead of Rs. ₹34,900). The base variant MacBook Neo will now set you back ₹Rs 79,900 instead of Rs. ₹69,900. As much as the iPad Pro sees ₹MacBook Pro 16-inch price hiked by Rs 40,000 ₹Mac Studio with Rs 1,00,000 and M3 Ultra chip will now be available ₹1,70,000 more expensive.
The big question is what will happen to the price of the iPhone? And it’s going to dictate the broader smartphone sector, make no mistake. Research from Smart Analytics Global (SAG) suggests Apple will still meet an estimated 250 million iPhone shipments worldwide in 2026, with the caveat that Apple may maintain the launch price of the iPhone 17 lineup, while increasing select prices for the higher-end iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max models in September 2026.
There is talk of tiered pricing. “The price adjustment is likely to focus on the iPhone 18 Pro family and may vary by memory configuration. We expect the 256GB model to see only a modest increase, while the 512GB and 1TB variants may see an increase of around US$100-200. The new 2TB iPhone 18 Pro Max is expected to get an even bigger premium of around US$200-300. Apple supports iPhone 17 family and others Shipment volumes are likely to maintain competitive pricing for older models,” he says.
SAG expects the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and foldable iPhones to account for about 21% of total iPhone shipments in 2026.
India has suffered a slightly bigger blow in terms of price rise. While global prices increased by around 15-20% due to shortage of the above component, recalculated pricing in India sits in the range of 20-58%. It also has something to do with currency exchange rates and factoring in import duties. I don’t believe Apple considers pricing $1= ₹Now 100.
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Tech Spotlight
URBN 200W Gan Power Hub
Those of you who are regular readers will know how much I love a good charging hub for the desk. The more powerful, the better. Some recent favorites include those made by Acefast, as well as Stuffcool and UltraProlink. If a hub is good (staying cool is important when pushed to the theoretical maximum charge limit), real utility can be found. A laptop, multiple phones, maybe even a tablet, can all be powered and charged in parallel. Plus, the clutter is drastically reduced (and that’s the ticket, in my book).
There is a new hub that arrived on my desk (in its rightful place) a few days ago. Urban 200-Watt GaN Power Hub, which costs a lot less though ₹It has its own cradle for Rs 6,999 if you want to keep it vertically. This is the first indication of the heavy duty nature of this charging solution. It is a 6-port design, with four USB-C ports and two USB-A ports. Build quality is perhaps best judged by the thickness of the 1.5-meter long power cord. The multi-level circuit is invisible from security point of view.
This hub’s calculations work like this – each USB-C port can supply up to 100-Watts (USB-A is limited to 18-Watts each), meaning it’s entirely possible to have two drawing 100-Watts each depending on what your device demands. For example, powering a MacBook Pro 14-inch with an M5 Pro chip, and charging a Xiaomi 17 Ultra simultaneously. You can make use of the available 200-watts by using all four USB-C ports or a mix of the older USB-A ports for smartwatches or headphones.
I’ve repeatedly mentioned that Gallium Nitride, as a fast charging technology, has been tremendous in making this gadget ecosystem relevant and useful. The main reason for this is lower heat generation and better dissipation, which allows charge delivery at a faster rate for a sustained period of time. This is exactly what the Urban 200-Watt GaN Power Hub excels at. It can become the primary power source on your workstation. Urban also talks about the longevity of the batteries charged with this power hub. Multi-layer protection includes overcurrent protection and temperature monitoring.
