It’s fair to say China dominates in electric vehicle sales. The country is the world’s biggest consumer of electric cars and has dozens of automakers competing in the space. Last year, Chinese companies sold about 9.5 million EVs and plug-in hybrid cars. But the industry faces mounting trade pressures. The Biden administration imposed a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs which President-elect Donald Trump is expected to continue. Meanwhile the European Union recently raised tariffs up to 45%, citing concerns that Chinese government subsidies give the companies an unfair advantage. Subsidies certainly help but there are other factors giving Chinese EV’s an edge. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty spoke with Marketplace’s China correspondent Jennifer Pak about how those factors could keep Chinese EV makers competitive, even in a more restrictive global market.

As we close out the year and look ahead at 2025, we wanted to mark an anniversary of sorts: 20 years ago, the online review site Yelp was launched — the name reportedly a mashup of “help” and “Yellow Pages.” In the two decades since the site launched, the website has changed the business of online reviews and our relationship to review culture, even has fake review continue being generated.

This episode originally aired Sept. 23, 2024.

You might say online gambling has been on a winning streak since a Supreme Court decision in 2018 cleared the way for states to allow sports betting. It’s now legal in 30 states and its influence is hard to miss: Online sportsbook companies like DraftKings and FanDuel are on billboards, commercials even college campuses, many of which have made deals with sports betting companies. Yanely Espinal, host of Marketplace’s “Financially Inclined” podcast, recently covered this topic on her show and she explained to Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino how these online betting companies are reeling in younger users.

This episode is a rerun and originally aired Sept. 11, 2024.

Over the last couple of years, the tech industry has slashed hundreds of thousands of jobs, many of them in recruiting and other departments working to improve diversity. Companies like Meta and Google, which earlier set ambitious hiring and investment goals, have pulled resources from those efforts. As a result, many nonprofit groups set up to train and recruit underrepresented workers are struggling to stay afloat. One prominent person in the field is Lisa Mae Brunson, founder of the nonprofit Wonder Women Tech. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino asked her how things have changed.

Raise your hand if you kind of forgot where the word podcast comes from. The now-catchall term for digital audio shows goes back to the Apple iPod. And it’s been almost two decades now since Apple helped bring podcasts mainstream by adding them to iTunes. “We’re going to list thousands of podcasts and you’ll be able to click on them, download them for free, and subscribe to them right in iTunes,” said then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs at the 2005 Worldwide Developers Conference. So, what was the business of podcasting like at the beginning, and where might it go from here? Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty asked Nicholas Quah, podcast critic for Vulture and New York Magazine.

The House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence released a lengthy report this week that doesn’t recommend any specific policies or bills. We’ll also look ahead at what the new year could bring the robotaxi business. But first, the TikTok ban is heading to the Supreme Court. A federal appeals court last week upheld the law that would ban the short-form video app if its Chinese owners don’t sell it by Jan. 19. TikTok asked the court to weigh in, and this week SCOTUS agreed. Lily Jamali, tech correspondent at the BBC, joins Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino to discuss the news.

Voice cloning is becoming easier, faster and more convincing. Artificial Intelligence makes it possible to change the age of an actor’s voice, translate words into any language, and replace a voice lost through illness. But it’s also increasingly being used by criminals to impersonate a loved one, extort money or compromise bank accounts. It’s changing how we communicate with each other and how we trust each other. And experts say we’re already at the point where AI voice cloning can be used for real time conversations. So how are the U.S., the U.K. and Europe handling regulation of this rapidly-evolving new technology?

About 170 million U.S. users could be TikTokless as soon as Jan. 19. Early this month, a federal appeals court upheld a law that could ban the very popular short-form video app unless its Chinese owners agree to sell it. They have a willing buyer, though, in billionaire Frank McCourt, who has assembled a consortium of investors ready to put down more than $20 billion. He’s the founder of the internet reform initiative Project Liberty. You may also know him as a real estate developer who once owned the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The artificial intelligence boom and its hunger for electricity has brought a surge of interest in nuclear power. Microsoft, for instance, made a deal to restart the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania, while Google and Amazon have invested in companies developing small, modular reactors. The Joe Biden administration’s Department of Energy aims to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050, but the sector will need a lot more workers to make that happen. By some estimates there’s a gap of more than 200,000 jobs to fill over the next decade. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Craig Piercy, CEO of the American Nuclear Society, to learn more about the hunt for talent.

As we approach President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration next month, questions are coming up about how his second administration might deal with tech. A lot has changed in the industry and its relationship to the former president since his first go-round. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Reed Albergotti, tech editor at the news site Semafor, to help us decode some of the signals, starting with artificial intelligence and the man Trump has named as his AI czar, venture capitalist David Sacks.