Several expressway service areas in south China's Guangdong Province have significantly expanded their charging infrastructure to meet the growing demand for long-distance travel using electric vehicles (EVs), introducing innovative solutions such as mobile charging robots and volunteer service teams.
As people across the country return home from their Spring Festival travels, the Yayao Service Area on Guangdong's Foshan-Kaiping Expressway has been bustling with activity.
Motorists charge up their vehicles either at supercharging piles or using mobile charging robots -- portable power banks that have been proven especially useful during peak traffic hours.
Currently, volunteers manually move the robots to the cars, but some users are already anticipating a future where they could provide a fully automatic charging experience.
"Having this mobile charging robot is great. It would be even better if I could just scan a code and have it follow me to my parking spot to charge my car. That would be the most convenient," said an NEV driver.
China's expressway travelers welcome mobile EV chargers
A drone belonging to Iran's armed forces completed a "surveillance mission" in international waters Tuesday, Iranian media reported, shortly after the U.S. military said it had shot down an Iranian aircraft that "aggressively approached" an aircraft carrier.
Citing unnamed sources, the Fars news agency reported that the drone "successfully" monitored military movements in areas adjacent to Iran and transmitted data to ground bases in real time.
The U.S. Central Command said earlier in the day that a U.S. F-35C warplane "was forced" to shoot down an Iranian Shahed-139 drone in the Arabian Sea. The command stated that the drone had "unnecessarily maneuvered" toward the USS Abraham Lincoln while the carrier was transiting international waters approximately 800 km from the Iranian coast.
Also on Tuesday, several Iranian gunboats approached a U.S.-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz north of Oman, British media reported, citing maritime sources and a security consultancy.
Iran's Fars news agency said a vessel entered Iranian territorial waters without the necessary legal permits, was warned and left the area, citing unnamed Iranian officials, according to media reports.
The U.S. Central Command said a guided-missile U.S. destroyer responded to the scene and escorted the ship, and the situation de-escalated as a result.
The encounters came amid tentative prospects for U.S.-Iran talks in the coming days.
Earlier in the day, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said he had instructed the Foreign Ministry to pursue "fair and equitable" negotiations with the United States.
Writing on social media platform X, Pezeshkian said the move followed requests from regional governments to respond to a negotiation proposal from U.S. President Donald Trump. He said any talks must take place within a framework of "dignity, prudence and expediency."
While Türkiye has offered to mediate, Iran appears to be seeking to limit the scope of the discussions. U.S. outlet Axios, citing informed sources, reported that Iran prefers Oman as a venue and favors direct talks with the U.S. rather than a broader format involving Arab and Muslim states.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said consultations were underway to finalize a venue for talks expected in the coming days, the official IRNA reported. Baghaei said Türkiye, Oman, and several other regional countries had expressed readiness to host the talks, which Iran highly values.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told the press on Tuesday that negotiations between the U.S. and Iran are still scheduled for later this week.
U.S.-Iran drone encounter clouds prospects for talks
