We may earn a commission from links on this page.The Cardio Load calculation, previously only on on the Pixel Watch 3, has now rolled out to all recent Fitbit models (and the other Pixel Watches) without a Fitbit Premium subscription. So what is it, and what exactly does it mean to hit your target? Ill explain.What is cardio load?Cardio load is a way of understanding how much exercise youve been doing, whether it was logged as a workout or not. Exercising for a longer time, and exercising at a higher intensity, both bump up your cardio load.So, for example, on a day that you go for a five-mile run at an easy pace, youll have a higher cardio load in their Fitbit app than a day you ran three miles at an easy pace. If you run three miles at a more intense pacesay you race a 5Kyour cardio load will be somewhere in between.Here are a few examples from some workouts I did:A track workout that had me alternating between moderate and peak heart rate zones for an hour (total five miles) had a cardio load of 117.20 minutes of detangling my kids hair got logged as a workout, but since my heart rate was in the light zone the whole time, I didnt get any cardio load.A 53-minute gym workout, which included a mix of heavy lifts and lighter continuous work, clocked in at a cardio load of 63.The load here is in the sense of workload. If this summer you were exercising an hour a day, and right now youre only getting in 30 minutes every other day, your cardio load for the week (and for each day) will be lower than it was in the summer. Makes sense, right? If you were to spend all next week exercising an hour a day, that would be way higher than your current cardio loadand the Fitbit app would let you know that youve suddenly increased your cardio load and might want to chill a bit.What is your target cardio load?The fitbit app automatically calculates a target cardio load based on what youre used to doing. You can choose whether you want to improve your fitness (in which case it will nudge you to crank your load up a little higher each week) or maintain your current fitness. Youll find this setting when you look at your cardio load. Just tap on fitness target near the bottom.The actual numbers of your target will change from week to week. For example, Id been wearing a Fitbit Charge 6 for some testing (youll hear more about that soon), but took a break from wearing it for a while. The Fitbit app tells me today that its adjusted my cardio load scale from 0-247 (when I was more active) to 0-191 (which it thinks is more appropriate to what I should aim for now).I havent logged enough activities lately to get a more detailed score, and Ill update you guys when I get the full experience.Which devices have cardio load? As of December 2024, the devices that have cardio load are: Pixel Watches 1, 2, and 3Fitbit Charge 5 and 5Fitbit Versa 2, 3, and 4Fitbit Sense 1 and 2FItbit LuxeFitbit Inspire 2 and 3 Fitbit Charge 6 $118.50 at Walmart $159.95 Save $41.45 Get Deal Get Deal $118.50 at Walmart $159.95 Save $41.45 Your cardio load is viewable on the Fitbit app (but not necessarily on your device) for most of the above. The Pixel watches can show you your cardio load on-screen.Other apps and platforms have their own versions of cardio load. For example, some Garmin devices measure a Training Load (along with acute/chronic load, and load focus), but it's calculated and displayed a bit differently from Fitbit's. This article is just discussing the Fitbit/Pixel version.What is the difference between cardio load and active zone minutes?Both metrics describe how much exercise youre getting, and give you extra credit for hard exercise compared to moderate exercise. But they have different purposes, and are calculated a bit differently.The purpose of active zone minutes is to figure out whether youre meeting some basic exercise targets for health. Active zone minutes match the U.S. Physical Activity Guidelines, which recommend that we all get 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week, or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise. In other words, its a count of minutes, with vigorous exercise (like running) counting double. This is why your 30-minute workout might count for 45 zone minutes, if 15 of those minutes were moderate and 15 were vigorous (15 x 2 = 30).(Theres a caveat on that: Fitbit uses your heart rate to estimate whether a given minute of exercise was vigorous or moderate for you. The original guidelines used METs, not heart rate, so its not a perfect match. But its close enough to be useful.)Cardio load, meanwhile, is a metric more often used by athletes to make sure their exercise effort is within the optimal range to improve or maintain their fitness. Fitbit uses a modified version of the TRIMP algorithm, which basically multiplies your heart rate times the number of minutes you were at that heart rate. If your heart rate is below a certain level, it doesnt get counted, which is why my hair-brushing sessions didnt count for any cardio load.With cardio load, you arent just looking to beat a minimum to give yourself a passing grade. Youre trying to stay within a specific window, which is defined by the amount of exercise youre used to doing. If you do a little more exercise every week, you can stay within your target range while pushing up the boundaries of that target range. Thats how you get fitter. On the other hand, if youre doing a lot more or a lot less exercise this week than your body is used to, you could end up losing some fitness (if youre doing less) or making yourself more fatigued than usual (if youre doing more). Depending on where you are in your training, these arent necessarily a bad thing. But with a cardio target to compare your load to, at least you know where you stand.

Making festive cookies for the holidays doesnt have to mean owning six types of sprinkles or having three different sugars on hand. In fact, some of my holiday favorites have shockingly few ingredients with no decorations necessary, barring the occasional shake of powdered sugar. If you think cookies should be easy to make and easier to consume, youre in the right place. Here are 13 of my favorite Christmas cookies that use five ingredients or fewer, and are completely decoration-optional. (Note that many of them also dont use flour, so this list has a surprising amount of gluten-free options.)Pignoli cookies Credit: Brent Hofacker / Shutterstock.com Walk into any Italian bakery and, no matter what your original intention was, look for the pignoli cookie first. It may not be as flashy as the rainbow cookie, but that knobbly little blob is a secret crowd favorite, and with good reason. Pignoli cookies are soft, chewy, and utterly almondy. The price tag might seem a little high, but theres a reason for that too. The ingredients are almond paste, sugar, egg whites, and pine nuts. Theyre not ingredients I would spring for on a regular basis, but the holidays are a special time of year where I manage to find the extra 10 bucks. Chewy, light, and brimming with almond flavor, with a light resin aroma, pignoli cookies are unlike any other cookie out there.Peanut butter and banana oatmeal cookiesA good cookie list isnt complete without some form of oatmeal cookie, so heres one thats sure to be a favorite. Besides the rolled oats, each of the other three ingredients is a flavor powerhouse. Ripe banana, chocolate chips, and peanut butter fill out the roster, and unlike most of the other cookies on this list, theres no added sugar. Mash all of the ingredients in a bowl, scoop, and bake. One bite of these will feel a little bit like childhood, and a little bit like youre eating healthily so you can have another.Shortbread CookiesSitting down with a good shortbread cookie and a cup of tea sounds like something the (British) grandma version of me would do. Make it coffee, and Ill enjoy them regardless because baking a batch of shortbread is pretty darn effortless. The first cookie on our list with any flour in it, shortbreads only require the aforementioned and an addition of butter and sugar. The resulting treat is lightly sweet, incredibly tender, and delicious year-round. Most shortbread cookies hold their shape very well, so you can stamp a pattern into them, or cut them into shapes if youd like a bit of decoration.Meringue kissesSurprisingly simple and completely fat-free, meringue kisses make a festive, sweet treat during these chilly months. Whipped egg whites and sugar are the only two ingredients you need. Some recipes call upon the support of cream of tartar, and a few drops of any extract or flavoring you like, but if you only had a couple eggs in the fridge, and your trusty canister of sugar, no one would be able to stop you. Depending on how far you want to dive into decoration, you can keep it simple and add a few drops of food coloring to the mix, or turn these cookies into a cute afternoon project with your kids. Stack a couple meringue drops with frosting and add candy accessories to make crunchy, sweet snowmen.A simple but elegant kransekake Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann If you're looking for a show-stopping edible centerpiece that only requires four ingredients (inclusive of decoration) then look no further than the Norwegian kransekake. The dough is made from almond flour, powdered sugar, egg white, and a couple drops of almond extract and the icing is royal icing, which is simply more powdered sugar and egg white. Read here to get my holiday kransekake recipe.Peanut butter cookiesI dont need to sell anyone on making peanut butter cookies. They could require 50 ingredients if that meant theyd taste as good. Luckily you only really need three. Since peanut butter already has peanut solids (no need for added flavoring) and plenty of naturally occurring fat, making it into a cookie only calls for a little sweetness, and adequate binding to pull it all together. Let me introduce you to granulated sugar and an egg. Mix it all together and youre ready to scoop your way to holiday happiness.Amaretti CookiesAnother cookie that practically makes itself is the amaretti, an Italian almond flour cookie with a tiny ingredient list and a whole lot of flavor. You can make these chewy treats with just the three base ingredients, almond flour, sugar, and egg whites, but many recipes will add a drop of almond flavoring or amaretto liqueur. Roll the dough into one-inch balls, and cover them in powdered sugar before baking. This step is optional, but the cookies will expand in the oven and cause the sugar coating to attractively crack. No other decoration required.Coconut macaroonsThese arent those French almond dainties, tauntingly pastel and demure in the bakery window and selling for a whopping three bucks a pop. Were talking big, chunky piles of chewy coconut. The macaroon is a coconut lovers happy place and its more than easy to get a one way ticket there. Recipes vary, but at the root of it all, you need a sack of sweetened coconut flakes, a binder, and a sweetener. Usually that comes in the form of sweetened condensed milk or egg whites. Mix the ingredients together, scoop, and bake until the bottom edges take on a hint of color and the flakes on top begin to toast.Flourless dark chocolate cookies Credit: Lillior / Shutterstock For a cookie that tastes like a deeply fudgy brownie, but is actually much easier to make than any brownie, try these flourless chocolate cookies. I first tasted something like this at Whole Foods, where they labeled it a chocolate chewy, and it was full of chopped walnuts. This recipe uses optional chocolate chips instead, but if you like mix-ins then I have a sneaking suspicion you could add an equal amount of anything else. Use pecans, potato chips, corn flakes, or crumbled bacon to make this chocolate chewy your own fantastic creation. Almond lace cookiesDespite their delicate and intricate appearance, lace cookies are very simple to make. Also called Florentines, these are the crispy, paper thin, golden brown cookies that are sometimes (thankfully) sandwiching a layer of dark chocolate. Theyre delicious. Theyre named lace cookies because the sugary batter will bubble in the oven, and as it cools, the bubbles pop and leave holes behind. Since almond lace cookies are mostly made of liquid sugars and butter, the batter will be loose. Be sure to leave ample space between each cookie because theyll spread even more while baking. Adding a dark chocolate coating is decadent, but completely up to you, these crispy buddies are perfect on their own.Sugar cookiesShes a classic. Composed of just a few ingredients, the sugar cookie is an extremely versatile mixture. Scoop it into mounds, or roll it out for cookie cutters, the holidays are better with a batch of these. With nearly the same ingredients as shortbread cookies, sugar cookies have more, well, sugar. (Tough to build suspense there.) They also use granulated sugar instead of confectioners because, unlike shortbread, sugar cookies arent crumbly and subtle, theyre meant to be chewy bombs of sweetness. Blend the butter and sugar together before mixing in the flour. Scoop them onto a baking sheet, and if you have some sprinkles laying around, smash a few on top. Bake as directed.Nutella cookiesAlthough it is tempting to simply take a spoon to your Nutella jar, its not exactly shareable for holiday visitors, and even less appropriate for shipping cookies to loved ones. Instead of squeezing brown paste into a cookie tin, make these delicious treats that have an equally intense flavor profile, and are a little more handheld. Mix Nutella, flour, and an egg in a bowl until you make a thick dough. Shape into rounds and bake them for a chewy delight.Chocolate almond cookies Credit: this_baker / Shutterstock.com Minimal ingredient cookies have the added benefit of being minimal effort, and these cookies absolutely follow suit. Simply add all of the ingredients to a bowl and stir. Scoop these onto a parchment lined baking sheet and bake. The almond flour provides a pleasant texture, the sugar and cocoa powder balance out sweet and bitter, and the baking powder keeps the cookie from being a claggy brick. This recipe uses palm sugar but notes at the bottom that you can replace it with an equal amount of white or brown granulated sugar.

No game this year captured the imagination of the Engadget crew quite like Balatro did, and when it came time for each staff member to pitch their favorite games of 2024, everyone and I mean everyone wanted to write about Balatro. In the end, rather than forcing everyone to fight for the chance to write about their love of the game, we instead decided to ask the team to write their own individual take on Balatro.My Steam Deck is a Balatro machine and I love itMy Steam Deck is a Balatro machine at this point, and no, Im not complaining about this. Ive broken out my Steam Deck for plenty of games before Balatro and I plan on playing lots more on it in the future, but for now and potentially until I take my final breath, its primary function is joker generation.First of all, Balatro just feels nice on a handheld device. Its the kind of game that you can play passively while watching TV or listening to a podcast, or with intense focus as you try to collect jokers, stakes, achievements and stickers on the way to Completionist++. The Steam Deck is the ideal platform for this type of game, because, especially in combination with a comfy PC setup, it allows players to flow between these two states without losing progression. The mobile version of Balatro is rad and the Switch version is peachy, but I started playing on PC and, more than 500 hours later, Im reluctant to start over on any other platform.I absolutely love curling up on the couch with Balatro, playing it on the PC at my desk, using it as a distraction on long commutes, and getting a few hands in before bed. The Balatro Machine uh, I mean, Steam Deck enables my obsession in a seamless way. Jessica Conditt, Senior ReporterBalatro is a card game you can feelBalatro is a game you mostly play in your head. Theres a giant array of modifier cards, each with their own effects and consequences, and you work through their permutations like youre tinkering with a chemistry kit. Its a game of decisions, all of which are contingent on the decisions youve made prior. Some work, most blow up in your face.This is what makes Balatro engaging, but its not my favorite thing about it. What I like most is how tangible it is. How it makes a digital playing card game have any felt impact at all. Its the little tck and shake each card does when scored. The donk when a joker adds to your multiplier, the way the donks speed up and rise in pitch as buffs and retriggers pile up. The thrrrp of the deck reshuffling. The brief delay upon opening a booster pack to raise anticipation, how the pack disintegrates to emphasize the finality of your decision. The sound of coins colliding when you collect interest or buy something. The fire that burns and rises around your score when youve passed the goal in one hand, a dopamine hit within a dopamine hit. The way the air gets sucked out of the trancy music when you inevitably fail.You are not a character in Balatro. Youre just you, staring at cards set against swirling colors. Yet all of these flourishes go a long way toward sucking you into that vortex, really locking you in it, somehow giving a game that most resembles video poker a sense of physical place. Balatro is, among many things, an A-1 example of economical sound design. The easiest way to dilute it is to play it on mute. Jeff Dunn, Senior ReporterThe real Balatro was the joker stickers we earned along the wayI am not an achievement hunter Im the sort of person who skips sidequests that arent interesting and rarely replays games after finishing them. The one Platinumed game in my PlayStation collection is the PS4 version of Resogun, and I have 100-percented precisely zero games on Xbox. Why, then, was 2024 the year that I became obsessed with achieving Completionist++ on Balatro?I received the Completionist Steam achievement, which you get by discovering every card in the game, after a month with the game. It took me another five months to get Completionist+, awarded to those who beat Ante 8 with every deck on gold difficulty. The one thing left for me to do was the games toughest challenge: Competitionist++, which involves getting gold stickers on every joker by beating Ante 8 on gold difficulty with each of them active.As of writing, Completionist++ is still a distant dream. Its easy to feel like youve mastered the game after beating Completionist+; There are simple joker combinations that can take you past Ante 8 with every deck. Completionist++ strips those safety nets from you, forcing you to beat the games hardest level without relying on surefire strategies. While I do occasionally miss my high-score chasing early days with Balatro, this challenge has given the game a completely new dynamic for me, as I figure out how to craft a win out of jokers I considered useless before.If youve made your way through all the stakes and are wondering what to do next, Completionist++ is a challenge worth setting yourself. Just a word of warning: Ive played for 460 hours across my PC and Steam Deck, and Ive only unlocked 961 of the games 1,200 stickers. Aaron Souppouris, Executive EditorBalatro is a deep, complex game for filthy casuals like meSome of my friends and co-workers are taking Balatro to some wild extremes. Aaron told me he's unlocked and completed about 95 percent of the game; I meanwhile sit at a paltry 19 percent. Another friend routinely shares quick videos from his runs where he racks up hundreds of millions of points in a single hand with Jokers I can't fathom, while my best single hand sits at a little over 3 million.The good thing, though? This isnt discouraging; its a feature, not a bug. Balatro has somehow managed to be the kind of game you can sink hundreds of hours into in an all-out quest for completion and mastery. Or you can do as I do and pick it up, play for 30 minutes or an hour a few times a week, and come back to it again with plenty to do when you get the itch.Dont get me wrong, Id love to get to the point where Im grabbing a billion points on a single hand, but my gaming time is limited and I usually choose to spend it on the PS5. But one of the great joys of Balatro is that you can go on a bender and play it for hours, and then not come back to it for days or weeks, and then just pick it up and keep making progress. Youre not going to lose any skills or forget your objectives. Its a casual, pick-up-and-play game that also hides some incredible depth, and games like that dont come around too often. Nathan Ingraham, Deputy EditorBalatro is an almost perfect mobile port2024 is unquestionably the year of Balatro. It came out of nowhere to fill our heads with dreams of flush fives and legendary Jimbos. But I think what put it really over the top was when it launched on iOS and Android earlier this fall. Not only did the mobile version cost $5 less than the desktop edition on Steam (or console ports), but there are no intrusive ads or extra purchases anywhere in the game. That's including all the crossover cardbacks (like the ones featuring characters from The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077 and more) and the big forthcoming update due out at the beginning of next year.On top of that, theres essentially no difference in features between the mobile and desktop/console versions. Granted, thats due in large part to the game being a relatively simple title (at least in terms of graphics). But even so, youd be surprised how easy that is to mess up. The game boots up nearly instantly and even when youre smashing antes while pushing your score deep into scientific notation, the system doesnt get bogged down. Throw in a satisfying interface, support for cloud saves, multiple languages and profiles plus a high contrast option that's great for accessibility, and you've got an app that plays well on practically any device.In fact, Id argue that foldables like the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 are the perfect joker-hunting devices. Their large screens feel like a perfect match for Balatro without ever feeling cramped, which happens sometimes on older gadgets with less roomy displays. Text is generally easy to read (though sometimes less so on tiny devices) and theres plenty of open space to push things around without getting in your own way. I have a few minor complaints you can read about in my longer piece on Balatro's beauty on mobile devices, but as a whole I'm confident Im going to get more than my moneys worth for years to come. Sam Rutherford, Senior ReporterThis article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/engadgets-balatro-of-the-year-2024-140021833.html?src=rss

Hyundai is offering select EV buyers a free CCS to NACS (North American Charging Standard) adapter so that they can charge current models at Tesla's Supercharger stations. That will allow owners to charge CCS-port Hyundai models at Tesla's 20,000 strong Supercharger network, once shipping starts in Q1 2025.Hyundai is offering the free adapter to owners of 2024 and earlier Kona Electric, Ioniq 5, Ioniq 6 and Ioniq hatchback models, along with 2025 Ioniq 6, Ioniq 5N, Kona Electric Genesis EVs. You'll be able to get the free adapter through the MyHyundai owner site. The adapters will be offered to anyone who purchased a Hyundai EV before January 31, 2025. Sibling brand Kia is also offering free NACS adapters to select customers starting next year, with a full list of supported models set to arrive soon.The automaker is joining Ford in offering the perk to its users, and other manufacturers are likely to do the same in the near future. That's because the US government recently announced that NACS is becoming an open industry standard that's likely to be widely used in charger networks across the continent.Future models won't need the adapter, as Hyundai has joined a host of automakers in changing its charging ports to NACS. That'll begin with the 2025 Ioniq 5, which will have access to Tesla Superchargers as soon as it ships, according to Tesla. Older CCS-based models don't currently have access, but Tesla is likely to enable that once the adapter ships.The news is significant because Hyundai recently became second largest seller of EVs in North America next to Tesla. The company currently sells four models: the Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 5N crossovers, Ioniq 6 sedan and Kona Electric SUV. Kia, meanwhile, offers the EV6 crossover, EV9 SUV and Niro EV.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/hyundai-will-offer-its-ev-customers-free-nacs-adapters-starting-next-year-130010136.html?src=rss

Honda and Nissan have officially confirmed the rumors that they're pursuing a merger. Both would still operate under their brands but with a new joint holding company as parent. If Nissan-controlled Mitsubishi also came on board, the combined group would become the world's third-largest automaker by sales volume, with a net worth of up to $50 billion.Nissan and Honda previously announced plans to work together on EV development, but the joint company would be far more integrated. According to the press release, it could include standardizing vehicle platforms, unifying research and development teams, and optimizing manufacturing systems and facilities. This could help cut costs.In the US, Nissan sells large pickup trucks and SUVs that Honda doesn't offer, alongside more experience in EVs and plug-in electric vehicles. On the other side, Honda has relatively stable financials while Nissan has been struggling, particularly at home in Japan. Mat SmithThe biggest tech stories you missedWhite House calls for investigation into Chinas alleged anti-competitive semiconductor industryX hikes ad-free Premium+ subscription price from $16 to $22In Infinity Nikki, photo mode achieves its ultimate formGet this delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!Meta is reportedly adding displays to its Ray-Ban smart glassesMostly for notifications.According to the Financial Times, Meta may add displays to its Ray-Ban smart glasses collaboration. These screens could appear in a future device iteration as early as next year. Its not aimed at full mixed reality, though. The screens will be on the smaller side and will likely be used to display notifications or responses from Metas AI virtual assistant.Continue reading.Fans made a native Star Fox 64 PC port with some modern flourishesThere shouldnt be any legal trouble coming from Nintendo.NintendoA group of fans have made a native PC port of Star Fox 64, which they are calling Starship. Harbour Masters, the team behind the project, used a tool that converts the original game ROM into PC executable code, so it doesnt use any proprietary Nintendo code. That means its technically legal. (Im sure Nintendo is looking into it.)Like previous ports, Starship features all kinds of modern bells and whistles to set itself apart from the 1997 original. The frame rate is higher and the port includes frame smoothing technology for better visuals. Theres also another major benefit: Its moddable.Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-120830875.html?src=rss

It remains unknown if Builder.ai archive is locked down or not.

GIMP 3.0 arrives with a fresh design, compatibility upgrades, and feedback-driven testing for the final version.

Sega CEO says the company won't be making more mini retro consoles.

Holiday travelers flying with American Airlines experienced widespread Christmas Eve disruptions on Tuesday after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that the airline had grounded all flights nationwide.The ground stop, which took place on one of the busiest travel days of the year, was lifted shortly after it was announcedsometime before 8 a.m. ETbut it appeared to cause delays well into the morning.On social media, travelers expressed their frustration, with American Airlines explaining on X that it was working to resolve the issue. Rest assured, our team is working on getting you back on track as soon as possible, the airline said in one reply.Earlier, American Airlines had said the stoppage was related to a technical issue. An advisory from the Philadelphia International Airport, meanwhile, alluded to computer issues.The airline later released a statement blaming a vendor technology issue and adding, That issue has been resolved and flights have resumed, ABC News reported.Fast Company has reached out to American Airlines for more details and will update this post when we hear back.According to data from AAA and Inrix, some 7.8 million U.S. travelers are expected to fly during the holiday period.This story is developing

Esperance Dushakimana looks at her field of potato in Musanze district in North Rwanda. It is hard, she says. We till the land, sow the seeds, reap the harvest and then watch helplessly while at least a fifth of it perishes before it reaches the market. Barely 30 miles away in Rubavu, mushroom farmer Vincent Ngamije is forced to sell his harvest on the cheap across the border in Congo, instead of in Kigali, Rwandas capital, where he can get a better price. The market in DRC is barely 40 minutes away, and in contrast, my mushrooms can reach Kigali only after spending five hours in a warm truck, he says. Barely 40% will survive.Esperance Dushakimana, potato farmer in Musanze, North Rwanda. [Photo: Geetanjali Krishna]In Rwandas agrarian, undulating landscape, farmers pedaling up or madly careening down hills, on bicycles piled four feet high with bananas, potatoes and other produce, are a common sight. Like Dushakimana and Ngamije, most farmers here either watch their harvest spoil, or grow only as much as they can get to market. The issue is global: About 25% to 30% of food produced worldwide is wasted. The Food and Agricultural Organization estimates that every year, about $400 billion worth of food is lost before it ever reaches the market. But in Rwanda, where over 4.8 million people (41% of the population) are undernourished and approximately one-fifth of the population is food insecure, food waste seems even more wasteful.Better logistics is an obvious solution, but it is not as simple as that. Long-haul diesel trucks have amassivecarbon footprint; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencyestimatesthat in 2022 more than 3% of all carbon dioxide emissions came from them.Traditional car manufacturers have failed to produce vehicles that suit a third of the worlds population, predominantly those in the Global South, says Simon Davis. He is the founder and CEO of the UK-based Ox Delivers, which has developed, according to the company website, the worlds first purpose-designed electric truck for Africa. It was launched in Rwanda in 2021 and is almost 10 times cheaper to run compared to existing alternatives. And it offers farmers the cost-effective choice of renting the space they need for as little as a dollar depending on weight and distance, instead of the entire truck (for about $500), to transport their agricultural produce from farm to market. Refrigeration capacity can be added to all these trucks (in fact cold trucks service Rwandas dairy farmers in Kivu, Western Rwanda) and the company has also developed a mountable cool box for non-refrigerated trucks.Farmers markets like this one in North Rwanda are not resilient to hot weather. [Photo: Geetanjali Krishna]The story of Ox began in 2013, when Sir Torquil Norman, the British pilot and toy entrepreneur famous for creating the Polly Pocket line of dolls, tasked the Formula 1 race car designer Gordon Murray to design a vehicle to transport goods in low-income countries. Murrays designa somewhat squat truck made of interchangeable and easy-to-maintain parts that could be shipped in easy-to-assemble flatpackswas practical, even if unlikely to win any auto beauty contests. In the next few years, Ox transformed into a logistics company, offering farmers ride shares for their produce for less than a dollar.Ox Truck in Rwandan market. [Photo: Ox Delivers]These ride shares, which Davis claims have been used to transport everything from cows to coffins, have positively boosted farmers bottom lines and supercharged African trade. My observation of the market is that actually the biggest problem isnt food waste, Davis says. There is food that [farmers] never bother to grow, because its just not going to get to the end. Thus far, the company has serviced over 4,000 customers, ranging from smallholder farmers and traders to large tea companies.With its recognizable branding and fleet of driverssome of them, unusually for Rwanda, young womenthe truck has been attracting attention, especially when it drops its payload in local markets. People see our truck, the Ox truck, they always crowd around and ask where has this truck come from? Muhoracyeye Lea, an Ox truck driver as well as manager of Ox Delivers Kigali Depot, says. They are even more interested when they see how we look after the cargo, keep it at the correct temperature. We talk to them, and this helps us to get new, different customers.The reduced spoilage of harvests and the convenient logisticshaveencouraged some of their customers to grow more and sell more.An Ox truck at a Rwandan market. [Photo: courtesy of Ox Delivers]In Kyazo, a fertile agricultural area in Rwandas Western Province, Jean Paul grows chili peppers. Until a couple of years ago, reaching Kigali was a logistical nightmare: He would load 100-kilo sacks of peppers onto three bicycles, push them to the nearest town, then haul them to the roof of a bus for a seven-hour journey to Kigali bus station. From here, he transferred the peppers to three motorbikes for delivery to the warehouse. This entire backbreaking process took two days. In 2021, when he began renting space in an Ox truck, the improved access to the market encouraged him to grow more. Today, he has gone from selling 400 to 4,000 kilograms of peppers a week to an exporter in Kigali, about 105 miles away.Claudine Uwiragiye has a similar story. Initially she joined with four other farmers to send their combined cassava harvest of two metric tons to the market in a single Ox truck. The financial benefits of directly accessing the market without middlemen made her confident of growing more. Now I can order up to two trucks of 1.5 [metric tons] twice a week on Monday and Thursday, which means that I can sell up to 3 [metric tons] of cassava a week, she says.Vincent Ngamije, mushroom farmer from Rubavu, next to the zero input cool chamber he is building. [Photo: Geetanjali Krishna]Eighty percent of their orders come from existing clients, Lea says, adding that once they have experienced the benefits of good logistics, the customers call again and again! While this is great news for Ox, which is consolidating its business in Rwanda, researchers point out that a lot more needs to be done before sustainable logistics companies can become a holistic solution to Rwandas food waste problem.At the Africa Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Cooling and Cold Chain (ACES) campus in Kigali, food systems expert and senior lecturer Jean Baptiste Ndahetuye talks about the pitfalls of narrowly focusing on sustainable logistics, instead of seeing it as part of a system of best practices that optimize food production. Sustainable cold transport is important, he points out, but only one link in this chain. Davis says that for their present roster of 2,000-plus clients in Rwanda, the cold chain is not something thats even halfway there.The Ox truck has been attracting attention, especially when it drops its payload in local markets. [Photo: Ox Delivers]Climate change-linkederratic weather conditions arent helping. In Rubavu, Ngamije returns from Goma, the market in Congo where he sells his mushroom crop. It has been unusually hot here and without a cool chamber, my harvest starts losing color and texture immediately, he says. And by the time I reached Goma in a non-AC vehicle, the mushrooms were in bad shape. The young farmer has been experimenting with designs for a zero-input cool chamber in his spare time, which would, he hopes, keep his mushrooms fresh for at least a couple of days extra. But transport to bigger markets in Kigali remains an issue, he says.With a fleet of two-dozen trucks and 47 drivers (12 of them being women), Ox Delivers has not yet managed to reach the length and breadth of Rwanda, which is barely the size of the state of Massachusetts. One reason for this is the inadequacy of public charging infrastructure beyond Kigali. While these EVs have a range of 170 kilometers, at present they need to return to the companys docking stations to recharge.In early 2024, Ox Delivers won a 1.2 milliongrantfrom the UKsEnergy Catalystto develop and expand sustainable energy infrastructure in Rwanda, which could add extra buzz to their expansion plans. Spreading awareness about the benefits of using sustainable cold chain technologies could help, and this is exactly what Ndahetuye and his colleagues are doing at the ACES campus in Kigali. They have trained over 1,000 students, farmers, engineers and technicians in cold chain technologies and explored how the creation of cold chain infrastructure can generate new jobs and businesses.My dream is for Rwanda to develop a series of cold rooms, and for Ox trucks to connect them all, Ferdinand Munezero, Ox Delivers training and development lead and alumnus of ACES, says. It will be good for business, but also for the country.This piece was originally published by Reasons to be Cheerful and was funded by the European Journalism Centre, through the Solutions Journalism Accelerator. This program is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.