Toyota Motor Corp boosted production of the Prius gasoline-electric car by a third in April, taking advantage of surging oil prices that boosted demand for fuel-efficient vehicles.
Production of the so-called hybrid cars was raised to 10,000 units a month from 7,500 in central Japan's Aichi Prefecture, spokesman Shigeru Hayakawa said in Tokyo.
The US$25,000 price tag on a Prius, more than 10 percent higher than a comparable car running on gasoline, is attracting more consumers after regular-grade gasoline prices rose 39 percent on average this year to US$2.051 a gallon.
The Prius can go as far as 89km on a gallon of gasoline while emitting 90 percent less tailpipe exhaust than the average new car of a same-size engine, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Demand for hybrid-electric cars has risen 41 percent in the US to a record 22,919 units this year through April, led by a 78 percent increase for the Prius and a 10.9 percent gain for Honda's Civic Hybrid and Insight models.
Toyota's Lexus luxury unit will start selling a hybrid version of the RX 330 sport-utility vehicle late this year.
Ford Motor Co plans to produce gasoline-electric version of its Escape sport-utility vehicle next month in the US, while General Motors Corp plans to sell hybrid large pickup trucks later this year. Nissan plans to release a hybrid Altima sedan in the US in 2006.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained