They're small, eccentric and as quiet as Paris in August. But Britain, obsessed as it is with speed cameras and petrol prices, has unexpectedly become the world capital of electric cars.
Next week two models will be launched at the London motor show, bringing to at least six the number of carmakers competing for a slice of the emerging "zero emission" market.
None of them knows how many people may be tempted to go electric,or how the motors will develop, but all are preparing for what is being called the "battle of the bubbles."
On the surface, relations between the micro carmakers are harmonious.
"There's room for everyone. We are all helping each other," said Julian Wilford, one of a team of ex-Lotus men that has developed the Mega City Nice car. Nice is short for No Internal Combustion Engine.
The congestion charge, high price of petrol, parking incentives that some councils give for electric cars and the government's road tax exemption all mean London is at the forefront of the electric car boom, he says.
But it's the mood as much as the incentives on offer that makes Britain attractive.
"People have talked about electric cars for years without anything happening, but now it is all changing," Wilford said.
"We find a lot of people who are really concerned about sustainability and who want genuinely different solutions. The mainstream car companies just can't deliver that," he said.
The Nice, built in France, can range about 80km on one charge, claims to reach nearly 64kph and believes it is the cheapest electric car to own and to run.
Also launching in London next week is the Smart EV. This is the battery version of the minuscule petrol car which has sold more than 40,000 models since 1998 and still attracts stares. But the maker says that its model is far higher up the evolutionary ladder.
"These [others] are not cars," said Jeremy Simpson of Daimler Chrysler, which owns Mercedes and Smart cars.
"They are officially classed as quadricycles. They don't have to meet the same standards as we do. People reject them because they are ... odd. Ours is iconic, a proper car," he said.
The electric Smart may be flea-like, but Mr Simpson says it does 0kph to 48kph in 6.5 seconds.
The snag is that the Smart EV won't actually be for sale. The company hopes to lease them mainly to large companies wanting to use them as pool cars.
But the talk in electric vehicle circles is of supercars now emerging in California. The founders of Google have invested heavily in the Silicon Valley startup Tesla Motors, which will soon launch its first model.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) investment project in Arizona has progressed better than expected, but it still faces challenges such as water and labor shortages, National Development Council (NDC) Minister Yeh Chun-hsien (葉俊顯) said yesterday. Speaking with reporters after visiting TSMC’s Arizona hub and attending the SelectUSA Investment Summit in Maryland last week, Yeh said TSMC’s Arizona site turned a profit of NT$16.14 billion (US$514 million) last year in its first full year of mass production. “TSMC told me it was surprised by the smooth trial run of the first fab, which has left the company optimistic about the project’s outlook,”
RSS