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.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last