Eyeing a growing trend among consumers of finding ways to save money amid rising costs, President Chain Store Corp (統一超商), which runs the nation’s largest convenience store chain, 7-Eleven, has been cooperating with the e-go Taiwan Car Rental Travel Group (e-go 台灣租車旅遊集團) to provide pooled ride services from Taipei City to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport since the middle of this month.
In light of high gas prices that have made people less willing to drive their cars, President Chain Store said the new service would not only help consumers save money, but also conserve energy resources and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
President Chain Store said the new service is available at its around 4,000 ibon-equipped 7-Eleven stores nationwide, with four different prices.
The company said a single ticket costs NT$600, a two-person ticket costs NT$711, a three-person ticket costs NT$888, and a van service for up to six passengers costs NT$12,000.
The company said its prices are competitive compared with other car rental services and taxis that run from Taipei to the airport, which normally cost between NT$1,000 and NT$1,400.
Commenting on the new scheme, Taiwan Taxi Co (台灣大車隊) said the shared-ride service would not affect its business much, as it primarily targets office workers in the city that commute regularly.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the