Electric car maker Fisker Automotive plans to sell its luxury Karma model in China, teaming up with a local distributor of top auto brands.
Irvine, California-based Fisker has reached an agreement with vehicle retailer and service provider China Grand Automotive Group (廣匯) to sell Fisker vehicles in its more than 200 outlets, which carry such brands as Mercedes-Benz, Lexus and Lamborghini.
The Fisker Karma is due to debut in China at the Shanghai Auto show in April and to begin deliveries by the autumn, the company said in a release seen yesterday on its Web site. The hybrid sedan has a total range of 483km and can travel 80km on electricity alone.
The first factory-built Karma debuted at the Paris auto show in October.
China is promoting the use of electric vehicles with subsidies and other incentives, but has yet to construct a widespread system of charging stations and other infrastructure — one factor behind the relatively low level of interest so far in purchasing electric and hybrid vehicles in a market that is forecast to grow 30 percent this year.
Meanwhile, China’s BYD Auto (比亞迪) and the Housing Authority of Los Angeles say they have launched a trial program for a fleet of BYD electric cars, as the battery-maker turned car company moves a step closer toward its goal of sales in North America.
Company spokesman Paul Lin (林密) said yesterday that BYD, which is backed by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, is aiming at US sales of its K9 electric bus next year and hoping to begin sales of its E6 electric car in the US by 2012.
Lin denied reports that BYD was facing intellectual property problems for its batteries, but said the company was struggling to keep up with demand.
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