With no rain likely, the Australian GP was expected to have just one stop for most teams, with tyres switched from starting mediums to hards. The first cars were expected to start coming in around lap 15 of the 58-laps of the Albert Park Street Circuit,
Max Verstappen rocketed off from his pole position, but Mercedes-AMG’S George Russell was close as Turn 1 came up and got through the turn first. Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton also moved forward together and somehow, after getting ahead of the Aston Martin driver, Hamilton also slipped past Verstappen.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s recent visit to China was a successful one by any measure.
According to reports, 19 Memorandum Of Understanding related to various sectors were signed. And the total amount of that sums up to RM170 billion!
Some of those sectors were MOU’s were signed include electronic vehicle’s, electronics, big data and digitalisation.
The automotive sector too was involved and one of it involves Chinese car maker, Chery.
Soon after the visit to China ended, Chery sent out a statement to the local media stating that Chery executives were involved in an “in-depth conversation” with the Minister of International Trader and Industry of Malaysia, Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz.
Part of the discussions included an investment plan and development direction in Malaysia.
Soon after that discussion, the executives from Chery International were also invited to participate in a round table conference with the Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim and Malaysia-China Business Forum.
Chery has also previously mentioned the setting up of a wholly-owned subsidiary in Malaysia, which according to an official statement, is due to be unveiled in the second quarter of this year.
Now all of this could be seen as journalistic fluff meant to drum up the Prime Minister’s visit to China.
But considering the success of Chinese automotive makers GWM and BYD in the Malaysian EV market, it won’t be too far fetched to assume that Chery may be considering local assembly of certain Chery models.
And why not? GWM and BYD have already proven that the local market is warming up to Chinese carmakers already.
Local assembly would make sense since this will almost certainly allow Chery to price their cars competitively and also create a strong network of dealers with strong spare parts availability.
The only thing that remains to be seen though is who will Chery’s assembly partner be since setting up its own assembly plant would almost certainly be too costly.
The owner of a Nissan Almera whose driver was recently caught on camera scattering nails on a road reported to be close to the traffic light area near Pusing, Jalan Ipoh-Lumut here, is being pursued by the police.
Assistant Commissioner Mohamad Roy Suhaimi Sarif, the head of the Batu Gajah District Police, claimed that yesterday his team discovered a trending video on social media about the situation.
After two opening rounds in the Middle East, the 2023 Formula 1 World Championship is in Melbourne this weekend for the Rolex Australian Grand Prix. This event used to be the opening round for a long time but that ended in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although some teams had expressed reservations about participating as the pandemic began to look very serious, the organizers wanted to go ahead. It seemed like it was on until government authorities ordered the race to be cancelled – just 2 hours before the first practice was to be run.
In 2021, the Australian GP was again chosen as the opening round but due to the restrictions on travellers, it was moved to November, but cancelled in July. 2022 was the first year that the F1 round returned to Australia and a new contract extends the venue till 2035. The event will also be one of the first 3 rounds of each season, and will be the opening round for at least 5 seasons.
The smart brand was once in Malaysia, around 20 years ago, when DaimlerChrysler Malaysia (now Mercedes-Benz Malaysia) marketed it, but it was poorly received. Though its small size – which could only take two – was appreciated in European cities, it was too small for Malaysians who could get more seats and more space – for less money.
So smart faded away from the market and a decade later, declining sales in other markets also saw Mercedes-Benz, which owned the company, rethink its strategy for the brand. With the auto industry rushing towards electrification, it was logical for smart to also go in that direction. In fact, it had already started electrification earlier but needed a new generation of models developed from scratch as electric vehicles (EVs).
This led the German carmaker to team up with the Zhejiang Geely Holding Group in a new joint venture company which would use the smart brand, which still retained its trendiness. It looked like a smart (no pun intended) move as Mercedes-Benz would offer the design expertise while Geely would provide its Sustainable Experience Architecture (SEA) modular platform engineered specifically for EVs. Thus smart gained a ‘second wind’ and has been quick to roll out its first product, the smart #1.
Don’t you just feel annoyed every time you are forced to ‘chat’ with a bot for customer service? Most businesses use this bot feature to save on having to pay a salaried human, but this forces you to navigate through hundreds of steps before actually ‘chatting’ with a human being.
AirAsia has finally brought back its live call feature to ease the lives of its customers. People who have urgent matters can now get accurate answers faster. They have also launched a new feature for the super app called refund tracking.
