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The National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Naamsa) has released its October 2020 new vehicle stats which showed an increase in sales.
While the higher sales volumes are good news for the South African automotive industry, Naamsa CEO Mikel Mabasa warned that the country is not out of the woods yet.
“While vehicle exports are making a steady comeback, we remain cautiously anxious about the reports of a COVID-19 second wave across Europe which could further depress our overall outlook for the balance of this year”, said Mabasa.
Looking at the October 2020 figures, the domestic sales of 38,752 units represents a decline of 13,216 units, or 25.4%, from the 51,968 vehicles sold in October last year.
Export sales at 33,474 units also declined by 7,792 units or 18.9% compared to the 41,266 vehicles exported in October 2019.
Overall, out of the total reported industry sales of 38,752 vehicles, an estimated 32,478 units or 83.8% represented dealer sales.
9.4% represented sales to the vehicle rental industry, 3.8% sales to government, and 3.0% to industry corporate fleets.
The October 2020 new passenger car market at 26,793 units had registered a decline of 9,106 cars or a fall of 25.4% compared to the 35,899 new cars sold in October 2019.
The car rental industry accounted for an encouraging 12.8% of car sales in October 2020.
Naamsa said South Africa’s economy remains fragile and while it would slowly regain momentum, tough months were still ahead before business and consumer confidence was rebuilt.
The year to date sales figures tells a dismal story now reflecting a decline of 146,261 units, or 32.5% compared to the corresponding period last year.
Going forward, interest rates at an all-time low could assist some businesses and consumers from an affordability point of view.
However, the sentiment expressed by the Naamsa CEOs relating to automotive business conditions over the next six months by and large remains pessimistic.
“With the easing of lockdown restrictions, the new normal has begun as the country will ease gradually into rebuilding the economy,” he said.
New vehicle sales
The image below provides an overview of new vehicle sales in South Africa in October 2020.


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On the evening she won the Miss North Carolina Scholarship pageant in June, Arlie Honeycutt wore a deep red, rhinestone-embellished gown. Earlier that evening, she dazzled the stage in a black string bikini, followed by a teal strapless gown – both adorned with geometric sequins.
But recently, as she toured the “Miss North Carolina: 75 Years of Memories” exhibit, exploring pageant fashion through the decades at the NC Museum of History, she saw pageant gowns in muted colors, modest one-piece swimsuits and pumps with heels no higher than three inches. Gowns dating back to 1969 are featured alongside those worn this year by Garner native Honeycutt.
“We’re modernizing every year,” said Honeycutt, 19. “It’s a good time to be a pageant girl.”
While strolling through the exhibit wearing her crown, her sash and a black polka-dot dress, Honeycutt admired the gowns from years past – pausing intermittently to pose for pictures with young fans.
She saw the pink gown worn by Patsy Johnson in the 1969 Miss America pageant, which features a full skirt and modest neckline. Then, the long-sleeve gowns with prominent shoulder pads and puffy sleeves that made their debut in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Now, form-fitting gowns with dramatic backs or necklines are the norm.
“The fashion has certainly evolved, but in a way that is wonderful for the girls,” said Harold Garner, the executive director of the Miss Garner Scholarship Program, in a phone interview. He has been with the program for 43 years.
Honeycutt and other contestants now purchase their gowns from small stores – such as Jewel’s Formals in Smithfield – that specialize in pageant wardrobes.
But in the 1960s, most pageant wardrobes came from department stores.
“The gowns back then really resembled prom dresses,” Garner said.
In fact, in the early years of the pageant, girls wore traditional white evening gowns. But soon after the first color telecast of the Miss America pageant aired in 1965, fashion followed suit. Now, girls go for designer gowns in electric hues or jewel tones.
Even shoes saw a splash of color. Heels worn in the 60s were black, white or blue, Garner said, and were half the height of the six-inch, bold colored pumps many girls wear on the stage today.
“I think the color was the most important change because the girls can really express themselves now,” Garner said. “Not everyone looks good in the same color.”
But as in all fashion, the trends from years past are coming back in style.
Back at the exhibit, Honeycutt said one of her favorite looks in this year’s eveningwear segment was a long-sleeve emerald green gown worn by a fellow contestant, reminiscent of many long-sleeve gowns worn in the 1980s – without the shoulder pads, of course.
Honeycutt even pointed to several gowns in the museum’s exhibit from decades ago that she would still consider wearing today.
Despite their admiration for today’s pageant fashions, Garner and Honeycutt both said that it all comes down to how the girl wears the gown.
“It’s so much more than just the fashion and the glitz,” Honeycutt said.
The pageant, she said, has provided scholarship opportunities for young women for nearly four decades.
Said Garner: “I tell judges that I don’t care if she is wearing a potato sack. Look for the girl who models it well and is confident and graceful in it.”

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Battlegrounds Mobile India — the local avatar of PUBG Mobile — received a client patch on Saturday to fix some of the known issues. The update fixes a bug that was causing the battle royale game to be stuck at the loading screen when the player is wearing Unicorn-set outfits. There is also a fix for the issue that was shutting down Battlegrounds Mobile India on some devices. Developer Krafton has released the patch just days after it reported the issues online. Some of the known problems are yet to be fixed, though.
Krafton provided release notes for the client patch through the Battlegrounds Mobile India site. As per the notes, the update fixes the problem that was keeping the game stuck at the loading screen when wearing Unicorn-set outfits. It was first reported last week.
The latest client patch also addresses the issue that was shutting down the game when accessing the Season (C1S1) menu on some devices. There is also a fix for the problem that was causing players to not get shot when riding a buggy vehicle in the Mission Ignition mode. Further, the patch fixes the issue that was reducing the sound coming from the Tesla vehicle of other players.


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A heartrending, must-see story! A collaboration work by song diva Sade and animator Tsuneo Gouda titled By Your Side is born under charity project Zapuni.
"I’m sitting on a number of new project ideas." - Katsuhiro Otomo
Currently, Japanese anime culture is popular and widespread among the youth in Vietnam. Prominent in the anime culture, an eshi exhibition that has been held in many countries will come to Vietnam in early March 2014.
On Feb. 28, Katsuhiro Otomo’s poster exhibit “’Posters’ - Otomo Katsuhiro × Graphic Design” opened to the public. The exhibit features approximately 50 different pieces including artwork from Akira and collaborative advertisements.
A life-size model of the variable fighter Valkyrie VF-25F debuts at Tokyo Skytree!
“As my first art book, I’d say it’s pretty great. I can now die happy (laughs).” - RJB
“My favorite inspiration is naked women.” - RJB
Crypton Future Media, the company famous for producing and selling Vocaloids, organized an event called Snow Miku 2014 and matched it with the duration of the 65th Sapporo Snow Festival held in Sapporo, Hokkaido from Feb. 5 (Wed) to 11 (Tue).
A spring anime to watch out for! The long-awaited TV anime adaptation of a sports manga with over 3 million copies in print!
Our second photo report! Feast your eyes on the cute and sexy side of Winter Wonder Festival 2014!
We’ve put together a photo report of everything cool we found at Winter Wonder Festival 2014. Take a thorough look!
The company that gave birth to many popular characters such as Hello Kitty and My Melody, Sanrio, is organizing Sanrio Expo 2014 featuring new characters, new projects, and licensed goods for the 40th anniversary year of Hello Kitty.
Winter Wonder Festival 2014 was held on Feb. 9! The venue was colored with tons of beautiful figures!
The Wake Up, Girls! anime series began broadcasting on Jan. 10. To coincide with the beginning of the series, a film adaptation was released as well. What really sets this project apart though is that the rookie voice actors behind the characters are actually performing as the idol group in the real world!
Trailers for anime that will begin airing this spring have already started to be released. Here we’ll introduce 12 titles with trailers that have been released, including Season 2 of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Gokukoku no Brynhildr.
What’s more important than a glamorous life?
The first new figure series to release in five years!
Challenging the wall of dimensions with passion and technology! The fans’ enthusiasm for three-dimensionalizing Miku is without borders!
Oct. 25, 2013 01:0012
On Oct. 21, it was announced that La Corda d'Oro 3, a popular game among females, is becoming a TV anime.
Oct. 24, 2013 11:003
This year’s new work in the Ghost in the Shell series looks at the younger days of Motoko Kusanagi and the others.
Oct. 24, 2013 07:004
The broadcast period for the newest work in the hit anime series Saki has been announced.
Oct. 24, 2013 03:0050
Are you familiar with the term seichi junrei? It’s a kind of tourism that involves visiting the actual locations that anime series are set in and is currently enjoying a good deal of popularity among anime fans in Japan.
Oct. 24, 2013 00:237
On Oct. 17, a witch swooped down upon the 26th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF), the largest film festival in Asia.
Oct. 23, 2013 09:0044
Latte artist Sugi shows us how to create latte art!
Oct. 23, 2013 01:4214
The Moon Stick, a standout toy in Bandai’s goods related to the anime Sailor Moon, is being re-released.
Oct. 22, 2013 11:001
The production of a sequel for the immensely popular anime that aired between fall 2012 and March 2013, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, was announced on Oct. 18 by Warner Home Video and other related media.
Oct. 22, 2013 09:0021
This photo collection features a special "Pirate Girl Complex" gravure photo shoot and includes a "Big Pirate Treasure DVD."


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Volkswagen revealed Tuesday evening a new concept vehicle called the ID Space Vizzion, and despite the crazy Frank Zappaesque name, this one might actually make it into production in Europe and North America. The ID Space…
Audi revealed Tuesday evening in Los Angeles the e-tron Sportback as the German automaker begins to chip away at its plan to launch more than 30 electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids by 2025. The e-tron…
With Jinx, three former members of the Casper team are looking to bring what CEO Terri Rockovich called “the Casper playbook” to selling dog food. The startup has raised $5.65 million from an all-star list…
When disability rights lawyer Haben Girma, who is blind and deaf, booked an apartment in London via Airbnb last month, she says the host cancelled her reservation after she disclosed that her guide dog would…
Superpedestrian, the startup working with a handful of scooter operators to deploy vehicles that can perform self-diagnostics, just raised a $20 million round from Spark Capital, General Catalyst, Hanaco Ventures and Empire Angels. This brings…
First came Pokémon GO. Then came Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Then came… Catan? It’s starting to look like the next property to get Niantic’s “real world game” treatment will be Catan — the namesake island…
Cloud kitchens, ghost kitchens, dark kitchens. No doubt by now you know a little about these businesses that are moving into underused or more affordable properties that can be turned into shared workspaces for the…
Before the hyperclouds, there were Linode, Mediatemple, HostGator and seemingly a million other hosting services that let you rent affordable virtual private servers for your development needs. And while we don’t talk about them all…
Karma Automotive’s second act is a gasoline-electric luxury vehicle that aims to deliver more performance and tech inside a sleek and sporty $149,950 package. The 2020 Revero GTS unveiled Tuesday during AutoMobility LA, the press…
Volkswagen revealed Tuesday evening a new concept vehicle called the ID Space Vizzion, and despite the crazy Frank Zappaesque name, this one might actually make it into production in Europe and North America.
The ID Space Vizzion is the seventh concept that VW has introduced since 2016 that uses its MEB platform, a flexible modular system — really a matrix of common parts — for producing electric vehicles that VW says make it more efficient and cost-effective.
The first vehicles to use this MEB platform will be under the ID brand, although this platform can and will be used for electric vehicles under other VW Group brands such as Skoda and Seat. The ID.3, the first model in its new all-electric ID brand and the beginning of the automaker’s ambitious plan to sell 1 million EVs annually by 2025.
The ID Space Vizzion is equipped with a rear-mounted 275-horsepower motor and a 82 kilowatt-hour battery pack with a range of up to 300 miles under the EU’s WLTP cycle. A second motor can be added to give it all-wheel drive capability and a total output of 355 horsepower.
This concept will likely be described in a number of ways — and during the event at the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles it was — but this is a wagon through and through.
Audi revealed Tuesday evening in Los Angeles the e-tron Sportback as the German automaker begins to chip away at its plan to launch more than 30 electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids by 2025.
The e-tron Sportback reveal ahead of the LA Auto Show follows the launch earlier this year of Audi’s first all-electric vehicle, the 2019 e-tron.
Audi has delivered 18,500 of its all-electric e-tron SUVs globally since March 2019 when the vehicle first came to market. And the company is hoping to grab more, and different, customers with the Sportback.
Audi plans to offer two variants of the vehicle, a Sportback 50 and Sportback 55. The Sportback will come to Europe first in spring 2020. The Sportback 55 will come to the U.S. in fall 2020.
Audi calls this e-tron Sportback a SUV coupé, the latest evidence that automakers are comfortable pushing the boundaries of traditional automotive terminology. This is not a two-door car with a fixed roof and a sloping rear, although there are “coupé” elements in the design.
This is in fact a SUV with a roof that extend flat over the body and then drops steeply to the rear — that’s where the coupé name comes in — and into the D pillar of the vehicle. Then there’s the classic “Sportback” feature in the body where the lower edge of the side window rises toward the rear.
There are design details repeated throughout the exterior, specifically the four-bar pattern in the headlamps, front grille and wheels. And of course there are special interior and exterior finishes – 13 paint colors in all — and a first edition version customers can buy. The base price of the Sportback is 71,350 ($79,000).
But importantly, besides some styling and design changes, this vehicle boasts longer range and for everyone outside the U.S., futuristic looking side mirrors and new lighting tech.
The 2020 Audi e-tron Sportback has a 86.4 kilowatt-hour battery pack that has a range of up to 446 kilometers (277.1 miles) in the EU’s WLTP cycle. The EPA estimates aren’t out yet, but expect the range numbers to be slightly lower.
The company is targeting an EPA range of about 220 miles over the 204 miles of range that the regular e-tron gets.
Audi was able to improve the range by increasing the net battery capacity. It also decoupled the front motor and improved the thermal management.
Lighting and mirrors
Audi is known for its lighting and the company has made this a key feature in the Sportback. The vehicle has a new digital matrix headlights that breaks down light into tiny pixels. The result is precise lighting that has high resolution.
Inside the headlight is a digital micromirror device that acts like a video projector. Inside the DMD is a small chip from Texas Instruments that contains one million micromirrors. These micromirrors can be tilted up to 5,000 times per second.
The upshot: The headlights can project specific patterns on the road or illuminate certain areas more brightly. And for fun, animations like the e-tron or Audi logos can be projected on a wall when the vehicle is stopped.
Check out this video to see it in action.
The safety piece of this is the most interesting. For instance, on a freeway the light might creates a carpet of light that illuminates the driver’s own lane brightly and adjusts dynamically when he or she changes lane.
Then there are the virtual exterior mirrors. This wing-shaped side mirror doesn’t have an exterior mirror. Instead, it supports integrate small cameras. The captured images appear on high-contrast OLED displays inside the car between the instrument panel and the door.
If the driver moves their finger toward the surface of the touch display, symbols are activated with which the driver can reposition the image. The mirrors can be adjust automatically to three driving situations for highway driving, turning and parking.
Neither the mirrors of the digital matrix LED lighting is available in the U.S. and won’t be until the government changes its Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, or FMVSS, which are the regulations that dictate the design, construction, performance, and durability requirements for motor vehicles.
With Jinx, three former members of the Casper team are looking to bring what CEO Terri Rockovich called “the Casper playbook” to selling dog food.
The startup has raised $5.65 million from an all-star list of investors including Alexis Ohanian of Initialized Capital, Align Ventures, Brand Foundry, Wheelhouse Group, Will Smith and his family, the rapper Nas, singer Halsey, YouTube star/late night host Lilly Singh and TV personality/former NFL star Michael Strahan.
Rockovich previously served as vice president of acquisition and retention marketing at Casper, where she met her co-founders Sameer Mehta and Michael Kim. She said all three of them are “dog obsessives” who have experience trying to feed “picky eaters.” And they wer “hungry for a brand that is skinned in a way that is a lot more relatable to millennial consumer.”
It’s not just about taking regular dog food and selling it in a new way, either. Rockovich noted that an estimated 56% of dogs in the United States are overweight or obese. So Jinx’s staff nutritionist — working with a larger nutrition council — has developed a line of kibble and treats that she said is “packed with organic proteins, diversified proteins and easy-to-process carbohydrates for a moderately active animal.”
Jinx plans to start selling its first products in January. Rockovich said it will target pet owners with a certain set of “lifestyle attributes” — like living in an apartment, hiring dog walkers and owning dogs who sleep in their beds — and educate them so they actually examine the ingredients of their dog food, whether they buy it from Jinx or someone else.
“We understand the serious nature of creating something that goes into a body and kind of powers a lifestyle,” she said. “We’ve been so conscious of that. Frankly, it’s delayed our timeline — we know we have to get it right.”
As for how much this will cost, Rockovich said Jinx will “fall in the premium category.” (If you’re familiar with premium dog food brands, she said Jinx pricing be somewhere between Blue Buffalo and Orijen.) And while the company start off by selling directly to consumers through its website, Rockovich said her Casper experience has taught her the importance of having “some IRL presence, specifically in retail.”
When disability rights lawyer Haben Girma, who is blind and deaf, booked an apartment in London via Airbnb last month, she says the host cancelled her reservation after she disclosed that her guide dog would be joining her.
Prior to the cancellation, Girma and the host, Kirk Truman, had a lengthy exchange over the course of about a week-and-a-half in which Girma explained her situation, as well as educated the host about Airbnb’s non-discrimination policy that protects both her and her guide dog, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Equality Act in the U.K., she told TechCrunch.
Despite this discussion, which TechCrunch has read and reviewed, Truman continued to express concern, saying, “I think my freeholder would be really unhappy with me if he found out that I had somebody stay in the flat with a dog/guide dog.”
The discussion continued, with Truman saying that “it should all be fine.” In the same message, he added that, had he “known when you first requested to book about you bringing your guide dog, I would’ve spoken to you about all we’ve discussed before proceeding with the booking.”
But ultimately, a couple of weeks later, Truman canceled Girma’s reservation. He justified the cancellation by saying the property would be undergoing some work during her scheduled stay, according to the conversation reviewed by TechCrunch. However, Girma says when her friend tried to book the same dates at that property five days later, Truman accepted the reservation.
When reached for comment about why Truman accepted her friend’s reservation for those same dates, Truman told TechCrunch via email his property has a leak and that the repairs are supposed to happen this coming weekend (November 23-24), which is when Girma was originally scheduled to stay at his flat.
“These dates were changed to this week by the contractor but then again changed to this coming weekend and are likely to be delayed into next week,” Truman said. “I should also add, that I also had to cancel another booking due to the issues with the leak as it happened again quite recently.”
It was when Girma found out Truman accepted her friend’s reservation for the same dates that she reached out to Airbnb. The company expressed remorse and told Girma that it would review the situation to determine if Truman deserved a warning, account suspension or permanent removal from the platform.
“For privacy reasons we can’t share what will happen after the review, but we want you to know that we are committed to fighting discrimination and ensuring that the Airbnb community is open and accessible to everyone,” an Airbnb customer service representative named Matt wrote to her in a message reviewed by TechCrunch.
But Girma took issue with the fact that Airbnb said it would keep the resolution of the review process quiet.
“Telling victims of discrimination that the result of the review process is private contributes to guests feeling like the platform is not safe,” Girma told TechCrunch via email. “We want to know if the company decides to protect discriminatory hosts. The company needs to be transparent with victims of discrimination.”
“I’m interested in whether or not Airbnb will take action, and I’m deeply disappointed that the company has chosen not to tell me what will be done in this incident,” Girma wrote to Airbnb.
In response, Airbnb reiterated that it would not disclose what actions it took with Truman. About one week later, however, Airbnb changed its course and let her know that the company took the route of host education. Additionally, Airbnb said Truman was now aware that future violations could result in his removal from the Airbnb platform.
But Girma said she had already gone out of her way to educate the host about Airbnb’s policy, as well as the ADA and the U.K.’s Equality Act.
“He knew it would be against your policy, and still canceled my reservation,” Girma wrote to Airbnb. “He claimed it was because the flat would have construction during my dates. My nondisabled friend then applied to stay at the flat for the exact same dates, and Kirk immediately accepted my friend’s reservation. All of this is in the records I sent to you.”
Haben Girma with Mylo, her seeing guide dog
Girma then expressed dismay that Airbnb had chosen not to remove Truman and asked the company to reconsider. Shortly after sending that message, Girma got in touch with TechCrunch.
Following an inquiry from TechCrunch, Airbnb said it would suspend Truman for 30 days:
“To use our platform, Airbnb community members must commit to treat all fellow members of this community, regardless of disability, race, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or age, with respect, and without judgment or bias. We have suspended this host and sincerely thank Haben both for reporting this incident and for her past work to help Airbnb’s team better serve the disability community.”
In determining what action to take, Airbnb concluded that what Truman did fell into the category of discriminatory impact versus discriminatory intent. So, if a host calls the guest the N-word, that’s discriminatory intent and impact, which would result in immediate removal from the platform. Discriminatory impact, according to Airbnb, is how it sees this situation between Girma and the host. Airbnb’s theory is that Truman is not irredeemable and can learn from this situation. And, if he doesn’t, then he may be removed entirely.
“I understand the implication yes, though this was not why Haben’s booking was cancelled in the first place,” Truman told TechCrunch. “I have written to Airbnb to appeal against this decision as I feel there appears to have been a misunderstanding.”
Airbnb has since notified Girma of the resolution, which entails the aforementioned 30-day suspension, as well as a re-education of its policies. However, she says this is a “gentle” punishment.
“Responding to violations by educating hosts again and again creates a culture where hosts know they can get away with discrimination,” Girma said. “And if they are extremely unlucky the worst that will happen is a thirty-day suspension.”
Even more alarming, Girma said, is that Airbnb told her the company has instructed Truman that any similar violation “may result” in his removal.
“Airbnb cannot even commit to removing Kirk if he does this again,” she said. “I’m deeply concerned about the lack of enforcement.”
Airbnb has since offered Girma money to cover her costs of seeking accommodation elsewhere, but she says she does not plan to accept any compensation.
What Girma would prefer, she told TechCrunch, is for Airbnb to commit to making the complaint process transparent to victims, strictly enforce the accessibility policy and remove hosts who violate it.
“The company has thousands and thousands of hosts; why is Airbnb so intent on protecting a host that knowingly violated policies and discriminated against a disabled guest?” Girma wondered. “Airbnb has a systemic enforcement problem. Knowingly violating Airbnb policy apparently won’t even get hosts removed from the platform. Airbnb policy is to not tell victims of discrimination the results of complaint reviews. How will guests ever feel safe using Airbnb when we know hosts that violate Airbnb’s own policies stay on the platform?”
It’s worth noting Airbnb has also made some positive changes on the accessibility front. Last March, it added accessibility filters to make it easier for people with disabilities to find accessible travel accommodations, such as places with step-free entry and entryways that are wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair.
But despite Airbnb’s attempts to educate hosts and create a platform that fosters inclusivity, it’s clear that not all hosts are on board, which is still resulting in discrimination. If you’ve experienced discrimination on Airbnb, please get in touch with me at firstname.lastname@example.org.
Superpedestrian, the startup working with a handful of scooter operators to deploy vehicles that can perform self-diagnostics, just raised a $20 million round from Spark Capital, General Catalyst, Hanaco Ventures and Empire Angels. This brings Superpedestrian’s total funding to $64 million.
Superpedestrian has yet to announce its operating partners, but is on track to launch in multiple markets in January.
Superpedestrian scooters can last up to seven days without recharging, assuming about five to six rides per day, its CEO Assaf Biderman told TechCrunch. But its key offering is the vehicle intelligence platform, which is designed to detect more than one hundred situations that could lead to malfunction, triage each issue and then determine what response to take in order to prevent vehicle damage and rider injury.
“The vehicle is constantly asking itself if it’s safe,” Biderman said.
That means Superpedestrian’s software is continuously monitoring for things like water penetration, cut internal wires, battery cell temperature imbalances, braking issues and more. Superpedestrian’s software is also able to quickly enforce local speed limits via geofencing.
Superpedestrian isn’t disclosing how much it’s selling its platform and vehicles to operators, but says the price is competitive with the other products on the market. While Biderman says Superpedestrian is currently focused on selling to operators, the company does plan to eventually sell directly to consumers.
While launching and operating shared micromobility services is no longer novel, Superpedstrian is trying to take advantage of an emerging opportunity in the space. That opportunity is software. As business and mobility analyst Horace Dediu recently told me, these micromobility vehicles have an opportunity to also be software hubs. In fact, he said it’s where he expects bigger players like Google and Apple to enter the space.
Karma Automotive took the wraps off Tuesday of a new electric concept car called the SC2 that produces a heart-thumping 1,100 horsepower and can travel from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 1.9 seconds.
The concept is a showpiece and an integral part of the Chinese-backed California-based startup’s new strategy to become a technology and design incubator that supplies other automakers.
Karma Automotive also unveiled Tuesday at Automobility LA, the press and trade days of the LA Auto Show, a performance variant of its Revero GT. The new Revero GTS is similar to the Revero GT, but boasts more performance and several other new interior and tech touches.
Meanwhile, the SC2 — with its eye-popping looks and performance specs — is meant to be show what Karma can do, not necessarily what it will do.
Karma CEO Lance Zhou called the SC2 a “signpost” to the company’s future as a technology-driven brand. It also previews the company’s future design language.
“Our open platform serves as a test bed for new technologies and partnerships, where we are to provide engineering, design, technology and customization resources others,” Zhao said.
The nuts and bolts
The battery-electric concept has front and rear mounted twin electric motors that deliver 800 kW peak power, with 10,500 pound-feet wheel torque and 350 miles of pure electric range. The I-shaped 120 kilowatt-hour battery is housed in the center tunnel beneath the dashboard and seats.
The vehicle has carbon ceramic breaks, a push-rod operated racing suspension and a Karma torque vectoring gearbox.
The hinge-winged doors aren’t the only flashy or tech-forward features. The concept has long-range radars, cameras, and FMCW lidar sensors in a nod towards an autonomous driving future.
Drivers will theoretically (this is a concept after all) enter the vehicle through fingerprint and facial recognition sensors. Inside the vehicle, there are biometric seats and 3D audio to create individual sound zones for driver and passenger. Electro chromatic glass shifts from clear to opaque for privacy and light sensitivity.
Reliving the drive
Karma also showed a feature that lets drivers re-live their street-racing adventures through a simulation. A triple high definition camera under the windshield and frequency-modulated continuous wave lidar sensors capture of the car in motion. At the same time, software captures in real-time all of the turns, braking and acceleration of driving.
After the drive, an adaptive laser projector replays the journey while the vehicle is parked. A mounted smartphone acts as the cabin’s rear-view mirror and turns it into a driving simulator where the user can re-experience their drive and fine-tune their skills.
And of course, drivers can then share that experience with others or stream drivers’ routes from around the world within their own vehicles.
SC2’s technology can be integrated into a variety of future vehicles, according to Andreas Thurner, Karma’s vp of global design and architecture.
And that’s the whole point of this exercise. It’s unlikely that the SC2 will ever be made as a production vehicle. But the tech and design features in it could live on.
Karma Automotive’s roots began with Fisker Automotive, the startup led by Henrik Fisker that ended in bankruptcy in 2013. China’s Wanxiang Group purchased what was left of Fisker in 2014 and Karma Automotive was born.
Karma hasn’t had the smoothest of resurrections. The company’s first effort, known as the Revero, wasn’t received warmly. The Revero GT has been an improved effort. However, that hasn’t relieved the pressure.
The company laid off about 200 workers this month from its Irvine, Calif. headquarters following a restructuring that will focus on licensing its technology to other carmakers. The company’s assembly plant is in Moreno Valley, Calif.
This new incubator effort is an effort to bring some stability to the company and help it offset the capitally intensive business of designing and producing its own cars.
First came Pokémon GO. Then came Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Then came… Catan?
It’s starting to look like the next property to get Niantic’s “real world game” treatment will be Catan — the namesake island from the popular Settlers Of Catan board game series.
Late last month, the company behind Catan said during a board games conference in Germany that it was working on a “upcoming massively multiplayer location based game” (albeit with no mention of Niantic). Called Catan: World Explorers, they noted that it “transforms the entire Earth into one giant game of CATAN”.
Sure enough, I’ve confirmed with folks at Niantic that the company is indeed involved. They won’t say much about it, but confirmed to me that the game is being built on Niantic’s Real World Platform.
Not sure what that means? After the launch of Pokémon GO, Niantic started focusing on taking the tools they’ve already built (their massive database of real world locations, the game engine, and the server architecture that makes the whole ‘real world game’ experience work) and opening them up for third parties to build upon. Whereas Pokémon GO was largely built within Niantic with some oversight from The Pokémon Company, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite shifted more of the workload over to their partners at WB Games. As I wrote in my profile of Niantic and its goal of becoming a platform company back in April:
There’s a ton of overlap when it comes to which of the two companies is building what aspect of the game, but from what I’m told it sounds like Niantic is mostly focusing on the stuff behind the curtain — everything on the platform side, like the map engine, the networking, and the AR tech — while WB Games’ main focus is the stuff you’ll see in game, like the story, the content, and the art and animation.
Meanwhile, we know a little about this Catan game from the aforementioned promo site:
The main gameplay screen, at least at this early stage, seems to look a whole lot like Pokémon GO and Harry Potter Wizards Unite. Same top-down map view, avatar in the bottom left, etc.
You’ll “construct roads, expand settlements, and race for Victory Points”, and trade resources with other players and NPCs
The landmarks that serve as Pokéstops/Gyms in Pokémon Go or Inns/Fortresses in Potter will act as locations to “collect resources and build settlements” here.
Beyond that, I’m told that more details should trickle out sometime in early 2020.
One of the very first things Niantic did, back when it was a tiny team inside of Google that didn’t really know what it was going to build, was tear apart a massive collection of board games to find mechanics that might work as a mobile game. This led them to build a prototype called BattleSF… which led to Ingress… which led to Pokémon GO, and beyond. It’s sort of fun, then, that the company has ended up back in the realm of board games.
Cloud kitchens, ghost kitchens, dark kitchens. No doubt by now you know a little about these businesses that are moving into underused or more affordable properties that can be turned into shared workspaces for the purposes of cooking up meals exclusively for delivery.
You probably also know that former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has been at the forefront of the trend for more than a year, growing his CloudKitchens business as fast as he can, fueled in part by $400 million that he quietly raised from the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia earlier this year. Sometimes these are in the U.S., in spaces in so-called opportunity zones or lower-income areas that, under the Trump Administration have enabled businesses to set up shop and avoid federal taxes in exchange. Sometimes they’re abroad. (Kalanick is reportedly eyeing big moves into both India and China.)
CloudKitchens has competition, though. In fact, among a growing number of rivals, its fiercest competitor is Kitchen United, a Pasadena, Ca.-based outfit that has raised roughly $56 million to date from investors including GV, Fidelty, and the real estate operating companies Divco West and RXR Realty, among others — and which has turned down hundreds of millions of dollars more for the time being.
Does its founder, a tech veteran turned restaurateur Jim Collins, not understand the opportunity before him? It was one question among many that Collins answered last week at a StrictlyVC event in San Francisco where he dazzled the crowd with his comic timing — and his tactics. The interview — conducted by former TechCrunch editor and now CNBC reporter Lora Kolodny — also provided one of the best overviews to date of what this fast-ballooning industry is really about.
If you’re interested in the future of how food is made and delivered — and who could win and lose in the process — this is an interview you should read to the end.
On Collins’s background:
“I did tech companies for a bunch of years and sold the last one off about 10 years ago, and i said i never want to work with venture capital people again. [Laughs.] That’s sort of true but not completely. Honestly, I was burned out, it was a grind.
[One day] there was a restaurant up the street for sale. I walked up the street and bought the restaurant and then came home and told my wife, ‘I bought the restaurant.’ And so we had a conversation that [that decision] might entail a lifestyle change where I was going to be gone every night, and I was at the restaurant every night for about a year and a half getting it going, but I absolutely fell in love with the restaurant business.
On how he came to run Kitchen United (as well as run his restaurant, which is still a going concern):
[Our restaurant] is in Montrose outside of Los Angeles, in a sleepy community that most people in Los Angeles have never heard of, and about a year-and-a-half ago, we started getting people at the door, saying, ‘Yes, I’m from Postmates’ or ‘DoorDash’ or ‘UberEats’ and ‘I’m here to place an order.’ Because we weren’t signed up on any services, I was like: What is that? I was so far outside of my past world that I didn’t even know what it was. But all of a sudden, it was a thing and [it was growing], and one day, a headhunter who I knew well called me up and said, ‘Hey, I want you to take a look at food thing.’ So he sent me a job description (that was honestly terrible) for the CEO role at Kitchen United, so I went and met the founders — the two folks who were with the company at the time — and I kind of fell in love with them and felt like it was a big idea that we could go after.
What they pitched him on, and why he didn’t think it would work:
The original business plan was, ‘Robots and autonomous cars are going to change the food business, so we need to be ready for that, so let’s build kitchens!’ And I said, ‘I think that’s actually true . . . in 10 years. The problem that the restaurant industry is experiencing because of the explosion of the shift in consumer demand and consumption isn’t a robots-and-autonomous-cars problem. It’s a proximity problem, and proximity is a problem we can solve tomorrow while we’re waiting.
What Kitchen United is building exactly:
We build kitchen centers. Basically you go into a space that’s $25 per square foot that no one has rented in 20 years, so we’ll take that space and put a bunch of kitchens in it. We also install a lot of technology — IoT, conveyer belts, all kinds of display information; we use machine learning to understand fire times — a whole series of things that go into deploying a kitchen center. Then we build a pick-up center in the front of the space that’s kind of the retail interface where drivers from Ubers, Postmates, DoorDash, Cavier, GrubHub (and seven other services can pick up the food) and [consumers can also grab pick-up].
There’s a thing called shared kitchens, which means that I’m going to go and cook in a space this morning, and when I’m done, somebody else is going to walk in this afternoon and cook in that same space. That’s not our business. Ours is effectively creating four-wall spaces for known restaurants to operate inside of our facilities for the purpose of extending their reach to meet new markets for delivery and consumer pick-up.
On whether Kitchen United is raising more money soon:
I don’t think so. We closed our Series B about six weeks ago.
It’s weird to be an entrepreneur in this world. There are two different operating methods that you’re encouraged to pursue if you’re going after a hot space. You’re either encouraged to be the biggest and fastest and to take as much money as you possibly can so you can be the biggest fastest, right? Or you’re encouraged to work hard and build a great business and then once you’ve built a great business, go out and get lots of money so you can build it.
Honestly, I felt like this business was so complex, that we had to learn about elementary stuff, like, where do we build these? Where’s the right place to put ’em? When we first started, we had meetings with big investment firms that were saying, ‘We’ll put $250 million against a $750 million valuation right now.’ That was the first conversation, when it was really like, we’ll put $8 in against whatever [laughs]. But when we were having that conversation, I’m flying home, thinking, $250 million? How would I deploy that? And they’re saying, ‘Well, you just go out and buy a bunch of warehouses in opportunity zones, and put kitchens in them, and it’ll be a great business! It’ll be awesome and you’ll own the market!”
Except warehouses in opportunity zones are too far away from consumers for food to get there fast enough for consumers to want to order from those restaurants. So I would have deployed $150 million in venture capital on brick walls and dry wall and stoves and vents and plumbing — like, ugly stuff. And once that stuff is deployed, it isn’t like it’s so easy to pick it up and move it someplace else.
How Kitchen United competes, if not in a land grab:
Most conservative projections for this space over the course of the next four years are that we’re going to go from somewhere around $30 billion today to around $230 billion, so people come along and people say, ‘This guy is in this business and he’s got all this money’ or ‘This company has raised this much to put to work; does that make you nervous?’ And the answer is, if we go out and build 3,000 of these things, we build like the fourth-largest restaurant chain in the U.S., we’ve only addressed about 40 percent of the total market. So when I look at it from a pure antiseptic, practical perspective, the fact is we need other people in the space, helping us solve the problem. And honestly, to the extent that other people are learning from us and getting better, and we’re learning from others and getting better, I think the competition isn’t a bad thing, I think it’s a good thing. (Here, Kolodny teased him for his “very diplomatic answer.”)
On what makes Kitchen United distinct from its long and growing list of rivals:
First, we decided the U.S. is a giant market, so we decided to focus here on the U.S., despite requests probably once a week from somebody saying, ‘Come to Saudi Arabia’ because it turns out it’s hard to build kitchens anywhere in the world, and we’re pretty good at building them.
The other thing we did . . .[is decide to play nice with Kitchen United’s two biggest customers — major food chains and delivery services]. I don’t want to boil the ocean. I don’t want to be a restaurant; I don’t want to cook food for consumers. There are 800,000 restaurants in the U.S., so let’s let them cook food and let’s come alongside them and help them expand what they are doing into new areas. . . . Our whole job is to expand the inventory for the [delivery] marketplace, expand the addressable market for the restaurant, and expand options for consumers so that we have a great business for all the various markets that we’re serving.
On the criteria to become part of Kitchen United:
We don’t work with startup restaurants. We don’t work with people that only have one location. When we started, we didn’t know what would work so we brought in all kinds of restaurants and ended up having to kick most of them out because either they didn’t know how to be a restaurant or they didn’t know how to be a multi-location restaurant. This is true of the ghost kitchen community as a whole: if you’re a restaurant and you don’t already have a consumer connection and an audience and a following and you try to open in a space with no consumer interface, no storefront, you have to climb a giant mountain.
There are some virtual restaurant brands. We have one in our location in Chicago. They were people who had operated multi-location restaurants and had a tremendous amount of internet marketing savvy and skill, so we decided to let them operate and they’re actually doing pretty well, so that’s an interesting new wrinkle.
On whether anything disqualifies a business from using Kitchen United as a platform:
Yes, a lot of large chains that will say we want to be in Kitchen United. We were at a big real estate development conference in Las Vegas and there were probably 20 chains that talked with us about being in KU and probably 18 of them would not qualify.
You’d like to think [that’s on a nutritional basis]. One thing we’ve learned isn’t to filter what the American consumer wants; our job is just to provide a path for them to get what they want.
The actual challenge is giant chains that have very little ability to create an online connection to their consumer. If they don’t have sophisticated online ordering interfaces, if they haven’t deployed the right technologies into their ERP and their ordering infrastructure and all the stuff that goes into the back end, then they aren’t going to be a good fit for KU because of the operational problems they have to overcome is just too great.
On how Kitchen United uses the data that’s running through it’s operations:
It’s a hot topic. We’re pretty careful. KU is a partner to our restaurants, and so we learn information through our own order channel. We don’t derive much information through the marketplace channels. There’s sort of a misnomer that when the marketplaces deliver orders . . . all we know is a consumer name, we don’t know an address or any of the other information. So you don’t get a lot of data like that.
Information we do get is stuff like how many chicken sandwiches a Chick-fil-A is selling or whatever. And you might think, ‘Oh cool, so you’ll just make a chicken sandwich [of your own] when Chick-fil-A closes down and you’ll sell it to the public.’ The restaurant world is very nervous about that; it’s a big topic in this space. If you go to restaurant conferences, there are a lot [accusations of], ‘They’re stealing my data.’ I’m the guy on stage saying, ‘It’s their data [the delivery marketplaces]. They attracted the consumer, they got the order from you. It’s their data. They aren’t stealing your data, it’s their data; you chose to allow them to sell your product on their network.’
But [also] it’s not as easy as that. You can’t just whip up a fried chicken sandwich and make consumers like it. The world is littered with even more failed restaurants than failed startups.
What happens to neighborhoods — and local restaurants — if Kitchen United succeeds:
The restaurant industry is huge — $800 billion in the U.S., $675 billion if you discount hospitals and stuff like that. [This take-out market] is somewhere around $33 billion this year. So we’re edging into it as a percentage, but if you look at dining room revenue year over year for the last 20 years in the U.S restaurant industry, it grows 1% per year, which is pretty much consistent with population growth. And the same is projected to be the case this year.
So restaurants aren’t dying because of marketplace delivery. Marketplace delivery is actually pulling business out of grocery stores. That’s why you see Kroger and Amazon and other grocery store chains plowing down rows of [goods] and installing warm counters with warm food and you’re seeing grocery chains focus on delivery.
It’s the wild west. It’s a crazy market and I absolutely, positively love it. It’s not a question of what gets me up in the morning. I never go to bed.
Before the hyperclouds, there were Linode, Mediatemple, HostGator and seemingly a million other hosting services that let you rent affordable virtual private servers for your development needs. And while we don’t talk about them all that much these days, with maybe the exception of Digital Ocean, which disrupted that market a few years ago thanks to its low prices, these services are still doing quite well and are working to adapt their offerings to today’s developers. Unsurprisingly, that often means adding support for containers, which is exactly what Linode is doing with the beta launch of its Linode Kubernetes Engine (LKE) this week.
Like similar services, 16-year old Linode argues that its offering will help enable more developers to adopt containers, even if they are not experts in managing this kind of infrastructure.
“With the launch of Linode Kubernetes Engine, we’ve democratized Kubernetes for developers, regardless of their resources or expertise,” said Linode CEO and Founder Christopher Aker. “By automating the configuration, node provisioning and management of Kubernetes clusters, we’ve made it faster and easier to ship modern applications. And with realtime autoscaling, free master services, and our intuitive cloud manager interface and open API, developers can bypass the complexities of traditional container management and focus on innovating.”
The service is, of course, integrated with the rest of Linode’s tools, which these days include block and object storage, for example, as well as load balancing, in addition to the usual server options. There’s also support for autoscaling and while advanced users can use tools like Helm charts, Terraform and Rancher, there’s also one-click app support for deploying often-used applications.
Linode’s service is entering a market that already features plenty of other players. But it’s also a growing market with room for lots of different tools that cater to a variety of needs. Tools like Kubernetes now allow companies like Linode to reach beyond their current customer base and offer businesses a platform that allows them to easily develop and test new services on one platform and then put them into production somewhere else — or, of course, put them into production on Lindode, too.
Karma Automotive’s second act is a gasoline-electric luxury vehicle that aims to deliver more performance and tech inside a sleek and sporty $149,950 package.
The 2020 Revero GTS unveiled Tuesday during AutoMobility LA, the press and trade days of LA Auto Show, shares some of the same bits as its sibling Revero GT. Both vehicles use a gasoline-electric powertrain — a BMW engine powers a generator that charges the 28 kilowatt-hour nickel manganese cobalt lithium-ion battery. Like the GT, the battery supplies the GTS with 80 miles of electric driving. Both vehicles have a total 360-mile range when they’re fully charged and fueled with gas.
And both have some of the same operational features, including three driving modes and launch control that allows drivers to unlock all the power and torque inside and “launch” the vehicle down the road. The three drive modes are “stealth,” for pure-electric driving, a range extender mode called “sustain,” and sport, which combines the output from the battery pack and the generator for maximum driving performance.
The GTS does have a lot of extra though and costs about $15,000 more than the GT. The GTS has a new body, including a redesigned hood, doors, deck lid, body sides and side mirrors. It’s also faster off the line and can travel from 0 to 60 miles per hour in an estimated 3.9 seconds compared to the 4.5 seconds in the GT. The GTS comes with electronic torque vectoring, refined power steering. It also has a higher electronically-limited top speed of 130 miles per hour versus the GT’s 125 mph.
The GTS’ twin electric motors and all-electric powertrain produce 536 horsepower and 635 pound-feet of torque, which should deliver a responsive and exciting enough drive. Although we’ll have to wait and experience it for ourselves.
The new vehicle has advanced driver assistance features like blind spot and cross traffic detection as well as audio technology developed in house and active noise cancelling. The infotainment system has also been improved on the GTS and includes haptic tactile switches a new touchscreen and user interface processor as well as a center console with improved storage.
Karma Automotive says it will begin production of the GTS in first quarter of 2020. First deliveries of the Revero GT expected during the fourth quarter of 2019.
The new business plan
The Karma Revero GT was the first fully conceived product to come out of a company that launched from the remnants of Fisker Automotive, the startup led by Henrik Fisker that ended in bankruptcy in 2013. China’s Wanxiang Group purchased what was left of Fisker in 2014 and Karma Automotive was born.
It hasn’t been all smooth sailing though. The company’s first effort, known as the Revero, wasn’t received warmly. The Revero GT has been an improved effort. However, that hasn’t relieved the pressure.
The company laid off about 200 workers this month from its Irvine, Calif. headquarters following a restructuring that will focus on licensing its technology to other carmakers. The company’s assembly plant is in Moreno Valley, Calif.
Karma’s efforts to pack more tech and performance in the GTS makes sense considering the company’s new business strategy to open its engineering, design, customization and manufacturing resources to other companies. It also explains Karma’s other reveal Tuesday, an all-electric concept vehicle called the SC2 that delivers a stunning 1,100 horsepower and 10,500 lb.-ft. of torque and can achieve 0 to 60 mph in less than 1.9 seconds.
In other words, the GTS is a model of what Karma can do. And it explains some of Karma’s decisions to design and produce more of the vehicle’s components in house. Karma has developed its own inverters to maximize and maintain full software control for fast over-the-air updates as well as a proprietary 7.1-channel 570-watt Soloscape audio system, according to Todd George, the company’s VP of Engineering. The inverters convert DC current from the battery pack to power the AC drive motors, and to also capture AC power from the regenerative braking system to recharge the battery pack.
It’s a business angle that Karma hopes will give it the immediate and long-term capital it needs to stay afloat. Karma is backed and owned by Wanxiang, the massive Chinese auto parts supplier. But it will eventually need to stand on its own.


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Cybercrooks latched onto the release of Diablo III on Monday with a run of scams themed around the widely anticipated video game.
Blizzard's games systems collapsed due to the higher than expected demand for the demon-slaying game, The Guardian reports.
The software company is attempting to stop pirates from nicking the new game by forcing wannabe warriors to log into its servers before they can start playing the role-playing game, even if they only want to try a single-player offline campaign.
This has created a bottleneck centered around log-in systems at Blizzard, which has struggled to service demand.
Technical glitches at Blizzard were an unexpected bonus for scammers, who have launched a raft of scams featuring the promotion of bogus crack and keygen sites. These fake sites might potentially be more attractive than they normally would be as gamers struggle to get their hands on legitimate content through regular channels.
Some of the scam sites that GFI Software has identified include supposed online key purchasing websites, that actually install dodgy software on the users' PC. Other spammy Diablo 3-themed links collated by the security firm actually lead to unrelated flash games, spam linkdumps and a “donation experiment” where installs of the software on offer enter marks into a supposed prize draw giveaway. Other shenanigans on show include links to survey scams and YouTube videos offering "expert tips" on the hours-old video game.
These various scams are being promoted through the web at large and social media websites, including Facebook and Pinterest.
More details of these scams can be found in a blog post by GFI Software here.
Chris Boyd, senior threat researcher at GFI Software, and an expert in gaming security, told El Reg that the scams coinciding with the release of Diablo 3 are similar to those that have accompanied a succession of major gaming releases over recent months.
"Major releases have been an excellent target of scammers for some time now, from Fake AV [anti-virus] to SEO poisonings. There have been a number of scams targeting those stuck on Red Dead Redemption's treasure map hunts in 2010 and malware links posted to Twitter aimed at fans of Portal 2 in 2011. The most recent example of scammers looking to profit comes from Mass Effect 3, where scammers utilised surveys that promised an alternative ending to the game."
More scams accompanying future high-profile video game releases are almost inevitable, Boyd warned.
"Diablo 3 is one of the most anticipated titles of the last few years and it's only natural that dubious downloads are now in circulation. Games are now a huge draw for anybody looking to turn a fast profit," he concluded. ®


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Maruti Wagon R has been one of the highest-selling cars in the country since time immemorial. The WagonR, which is in its second-generation in India, has found a lot of acceptance owing to its airy interior, frugal yet peppy engine, attractive price tag, and easy maintenance. It has now come to light that Maruti Suzuki plans to replace the Wagon R with an all-new version. It’s being said that the Suzuki Solio, which MSIL has been caught testing on our roads in the past, will be launched in India as the next-gen Wagon R. Also, there are very high chances of us getting a 7-seat configuration. Moreover, the new Maruti Wagon R 7-seater version will be launched this year itself.
Upon launch, the rebadged Solio will become a direct rival to the Datsun Go+. In addition, it will likely become very popular among fleet operators and those with large families. In the Japanese Domestic Market (JDM), the Suzuki Solio has been on sale with a 1.2-liter petrol-hybrid motor that outputs 90 bhp and 118 Nm. For the Indian market, MSIL will have the option of either retaining the current 1.0-liter K10 three-cylinder petrol engine or going for the 1.2-liter K12 four-cylinder unit that powers the Maruti Swift and a range of other Maruti cars. The K10 motor outputs 67 bhp and 90 Nm. The K12 engine, on the other hand, offers 82 bhp and 114 Nm. The current transmission options (5-speed manual and AMT) will be retained. Even the factory-fitted CNG option looks very likely to be carried over to the next-gen Wagon R.
Like we said, the new Maruti Wagon R 7-seater version should make tremendous sense to those with large families. It can easily act as a mini-MPV for all those who’ve thought of the Eeco to be a bit too utilitarian. On the other hand, fleet operators are bound to love the extra seats on offer. It’s said that the production of the 7-seat model will start in September 2018. Hence, a Diwali season launch looks very likely. Of course, there are very good chances of a price hike. But the new car will most probably justify this price premium through more seats. It’s worth a mention here that Maruti Suzuki has already showcased a 7-seater Wagon R in India at one of the earlier Auto Expos. The car that was showcased was the Wagon R R3, which is basically a popular model in Indonesia.


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Israeli communications company Lexifone, developer of automatic translation services for phone calls, has launched Lexifone 2. According to the company, the translation software is capable of producing simultaneous, real-time translations of phone conversations.
Lexifone’s service allows two people to speak in two different languages over the telephone, while each person hears the conversation in his or her own language. In the older version of the service, users had to say each sentence and wait for the translation, and to signal when they wanted to switch the translation “direction.” Now, Lexifone 2 allows each person to speak fluently, and the translation begins automatically when he or she finishes speaking (after 2 seconds, or so). Lexifone also listens to both speakers, and translates for each separately, even if they are speaking simultaneously.
The new version shortens translation time, and allows the translated conversation to flow more naturally. Lexifone 2 translates between English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Italian, Chinese, Russian, and Hebrew was recently added as well. Lexifone CEO and founder Dr. Ike Sagie said: “Our goal will always be to get as close as possible to translated conversation that accurately simulates conversation in the speaker’s language.”
Lexifone recently closed a €2 million deal with French communication company SFR. SFR has 20 million private subscribers and one million corporate subscribers. Lexifone’s service is intended for the corporate subscribers. The service will allow them to converse with people who do not speak French, and will make it easier for them to conduct business.
Lexifone was founded by Sagie in 2010, and has raised $3 million.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 19, 2013
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2013


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by Liz Armbruester
In recent a long time, more models have turned to ecommerce and on the web gross sales to enhance profits ensuing in an acceleration of omnichannel commerce. The conventional in-shop shopping expertise has been upended by new choices for people like purchase on the net and choose up in-store. In reality, according to Wix, 76 percent of people are extra most likely to buy from brands that personalize activities across touchpoints. Even as suppliers perform to deal with regular techniques essential to provide an omnichannel experience, there is a new channel they need to take into thought — the metaverse.
About just the earlier handful of months, numerous vendors have been embracing the metaverse as properly as the added benefits it features to renovate the shopping expertise. Earlier this 12 months, important retail brands participated in the initially Metaverse Trend Week, and other manufacturers like Gucci have released digital clothes collections in just the electronic entire world. While the full affect and chance for merchants affiliated with the metaverse is probably nonetheless to be found, it is not far too early for manufacturers and organizations to get started pondering about the regulations and complexity that arrives with yet another income channel joining the fray.
Right here are some concealed complexities that shops ought to be conscious of when considering including the metaverse to their omnichannel approach.
Tax is Nevertheless Applicable in the Electronic Earth
The taxman exists virtually in all places, and the virtual earth is no unique. Whether transactions include acquiring land and serious estate in the metaverse, or luxurious purses, the genuine-earth profits produced will still be taxable.
Gaming company Second Existence started charging end users revenue tax in their metaverse fact earlier this calendar year soon after earlier covering the expenditures — citing the United States Supreme Courtroom selection in South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., which enables states to tax distant revenue, as justification for collecting tax. Before this calendar year, CPA organization Prager Metis opened a metaverse workplace for accounting and economical advisory products and services, citing the “need for money skills and resources in the evolving electronic entire world.”
As most transactions inside the metaverse happen utilizing cryptocurrency and digital assets, tax authorities are evolving their procedures to be certain they get a portion of tax profits from these product sales. In March, New York Legal professional Typical Letitia James revealed a discover reminding cryptocurrency investors to shell out taxes on virtual investments. In the coming months and many years, be expecting more tax authorities to build these precedents that reassure the jurisdiction state and area governments have for receiving tax revenue on virtual transactions.
States are Starting to Believe About How to Regulate the Metaverse
Many states have not but addressed the taxability of merchandise bought in the metaverse. While each point out with a product sales tax taxes most product sales of tangible merchandise, digital goods and merchandise complicate tax determinations for tax authorities.
Whilst most tax authorities have not laid out their plans to tax transactions in the metaverse, some have taken the first actions by taxing electronic assets. Washington point out outlined the country’s to start with coverage for NFTs, which would make them taxable less than income and organization taxes. Laws in Delaware, Florida, and Indiana also purpose to pose new laws on virtual forex or activity-connected electronic information.
As these legislative bodies deliberate on how to regulate the metaverse, we can be expecting better clarification from condition tax authorities, but as the Wayfair final decision confirmed us, we can also assume a dynamic tax landscape that carries on to evolve to abide by new innovation in the electronic globe.
There is no question that the metaverse will keep on to effect many industries, with retail using center phase. As Gartner predicts, 30 per cent of the world’s corporations will be promoting items and services in the metaverse by 2026. The next iteration of retail is below, and as more makes embrace the new possibilities presented by the metaverse, they require to don’t forget that new rules and taxes will follow. Retain in brain these transforming polices and opportunity tax burdens to assure compliance obligations are satisfied.
Liz Armbruester is the SVP of worldwide compliance at Avalara.


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Saks Fifth Avenue opens in Toronto
The new Saks Fifth Avenue store in Toronto at Eaton Town Centre — the first in Canada — is also the first flagship store for the brand in more than 40 years.
Built on 169,000 square feet of space carved out of the Hudson’s Bay store on Queen St. at Yonge St., the Saks occupies four floors given over to luxury brands in an opulent setting.
Saks features brands such as Dior,Valentino, Louis Vuitton, Saint Laurent, Chloé, Céline, Prada, Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, Givenchy and Azzedine Alaïa. The jewelry and watches selection includes Pomellato, Piaget, Marco Bicego and H.Stern.
The Hudson’s Bay store next to Saks has been renovated from top to bottom. The two spaces remain linked by a pedestrian walkway on the upper level. Entering on the ground floor, shoppers can choose Saks on the left or Hudson’s Bay on the right.
The Saks opening on Thursday will mark the first in a series of major retail grand openings this year, bringing in Seattle-based department store retailer Nordstrom, a new Holt Renfrew, and Maison Simons, a Quebec retailer that sells low- and high-end goods.


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Mixed blessing for domestic brand handsets
( 2003-09-07 14:00) (eastday.com)
Good news has been reported from China's handset production sector as the latest statistics indicate that Chinese brand mobile phones successfully claimed half of the domestic market share in the first half of the year.
However, experts warned that the figure could be interpreted as an omen for impending trouble, since in fact nearly half of the domestic brands were actually imported whole or domestically assembled with major imported components, simply known as "labeled handsets" which refer to the last procedure of label attachment done in China.
Equally discouraging was another fact that about 20 million domestic brand handsets, or almost the domestic sales volume in four months, have been maintained in the hands of either producers or distributors after failing to enter the market.
"Measures should be taken to gradually lower the high imports of handsets, for the importing is incompatible with China's strong manufacturing force with 37 mobile phone manufacturers," said Wang Bingke, director of the economic operation department of the Ministry of Information Industry (MII).
China imported 17 million handsets last year, and 25 million in the first half of 2003. And most of the CDMA handsets had been fully assembled before being imported. In sharp contrast, of the total 55 million handsets exported last year, just 500,000 were home brands.
The MII had stepped up its efforts to tighten control over inappropriate handset imports and to lift the homemade ratio, Wang said.
Late last month, the ministry called in executives of domestic handset manufacturers for a meeting and informed them of the new policy, including measures to limit import quotas and exercising stricter network entry control.
Wan Mingjian, general manager of the TCL Mobile, one of China's leading handset producers, said he would raise "both his hands" to welcome the new policy in the belief that the increasing number of "labeled handsets" had seriously disturbed the market order and posed unfair competition against similar products that were domestically developed.
"By putting a limit on import quotas, the interests of virtually homemade mobile brands will be safeguarded," said Wan.
Wan was echoed by Deng Weiming, general manager of the Panda Telecom Group, whose Panda handset has turned out to be the fastest growing mobile phone brand. By late June, the group had successfully accomplished its annual sales target of 1.5 million.
"The 50 percent market share has exaggerated the real development level of the domestic mobile industry," said Deng, pointing out the introduction of "labeled handsets" has actually propped up production cost and diverted large profits back to foreign companies.
"Limiting handset imports will help encourage independent research and development, which is a crucial criteria to evaluate a country's real development of the mobile phone industry," said Deng, who believes China is still largely subject to foreign countries in terms of core mobile technologies.
China is the world's largest and fastest growing mobile phone market. According to an estimate made by the MII, mobile phone users will increase by 52 million this year, lifting the popularization rate to over 20 percent.
China now has nearly 30 domestic brands of handsets. Ever since the initial entry into the domestic market in 1998, they have been muscling in on famous foreign brands like Motorola, Nokia and Ericsson.
By 2002, domestic brands accounted for 30 percent of the country's entire mobile phone market share. Figures from the MII show that the percentage goes up to 55 percent in the first half of this year.
Experts warned that due to large numbers of "labeled handsets" and fierce commercial and price wars resulting from relentless competition among manufactures, the mobile phone industry faces a big challenge.
With the implementation of the new policy, experts predicted market reorganization would be unavoidable at the end of this year or early next year, warning that some weak and small manufacturers would be eliminated.
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Slow and Steady Wins the CBDC Race: Why the US is not Concerned with China's Speed
China appears on the verge of releasing its digital yuan while the United States digital dollar is still in the research stage—but in the race for CBDC dominance, is being first really everything?
Below are three key variables that indicate that the United States' approach of—doing it right not first—creating their central bank digital currency (CBDC) may be a more strategic approach.
Central Bank Digital Currency
Central banks around the world are competing to be the first to release their central bank digital currencies (CBDC) as the world economy is being reshaped by the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
CBDC’s represent the digital form of a nation’s fiat money (currency backed by trust or faith in the regulating government). As such, it is controlled directly by the country’s central bank and is backed by national credit and government power.
Despite being influenced by decentralized cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, CBDC is more of a reaction to than an embrace of cryptocurrency, which central banks see more as a threat to be managed.
With the immense popularity of Bitcoin and the announcement of the launch of Facebook’s Libra last year, governments are beginning to realize the importance of protecting against these threats to the existing banking and finance industry.
According to reports, China has been the frontrunner, aggressively piloting its own DCEP (Digital Yuan) meanwhile, the United States has been off to a slow start with the Federal Reserve still in the preliminary research stage—assessing the positives and negatives of CBDC implementation.
But there are several reasons why the United States will likely still come out on top in the race for a digital state-backed sovereign currency.
CBDC has no First Mover Advantage
Being the first to market typically holds significant advantages particularly in free markets. Being first is often a huge stride towards brand dominance—this can be seen with cryptocurrency as well with Bitcoin. Despite a slew of technically superior blockchains emerging since the Bitcoin network went live, Bitcoin still benefits from being the first mover and its reputation and brand have no equal in the crypto sphere.
But the first-mover advantage is nullified for a monopolistic sector which the central banks, particularly the Federal Reserve, control. Central banks are not in competition with the free market and can offer risk-free legal tender something that even private stablecoins like Tether’s USDT cannot. There is no impetus for the FED to race in this regard as the product will be vastly superior to anything the free market could offer.
United States’ CBDC development may even benefit from being the last to launch—why not let the other central banks fix the bugs first. It is also not entirely true that the global balance will shift should the digital yuan be launched first as it is essential for America’s economy and fiscal policy that keeps the world spending in dollars, not the format of the money.
As Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell concurs with this sentiment and said at a recent IMF panel:
"We have not made a decision to issue a CBDC, and we think there’s a great deal of work yet to be done. [...] In fact, I actually do think that CBDC is one of those issues where it’s more important for the United States to get it right than it is to be first.”
CBDC’s Have Hidden Risks
Letting others go first is often a smart strategy. The launch of a CBDC by any government could be a potential minefield, and we would rather see out competitors set off a few explosions before we venture the path ourselves.
While economists speculate on what the effects of issuing a CBDC might be on traditional banking systems, the actual effects are unclear at this point. Many prominent economists believe CBDCs could increase the ability for customers to go on banking runs, particularly in unstable economic conditions like the COVID-19 crisis. What is to stop panicking depositors from fleeing banks into 100% safe central bank digital currency?
Fast Payments Already Exist in the US
During the same IMF panel in October, Fed Chair Jerome Powell also said:
"We have a highly banked population so that many—although not all—already have access to the electronic payments system."
And this statement is very true, networks such as MasterCard Send, Visa Direct, and The Clearing House’s Real-Time Payments system are all blanketing the US with real-time, domestic, person-to-person payments.
While a CBDC or digital dollars would have been useful for the instant delivery of the COVID-19 stimulus aid packages to citizens, some who ended up waiting months for the $1,200 cheques—beyond a crisis, there is no immediate need for the central bank to have digital payments.
Additionally, the ISO 20022 uniform standard of global payments will also be enhancing the cost the speed of SWIFT which is set to make a huge comeback and the Federal Reserve’s has also already announced the development of its own 24/7 instant payments called FEDNow.
In addition to the above, just designing and maintaining a retail-facing payments system would be a political minefield and open up debates on freedom—with Libertarians wanting anonymous transactions but regulators demanding traceability.
The political left may posture for financial inclusion while the right may leverage the system to more heavily scrutinize immigrant welfare benefits.
Given all the list of possible complications, it seems that the Federal Reserve’s strategy to let the other central banks charge out first may be the smart decisions. By sitting back they can ensure that they are better prepared for the landmines that China may inevitably set off in their determination to be first.
In the race for CBDC dominance going last could hold all the advantages.
Image source: Shutterstock


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We discuss new data on how Americans feel about tipping culture in the United States with an assistant professor of hospitality and tourism management. Then, we learn about plans for the recently announced expansion of the Appleton International Airport.
Featured in this Show
New tech expands how often consumers are asked to tip
People who have experience working for tips are more likely to know when and how much to tip, according to new Pew research. We talk with an assistant professor of hospitality and tourism management about the tipping culture in the United States.
Appleton International Airport announces $66M expansion plan
- Kate Archer Kent Host
- Royce Podeszwa Producer
- Courtney Everett Producer
- Lee Rayburn Technical Director
- Cortney Norris Guest
- Abe Weber Guest
Wisconsin Public Radio, © Copyright 2024, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and Wisconsin Educational Communications Board.


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(CNN) — The nationwide pet food recall was expanded Wednesday to include products containing rice protein laced with melamine, a toxic agent, the Food and Drug Administration said.
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Renault Trucks, which is owned by AB Volvo of Sweden, is to receive $650m, while Renault and Peugeot Citroen’s financial services divisions will get state aid of $2.6bn.
Falling car sales
Sarkozy said the package, which still needs the go-ahead from European competition authorities, was essential to protecting French industry and jobs from the slowdown.
“We want France to have an industrial sector, we want France to have an automobile industry and we want to keep production capacities on French soil”
He said France’s two leading car manufacturers had made a commitment “to close no sites over the duration of the loan and to do everything to avoid redundancies,” in exchange for the aid.
Since the start of the global financial crisis, which has sent car sales tumbling, both Renault and Peugeot have slashed output at their plants and hundreds of workers have accepted redundancy offers.
Both Peugeot Citroen and Renault, which together directly employ some 140,000 people in France, confirmed that they had committed to holding on to their French sites and staff.
Over the next two years, Peugeot Citroen said it would launch one or two new models in each of its five French assembly plants, and would step up investment in energy-efficient technologies.
Renault said it would not lay off staff in any of its French plants in 2009.
Sarkozy has said the measures would ensure that “an acute but temporary crisis will not destroy part of our industrial base and our auto industry skills”.
“We want France to have an industrial sector, we want France to have an automobile industry and we want to keep production capacities on French soil,” he said.
“We have no choice. Either we allow our industries to keep on leaving, or we react with all means necessary.”
The announcements came as Nissan, Renault’s international partner, announced it was to cut 20,000 workers worldwide and pull out of a joint project with the French firm in Morocco, where they were due to open a large plant.
Sarkozy has made protecting France’s iconic industries the central plank of his supply-led plan to ride out the global economic slowdown.
Speaking at the Elysee Palace he said he did not rule out taking similar action for other “major industrial sectors,” to ensure “the competitivity of our country,” naming the timber industry as an example.
But the French leader will have to tread carefully to avoid triggering a row over protectionism.
Last week, he angered eastern European governments by suggesting in a television interview that Peugeot should close a plant in the Czech Republic and bring production home to France.
Neelie Kroes, the Europan Union competition commissioner, has warned Paris against tying protectionist strings to its industrial aid efforts.


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Wyoming Business Resource Network, a partnership of the University of Wyoming and the Wyoming Business Council (WBC) helps Wyoming businesses to expand and succeed. Their goal is to promote prosperity across the state. The network’s programs help to bring in additional jobs and revenue to the state every year.
Their program Manufacturing-Works (MW) includes a team of engineers who visit manufacturing companies and provides workshops and free consultation to help decrease cost, increase sales, and retain jobs. For over 20 years, MW helped L&H Industrial grow from a $6 million Wyoming business to a world-wide $96 million company.
“MW did my first worldwide marketing plan,” says Vice President, Jeff Wandler. “They helped build us into the company we are today.”
L&H Chief Financial Officer Jim Clikeman adds, “They’ve expanded our horizon, broadened our perspective and given us a lot of good ideas we can implement.”
Read the full article published in the May issue of the UWYO Magazine.


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The awards, sponsored by Kärcher, recognise the dedicated businesses and individuals that have powered the logistics industry throughout the past 12 months, with the winner of each category announced at a glittering reception and celebratory gala dinner to be held at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge on 08 December 2022.
From strength to strength
Kevin Green, director at Logistics UK comments: “We are thrilled with the record-breaking number of entries received for this year’s awards, which recognises the work the logistics industry has carried out to continue meeting the needs of the nation despite ongoing challenges. It is great to see this event go from strength to strength, recognised as the most important awards for industry. Logistics UK is proud to celebrate the talent, hard work and dedication in this industry.”
Businesses were able to enter as many as they wished from these award categories:
- Logistics Leader of the Year (Individual)
- People Champion of the Year- Sponsored by Kärcher
- Rail Business of the Year
- Water Business of the Year
- Air Business of the Year
- Road Transport Operator of the Year
- Public Services Operator of the Year
- International Logistics Business of the Year – Sponsored by DWF
- Diversity and Inclusion Champion of the Year
- Logistics Partner of the Year – Sponsored by Brigade
- Rising Star of the Year (Individual)
- Decarbonisation Champion of the Year
- Logistics Technology Provider of the Year
- Last Mile Delivery Business of the Year
- Most Innovative Company of the Year
- Most Innovative Product of the Year
Early-bird tickets available
Two other categories will be awarded on the night: Logistics UK’s Lifetime Achievement Award, as recognised by the Logistics UK Board, and Van Operator of the Year – sponsored by Logistics UK Recovery – the shortlist for which will comprise of the winners from each category from Logistics UK’s 2022 Van Awards that will take place on 16 September 2022 at the Hyatt Regency, Birmingham.
Entries are now closed and those wishing to attend this year’s Logistics Awards should visit Logistics UK | Logistics Awards 2022 for more information.


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After partnering with Pirelli, Roger Dubuis continues at full speed and teams up with Lamborghini for the limited-edition Excalibur Aventador S, a hotbed of raw power and ultimate sensations.
We take an inside look at Zenith's new oscillator, placed inside the Defy Lab which is billed as "the world's most accurate mechanical watch". A development set to revolutionise the watch industry and put the brand with the star back into the firmament.
TRENDING RIGHT NOW
Following on from the Constant escapement, Girard-Perregaux again demonstrates its mastery of complex constructions with a tri-axial tourbillon. The Neo-Tourbillon with Three Bridges completes the different interpretations of this complication from a Manufacture in the midst of renewal.
This year sees the launch of a special edition from IWC Schaffhausen that honours the fabulous flying skills of the Swiss aerobatic squadron.
The trend remains positive for Swiss watch exports. In April, their value was up 1.7% compared to April 2013, to a level of 1.8 billion francs. In four months, total exports for the sector stood at 6.8 billion francs (+3.8%).
The new Petite Heure Minute 35 mm: precious femininity, mother-of-pearl, aventurine, ruby heart...


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ENDEAVOUR Automotive has unveiled plans for a new flagship Hyundai dealership in north London that will have 47 cars displayed over two floors.
The retailer said growing demand for Hyundais had influenced its decision to relocate from West Hendon Broadway to Colney Hatch Lane in New Southgate. Overall, Hyundai experienced a five per cent year-on-year growth in sales last year, passing 92,000 registrations.
The cost of the build isn’t being made public as yet, but the new site, which is due to open in the third quarter of this year, will boast more than 1,000 square metres of display space. It will include a 13-car showroom and Hyundai UK’s first indoor used car display area – capable of holding 34 cars – on the building’s first floor.
There will also be a nine-bay workshop with dedicated MOT, tyre-fitting and wheel-alignment stations, plus integrated space for car care with two dedicated valet bays and a wet-wash area.
Staff numbers will increase by more than 20 per cent to approximately 45 people as greater sales volumes are predicted. The growth projection also considers commitments by the South Korean brand to bring a host of technology-packed fuel-efficient models to the UK, spearheaded by the Ioniq – the world’s first car available with three distinct powertrains.
John Caney, the managing director of Endeavour Automotive, said: ‘We take great pride in establishing a flagship site with Hyundai at our new north London location. Encompassing Hyundai’s latest dealer-identity styling and customer-environment features, the two-storey development will be a landmark for Endeavour and Hyundai that should boost our sales while contributing to Hyundai’s ongoing success.’
Main image: An artist’s impression of the Hyundai North London dealership
On SuperUnleaded.com: Drones Are Finally Put To Good Use – Tracking World Rally Cars


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Even though it’s still more than a week until Valentine’s Day, some are already looking ahead to another upcoming event on the calendar. St. Patrick’s Day is just over one month away. St. Patrick’s Day means the return of McDonald’s “Shamrock Shake”. This year is the 50th anniversary of the iconic McDonald’s treat. McDonald’s has confirmed the Shamrock Shake will return to stores on the 19th of February, 2020. This year there is a bonus for the 50th anniversary, McDonald’s will be selling an Oreo Shamrock McFlurry. It’s made with mint ice cream and crumbled Oreo cookies.
Photo Credit: McDonald’s via Instagram


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Tel Aviv-based was one of six firms that pitched beating second-placed UK specialist OTA HalalBooking
Phocuswright Europe: Family experiences start-up It’s July wins Innovation Launch competition
Tel Aviv-based start-up It’s July was named the Launch winner at this year’s Phocuswright Europe’s conference in Amsterdam.
The firm launched a subscription service for that matches travelling families with host families in destinations to provide authentic experiences.
It’s July was voted as the People’s Choice winner following a pitch with five other contenders. Fast-growing UK specialist OTA HalalBooking was the runner up.
Co-founder and chief executive of It’s July, Tamar Liberman, said the firm is tapping into a growing desire of travellers for experiences that are unique and locally-based.
“For a company that launched in the middle of COVID this is amazing recognition and validation of the new opportunities we have introduced into the market. This can open up a lot of doors.”
It’s July matches family profiles based on interests with host families offer everything from a home-cooked dinner to a picnic in a local park to bird watching.
“The next generation of Gen Z and millennials are travelling differently that we are used to,” said Liberman. “They want to invest in the community they are travelling in, to interact with them.”
It’s July is currently operating in the UK, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands and soon plans to launch in Sweden and Spain.
As winner of the Innovation Launch competition it was given a place to attend this Novembers Phocuswright conference in Pheonix and joined its newly formed start-up fellowship.
The company is backed by angel investors and the Techstars accelerator. It has 10 employees based in Europe and three co-founders and is poised to launch a £3 million seed round.
The other contenders for Innovation Launch were Group Reservation System, Trava (formerly Traveknowledgy), Travel Ledger and TrustedHousitters.


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Bloomingdale’s. Dillard’s. Ikea. Who will be the next retailer to announce a store in the Milwaukee area?
It can be difficult, if not impossible, to predict where retailers will add stores. Deals depend not just on the market but also on the specific space, available capital and the players involved.
But national chains are taking another look at metropolitan Milwaukee as they see major retailers such as Nordstrom, Von Maur, Meijer Inc. grocery and The Container Store enter the market.
“There’s a vast amount of untapped market potential in Milwaukee,” said Tim Blum, who is developing The Mayfair Collection retail project in Wauwatosa.
Retail expansion is an obvious boon to the retail and real estate markets, but it also boosts the Milwaukee area as a whole, encouraging economic development and making the area a more attractive place to live and work.
Many retailers cut back on or eliminated expansion during the recession, but now they’re once again cautiously adding stores. Metro Milwaukee is a natural growth market because of its proximity to Chicago, Blum said.
“Once these tenants exhaust all the obvious opportunities as far as infill areas in Chicago, then I think that presents opportunities in Milwaukee,” he said.
Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue are prime examples, he said. Both are planning locations for their discount shops, Nordstrom Rack and Saks Fifth Avenue Off 5th, for The Mayfair Collection expected to open April 3. Nordstrom also is planning its first full-line Wisconsin store to open at nearby Mayfair mall in 2015.
Nordstrom in particular will help draw more retailers, Blum said. For example, The Container Store announced plans in December to open on a Mayfair outlot in 2015.
“Now that Nordstrom has planted a flag...that’s going to have a wonderful impact driving expansion of that whole corridor,” Blum said.
Anne Brouwer, senior partner with retail consulting firm McMillan Doolittle LLP in Chicago, said the next retailers to come into the Milwaukee area might be ones we haven’t heard of.
“Niche players that really have a strong position in a specific category or fill a price and positioning gap in the marketplace are ones to watch,” she said.
As an example, Brouwer mentioned Intimacy, a designer lingerie store with a focus on personalized service. It has 16 locations across the country, including two in Chicago.
“There are some of these concepts that have grown slowly and quietly by filling a need,” she said.
Milwaukee-area residents have been clamoring for years for an Ikea, the Swedish furniture giant that has a cult-like following. Ikea considers itself a destination retailer, but the nearest store in Schaumburg, Ill., is inconvenient to Milwaukee, Brouwer said.
“There have been rumors swirling about that one for a long time,” she said. “It certainly would be a welcome addition because it’s not like we’re overloaded with furniture options.”
Ikea hired a real estate brokerage to find a Milwaukee-area site in 2005, but nothing came of it. The retailer would need a prime location with lots of land that is easily accessible to multiple Wisconsin markets, such as along Highway 41/45 or Interstate 94, Brouwer said.
Ikea did not return a call for comment.
Retailers that only have one store in the Milwaukee area, such as Whole Foods Market or Anthropologie, might also be considering adding stores, Brouwer said.
One thing Brouwer doesn’t expect to see is a store that’s more high-end than Nordstrom or Von Maur, such as Neiman Marcus. But outlet formats are in growth mode, as seen from the Nordstrom Rack and Off 5th stores coming to The Mayfair Collection, she said. Some retailers with outlets in Chicago or even Pleasant Prairie Premium Outlets might consider opening another outlet farther north, she said.
One impediment to retailers looking to enter the Milwaukee-area market is space, said Larry Kilduff, vice president and regional management lead for Jones Lang LaSalle in Chicago. Well-known retailers want dramatic spaces for their first market stores, and they’re looking more and more at densely populated, urban areas.
Mayfair is considered the ideal spot by many retailers because of its easy access to the north shore and western suburbs, but it’s already full. It’s notable that Nordstrom wanted to be at Mayfair so badly that it was willing to build its store in the back of the mall property, Kilduff said.
The Mayfair Collection is well located to attract retailers that want to be close to Mayfair, and there are other development opportunities along West Burleigh Street, he said. Brookfield Square could also offer an opportunity with its plan to add 20,000 square feet in 2014 and 50,000 square feet in 2015.
A couple of other Milwaukee-area locations still have question marks attached to them, Kilduff said. Bayshore Town Center in Glendale is an attractive property, but retailers are waiting to see what happens with Sears Corp., whose lease is up at the end of 2016. They also are waiting to see if The Corners project moves forward with Von Maur as planned.
“That (Von Maur) is going to be very powerful if that happens,” Kilduff said. “Frankly, if it doesn’t happen, it will be equally powerful in a negative way.”
Von Maur has signed a contract for The Corners and publicly expressed its commitment to the project, but the development has been delayed since it was announced in spring 2011 and a ground-breaking date has not been set. The developer,
The Marcus Corp., announced new investors and tenants in 2013 and recently reached a $43.4 million financing deal with the town of Brookfield.
Milwaukee also is competing with metropolitan areas across the country for limited capital that retailers have allocated to new stores, Kilduff said.
“There’s definitely more sites than stores (nationwide),” he said.