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Although shopping malls have large parking areas with thousands of spaces, motorists usually find that part of the shopping experience to be the most frustrating. Very often, unless they go just after the mall has opened, the spaces will be filled quickly and it can take a while to locate an empty space.

To help motorists find parking spaces more easily, Sunway Malls (part of the Sunway Group) which is one of the largest shopping mall operators in Malaysia, recommends a solution using a smartphone app. The app, known as PARKIT, lists all the company’s properties in the Klang Valley. These are Sunway Pyramid, Sunway Carnival Mall, Sunway Velocity Mall, Sunway Putra Mall and Sunway Giza Mall.

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Going by normal industry time-frames, a model generation lasts around 5 years or sometimes a bit longer, after which a new generation is launched. Before that time, there are the usual updates to freshen the product against newer rivals. These are usually termed ‘facelifts’ which actually relates to cosmetic changes but there are occasions when there are also technical changes.

But then again, this is a new era of electric vehicles (EVs) and who’s to say that carmakers can’t revise the product cycle time. This is especially so since EV technology is moving at such a fast pace with advancements occurring even within 12 months. The battery packs of today, for instance, are better than two years ago and will likely be even more so in another two years.

Volkswagen today unveiled the latest ID.3, a battery electric vehicle (BEV) which it launched just two and half years ago. Normally, we would be reading about a ‘facelift’ but the carmaker avoids the term and says it is the ‘new ID.3’ – even going as far as to call it the second generation. It’s not unusual though to see ‘new’ since in one respect, it is new compared to the 2022 model.

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SUVs can be seen in every segment of the car market nowadays and now, Honda has even developed a SUV racing car with a hybrid powertrain. While SUVs have been used in competition before, this particular one is a special one-off project vehicle which is a sneak preview of the Honda’s technology to come.

Developed by Honda Performance Development (HPD), the racing arm of Honda’s North American subsidiary, the CR-V Hybrid Racer will make its debut at the 2023 Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. In 2024, hybrid power units will officially debut in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, bringing electrification to the event.

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With the population of electric vehicles (EVs) set to increase at a fast pace from now on, there is an urgent need for the charging station network to also grow quickly. The government has set a target of 10,000 charging stations nationwide by 2025 and has asked the car companies selling EVs to also be involved in achieving this target.

Unlike cars with combustion engines which are sold and then providing fuel is left to the petroleum companies and their networks (which are the product of many decades), the EV charging network requires the involvement of the car companies, energy providers and other stakeholders to be established as quickly as possible.

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A family travelling home after attending a wedding event had a serious accident when their car hit a water buffalo which then landed on the car. The accident, reported in Oriental Daily, occurred in Semerak, Kelantan.

According to the news report, the family in the car consisted of the father, mother and three children. The father who was driving, had difficulty seeing the road ahead probably due to the poorly lit conditions at 11 pm at night. He therefore did not notice the water buffalo standing in the middle of the road until it was too late and hit it.

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Brembo will again be the supplier of brake systems for the Formula 1 World Championship which will have its first round this weekend in Bahrain. Over 48 seasons, F1 racing cars using Brembo brakes have won 27 Drivers’ World Championships, 32 Constructors’ World Championships and 485 GP races.

Over the past 20 years, Brembo has revolutionized the concept of discs used in F1 cars. In the early 2000s, Brembo carbon discs had a thickness of 28 mm with a maximum of 72 holes in a single row and a diameter that exceeded of 10 mm.

Today, the diameter has increased from 278 mm to 328 mm for the front axle carbon disc and from 266 mm to 280 mm for the rear one, with a thickness of 32 mm and a number of holes between 1,000 and 1,100 at the front, while 900 holes at the rear in the most extreme setup in terms of cooling. This year, the FIA has banned drilled pads.

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As we have seen for a long time, the Japanese are masters at making compact cars. It has something to do with their road conditions which are narrow, and also led to the creation of the unique kei class in the country. The initial regulations in 1949 allowed kei car dimensions to be no more than 2.8 metres long and 1 metre wide. By the end of the 1990s, they were allowed to be up to 3.4 metres long and 1.48 metres wide.

Besides kei cars, which could only have 660 cc engines (in Japan), there was also a category of kei trucks which also had the same dimensional restrictions so they were pretty small. The Perodua Kancil was adapted from a Daihatsu kei car called the Mira so you can imagine just how small the kei trucks were.

While Toyota and Nissan did not make kei cars, the other carmakers such as Daihatsu, Mazda, Mitsubishi Motors, Suzuki and Subaru had kei cars as well as trucks (which generally used the same simple platform). They sold well during the 1990s and were even exported to other countries, including the USA, surprisingly.

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Although the Sarawak and Sabah markets for new vehicles are smaller than in Peninsular Malaysia, many car companies still give the East Malaysian region a lot of attention. Those selling vehicles like pick-up trucks and SUVs, in particular, have a large potential market that continues to grow.

The potential of the market in East Malaysia has led companies like Mitsubishi Motors Malaysia (MMM) to develop its sales and aftersales network which now has 14 outlets (7 in Sarawak and 7 in Sabah), with the opening of a new outlet in Sarawak recently.

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Following the appearance of a video on social media showing a car drifting and smoking its tyres near a toll plaza on the Damansara-Shah Alam Elevated Expressway (DASH), PROLINTAS, the concessionaires for the expressway, have issued a statement to say that they will be working with the police to investigate the matter which took place early yesterday morning.

The toll plaza is near Denai Alam on the western end of the 20.1-km expressway which was opened in October 2022. According to the statement, a crowd had gathered in the area leading to the toll plaza and illegal activities took place, referring to the drifting maneuvers of the car (gathering on the highway itself would also be illegal).

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Carmakers work hard to maintain their relationship with customers who have bought their products. They hope that once someone has joined their ‘family’, he or she will continue choosing the brand for subsequent car purchases. To encourage this, customer retention programs are important and offer a variety of benefits for owners.

PHS Automotive Malaysia (PHSAM), which took over as the official distributor of the Audi brand in Malaysia in July last year, has been busy not just on new model plans but also looking at how they can serve existing owners. In particular, they want to give attention to owners with older Audi vehicles that are no longer under warranty.

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