The good oil: Talk to me

An Auckland marketing executive getting out of the car game went looking for a vehicle to suit his new needs. He knocked on all the mainstream dealers' doors, told them what he wanted, and waited ... and waited. "For someone who has spent the past five years in marketing, I was amazed at the lack of follow-up communication," he said. Only one of eight dealers he talked to got back to him: Schofields, of Newmarket. Our man bought a Holden.

Bullet-proof delivery

The International Armoring Corporation is about to deliver 700 bullet-proof passenger vehicles to South Africa. That they will arrive before the football World Cup is coincidental. IAC, an American company, says the vehicles will be used by a security company "for the purpose of protecting their reaction officers". IAC takes typical SUVs and turns them into virtual fortresses; the original windows are replaced with 5cm-thick armoured glass. Statistically, South Africa is one of the most dangerous countries in the world, with 18,000 reported home invasion robberies last year. Johannesburg has an average of more than 4000 car-jackings a month.

Girls and their cars

Wealthy Chinese women are buying Ferraris at a rate four times greater than women in the West. This from the Ferrari stand at the Beijing motor show. Ferrari last year sold 220 cars in China, 44 - or 20 per cent - to women. Outside China, only 5 per cent of Ferrari buyers are women.

Electric dreams

California electric vehicle company Better Place has opened an EV taxi station in Tokyo that uses switchable lithium-ion batteries to keep a handful of cabs on the road. Better Place predicts all taxis in the Japanese metropolis will be electric-powered by 2022. The facility is a joint venture with the Japanese government. It is being tested in a 90-day trial as part of Better Place's plan to set up the world's first EV infrastructure in Israel later this year, followed by Denmark in 2011 and Australia in 2012. The Taxis are Nissan Qashqais.

Oz market threatened?

Better Place CEO Shai Agassi has told Australian carmakers they need to speed up EV plans if they hope to survive against EV imports from Asia and Europe. "If you wait three years you're going to be importing (EVs) from China - and you won't have a car industry in Australia," Shai told website GoAuto. Expat New Zealander Neville Crichton says EVs will not sell in volume across the ditch until they are priced around A$25,000 ($33,000). Crichton's company Ateco Group imports into Australia and New Zealand China's Great Wall and Chery brands, both of whom are making EVs. The likelihood of Crichton landing a Chinese-made EV into Australia next year for A$25,000 is increasing daily, say analysts.

We are the world

It's billed as the Knob Creek Gun Range Machine Gun Shoot - and there's a 10-year waiting list for the most coveted spot, "The Line". That's where 60 people get to fire their machine guns into a field of cars and boats, using up to $10,000 in ammunition. The annual weekend shootout, in West Point, Kentucky, is America's largest. It even has a competition using flame-throwers. One man said he met his future wife at the event, impressed that "she could accept flame-throwing as a hobby". Said another: "This is one of those times when you know (America) is the greatest place on Earth."

alastair.sloane@nzherald.co.nz