Banter and General Comments, page-7017

It's bloody silly that these companies are not getting serious. Vietnam is a population extremely keen to try new things. I can imagine if an Aussie kid came up with a cool electric bicycle design and got it made in Vietnam, millions in profit could be made. Their need is so simple because in major Vietnamese cities, they only enough battery charge to get them 10km per day. If it runs out they can paddle it to destination and plug it in. Surely, it works same way in India, Indonesia, Cambodia and so on.

The danger I see for Australia is that the little spirit we had in the young generation of Bob Hawk and Dick Smith is dead. They wanted a smart country through hard work. In the 80s, there was a glimpse of kids still wanting to learn electronics and tech so they could create gadgets. Now, we just wait for geeks in China, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, US and Germany to do the creative geek works.

I think there is a huge opportunity if some kids here build electric assist paddle bicycles. Get some real sexy design going. Go back to the old quality tradition where things don't break after just 1 year. I remember my old man in heaven had a French bicycle that last 30 years as it was made from aluminium alloys. It did not rust, did not bend and kept going until the age of motorbikes and cars. It could sell by the millions in a single Asian country alone. Of course, electric motorbikes and scooters would be a huge opportunity of even bigger economic size.

Here is Australia, I think bicycle riders for a good day out would have to have a booster button. When you need to go up hill, push it and the motor takes you up, then paddle your way on flat or down hill stretches.

We need to get out of the mentality "The foreigners will do it for you and for cheaper." We should process lithium here too. We should make batteries too. Companies should network into a group. There is no law telling anyone that they must buy cheaper Chinese products. One company can buy from another Australian company and also own shares of that company. This tactics caused the US to go up in arm with the Japanese in the 90s where they refused to buy supposedly superior US products (super computers). They bought from their own companies! How could that be allowed?

I recently went into Jaycar Electronics. The majority of customers are newly arrived Asian immigrants. While this is not bad as they might be the creators and designers of some Australian products in the future, I wish to see more kids get involved. We cannot just import both products and people to suit our short term needs.