Chris Kearney is the Vice President for TomTom Asia Pacific. As Vice President APAC, Kearney is responsible for driving the portable navigation device (PND) business across the region.

Kearney has worked with TomTom for over five years. In his previous roles he focused on leading TomTom’s marketing activity to help grow TomTom’s presence in Australia and New Zealand and introduce TomTom to Singapore and Malaysia. 

A graduate of the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Kearney has over 12 years of experience in technology marketing and finance roles with global brands including: TomTom, Compaq, Hewlett Packard and Canon.

Being on a race track for any first timer can be a daunting experience. For starters, most of us who’ve only done commuter driving will suddenly find the vast expanse of tarmac on a track both strangely comforting and confusing.

Comforting for the vast expanse of run off available, confusing because of the series of complex corners that lie ahead. These corners require specific braking points and corner entries to avoid understeering or oversteering into the barriers.  

While one could do it the old fashioned way of getting in a car and learning the track with an instructor seated beside you, there is still the risk of denting your ride and not to mention the cost of travelling to the nearest track as well as the punishment on your bra...

When Audi and local distributor, Premium Automobile, envisioned the newly launched Audi Centre, one of the key focus areas was in fabricating a holistic customer experience not just for new Audi owners but for existing owners as well.

With over 12,000 Audis on the road in Singapore, it was obvious that the logistics and support structure at the Audi Centre would need to be expanded to meet this growing demand.

Through ingenious design and planning, the Audi Centre has 10 service bays built into its upper floors to take care of normal servicing and minor repairs. If more extensive work is needed, cars will be sent to their sprawling servicing facility in Ubi that boasts nearly 40 service bays. 

Buying a vehicle for your business can be a daunting process. Unlike the purchase of a private vehicle, a commercial truck or van is a valuable asset and tool for conducting your business. Thus, a certain amount of return of investment (ROI) is expected. Purchasing the wrong vehicle or a faulty one will cost time and money which can translate to potential losses for your company.

Before embarking on your journey to purchasing that commercial vehicle, one must consider the requirements of your business. The choices of commercial vehicles are as varied as required by different businesses.

What options are there?

The first question that comes to mind when considering a commercial vehicle is the function you require. Secondly, the type of...

Well, not really the wilds of Malaysia but there were some wild cats prowling about the Sepang International Circuit. As part of Jaguar’s global initiative to introduce their 2013 line-up, journalists from the region were invited to the event organized by Jaguar UK. In total, 22 cars were brought in by both Jaguar UK and SISMA Auto, the Malaysian distributor for the brand. The cars are worth close to S$5.2 million combined. Considering how long ago it has been since Jaguar’s last organized a track day, you get a sense of how serious they are about this 2013 engine/transmission line-up.

We arrived in KL late the night before but were up early the next day for our day of taming some of Jaguar’s newest cats. We arrived at the track a lit...

Over the past week, Parliament has been debating the regulatory changes made to the car ownership regime in Singapore. There have already been tweaks made to the regulations, with the physically disabled and their caregivers being exempted from some of the restrictions for the purchase of one vehicle. With the regulations instituted mainly to cool car demand and rising COE prices, they are unlikely to be relaxed, and may even be made more restrictive, in order to achieve palatable prices. Rising car prices have contributed to unhealthy levels of inflation, and the government seems intent on reining in the spike just as it has been doing in the property market.

The measures appear to have worked, with used car dealers adjusting their pri...

New car showrooms had less traffic than usual over the first weekend since the introduction of the motoring industry’s version of “cooling measures”.  With the supply of COEs expected to remain unchanged for the near future, this article explores the anticipated shift in fundamentals for the motoring industry.

The New Normal

Car traders may have to restructure their business practices as dealers presently have a certain amount of flexibility in controlling prices.  For starters, it may be time to reconsider the role of salespersons in transactions. More often than not, buyers would have done considerable research on their own, and should be given the option of dealing with the distributor directly, thus removing the associated transact...

Cars are a Luxury

One key expressive function of the recent policies unveiled in the Singapore budget 2013 is that cars are not “essential” or “fundamental” goods.  The high cash outlay required at purchase amplifies the point that cars are not to be bought on a whim after a weekend visit to the showroom, where a signature and $0 down payment sufficed for entry into the car owners’ club. The reduced loan tenure, while seemingly onerous in the short run, unshackles buyers from extended financial commitments and could result in some interest rate savings, assuming rates do not experience drastic changes.

Recent Buyers

Recent car buyers, especially those of high OMV ones, have been fortunate to have made significant savings on their A...