Dubai is building a $2.8 billion theme park

By Lulu Chang March 3, 2016

Dubai is about to bring out the kid in you, and the effort is going to cost $2.8 billion. On Tuesday, the small but mighty city already known for its over-the-top luxuries unveiled plans for a nearly $3 billion theme park that will make your childhood trips to the carnival look like, well, child’s play. The

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Dubai Parks & Resorts boasts a Taj Mahal-inspired theater, a theme park based on Legoland, a water park, and so much more. After all, when you’ve got 9.5 square miles to work with, the sky is effectively the limit.

“Dubai Parks and Resorts is where the best of the East meets the best of the West to create a world of fun and adventure unlike any other,” the park’s website says. Included in this magnificent world will be a shopping center and a hotel, so even if you tire of the three theme parks and adjacent water works, you’ll still be able to enjoy yourself.

And that’s certainly the hope of Dubai officials, who say they want to bring 20 million visitors by 2020, making the Dubai Parks & Resorts “the ultimate year-round international tourist destination.” Many of the attractions are based on popular movies, with a Hunger Games section promising to be catnip to Katniss fans. But if you’re not an American movie fan, no need to worry — there’s a Bollywood park, too.

Already, in preparation for the park’s grand opening, more than 400 dancers and singers have been hired from across the world to provide endless entertainment. The Resorts will have costumed characters, rappers, and acrobatic trampoline artists so that the whole family will stay amused. “What we are doing is truthfully extraordinary,” said Jason Ramsburg, the director of live entertainment at the park. “We have over 400 performers and really high-quality brands with the best of the best in the world.”

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Outdoors

Juiced Bikes offers 20% off on all e-bikes amid signs of bankruptcy

Juiced Bikes Scrambler ebike

A “20% off sitewide” banner on top of a company’s website should normally be cause for glee among customers. Except if you’re a fan of that company’s products and its executives remain silent amid mounting signs that said company might be on the brink of bankruptcy.That’s what’s happening with Juiced Bikes, the San Diego-based maker of e-bikes.According to numerous customer reports, Juiced Bikes has completely stopped responding to customer inquiries for some time, while its website is out of stock on all products. There are also numerous testimonies of layoffs at the company.Even more worrying signs are also piling up: The company’s assets, including its existing inventory of products, is appearing as listed for sale on an auction website used by companies that go out of business.In addition, a court case has been filed in New York against parent company Juiced Inc. and Juiced Bike founder Tora Harris, according to Trellis, a state trial court legal research platform.Founded in 2009 by Harris, a U.S. high-jump Olympian, Juiced Bikes was one of the early pioneers of the direct-to-consumer e-bike brands in the U.S. market.The company’s e-bikes developed a loyal fandom through the years. Last year, Digital Trends named the Juiced Bikes Scorpion X2 as the best moped-style e-bike for 2023, citing its versatility, rich feature set, and performance.The company has so far stayed silent amid all the reports. But should its bankruptcy be confirmed, it could legitimately be attributed to the post-pandemic whiplash experienced by the e-bike industry over the past few years. The Covid-19 pandemic had led to a huge spike in demand for e-bikes just as supply chains became heavily constrained. This led to a ramp-up of e-bike production to match the high demand. But when consumer demand dropped after the pandemic, e-bike makers were left with large stock surpluses.The good news is that the downturn phase might soon be over just as the industry is experiencing a wave of mergers and acquisitions, according to a report by Houlihan Lokey.This may mean that even if Juiced Bikes is indeed going under, the brand and its products might find a buyer and show up again on streets and trails.

Cars

Volkswagen plans 8 new affordable EVs by 2027, report says

volkswagen affordable evs 2027 id 2all

Back in the early 1970s, when soaring oil prices stifled consumer demand for gas-powered vehicles, Volkswagen took a bet on a battery system that would power its first-ever electric concept vehicle, the Elektro Bus.
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Cars

Nissan launches charging network, gives Ariya access to Tesla SuperChargers

nissan charging ariya superchargers at station

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With its new Nissan Energy Charge Network and access to NACS, Nissan is pretty much covering all the bases for its EV drivers in need of charging up. ChargePoint has the largest EV charging network in the U.S., with over 38,500 stations and 70,000 charging ports at the end of July. Tesla's charging network is the second largest, though not all of its charging stations are part of the SuperCharger network.