New Ride In Town

With Vietnam's WTO accession earlier this year, the protective tariffs on imported goods, such are cars, are tumbling down. These days, tax rates on foreign imported cars are dropping 5-10% a month, which means a 5-10K USD drop in retail prices (in a land where a 2.4 liter Toyota Camry is $48k USD, mind you).

So you're seeing a lot of new cars on the streets. But one thing I haven't seen up here in Hanoi, so far, is Piaggio's cool three wheeled scooter, the MP3.

We walked by a Piaggio store near the Vincom and saw this interesting scoot in the shop. Being a gearhead, I knew about it already, and that it's been selling in Europe since the beginning of this year. Kinda cool to see it here. But you'll have to pay for novelty - $12.8k USD for a 125cc version. I'm sure someone will pick it up soon.