Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1436376
10 INTERNATIONAL NEWS 9.12.2021 BMW has sold its one millionth electric vehicle (EV) - including purely electric and hybrid vehicles - and plans to reach two million sales of purely electric ve- hicles by 2025, the German carmaker said. Around 70% of EVs sold so far were hybrids, board member Pieter Nota said in a roundtable with journalists, adding that the company believed hy- brid models would continue to play an important role in particular for cus- tomers without easy access to chargers. Continuing to modernise fossil fu- el-burning cars was another important step towards making the industry more sustainable, he said: "Only then can we make a difference across the customer base." BMW has long stood for investing in a range of technologies rather than fo- cusing purely on battery-electric cars to reduce emissions, and opposes flat-out bans on purchasing combustion engine cars. e carmaker aims for at least 50% of global sales to be fully electric by 2030, but has repeated on numerous occa- sions that lacking charging infrastruc- ture was a major barrier to quicker con- sumer uptake of electric vehicles. Sales in November were slightly below last year's levels, Mr Nota said, as a lack of chips continued to restrict supply. However, the company remained confi- dent that it would see absolute revenue growth compared to last year, he said. BMW aims to sell two million purely electric vehicles by 2025 The BMW iX. The carmaker aims for at least 50% of global sales to be fully electric by 2030 MUSEUMS and art galleries in Italy are set to implement named tickets in order to stop tourists and visitors falling vic- tim to ticket touts. Uffizi Galleries director Eike Schmidt told e Art Newspaper that the Florence museum's management team were already working on introducing named tickets, and that the system should be in place in "months rather than years". Touts prey on tourists and visitors, offering tickets to Italy's art galleries at inflated prices, often with added extras such as queue jump and museum tours. Some of these unscrupulous sellers work on the ground while others sell through websites, which have been designed to trick ticket buyers into thinking they are buying through the official ticket channels. Italian law regulates ticketing touting in industries such as sport and live entertainment for events that welcome more than 5,000 attendees, while there are currently no such rules for museums and galleries. Italy's museums have been battling the problem for some time, and the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence distributed paper folding fans with official tickets among queueing visitors. ese fans raised awareness of the lower prices of official tickets. e Uffizi reduced queue lengths and installed an information point in 2017, as well as introducing seasonal ticket prices in 2018, has limited the touts' ability to make a worthwhile profit. e Uffizi Gallery also boasted a victory against the ticket touts, as a federal court in Arizona, US banned third parties from using web addresses that contained the word "Uffizi". e same court also ordered BoxNic Anstalt, which had set up and used multiple sites to sell tickets to the gallery, to pay Uffizi $120,000 (£90,000/€106,000) in legal fees. On the efforts against ticket touts, Schmidt added: "ere were hundreds in the past, now there are just two or three." Italy's museums continue to wage war on ticket touts