Research in Vietnam

Today I arrived in Hanoi to work on two projects. The first is related to environmentally friendly lead battery manufacturing and recycling. This work is working to aid the Vietnam EPA develop a lead battery recycling policy as well as introduce a lead acid battery "eco-label". The main partner in this is OK International, who developed the BEST Certification system (www.okinternational.org). This work is funded by NCIIA and Luke is working down here with me on this project. We will have a workshop on June 10th and 11th.

The second project is related to electric scooter market potential in Vietnam. We are hoping to conduct a stated preference experiment among future motorcycle purchasers, identifying what factors are most influential in their purchase decisions. This project is building off of a budding partnership with the Hanoi University of Transport and Communications. We are hopeful that this project will go well.

My first impressions are overall very good, an overwhelming amount of motorcycles. Our taxi driver from the airport was very friendly and the Vietnamese people are very hospitable. We did end up with one problem. We went wandering and we expected that any cab driver would know exactly where our hotel was (since our first cab driver did). Well, we ended up getting lost and were hoping to hop in a cab to get back. Problem was, no cab driver seemed to know where our hotel was. We asked dozens of people and probably 10 cab drivers. We actually got into two taxis, but ended up getting out after a few kilometers of aimless driving. Finally we knew we were close and found a confident taxi (all taxis seem to try to rip you off by the way so we insist that we use the meter). As we were on our way home with the 3rd taxi, suddenly the meter jumped up so that about a 1 km ride went to 6 km instantly (and the price tripled). We bickered, and I don't know how he flipped the meter, but we were happy to be back at the hotel, about 2 hours later than expected. Lesson: always know how to say your destination in the local language or have it written down (like on a business card).