Latest news with #MoniqueClark
Motor 1
27-05-2025
- Automotive
- Motor 1
Mazda's First Electric Car Is Dead in Europe
Raise your hand if you saw this coming. After exiting the US a couple of years ago, the purely electric MX-30 is also dead in Europe (including the UK). We noticed the model's absence from several configurators across the Old Continent, so we contacted Mazda to find out what's happening. Sure enough, the small crossover without a combustion engine has been quietly retired. Here's what Monique Clark from the company's UK PR office told us: 'The MX-30 BEV has been removed from sale in Europe, and all examples in the UK have now been sold. The Mazda MX-30 BEV has ceased production for both Europe and the UK. However, the award-winning MX-30 R-EV continues to be available for customers who want the EV driving experience with the range confidence provided by the rotary engine generator.' Europeans can still buy the MX-30 e-Skyactiv R-EV , a mouthful of a name for the range-extending version. It's the only production vehicle with a rotary engine, though it doesn't drive the wheels. Instead, the small 830-cc naturally aspirated single-rotor unit acts as a generator to charge a 17.8-kWh battery pack. Mazda doesn't sell this version in North America, where a more powerful two-rotor setup is in development for an unspecified model. Plot twist: The rotary MX-30 isn't the only flavor with a combustion engine. In Japan and other markets, it's also offered with a naturally aspirated 2.0-liter gasoline engine featuring mild-hybrid technology. Mazda started production of the small crossover and its RX-8-styled suicide doors about five years ago. Mazda is launching a larger EZ-60 SUV in China with a range-extender, though not a rotary one. It's expected to reach other markets, especially since the EZ-6 sedan has already been rebadged as the 6e in Europe. Similarly, the EZ-60 could be renamed CX-6e for Europe and other regions. But because these vehicles are made in China, they're unlikely to be sold in the US due to newly imposed tariffs. 2024 Mazda MX-30 (UK-spec) 95 Although the MX-30 will be remembered as Mazda's first mass-produced EV, there was one before it. In 2012, Mazda launched the Demio/Mazda2 EV subcompact hatchback in Japan as a limited series of about 100 units. However, all were leased to local governments and corporate clients near the company's headquarters in the Chugoku region. Mazda's first dedicated electric vehicle platform will be ready in 2027, and a 'full-scale launch of EVs' will begin a year later. Catch Up With Mazda: Mazda Will Put a Bigger Engine in the Next Miata New Mazda CX-5 Stalked in Traffic Get the best news, reviews, columns, and more delivered straight to your inbox, daily. back Sign up For more information, read our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use . Source: Mazda Share this Story Facebook X LinkedIn Flipboard Reddit WhatsApp E-Mail Got a tip for us? Email: tips@ Join the conversation ( )
Daily Mail
26-05-2025
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Explosive phone call restaurant tycoon's son doesn't want you to hear: Fiancée was beaten so violently she is permanently injured - and how he's spending a fortune to avoid his 'greatest fear'
An explosive phone call secretly recorded by the fiancée of a multimillionaire restaurateur's son reveals how he beat her so hard she has a permanently damaged eye. Daniel Drakopoulos, 29, called Monique Clark after he broke into her home and threw her against a wall. Daniel, the son of Sydney 's 'King of the Waterfront' restaurateur Bill Drakopoulos, choked Ms Clark until she couldn't breathe, kicked her, and headbutted her left eye so hard her sight remains damaged. The transcript of the harrowing call exclusively obtained by Daily Mail Australia also shows the depth of Ms Clark's emotional trauma following the assault. Transcripts of two versions of the phone call were tendered as exhibits at the Downing Centre Local Court. The call revealed Drakopoulos' greatest fear of going to prison for the attack which began in Ms Clark's home in Paddington, in Sydney's East, and continued on nearby Oxford Street. 'That is my worst nightmare going to prison,' Drakopoulos whined in the call before asking her, 'so do you want me to go to jail? Do you think it's fair for me to go to jail?' According to the tendered transcript of the call, Ms Clark replied: 'I want whatever's fair. I want justice.' She also admitted she had been so 'broken' and fearful since the brutal attack that she considered taking her own life. Drakopoulos was charged over the savage assault in February last year at Manly police station, just a short drive from one of his father's famed restaurants, Ormeggio on The Spit. The former private schoolboy is, like his three siblings, employed in the family's multi-million dollar restaurant business. He turned up at court last week with his entire family including father, Bill. The phone call, which the tendered transcripts reveal as basically a full recorded confession made by Drakopoulos, was not played in open court and the offender's lawyers said 'there was an admissibility issue because of potential illegalities' in Ms Clark's recording. While it can be an offence to record a phone call without a person's permission, under the Listening Devices Act if a person has a reasonable apprehension they are going to be subject to an offence they may record it for their own protection. The tendered transcripts were the full 19 minute call made by Drakopoulos on April 13, and an eight minute 'snippet' which contained the most agonising details of the assault. Before the attack, Ms Clark had been dating Drakopoulos for two-and-a-half years and in the call, which occurred eight weeks after the assault, she alluded to problems in the relationship before the assault took place. She described the attack as 'the last straw when you beat me up (after) everything you've ... put me through. Daniel Drakopoulos' entire family, including mother Kathleen (left) and brother Perry (right) turned up in support for his hearing at the Downing Centre which will conclude with a sentencing on June 19 'You hit me. .. you choked me. You f***en threw me. You kicked me. You headbutted me. You broke into my home. 'You choked me so hard with your hands you left fingerprints and marks on my neck. I couldn't breathe. 'You've permanently damaged my left eye. I spent last night in hospital. I spent Monday in hospital because I couldn't see because you headbutted it so hard. 'You f***ed me up.' Ms Clark admitted in the call that she had since lost a fifth of her body weight. 'I'm tiny,' she said at one point in the call, 'you could have killed me. You f***ed me up. And after everything you put me through you did that. 'I'm scared. Every morning I feel pain when I wake up. Physical pain, emotional pain. 'Do I destroy myself? Do I take my own life to put myself out of this misery? What the fuck did I do to deserve any of those things.' Daniel's fiancée said each time she went home (above) and saw the hole in the wall left by the attack she was triggered again and emotionally traumatised While admitting what he did to her during the 19 minute call, Drakopoulos seemed most animated when responding to her repeated warnings that could go to prison. She is also recorded telling him to leave her alone: 'I told you not to contact me. You still contact me? You turn up to the house. You call me. You email me. You contact my family?' In the exchange, Drakopoulos conceded that since the assault he had bombarded Ms Clark with phone calls and '10,000 texts every day', but it was because he wanted to know how she was doing. He also appeared to consider that even after beating her up, their relationship might still have a chance: 'I just wanna hear your voice. And I don't care if you tell me "Daniel I have moved on". If that's what it is.' Ms Clark described how she was triggered by seeing the hole in the wall at her home where Drakopoulos threw either her, or her phone, and at the spot on Oxford Street where he viciously headbutted her eye. 'You could go to jail,' she told him in the call. ' 'Do you know what a section 37 is? That's for strangulation. 'The minimum for strangulation is five years in prison. So you understand that? 'And when you plead not guilty and there's evidence, that angers the court even more. Because you're wasting their time by lying. Do you understand that?' A prison sentence may now be a remote possibility for Drakopoulos, who turned up at court for what was meant to be a lengthy hearing with two of Sydney's most prominent lawyers, Philip Strickland SC and Stephen Russell. It appears he, or his parents, have spent an eye-watering amount on top shelf legal advice to keep their son from going to jail. Drakopoulos initially pleaded not guilty to five charges until prosecutors withdrew four counts in court on May 15, including the choking charge and one serious assault charge. But Drakopoulos then pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm and malicious damage. He will be sentenced on June 19.
