But it would be all downhill from there.<\/p>\n
Despite some promising, YouTube-friendly test flights, the startup never managed any commercial sales.<\/p>\n
Its founder exited in June 2015, saying, \u201cThe corporate world isn\u2019t for me\u201d, as he fell out with other investors over the company\u2019s direction.<\/p>\n
Martin Aircraft’s Martin Jetpack being demonstrated at Waitangi in August 2009.<\/p>\n
I saw a Martin Jetpack in person once, at a Morgo event at Waitangi in 2009. After a couple of hours of faffing around, the pilot managed a few feet in the air, with the help of two assistants. His jetpack\u2019s 2-litre, V4 petrol engine sounded as loud as 10,000 lawn mowers.<\/p>\n
It would manage more impressive test flights over the next few years, but never any sales (it was priced at US$250,000 in 2016) outside of its shareholders.<\/p>\n
It was uninsurable for thrill-seekers and too unstable in strong winds for defence or rescue, where cheap-as-chips drones were coming into favour.<\/p>\n
But the real bombshell came in 2017. Investors were looking for a ray of sunlight after Martin Aircraft reported a $24m loss and had run down its cash reserves. Instead, they were told the company\u2019s Rotron RT1200 engine needed a complete stripdown and maintenance after just 10 hours of flight \u2013 well short of the 1500 hours that is standard for small aircraft.<\/p>\n
Martin would have to start from scratch with a new engine design \u2013 as long as investors chipped in a fresh $50m in capital.<\/p>\n
None came forward. Martin Aircraft delisted from the ASX in June 2018 and laid off nearly all of its 100 staff. It ceased trading in February 2019.<\/p>\n
In late 2021, Martin Jetpack would finally manage its first sales \u2013 or at least revenue for its liquidators \u2013 as various bits of hardware and several (non-operational) jetpacks were put up for grabs by the firm\u2019s liquidators, including one via a $1 auction on Trade Me, which went to an anonymous private buyer for $158,000, and another bought by Auckland\u2019s Museum of Transport and Technology (Motat) for $37,600.<\/p>\n
Retired rescue helicopter pilot Ralf Rodl, who lost all of his A$1.1m in retirement savings as his Martin Aircraft shares went to zero, unsuccessfully tried to launch a class action related to the jetpack maker\u2019s 2014 prospectus that, in his view, overhyped the timeline toward commercial sales.<\/p>\n
Then NZ Shareholders Association head John Hawkins said that while he felt for Rodl, \u201cPutting all your eggs in one basket is a high-risk strategy.\u201d More so when said egg basket is strapped to a jetpack.<\/p>\n
Lime e-scooters. Photo \/ Herald staff<\/p>\n
Lime\u2019s faceplant<\/p>\n
The e-scooter ridershare market is no stranger to tech blunders.<\/p>\n
In 2019, Lime sought to allay speeding fears with new GPS-enforced speed limits \u2013 only for a spate of accidents where riders flew over the handlebars after sudden auto-braking as they entered a speed limit area, defined by a (invisible to the rider) geo-fence. The council ordered the Lime scooters off its streets in February, and the United States-owned firm lost its contract in November.<\/p>\n
It would turn out to be a brief pause, however. In 2020, a complex deal brokered by Uber (which had stakes in both companies) saw rideshare scooter firm Jump buy Lime and combine operations. Jump \u2013 soon to be rebranded Lime after the pair\u2019s merger \u2013 already had a contract with the Auckland Council.<\/p>\n
Discarded Beam e-scooters. Photo \/ Michael Cunningham<\/p>\n
Beam me up <\/p>\n
By 2024, e-scooters \u2013 formerly branded \u201cthe cockroaches of the footpaths\u201d \u2013 seemed relatively under control, thanks to speed limits in most areas, more bike lanes, more stable designs and reduced numbers under revised council contracts.<\/p>\n
But why did it seem there were actually many more of them? The Auckland Council said Singapore-owned Beam was gaming an app used to monitor numbers and, in fact, exceeding its cap by 40%, putting some 400 more scooters on the street than it was allowed.<\/p>\n
Beam said it was merely trying to allow for a few being out of action at any one time, but inter-company Slack messages published by the Australian hinted at a more deliberate plan to beat limits.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe evidence suggests that these anomalies were intentional, with Beam providing misleading data to appear compliant with cap limits,\u201d the Auckland Council said as it cancelled Beam\u2019s licence and referred the matter to police (who told the Herald it should be pursued as a civil case. The council said it was offered a cash settlement by Beam but declined).<\/p>\n
Multiple Australasian cities gave Beam its marching orders. The firm was folded into another Singapore e-scooter rideshare operator, Neuron, in September last year.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern then her successor, Christopher Luxon (inset), were starry-eyed at Amazon plans for a $7.5b data-centre build in northwest Auckland, but construction was ultimately abandoned. Photos \/ Chris Keall, Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
You know I can\u2019t see your ghost data centres<\/p>\n
It\u2019s breakfast time, September 1, 2025, and a nation falls into total confusion about a mysterious $7.5 billion investment.<\/p>\n
On that day, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon breathlessly relayed<\/a> some news to ZB host Mike Hosking, shortly after 7am:<\/p>\n \u201cMike, this is an incredible story, right? Amazon, one of the biggest companies in the world, probably three and a half times the size of New Zealand \u2013 AWS, which is their web services, they do all the cloud storage, data centres and all that stuff; they\u2019re investing $7.5 billion in New Zealand. That will create about 1000 jobs. And it\u2019s about an $11 billion boost to our GDP.\u201d<\/p>\n (For those keeping score, New Zealand\u2019s GDP was $435b for the year to June 2025, according to Stats NZ. Amazon\u2019s market capitalisation was recently US$2.38 trillion.)<\/p>\n The size of the apparent investment wasn\u2019t news.<\/p>\n As various people \u2013 including keen readers of the Herald\u2019s Tech Insider column<\/a> \u2013 would soon point out, Amazon, after meetings with then PM Jacinda Ardern \u2013 first announced back in 2021 that it would spend $7.5b over 15 years building and then running a cluster of three data centres, creating 1000 jobs and, according to a study commissioned by Amazon, adding $10.8b to NZ\u2019s GDP over the period.<\/p>\n But that wasn\u2019t actually what Amazon was trying to announce on September 1. <\/p>\n Instead, the tech giant was trying to convey that its Auckland data centre \u201cregion\u201d (AWS-speak for a cluster of at least three independently powered data centres) was, in the company\u2019s words, \u201cnow open\u201d.<\/p>\n That is, Amazon had fulfilled its pledge to have it up and running by the end of 2025 (after missing its original target of the end of 2024, after drainage issues held up consent). It was live.<\/p>\n But … where was it?<\/p>\n Where was the photo op of Luxon with 1000 new workers, in front of a glistening new data centre?<\/p>\n The groundwork had been laid, literally. As Tech Insider reported in February, property records show Amazon had acquired three parcels of adjoining land in Westgate, northwest Auckland, totalling 41,774 square metres, or 4.18 hectares \u2013 that\u2019s the size of four rugby fields<\/a>.<\/p>\n The last transaction was only approved by the Overseas Investment Office in January this year. But after preliminary groundwork, the Naylor Love project stalled. The Auckland Council said it wasn\u2019t a drainage issue, which had been resolved. There were no outstanding consent issues. Each time the Herald visited the giant site during the year, it only got emptier, until Naylor Love dismantled its cabins (the construction firm said it couldn\u2019t comment, citing an NDA).<\/p>\n It seemed likely Amazon had abandoned the build in favour of leasing space at data centres already built in northwest Auckland by third-party operators CDC (half-owned by Infratil) and DCI (owned by an erstwhile Infratil partner, Canada\u2019s Brookfield).<\/p>\n Amazon refused to say \u2013 or even confirm or deny \u2013 if it had bought then carried out earthworks at the huge Westgate site (notwithstanding that everyone from various public agencies to a local developer to Google Maps had publicised the address).<\/p>\n The tech giant did say its original claims \u2013 a $7.5b spend, 1000 jobs and $10.8b added to NZ\u2019s GDP \u2013 all still stood.<\/p>\n That left me scratching my head, along with the rest of the media, many people, and, I\u2019m guessing, the PM.<\/p>\n Microsoft\u2019s giant data centre at Westgate cost \u201conly\u201d $1b<\/a>.<\/p>\n CDC\u2019s entire revenue for the year to June 2025, from 20 data centres across New Zealand and Australia (its major market) was A$533m ($612m).<\/p>\n Data centres are highly automated, requiring only a few dozen staff. The Microsoft and DCI data centres at Westgate, and the giant CDC facilities at nearby Hobsonville and Silverdale (which cost around $300m a piece), only ever have a few cars parked outside.<\/p>\n And while there are speed and (for some) legal advantages to local data centres \u2013 rather than being served by the tech giant\u2019s facilities in Sydney and Melbourne \u2013 it\u2019s contestable whether that\u2019s a $10.8b advantage.<\/p>\n Some AWS users say they don\u2019t give a hoot<\/a> if Amazon built its own data centre or co-located with rivals, as long as they enjoy the benefits that come with a local AWS region.<\/p>\n