The north-south high-speed railway may not be completed on schedule, after track vibration buffers failed safety tests, Chinese-language media reported yesterday, although Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp (THSRC, 台灣高鐵) officials said they will meet the deadline.
The buffer pads have failed three safety tests over the past year, the Liberty Times reported, without citing sources.
But THSRC vice president Edward Lin (林天送) said the tests are continuing and are not likely to delay the completion schedule.
Lin called the reports "a misunderstanding," saying the company has not changed its completion date.
A total of 170,000 vibration buffer sets will be used on the 300km railway, which is scheduled to begin operations in October 2005.
The buffers, which are inserted between the tracks and the railway base, have failed to meet European stability standards, despite improvements made by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a partner in the Japanese consortium Taiwan Shinkansen, the report said.
Taiwan Shinkansen won the rail project in late 1999, beating its European rival Eurotrain.
THSRC has insisted on European standards for the rail tracks, while Mitsubishi has tried to meet such standards with Japanese components, the report said.
The report also said there have been disputes with the Japanese builders over how far European standards can be applied to Japanese rail systems, which use different technologies.
Mitsubishi is sending a team of engineers to Taiwan this week and another test is expected within two months, the report said.
The tests were conducted by the Institute of Applied Mechanics of the National Taiwan University.
Chen Chao-hsun (陳兆勛), a professor at the institute, said the railway's track fastener system "so far, has not met the regulations."
The problems must be rectified in the next month or two, before the institute completes its final report on the tests, Chen said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the