Ford Lio Ho Motor Co (福特六和), Taiwan’s No.4 automaker, offers sharp fuel discount to its new-car owners in cooperation with state-run Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC, 中油) in a move to boost sales in the conventionally slow season, a company official said yesterday.
The move came as the global oil prices surged to about 21 year high to around US$42 a barrel and CPC is mulling to jack up local gasoline prices by about 4.5 percent.
"We hope to the promotion will bring us a 20 percent increase in car sales this month," said Wesley Liu (
Ford Lio Ho, a local affiliate of Ford Motor Co of the US, said consumers, who buy vehicles in June, will enjoy 40-percent off gasoline prices at CPC’s some 1,700 gas stations around the nation during the six-month period to the year-end.
State-run Chinese Petroleum is set to raise gasoline prices as early as tomorrow in reaction to a spike in global oil prices, after OPEC met yesterday to discuss raising output, a company executive said yesterday at the same event.
"We will raise fuel prices no matter what OPEC concludes during the meeting in Beirut," said Chiang Chung-chen (
Ford Lio Ho sold 3,922 vehicles last month, about 11 percent of the 35,000 cars sold in Taiwan.
The promotion will cost the company between NT$100 million and NT$150 million, Liu estimated.
The offer will cover total spending on gasoline of up to NT$5,000 a month per driver. The carmaker said the average driver spends NT$4,000 a month on fuel.
Smaller rival Formosa Automobile Corp (
Last year, Formosa, a unit of Formosa Plastics Group (
Formosa Petrochemical is also a member of the Formosa Plastics Group.
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