Following the launch of its first own auto brand “Luxgen” (納智捷) in September, Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday unveiled a second brand — “Tobe” (酷比) — that will target the domestic and export markets.
The nation’s biggest automaker plans to start exporting Tobe cars to Vietnam next month, which will be followed shortly by sales to the Philippines, China and the Middle East, Hsu Kuo-hsing (許國興), president of Yulon Tobe Motor Co (裕隆酷比汽車), told reporters on the sidelines of the launch.
Yulon Tobe was founded with a capital of NT$200 million (US$6.1 million) and is 100 percent owned by Yulon Motor.
PHOTO: KAO CHIA-HO, TAIPEI TIMES
Hsu refused to reveal export figures, saying the company was waiting for market feedback after Tobe’s launch.
Tobe cars are a revamped model based on the Panda car of Chinese automaker Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd (吉利汽車), a technology partner of Yulon.
Hsu said more than 35 percent of the car parts — including the engine, car seats, gears and windshield — were designed or enhanced in Taiwan to cater to local demand and regulations, and the cars have passed stringent safety tests, allaying some buyers’ concern that they could be purchasing a “made in China” car.
Yulon Tobe and Geely are going to work more closely on exporting Tobe cars, either using the Tobe or Geely brand when marketing them in different markets in the future, Hsu said.
“Major automakers around the world have set up bases in China, and a lot of car components are produced there. It is the trend,” Yulon Tobe chairman Chen Kuo-rong (陳國榮) said.
He said Tobe was the first product of the company’s cooperation with China in terms of technology transfer, adding that Yulon’s strength in electric cars could be applied to Tobe cars.
Taiwanese consumers would see the first Tobe 1,300cc M’ Car (pronounced my-car) hit the road in January, with a price tag of about NT$400,000.
“This is the price range wherein we see no competition at all,” said Chen, adding that university students and young adults would be drawn to its affordability.
The company expects to sell up to 500 M’ Cars per month in Taiwan next year. It also hopes to launch an electric-version when the market for electric cars becomes more mature and gains subsidies from the government, Yulon Tobe said.
Thanks to the commodity tax cut of NT$30,000 imposed by the government to boost car sales this year, Taiwan’s new vehicle sales jumped 49.1 percent year-on-year to 25,829 units last month, statistics from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications showed.
Cumulative sales in the first 10 months of the year rose 9.4 percent to more than 218,000 units, the ministry said.
The tax cut expires on Dec. 31.
“Discontinuing the tax cut next year would impact the industry, and every carmaker has to compete on the same ground,” Yulon Tobe’s marketing executive Steven Lo (羅明德) said.
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in artificial-intelligence (AI) chips, yesterday said that small-volume production of 3-nanometer (nm) chips for a key customer is on track to start by the end of this year, dismissing speculation about delays in producing advanced chips. As Alchip is transitioning from 7-nanometer and 5-nanometer process technology to 3 nanometers, investors and shareholders have been closely monitoring whether the company is navigating through such transition smoothly. “We are proceeding well in [building] this generation [of chips]. It appears to me that no revision will be required. We have achieved success in designing