Ford Lio Ho Motor Co (福特六和), a Taiwanese subsidiary of the US-based Ford Motor Co, said yesterday it will roll out its 2 millionth car in the local market next week after 38 years in the country.
Ford Motor Group vice president and president for Asia-Pacific and Africa Joe Hinrichs, Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen--shiang (施顏祥) and Industrial Development Bureau Director-General Woody Duh (杜紫軍), will attend the ceremony to unveil the new car.
Ford Lio Ho, a 70 percent-owned subsidiary of the US car maker, is a joint venture with the Lio Ho Group. It was set up in 1972, and has become one of Ford Motor’s important overseas production bases, according to the local company.
The company said this year has special meaning for Ford Motor, as the number of cars it has produced in Taiwan will reach the 2 million mark, symbolizing the strong sales the automaker has generated locally.
In the first 10 months of this year, sales posted by Ford Lio Ho, which owns the Ford and Mazda brands in Taiwan, rose 29 percent from a year earlier, while sales of the Ford brand alone grew 20.1 percent year-on-year.
Last month, Ford Lio Ho accounted for 11 percent of the Taiwanese auto market, compared with 11.1 percent recorded a year earlier.
The Taiwanese unit said its 2 millionth car is a new Mondeo passenger model equipped with Ford Motor’s energy-efficient EcoBoost engine, which is being introduced into the Taiwanese market for the first time.
According to the company, the EcoBoost engine technology, which Ford Motor unveiled at the North American International Auto Show in 2008, delivers up to 20 percent better fuel economy and cuts carbon dioxide emissions by 15 percent.
Ford Lio Ho said more than 80 percent of its cars will be equipped with EcoBoost engines by 2013.
Meanwhile, Ford Motor is opening dozens of new dealerships in China as it expands its reach into provincial cities, courting new car buyers.
The automaker yesterday inaugurated 40 new dealerships out of 66 it will open before the end of the year in China. This year it plans to open a total of 100 dealerships there, raising the total number of outlets to 340.
China’s car market is the world’s biggest and sales are growing fastest in provincial cities where millions of new and potential car buyers live.
Ford is forecasting record sales for this year, though it got a later start and has a smaller presence in China than rival General Motors Co.
RUN IT BACK: A succesful first project working with hyperscalers to design chips encouraged MediaTek to start a second project, aiming to hit stride in 2028 MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it is engaging a second hyperscaler to help design artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators used in data centers following a similar project expected to generate revenue streams soon. The first AI accelerator project is to bring in US$1 billion revenue next year and several billion US dollars more in 2027, MediaTek chief executive officer Rick Tsai (蔡力行) told a virtual investor conference yesterday. The second AI accelerator project is expected to contribute to revenue beginning in 2028, Tsai said. MediaTek yesterday raised its revenue forecast for the global AI accelerator used
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
Artificial intelligence (AI) giant Nvidia Corp’s most advanced chips would be reserved for US companies and kept out of China and other countries, US President Donald Trump said. During an interview that aired on Sunday on CBS’ 60 Minutes program and in comments to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said only US customers should have access to the top-end Blackwell chips offered by Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization. “The most advanced, we will not let anybody have them other than the United States,” he told CBS, echoing remarks made earlier to reporters as he returned to Washington
RSS