Taiwan’s largest automaker, Yulon Group (裕隆集團), yesterday denied it was abandoning its electric car production base in Taiwan after a newspaper said it planned to move production lines to China because the Taiwanese government failed to give the sector a big push.
The research and development hub for Yulon’s electric cars as well as the production facilities are located in Sanyi (三義), Miaoli County, the automaker said in a statement.
The company’s flagship electric car brand — Luxgen (納智捷) — will be marketed around the world from the Taiwan base, it added.
Yulon, which has poured more than NT$5 billion (US$171 million) into related development, has three electric vehicle models and five to seven more models are in the pipeline, the statement said.
“Our investment in electric cars will only go up,” the company said.
The Chinese-language Commercial Times reported that Yulon is considering producing Luxgen cars in Hangzhou, China, because the Taiwanese government hasn’t been responsive to companies’ requests for financial aid or aggressive enough in encouraging mass uptake.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday joined in to rebut the report, saying the government has been proactive in assisting the development of the electric car industry. It said in a statement that subsidies totaling NT$497 million have been granted so far to 14 companies engaged in related research and development.
Of that amount, it has subsidized NT$240 million to a consortium formed by five vendors, including Yulon, over the past two years, thus playing a part in helping the Luxgen roll out from the production lines, the ministry said.
The government last April approved a scheme to inject NT$9.7 billion over six years to help Taiwanese vendors secure a place in the burgeoning electric car market. The first three years would be the pilot-run phase in which the government aims to use 3,000 “green” cars to boost uptake.
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