Nissan Motor Corp yesterday announced plans for an US$800 million factory in China’s northeast as part of efforts to expand sales in the world’s biggest auto market.
The factory in Dalian will have a production capacity of 150,000 vehicles by 2014, rising to 300,000 later, the Japanese automaker said. It will be Nissan’s fourth manufacturing center in China.
Nissan announced an US$8 billion expansion plan for China last year as part of a global strategy to focus on faster-growing emerging markets and reduce reliance on the US.
Photo: AFP
“China is our largest market today and will continue to be one of Nissan’s most important engines of growth,” Nissan executive vice president Hiroto Saikawa said in a company statement.
The company also announced it signed a contract to deliver 1,000 electric vehicles produced under its Venucia brand, created with its Chinese joint venture partner, to the Dalian city government by this year. It said the joint venture would work with the city to promote electric vehicles.
Nissan’s plan in China with its partner, Dongfeng Group (東風集團), calls for opening new factories and introducing 30 new models by 2015. The company has said it also plans new factories and other initiatives in Russia, Brazil, India and Southeast Asia.
China’s total auto sales rose 16 percent last month over a year earlier to 1.6 million units, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. It said total sales for the first five months of the year were up 1.7 percent to 8 million units.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is