Toyota Motor Corp yesterday said it was recalling another 5.8 million Takata Corp-made airbags in a global safety scandal blamed for a string of deaths and injuries.
The world’s biggest vehicle maker said it was calling back 1.47 million airbags installed in cars sold in Europe, 1.16 million units in Japan, 820,000 units in China and 2.35 million in other regions excluding the US, where recalls have already been announced.
Toyota’s latest recall brings its total of called back Takata airbags to 23.1 million.
Photo: Yang Ya-min, Taipei Times
The affected models, including Corolla and Vitz/Yaris, were produced between May 2000 and November 2001, or between April 2006 and December 2014, Toyota said in an e-mail.
About 100 million Takata airbags have been recalled over a defect that can send metal and plastic shrapnel from the inflator canister hurtling toward drivers and passengers when an airbag is deployed.
The main cause of the defect remains unclear, but a combination of time, environmental moisture and fluctuating high temperatures is a likely culprit, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said.
Meanwhile, Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車), Taiwan’s top vehicle seller, introduced an updated model Toyota 86, which is equipped with a high-resolution touch screen and a driver’s support system.
The company said it would raise the retail price of the vehicle by NT$50,000 (US$1,584) to NT$1.23 million.
Hotai expects the new model to take 40 percent of the nation’s two-door sports car market, with an annual sales target of 300 units.
Additional reporting by Kuo Chia-erh
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Huawei Technologies Co’s (華為) latest smartphones carry a version of the advanced made-in-China processor it revealed last year, results from an independent analysis showed. This underscored the Chinese company’s ability to sustain production of the controversial chip. The Pura 70 series unveiled last week sports the Kirin 9010 processor, research firm TechInsights found during a teardown of the device. This is a newer version of the Kirin 9000s, made by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) for the Mate 60 Pro, which had alarmed officials in Washington who thought a 7-nanometer chip was beyond China’s capabilities. Huawei has enjoyed a resurgence since
purpose: Tesla’s CEO sought to meet senior Chinese officials to discuss the rollout of its ‘full self-driving’ software in China and approval to transfer data they had collected Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk arrived in Beijing yesterday on an unannounced visit, where he is expected to meet senior officials to discuss the rollout of "full self-driving" (FSD) software and permission to transfer data overseas, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Chinese state media reported that he met Premier Li Qiang (李強) in Beijing, during which Li told Musk that Tesla's development in China could be regarded as a successful example of US-China economic and trade cooperation. Musk confirmed his meeting with the premier yesterday with a post on social media platform X. "Honored to meet with Premier Li