Hyundai Motor Group and its suppliers plan to spend 7.6 trillion won (US$6.7 billion) through 2030 to raise production of fuel cells more than 200-fold as the South Korean automaker aims to become a key player in new-energy vehicle technology.
The world’s fifth-largest auto group — with Hyundai Motor Co and Kia Motors Corp under its umbrella — yesterday said it would boost annual production capacity of fuel-cell systems to 700,000 units from 3,000 and create 51,000 jobs over the next 12 years.
The spending proposal reaffirms Hyundai’s faith in the future of a technology that has been derided as “mind-bogglingly stupid” by Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk.
Fuel-cell technology, which has been championed by Toyota Motor Corp as an alternative to the conventional internal combustion engines, involves hydrogen-powered vehicles that emit only water vapor.
Hyundai has South Korea’s backing. The government plans to roll out 4,000 fuel-cell electric vehicles next year, a fivefold increase, with an aim to establish 310 hydrogen stations in South Korea by 2022.
The automaker has been wanting to bring these vehicles to China and is exploring options to utilize hydrogen-powered cars for a mobility service, although specific plans have not yet been announced.
Hyundai aims to produce 500,000 units for fuel-cell powered passenger and commercial vehicles, while 200,000 units would be produced for other industries, such as drones, vessels and rolling stocks.
Hyundai yesterday held a groundbreaking ceremony to build its second fuel-cell system factory in Chungju, South Korea, which would increase output to 40,000 units a year by 2022.
The carmaker, in collaboration with Aurora — a start-up formed by former executives from Google, Tesla and Uber Technologies Inc — is testing its fuel-cell sport utility vehicle NEXO, which has a maximum range of 595km for autonomous driving.
“We are confident that hydrogen power will transcend the transportation sector and become a leading global economic success,” Hyundai executive vice chairman Euisun Chung said in a statement.
The company in September said that it would sell 1,000 fuel-cell electric trucks between next year and 2023 in Switzerland and announced a collaboration with Volkswagen AG’s Audi in June.
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to