South Korea has unveiled plans to speed up the adoption of electric vehicles, self-driving vehicles and even flying automobiles in the coming years to help revive a sagging economy.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in yesterday said in a speech that South Korean companies would invest 60 trillion won (US$50.6 billion) over the next decade into the future of transportation.
The government would spend 2.2 trillion won to help develop related technology and help lay the groundwork for the infrastructure needed for things such as robocars, he said.
Photo: Yonhap via Reuters
Commercialization of fully autonomous vehicles would occur by 2027, or three years earlier than planned, he said.
Moon is betting that the investments will create jobs and spur an export-dependent economy that has been among the hardest hit from global trade tensions, with the central Bank of Korea warning this month that it would be difficult to achieve 2.2 percent growth this year.
Moon also predicted that electric and hydrogen-fueled vehicles would account for 33 percent of automobiles sold in 2030, compared with about 2.6 percent this year.
By comparison, China has said it is targeting all-electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and fuel-celled vehicles to account for 40 percent of all sales by 2030, a person familiar with the matter has said.
To promote sales of these vehicles, the government would consider extending subsidies to buyers and slashing hydrogen prices in half by 2030 from current levels, the South Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and other ministries said in a joint statement.
The government would also encourage operators of buses and trucks to switch to electric and hydrogen vehicles, the statement said.
It would increase the number of electric vehicle charging stations to 15,000 locations by 2030 from the current 5,427, while hydrogen refueling spots would increase to 660 from 31, it said.
For autonomous driving, the government plans to set up regulations by 2024 so that robocars can operate on local roads — with varying degrees of driver supervision.
South Korea also plans to set up a route system and safety rules by 2023 to start services of personal air vehicles from 2025, it said.
In line with the government’s plan, Hyundai Motor Group plans to invest 41 trillion won by 2025 in autonomous vehicles, with some vehicles being rolled out as soon as 2021.
It is also planning to have a lineup of 23 electric vehicles by 2025.
Hyundai last month agreed on an autonomous-driving joint-venture with Aptiv PLC to develop technology needed to put robotaxis on the road by 2022. It also set up a new urban air mobility division to come up with smart products within the aviation industry.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
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