Nine Audi A8L armored vehicles are to begin their service to president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and her entourage starting on her inauguration on May 20, people with knowledge of the matter said.
Volkswagen (VW) Taiwan outbid BMW’s Taiwan franchise in a National Security Bureau (NSB) procurement tender to replace the BMW 740Li — the current presidential vehicle — with the Audi A8L, they said.
The NSB procurement aimed to purchase nine five-seater armored security vehicles for the five-car presidential motorcade and the four-vehicle vice presidential motorcade, with nine Audi A8L cars to be used as presidential sedans offered at NT$31.09 million (US$923,923), according to an NSB budget plan.
The cars are scheduled to be delivered by mid-April after the NSB awarded the bid to VW Taiwan, the people said.
The BMW 740Li has served as presidential vehicles for the past 12 years, since 2004 during the second term of then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
All models that VW Taiwan and BMW’s Taiwan franchise offered for the bid met NSB security requirements, while the tender was done publicly and the contract was awarded to the lowest bidder, with VW Taiwan securing the bid with a “fairly favorable price,” they said.
The presidential motorcade, comprising the presidential vehicle, a backup car and security vehicles, would be made of the same models with identical looks, sources said, adding that to ensure the safety of president, the vehicle to be customized as the presidential car would undergo special modifications, such as bulletproofing and having armor plates.
The government commissioned Cadillac vehicles for presidential use during the tenure of former presidents Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), whereas Cadillac and Mercedes cars were used as presidential vehicles during terms of former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), said a retired official, who asked not to be named.
An elongated Lincoln limousine was used as the presidential sedan in Chen’s first term, and the BMW 740Li and the Ford E350 armored van were used alternatively in his second term, while the BMW 740Li served as the official state car throughout Ma’s two terms, the retired official said.
A sport utility vehicle from Land Rover’s Discovery series was commissioned to ferry presidential candidates during campaigning for the presidential and legislative elections earlier this month.
Besides ensuring the safety of the president, presidential cars are often considered a symbol of a nation’s automobile industry, so nations often adopt domestically manufactured cars as state vehicles, such as the Citroen DS5 used by French President Francois Hollande, the Toyota Camry hybrid used by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the Hongqi L5 used by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been known for her penchant for Audi vehicles and she doubled as an Audi product endorser to unveil the company’s new models to promote the German automobile industry, while an Audi A8L armored model is used as Germany’s official state car.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching