Formosa Plastics Group (
"We have plans to assemble Skoda cars in the local market sometime around 2007 or 2008 to bring down prices of these models and deepen our partnership," said Jacky Yueh (樂嘉祺), assistant vice president of the marketing department at Formosa Automobile Sales Corp (台宇汽車), in a telephone interview yesterday.
Formosa Automobile Sales is the sole distributor of Skoda models in Taiwan. A number of industry sources have speculated that the group may pass the job of manufacturing Skoda vehicles to Formosa Automobile Corp (
Formosa Automobile Corp currently assembles Matiz compacts and Magnus sedans at a plant in Tatu Township (大肚) near Taichung, with technology from South Korea's Daewoo Group.
DEAL CLINCHED
Formosa Automobile Sales announced last week that it had clinched a deal with Skoda Auto AG -- an affiliate of German auto giant VW Group along with Volkswagen AG and Audi AG -- to bring in 12 vehicles under the Octavia, Superb and Fabia labels.
Pricings begin from NT$688,000 to NT$2 million (US$20,800 to US$60,400) with delivery starting next month.
Yueh said that local production will firstly target the mid-size saloon Octavia range.
"This series is newer models with superb exteriors, which are ideal for the Taiwanese market," he said, refusing to say how much prices would be lowered if the cars are manufactured locally.
According to Yueh, manufacturing facilities at Skoda Auto have almost reached capacity in rolling out more than 400,000 vehicles a year for global sales.
For the first 11 months of the year, Skoda Auto sold a total of 452,973 vehicles globally, with Europe as its main market.
This figure represented an increase of 10.5 percent over last year, according to a press release posted on the company's Web site.
ON THE LOOKOUT
In view of the growing demand, the Czech vendor is now on the lookout for qualified domestic partners to produce models in overseas markets, which will bring down production costs and boost capacity, Yueh said.
Formosa Automobile Sales would not rule out working with Skoda Auto in other Asian markets, including China.
This would depend on how well the partnership and sales proceed in Taiwan over the next two years, he said.
The company has set a sales target of 2,000 Skoda vehicles next year, and is pushing the lineup at the 2006 Taipei International Auto Show. The expo, which is being held at the Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall I, will run through Sunday.
Yueh said that the company was not placing high hopes on receiving huge orders from the show; rather, it was banking on greater exposure of the vehicles.
"Skoda cars are new to consumers here and they are mostly checking them out at the auto show. This will be a good platform for buyers to feel and touch these cars," Yueh added.
It was late morning and steam was rising from water tanks atop the colorful, but opaque-windowed, “soapland” sex parlors in a historic Tokyo red-light district. Walking through the narrow streets, camera in hand, was Beniko — a former sex worker who is trying to capture the spirit of the area once known as Yoshiwara through photography. “People often talk about this neighborhood having a ‘bad history,’” said Beniko, who goes by her nickname. “But the truth is that through the years people have lived here, made a life here, sometimes struggled to survive. I want to share that reality.” In its mid-17th to
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday signed a letter of intent with Alaska Gasline Development Corp (AGDC), expressing an interest to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) and invest in the latter’s Alaska LNG project, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. Under the agreement, CPC is to participate in the project’s upstream gas investment to secure stable energy resources for Taiwan, the ministry said. The Alaska LNG project is jointly promoted by AGDC and major developer Glenfarne Group LLC, as Alaska plans to export up to 20 million tonnes of LNG annually from 2031. It involves constructing an 1,290km
‘MAKE OR BREAK’: Nvidia shares remain down more than 9 percent, but investors are hoping CEO Jensen Huang’s speech can stave off fears that the sales boom is peaking Shares in Nvidia Corp’s Taiwanese suppliers mostly closed higher yesterday on hopes that the US artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer would showcase next-generation technologies at its annual AI conference slated to open later in the day. The GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in California is to feature developers, engineers, researchers, inventors and information technology professionals, and would focus on AI, computer graphics, data science, machine learning and autonomous machines. The event comes at a make-or-break moment for the firm, as it heads into the next few quarters, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s (黃仁勳) keynote speech today seen as having the ability to
NEXT GENERATION: The company also showcased automated machines, including a nursing robot called Nurabot, which is to enter service at a Taichung hospital this year Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) expects server revenue to exceed its iPhone revenue within two years, with the possibility of achieving this goal as early as this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said on Tuesday at Nvidia Corp’s annual technology conference in San Jose, California. AI would be the primary focus this year for the company, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), as rapidly advancing AI applications are driving up demand for AI servers, Liu said. The production and shipment of Nvidia’s GB200 chips and the anticipated launch of GB300 chips in the second half of the year would propel
RSS