The government is to build 3,310 new charging stations for electric scooters across the nation in the next five years to encourage the use of electric vehicles and reduce air pollution, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Wednesday.
“Including the existing 1,800 charging stations, the nation will have more than 5,000 charging stations for electric motorcycles by 2022,” an Industrial Development Bureau official said by telephone.
The ministry is to allocate a five-year budget of up to NT$2 billion (US$67.6 million) to the state-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) to build 1,000 of the 3,310 charging stations at its gas stations, the official said, adding that individuals and businesses would be able to apply for a subsidy of up to NT$300,000 to build a scooter charging station on their own.
The ministry’s charging station project came after the Executive Yuan on Dec. 21 last year announced a ban on the sale of fossil fuel-powered motorcycles and cars in 2035 and 2040 respectively.
The government’s strategy to fight pollution includes replacing buses and government-owned cars with electric models by 2030.
The official said the ministry has already helped set up a combined 800 charging stations for electric buses and cars.
The electric vehicle charging station project does not include electric cars, as “the state-run CPC can only do so many things at once,” he said, adding that “it would not be economical for CPC to build charging stations for electric cars, because there are not many in Taiwan.”
As of Nov. 30 last year, there were 1,471 registered electric cars in Taiwan, but more than 107,000 electric scooters, according to statistics compiled by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC).
The official said the MOTC aims to set up parking spaces with discounts exclusively for electric cars and scooters to encourage the public to purchase electric vehicles.
The Ministry of the Interior is to revise the Building Act (建築法) so that new parking lots have space for installing chargers for electric cars and scooters, he said.
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
CRESTING WAVE: Companies are still buying in, but the shivers in the market could be the first signs that the AI wave has peaked and the collapse is upon the world Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported a new monthly record of NT$367.47 billion (US$11.85 billion) in consolidated sales for last month thanks to global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Last month’s figure represented 16.9 percent annual growth, the slowest pace since February last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 11 percent. Cumulative sales in the first 10 months of the year grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to NT$3.13 trillion, a record for the same period in the company’s history. However, the slowing growth in monthly sales last month highlights uncertainty over the sustainability of the AI boom even as
AI BOOST: Next year, the cloud and networking product business is expected to remain a key revenue pillar for the company, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu said Manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted its best third-quarter profit in the company’s history, backed by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Net profit expanded 17 percent annually to NT$57.67 billion (US$1.86 billion) from NT$44.36 billion, the company said. On a quarterly basis, net profit soared 30 percent from NT$44.36 billion, it said. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said earnings per share expanded to NT$4.15 from NT$3.55 a year earlier and NT$3.19 in the second quarter. Gross margin improved to 6.35 percent,
BUST FEARS: While a KMT legislator asked if an AI bubble could affect Taiwan, the DGBAS minister said the sector appears on track to continue growing The local property market has cooled down moderately following a series of credit control measures designed to contain speculation, the central bank said yesterday, while remaining tight-lipped about potential rule relaxations. Lawmakers in a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee voiced concerns to central bank officials that the credit control measures have adversely affected the government’s tax income and small and medium-sized property developers, with limited positive effects. Housing prices have been climbing since 2016, even when the central bank imposed its first set of control measures in 2020, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) said. “Since the second half of
RSS