German automaker Volkswagen AG (VW) yesterday said that it has agreed to invest 2.1 billion euros (US$2.59 billion) in two separate Chinese electric-vehicle (EV) players, upping its bet on the world’s biggest auto market as international rivals seek to muscle in.
VW said that it would invest 1 billion euros to take a 50 percent stake in the state-owned parent of Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group (JAC Motors, 安徽江淮汽車集團), also raising its stake in an existing EV joint venture with JAC Motors to 75 percent from 50 percent.
The joint venture would launch five more electric models by 2025 and establish a vehicle manufacturing base, VW said.
The German giant aims to sell 1.5 million new energy vehicles (NEV) — including battery EVs, as well as plug-in hybrid and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles — a year in China by 2025.
In a separate transaction, VW said that it would pay 1.1 billion euros to acquire 26.5 percent of Guoxuan High-tech Co Ltd (固特高科技有限公司), a maker of EV batteries, becoming its biggest shareholder.
Guoxuan — based in Hefei, China, like JAC Motors — would supply batteries to its EV models in China, VW said.
The deals come as global rivals such as US EV maker Tesla Inc seek to make inroads in the Chinese vehicle market. Tesla last year became the first foreign automaker to wholly own a vehicle plant in China.
China has set a target of 25 percent of 2025 annual vehicle sales to be made up of NEVs. More than 25 million vehicles were sold in China last year.
Yesterday’s moves also make VW the latest foreign automaker to increase ownership of operations in China since the government started to relax rules in 2018, with German peer BMW AG quick to take control of its main local venture.
VW also has ventures with state-owned China FAW Group Co Ltd (一汽富維) and SAIC Motor Corp Ltd (上海汽車).
Shares in both JAC Motors and Guoxuan yesterday morning climbed their maximum daily limit of 10 percent in Shanghai trading.
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
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained