Apple Inc’s local manufacturing partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) outside of Taiwan, is setting up a vehicle venture, strengthening its automotive capabilities at a time when technology companies, including its California ally, are looking to expand in automaking.
Hon Hai is joining forces with Chinese automaker Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co (浙江吉利控股集團) to provide production and consulting services to global automotive enterprises, the companies said in a statement yesterday.
The production and consulting services are related to whole vehicles, parts, intelligent drive systems and automotive ecosystem platforms, Hon Hai said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Each party is to hold a 50 percent stake in the new joint venture, FuTaiHua Industrial (Shenzhen) Ltd (富泰華工業深圳), with Hon Hai appointing three directors, including the chairperson, to the venture’s five-member board and Geely appointing two, the filing said.
Amid reports of Apple considering making its own electric vehicles (EVs), Hon Hai has been bulking up its automotive muscles swiftly. Such moves might help the company become a major contender to make vehicles for its largest customer.
With development work still at an early stage, Apple would take at least half a decade to launch an autonomous electric vehicle, people with knowledge of the efforts have told Bloomberg News.
That suggests the company is in no hurry to decide on potential auto-industry partners.
Hon Hai in October last year unveiled its first-ever EV chassis and a software platform aimed at helping automakers bring models to the market faster.
It plans to deliver its first development kit in April, with Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) saying that EV-related business in the first half of this year would be “very good.”
Hon Hai’s key unit, Foxconn Technology Co (鴻準精密), is reportedly expanding a plant to develop automotive metal parts.
Earlier this month, Hon Hai signed a manufacturing deal with embattled Chinese electric-vehicle start-up Byton Ltd (拜騰) with the aim to start mass production of the Byton M-Byte by the first quarter of next year.
Setting up an auto plant can cost billions of US dollars and take years, which is probably why Apple is talking to potential manufacturing partners.
The company has continued to investigate building its self-driving vehicle system for a third-party auto partner rather than its own vehicle, the people familiar with matter have said, and the company could ultimately abandon its own vehicle efforts in favor of this approach.
Other technology companies seeking to expand into the autonomous driving space have also sought partnerships.
Alphabet Inc’s self-driving unit Waymo has worked with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, while Amazon.com Inc has tapped Rivian Automotive Inc for cooperation over delivery vans.
This week, Geely struck a pact with search-engine giant Baidu Inc (百度) to set up a venture to make intelligent EVs.
Additional reporting by staff writer
PRICE HIKES: The war in the Middle East would not significantly disrupt supply in the short term, but semiconductor companies are facing price surges for materials Taiwan’s semiconductor companies are not facing imminent supply disruptions of essential chemicals or raw materials due to the war in the Middle East, but surges in material costs loom large, industry association SEMI Taiwan said yesterday. The association’s comments came amid growing concerns that supplies of helium and other key raw materials used in semiconductor production could become a choke point after Qatar shut down its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and helium output earlier this month due to the conflict. Qatar is the second-largest LNG supplier in the world and accounts for about 33 percent of global helium output. Helium is
DOMESTIC COMPONENT: Huang identified several Taiwanese partners to be a key part of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin supply chain, including Asustek, Hon Hai and Wistron Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), addressing crowds at the company’s biggest annual event, unveiled a variety of new products while predicting that its flagship artificial intelligence (AI) processors would help generate US$1 trillion in sales through next year. During a two-and-a-half-hour keynote address, Huang announced plans to push deeper into central processing units (CPUs) — Intel Corp’s home turf — and introduced semiconductors made with technology acquired from start-up Groq Inc. The company even said it was developing chips for data centers in outer space. At the heart of Huang’s speech was the message that demand for computing power
OPTIMISTIC: Inflation still has a chance of remaining below the central bank’s 2 percent alert level, as Taiwan’s economy is resilient with healthy exports, the NDC minister said Taiwan’s inflation could exceed 2 percent this year if oil prices continue to surge amid escalating tensions in the Middle East, prompting the government to reassess its economic outlook, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. DGBAS Minister Chen Shu-tzu (陳淑姿) told lawmakers at a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee that the agency’s earlier growth forecast of 1.68 percent in the consumer price index (CPI) and 7.71 percent for GDP this year did not account for the ongoing Middle East conflict and would need revision, if tensions persist. The previous forecast assumed an average international crude price of
ELECTRIC DREAMS: Smart cities would use ‘virtual power plants,’ which integrate idle electricity use from households, businesses and factories, Asustek said Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) yesterday showcased key components of its artificial intelligence (AI)-driven smart city initiatives at a trade show in Taipei, eyeing new business opportunities as cities develop sovereign AI infrastructure. Advances in generative, multimodal and physical AI are driving cities toward a new phase of “sovereign AI,” Asustek cochief executive officer Samson Hu (胡書賓) told reporters on the sidelines of the Smart City Summit and Expo at Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center’s Hall 2. The company showcased its “AI City” framework, which comprises three layers — computing infrastructure centered on AI servers, AI models and a platform layer for data processing
RSS