Taiwan’s electric vehicle (EV) industry has “three years left” to build its own brand, Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會) chairman James Huang (黃志芳) said at a news conference in Taipei yesterday, announcing that the council is to hold an electro-mobility trade show in October.
Although Taiwanese components make up about 75 percent of Tesla Inc’s vehicles, according to the Chinese-language Commonwealth Magazine, there are no Taiwanese EV brands on the market.
“We are looking ahead to 2035 because that is when many countries will be phasing out fossil fuel vehicles,” Huang said. “We all know that Taiwan is strong in EV hardware components, but until we have our own brand, we do not have a voice in the international market.”
Photo: Lin Jing-hua, Taipei Times
The council’s goal is to encourage local firms to build a “connected ecosystem centered on EV and autonomous-driving technology,” Huang said.
The first edition of the 2035 E-Mobility Taiwan Show would help to spark that development and feature local manufacturers and “international investors from Wall Street and Silicon Valley,” he said.
“Taiwan has the hardware supply chain and the software capability... The time has come to combine the two,” Huang said, adding that the nation has three years to “seize the opportunity.”
EVs have in the past few months been a hot topic in Taiwan, with Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) in October last year announcing the launch of an open platform for EV development.
Hon Hai at the time said that it aims to secure 10 percent of the world’s EV market by 2025.
Hon Hai’s platform is “the Android of EVs,” Huang said, adding that the firm has been positive about participating in the e-mobility show.
In June, TAITRA would hold an “e-mobility demonstration day,” where start-ups and university research groups can demonstrate their projects, and compete for a chance to be included in the e-mobility show.
Huang said that the idea to host an e-mobility show came from Lin Shu-hong (林書鴻), chairman of Chang Chun Group (長春集團), a petrochemical conglomerate that produces copper foils, a vital component in EV batteries.
“Lin told me that the demand for copper foil is through the roof, thanks to demand from EV makers, and that we should build a ‘battery national team,’” Huang said. “Lin also predicts that the demand for lithium-ion batteries will be 28 times what it is today in 2030.”
“The nature of mobility is changing, and Taiwan must not miss this opportunity. The government must support the EV industry in the same way it supported the semiconductor industry in the past,” he said.
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