Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Chinese start-up Byton Ltd (拜騰) are stepping up cooperation in the development of electric vehicles (EVs), with reports that Hon Hai would station experts at Byton’s factory.
Chinese media on Saturday reported that Hon Hai would send about 100 engineers to Byton’s headquarters in Nanjing next year to help them move up mass production of its electric vehicles.
At a virtual meeting with Byton on Friday, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said the company is not only eyeing the success of Byton, but hoping to capitalize on their partnership to make Nanjing a hub for electric vehicles, the reports said.
Photo: Ritchie B. Tongo, EPA-EFE
Hon Hai, Byton and the Nanjing Development Zone on Jan. 4 signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement to jointly accelerate production of Byton’s first model, the M-Byte, by the first quarter of next year.
“We are pleased to work with Byton to advance the production of the M-Byte. This will allow us to contribute to further growing the electric vehicle industry, a demonstration of our commitment to the transformation of the traditional automotive industry,” Liu said in a statement.
The company has been ambitiously eyeing a share of the electric vehicle market since Liu took office in 2019. It in October last year launched an open platform for electric vehicles for all stakeholders to utilize as they develop functional attributes and systems that would support market growth.
More than 400 companies worldwide have so far participated in the platform and Liu has said that the sector is looking promising for the first half of this year.
Analysts have said that global electric vehicle production would reach 4.58 million this year, up about 60 percent from last year’s 2.86 million.
Among those, 2.09 million are expected to be sold in China, compared with 1.21 million last year.
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