Electric vehicles (EVs) developed on a Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) platform would be built like “a smartphone on a different platform,” Jack Cheng (鄭顯聰), chief executive officer of the Hon Hai-initiated MIH Open Platform Alliance, said on Saturday.
It would be the ultimate goal to make vehicles built on the platform an extension of the driver’s home, he said during an online presentation.
The alliance aims to provide resources to automakers and boost Taiwan’s EV development, with a vision to make an EV its owner’s “second home,” Cheng said.
Photo courtesy of Eastern Broadcasting Co
“Whatever they can do in their home, they will be able to do in an EV,” Cheng said.
All passengers in a vehicle developed on the platform would be able to attend live-streamed meetings, watch TV or even play mahjong, he said, adding that he envisions a “mobility world” in which EVs play a major role.
The arrangement of seats in the vehicles would be different from that in other vehicles, which would require crash-testing to adapt to the new situation, Cheng said.
Commenting on the role of Hon Hai, a manufacturer of consumer electronics, in EV development, Cheng said that the company can build on its experience.
“Building an EV is like assembling a smartphone on a different platform,” he said, adding that EVs would in the future be “everyday tools” like smartphones are today.
Hon Hai, known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), launched its EV platform in October last year.
As part of its efforts to diversify its business, the firm said that it aims to build the platform into the “Android of the EV industry.”
More than 800 companies have joined the platform, Hon Hai said.
The firm last week said that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Fisker Inc, a California-based start-up, to build a new EV model under the Fisker brand, with the goal to start mass production by the fourth quarter of 2023.
Separately, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said in a TV interview on Saturday that the design of an electric bus on the platform would be completed in June, with a public debut planned for October.
Referring to Hon Hai’s collaborations with Fisker and China’s Byton Ltd (拜騰), Liu said that it aims to help all firms developing vehicles on the platform expand their business, including on overseas markets.
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