Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), on Friday announced that it had been holding talks on building electric vehicles (EVs) in Wisconsin, but said that plans had yet to be finalized.
“Foxconn has engaged the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp (WEDC) to discuss the company’s plans for electric vehicle manufacturing,” the company said in a statement.
“Foxconn is optimistic about our partnership with the WEDC and looks forward to ongoing discussions,” it said, adding that a final decision and a firm timetable had yet to be reached.
Photo: Chen Rou-chen, Taipei Times
Meanwhile, in a statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Thursday, the company said that it and its partner, the California-based EV maker Fisker Inc, had held talks with the WEDC “as part of the site selection process.”
Hon Hai and Fisker in May signed a framework agreement to establish an EV production site in the US, while stipulating that the sides would use Hon Hai’s MIH Open Platform to develop vehicles to be sold under the Fisker brand.
The project — called the Personal Electric Automotive Revolution — anticipates that the first joint EV model would enter mass production in the fourth quarter of 2023 and would have a price tag of less than US$30,000, not including subsidies, the companies said.
Many have speculated that the project would be based in Wisconsin, where Hon Hai had previously planned a US$10 billion factory to make flat panels, before massively scaling it back earlier this year.
However, the company has said that it was evaluating other potential production sites, with the goal of manufacturing about 250,000 EVs annually.
Separately, Hon Hai’s expansion into EVs through its partnership with Byton Ltd (拜騰) has hit a snag, with one of the Chinese automaker’s biggest creditors taking control of the company’s management, people familiar with the matter said.
China FAW Group Co (中國一汽集團) last week installed one of its officials, Zhang Ying (張影), as chairman of Byton, the people said.
Hon Hai, which in January struck a strategic cooperation deal with Byton to make EVs, is withdrawing personnel, with some of the workers that it dispatched to the automaker’s Nanjing plant being pulled out, one of the people said.
That has raised questions over whether Byton can meet its goal of starting mass production early next year, and whether the automaker can achieve its plan to list through a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, the people said.
Byton was earlier this year in talks with blank-check firms over a listing, Reuters reported in February.
FAW has been unwilling to convert its debt into stock to pave the way for a share sale, some of the people said.
Foxconn spokesman Jimmy Huang (黃欽旻) said that the “future collaboration of the two sides will be decided after Byton completes its organizational restructuring.”
A Byton spokesperson did not address the board changes, but said that the company is “actively pushing forward” with the mass production of its first model.
The spokesperson added that “core stakeholder” FAW and “partner” Foxconn would collaborate in sending executives to Byton to support production and operations.
A FAW representative did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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