RAC Electric Vehicles Inc (華德動能科技) has secured a NT$1.5 billion (US$50.2 million) syndicated loan to fund its capacity expansion after receiving significant orders from customers, the electric bus manufacturer said yesterday.
Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行) acted as the lead arranger of the syndicated loan, with 15 other banks participating, RAC said in a statement.
The lenders have oversubscribed to the loan by more than 100 percent, it said.
Photo courtesy of Hua Nan Commercial Bank
RAC has won bids to supply 169 new electric buses to the nation’s major bus operators, including Capital Bus Co (首都客運), Danan Bus Co (大南客運) and Geya Bus Transport Co (巨業交通), through a government pilot program. The operators run services in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taichung and Kaohsiung.
Winning bidders are to receive a subsidy of up to NT$10 million per vehicle. The program aims to boost production of locally made electric buses to 16,000 units a year by 2030.
RAC plans to ship 105 electric buses this year, most of which would be delivered in the second half, it said.
The Taoyuan-based company last year delivered 33 electric buses to local bus operators, such as San Chung Bus Co (三重客運), it added.
To cope with rising customer demand, RAC’s parent company, Mobiletron Electronics Co (車王電子), has spent NT$2.5 billion to build a factory in Taichung for RAC to expand its capacity. The new factory has an installed capacity of 1,700 electric buses and 6,000 automobile chassis a year.
The plant is to start operations next quarter, RAC said.
Mobiletron owns a 54.64 percent stake in RAC.
The electric vehicle company has also expanded its business overseas and is working with Sumitomo Corp to ship electric buses to Japan, it said.
RAC delivered the first batch of electric buses to Japan in April to be used in Kyushu, it added.
RAC reported net losses of NT$138.03 million last year, compared with losses of NT$154 million in 2020. Losses per share improved to NT$1.53 last year, from NT$2.03 in the preceding year.
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) forecast that its wafer shipments this quarter would grow up to 7 percent sequentially and the factory utilization rate would rise to 75 percent, indicating that customers did not alter their ordering behavior due to the US President Donald Trump’s capricious US tariff policies. However, the uncertainty about US tariffs has weighed on the chipmaker’s business visibility for the second half of this year, UMC chief financial officer Liu Chi-tung (劉啟東) said at an online earnings conference yesterday. “Although the escalating trade tensions and global tariff policies have increased uncertainty in the semiconductor industry, we have not
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
RSS