AUTOMAKERS
Tesla slashes prices in US
Tesla Inc drastically slashed the prices of its Model 3 sedan and Model Y sports utility vehicle in the US, a move that allows more models to qualify for a new US federal tax credit and juice demand in what is typically a sluggish winter quarter. The purchase price of a dual motor all-wheel drive Model 3 would be US$53,990, a 14 percent drop from US$62,990 previously, Tesla said on Thursday. The purchase price of a long-range Model Y would be US$52,990, a 20 percent reduction from US$65,990. The US’ Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by US President Joe Biden last year, created new criteria for consumers to qualify for as much as a US$7,500 tax credit on new electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids. For vehicles, including sedans such as Tesla’s Model 3, the sticker price cannot exceed US$55,000 and the vehicle must be assembled in North America to qualify.
ARGENTINA
Inflation soars to 94.8%
Inflation was 94.8 percent last year, its highest annual figure since 1991, the Indec national statistics institute said on Thursday. Latin America’s third-largest economy last year had one of the highest inflation rates in the world, even though last month’s figure of 5.1 percent month-on-month inflation continued a downward trend since a peak of 7.4 percent in July. The annual figure was a huge jump from the 50.9 percent inflation in 2021. The government has set an inflation target of 60 percent for this year. Prices for daily staples rose monthly, even weekly, last year. A liter of milk rose 320 percent last year, while cooking oil shot up 456 percent and 1kg of sugar soared 490 percent, the Abeceb consultancy said.
GERMANY
Ukraine war stirs downturn
The economy suffered a sharp slowdown last year, when the return of war to Europe cut a COVID-19 pandemic rebound short and forced painful shifts in business and politics. Output increased 1.9 percent — down from 2.6 percent in 2021 and just ahead of the 1.8 percent estimate in a Bloomberg survey, the statistics office said yesterday. While last year began with high hopes that phasing-out two years of COVID-19 restrictions would juice demand — GDP was forecast to jump 4 percent — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine eight weeks in changed everything. Year-on-year inflation peaked at 11.6 percent last year and is expected to stay elevated through 2025. Economists started to forecast a downturn in September last year, after confidence indicators plummeted and surveys of purchasing managers signaled production had started to decline.
AUTOMAKERS
BYD plans Vietnam plant
The electric vehicle (EV) unit of BYD Co (比亞迪) is planning to build a plant in Vietnam to produce vehicle parts, three people with knowledge of the plan said, in a move that would reduce the Chinese company’s reliance on domestic manufacturing and deepen its supply chain in Southeast Asia. The investment would exceed US$250 million, one of the people said. The Xian-based firm, which outsold Tesla Inc in EVs by more than two to one in China last year, has been expanding elsewhere in Asia, including Singapore and Japan, and Europe. The company in September last year announced it would build an EV assembly plant in Thailand with annual capacity of 150,000 units from next year.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group