China’s Geely Holding Group Co (吉利控股集團) is planning a big investment to turn the maker of London’s iconic black taxis into a high-volume, all-electric brand with a range of commercial and passenger vehicles, executives at the unit said.
London Electric Vehicle Co (LEVC) also aims to expand its suite of services, which include cars arranging their own maintenance and recognizing their owner’s interests to help them book activities.
“We need a developed product portfolio. We need to make big investments in terms of the technology and infrastructure,” LEVC chief executive Alex Nan (南聖良) said at the taxi maker’s headquarters in Coventry, central England. “Geely will make consistent investments into LEVC because this is a very unique project.”
Photo: Reuters
LEVC builds a hybrid taxi model that starts at around £66,000 (US$81,900), which has a battery providing 103km of range and a gasoline range-extender giving it a total range of over 480km. The company’s business was hit hard by the pandemic and it laid off 140 staff in October last year.
Nan said LEVC and Geely would seek to attract other investors to its zero-emission portfolio and would look to partner with other carmakers to develop new technology.
Executives said the size of Geely’s investment would be disclosed later. So far the Chinese group, which took full control of LEVC in 2013, has invested £500 million in it.
Photo: Reuters
“Geely fully supports the new transition strategy laid out by LEVC’s board and executive team,” Geely said in a statement.
In 2021, Geely launched a £2 billion investment in another unit, niche British luxury sports carmaker Lotus, to massively expand production of its sports cars and build high-end SUVs and sedans in Britain and China.
Geely is following a similar path in its plans to grow LEVC, executives said.
Britain’s EV ambitions were dealt a blow last week when startup Britishvolt, which had planned to build a major battery factory in northeast England, filed for administration.
“We need to make sure the UK environment as a whole is competitive and has its position on the world stage,” LEVC managing director Chris Allen said.
PATENTS: MediaTek Inc said it would not comment on ongoing legal cases, but does not expect the legal action by Huawei to affect its business operations Smartphone integrated chips designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) on Friday said that a lawsuit filed by Chinese smartphone brand Huawei Technologies Co (華為) over alleged patent infringements would have little impact on its operations. In an announcement posted on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, MediaTek said that it would not comment on an ongoing legal case. However, the company said that Huawei’s legal action would have little impact on its operations. MediaTek’s statement came after China-based PRIP Research said on Thursday that Huawei filed a lawsuit with a Chinese district court claiming that MediaTek infringed on its patents. The infringement mentioned in the lawsuit likely involved
Taipei is today suspending work, classes and its US$2.4 trillion stock market as Typhoon Gaemi approaches Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rain. The nation is not conducting securities, currency or fixed income trading, statements from its stock and currency exchanges said. Authorities had yesterday issued a warning that the storm could affect people on land and canceled some ship crossings and domestic flights. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) expects its local chipmaking fabs to maintain normal production, the company said in an e-mailed statement. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp said it has activated routine typhoon alert
GROWTH: TSMC increased its projected revenue growth for this year to more than 25 percent, citing stronger-than-expected demand for AI devices and smartphones The Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台灣經濟研究院) yesterday raised its forecast for Taiwan’s GDP growth this year from 3.29 percent to 3.85 percent, as exports and private investment recovered faster than it predicted three months ago. The Taipei-based think tank also expects that Taiwan would see a 8.19 percent increase in exports this year, better than the 7.55 percent it projected in April, as US technology giants spent more money on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and development. “There will be more AI servers going forward, but it remains to be seen if the momentum would extend to personal computers, smartphones and
Catastrophic computer outages caused by a software update from one company have once again exposed the dangers of global technological dependence on a handful of players, experts said on Friday. A flawed update sent out by the little-known security firm CrowdStrike Holdings Inc brought airlines, TV stations and myriad other aspects of daily life to a standstill. The outages affected companies or individuals that use CrowdStrike on the Microsoft Inc’s Windows platform. When they applied the update, the incompatible software crashed computers into a frozen state known as the “blue screen of death.” “Today CrowdStrike has become a household name, but not in