Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進), a joint venture between Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車), yesterday launched an electric vehicle (EV) model called Bria.
Versions of the model would initially be sold at three prices, ranging from about NT$899,000 to NT$1.15 million (US$28,558 to US$36,531), Foxtron said, adding that Bria is the first EV model to be made in Taiwan for export globally.
Under Foxtron’s pricing strategy, Bria prices are lower than Toyota Motor Corp’s first all-electric sport utility vehicle, the bZ4X, at NT$1.28 million, and compared with market leader Tesla Inc Model Y’s starting price of about NT$1.7 million.
Photo courtesy of Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co
Bria EVs are to be on display at Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車) showrooms and service centers across Taiwan beginning this weekend, as well as at the upcoming Taipei Auto Show at the Taiwan World Trade Center’s Exhibition Hall 1 from Wednesday next week to Jan. 4, the company said.
Foxtron hopes to deliver the cars to consumers as early as before the Lunar New Year holiday in mid-February next year, it said.
Taiwan’s auto market this year is overshadowed by strong wait-and-see sentiment ahead of the results of Taiwan-US trade talks over tariffs.
In the first 11 months of this year, cumulative EV sales in Taiwan fell more than 26 percent year-on-year to 25,373 units, comprising 6.91 percent of total sales of 367,133, government data showed earlier this month.
The launch of Bria EVs followed Foxtron’s announcement last week that it would acquire Yulon Motor’s passenger-car brand Luxgen for NT$787.6 million, and that it would launch its Model B EV in Taiwan under the Bria brand in the first quarter of next year.
Under the deal, Foxtron acquires 100 percent of Luxgen, including its five sales subsidiaries, sales outlets and employees, Foxtron said in a statement.
Following the transaction, Foxtron will take operational control, aiming to build a more comprehensive EV value chain in Taiwan, spanning product development, sales and after-sales services.
The company operates a contract design and manufacturing services business model, under which it makes EVs for major car brands.
Additional reporting by staff writer
SECOND-RATE: Models distilled from US products do not perform the same as the original and undo measures that ensure the systems are neutral, the US’ cable said The US Department of State has ordered a global push to bring attention to what it said are widespread efforts by Chinese companies, including artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek (深度求索), to steal intellectual property from US AI labs, according to a diplomatic cable. The cable, dated Friday and sent to diplomatic and consular posts around the world, instructs diplomatic staff to speak to their foreign counterparts about “concerns over adversaries’ extraction and distillation of US AI models.” Distillation is the process of training smaller AI models using output from larger, more expensive ones to lower the costs of training a powerful new
Micron Technology Inc is a driving force pushing the US Congress to pass legislation that would put new export restrictions on equipment its Chinese competitors use to make their chips, according to people familiar with the matter. A US House of Representatives panel yesterday was to vote on the “MATCH Act,” a bill designed to close gaps in restrictions on chipmaking equipment. It would also pressure foreign companies that sell equipment to Chinese chipmaking facilities to align with export curbs on US companies like Lam Research Corp and Applied Materials Inc. The bill targets facilities operated by China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings’ planned acquisition of Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations has yet to enter the formal review stage, as regulators await supplementary documents, the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said yesterday. Acting FTC Chairman Chen Chih-min (陳志民) told the legislature’s Economics Committee that although Grab submitted its application on March 27, the case has not been officially accepted because required materials remain incomplete. Once the filing is finalized, the FTC would launch a formal probe into the deal, focusing on issues such as cross-shareholding and potential restrictions on market competition, Chen told lawmakers. Grab last month announced that it would acquire
The artificial intelligence (AI) boom has triggered a seismic reshuffling of global equity markets, with Taiwan and South Korea muscling past European nations one by one. With its stock market now valued at nearly US$4.3 trillion, Taiwan surpassed the UK, Europe’s biggest market, earlier this month, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. South Korea is about US$140 billion away from doing the same. The tech-heavy Asian markets have shot past Germany and France in the past seven months. The shift is largely down to massive gains in shares of three companies that provide essential hardware for AI: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電),
RSS