Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday debuted three electric vehicle (EV) prototypes to great fanfare at its Tech Day event at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center.
The prototypes of sports utility vehicle Model C, luxury sedan Model E and electric bus Model T were developed by Foxtron Vehicles Technologies Co (鴻華先進), a joint venture between Hon Hai and Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車).
The Model C and Model E are to be initially sold under the Yulon-affiliated Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車) and China Motor Corp (中華汽車) brands when they hit the market, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The company expects the electric vehicle business to contribute to revenue as early as next year, Liu said.
“We anticipate significant revenue contribution by 2023, and for EVs to be Hon Hai’s next trillion NT business in five years,” he said.
Although Hon Hai has aggressively trumpeted its EV ambitions since October last year and announced many partnerships, including with US firm Fisker Inc, Lordstown Motors Corp and European auto giant Stellantis NV, yesterday was the first time it showed the fruits of its labor.
The 4.64m-long Model C features a sleek, spacious and power-saving design, while the Model T bus is equipped with a rigid body and a 400 watt-hours battery, fully meeting the standards set by the US Federal Transit Administration, the company said.
The Model E luxury sedan, jointly developed with Italian design firm Pininfarina SpA, can accelerate from 0 to 100kph in 2.8 seconds, and generates 750 horsepower, with a full range of 750km, it said.
The three vehicles were built on Hon Hai’s EV open platform known as MIH. The “MIH alliance” is an open standard founded by Hon Hai with the aim of allowing Taiwanese EV component makers to cooperate with each other with the ambition to become “the Android of EVs.” It was spun off as an independent entity in July.
The price of the Model C would be “under NT$1 million [US$35,695],” Liu said, but did not disclose the prices for the other two models.
The prototypes are demonstration models for customers, who can have them customized according to their specifications and design, he said.
Yulon Motor chairperson Lilian Chen (嚴陳莉蓮), who appeared on stage in a Model C, said the three EVs were built in just one year, a display of Taiwan’s potential and strengths in automobile research and development.
While the physical vehicles were the star of the show yesterday, Liu said that Hon Hai is driving its EV business into “a software-defined enterprise.”
“As the electric vehicle business develops and matures, Hon Hai will set up a software R&D [research and development] center with more than 2,500 engineers within three years,” he said. “We welcome those who are interested in the field of electric vehicle software.”
Vice Premier Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) said the Model T is likely to start service in Kaohsiung next year, once it passes the quality and safety test of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, paving the way for it to break into overseas markets
Former Hon Hai chairman and company founder Terry Gou (郭台銘), who drove a Model E sedan onto the stage, said the EVs were the “best birthday present ever.”
He turned 71 yesterday.
“This is the best gift I have ever received for my birthday,” he said.
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
A former television news host and six military personnel — active and retired — have been indicted on espionage charges, Kaohsiung prosecutors said yesterday. Lin Chen-you (林宸佑), a former CTi News host and YouTuber, last year allegedly made videos at the direction of a Chinese agent criticizing the Democratic Progressive Party’s recall campaign, the Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office told a news conference in Kaohsiung. He allegedly received 4,325 tether coins for the videos from an unidentified person surnamed Huang (黃), believed to be an agent of a hostile foreign power, they said. Lin, also known as Ma Te (馬德), has a show named
RSS