The Taiwan New Car Assessment Program would not be able to evaluate the safety of the Tesla Model 3 until next year, as the popular car is out of stock in Taiwan, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday.
The ministry began enforcing the program this year to ensure that the best-selling models in Taiwan are safe to drive. The state-run Changhua County-based Vehicle Safety Certification Center is tasked to evaluate the safety of the vehicles, dispatching secret buyers to purchase them at random from dealers for testing.
The center yesterday said that the Ford models Focus and Kuga received five-star and three-star safety ratings respectively.
Photo: Taipei Times file
It is to announce the results of the center’s evaluation of the Nissan Kicks and the Toyota Yaris at the end of December, it said.
The Toyota Corolla Cross and Toyota RAV4 both received five-star ratings in the first quarter, while the Toyota Corolla Altis and the Honda CR-V secured five-star and three-star ratings in the second quarter respectively.
“The Tesla Model 3 would be the first electric vehicle undergoing a safety evaluation, and the testing is scheduled to take place during the first quarter next year, but we have had trouble buying the car from dealers as it is currently out of stock,” Vehicle Safety Certification Center Executive Director Chou Wei-kuo (周維果) said.
“We are trying to facilitate testing by working with Tesla on this matter,” he added.
Next year, the center is to test eight models, including the Model 3 and the Lexus NX in the first quarter, followed by the Honda Fit and Toyota Sienta in the second quarter, Mazda’s CX-5 and Toyota’s Vios in the third quarter, and the Nissan Sentra and the CMC Zinger in the fourth quarter, it said.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei City Reserve Command yesterday initiated its first-ever 14-day recall of some of the city’s civilian service reservists, who are to undergo additional training on top of refresher courses. The command said that it rented sites in Neihu District (內湖), including the Taipei Tennis Center, for the duration of the camp to optimize tactical positioning and accommodate the size of the battalion of reservists. A battalion is made up of four companies of more than 200 reservists each, it said. Aside from shooting drills at a range in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), the remainder of the training would be at
RSS