Self-driving vehicle service provider 7Starlake Co Ltd (喜門史塔雷克) yesterday said it plans to form a joint venture with French-based EasyMile SAS by the end of this year to produce autonomous cars in Taiwan.
EasyMile is a start-up that specializes in autonomous vehicle software and “smart” mobility solutions. The company has commercial projects in Switzerland, Australia and Singapore.
The two firms have been working together to promote electromobility projects since 2015, 7Starlake said.
“We hope to manufacture autonomous cars with more than 50 percent local content over the coming years,” 7Starlake general manager Martin Ting (丁彥允) said at a media gathering in Taipei.
Taking advantage of the nation’s existing supply chains in the car industry, the two companies aim to reduce tariffs and transportation costs, with a goal to build prototypes next year and begin mass production of Taiwan-made autonomous cars in 2019, 7Starlake said.
Ting said 7Starlake is seeking potential business partners that make batteries, automotive components or motors in Taichung and Changhua, which are Taiwan’s key production hub for global automakers.
In the mid-term, the company plans to deploy driverless shuttles in Taiwan, achieving autonomous public transportation through collaboration with local governments, such as Changhua County.
This year, 7Starlake has conducted trial runs of its driverless car service in Kaohsiung and Taipei.
The Changhua County Government said it would introduce EZ-10 vehicles, which are capable of transporting up to 12 people and have a maximum speed of 40km per hour.
The county plans to launch its autonomous shuttle project in two phases.
The first phase would provide shuttle service between Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp’s (THSRC, 台灣高鐵) Changhua Station and Hsinchu Park, while the second phase would connect the Changhua Station and Taiwan Railway Administration’s Tianjhong Station, Changhua County Commissioner Wei Ming-ku (魏明谷) said.
The whole project is scheduled to be completed in 2020 at a cost of nearly NT$1.83 billion (US$60.54 million), Wei said.
Changhwa County plans to lay down exclusive lanes for self-driving vehicles, he said, adding that the county also plans to develop a vehicle-to-grid system that can turn electric vehicles into energy storage equipment to help buffer the fluctuating electricity in power networks.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary