Hon Hai Precision Industry Co’s (鴻海精密) electric vehicle (EV) project with Byton Ltd (拜騰) has been put on hold due to the Chinese start-up’s worsening financial situation, the Nikkei Asia reported yesterday, citing unidentified sources with knowledge of the matter.
“The project is not officially terminated yet, but it is very challenging to proceed at this moment,” one of the sources told the newspaper.
Hon Hai in January said that the Apple assembler and China’s Nanjing Economic and Technological Development Zone had agreed to next year start building electric sport-utility vehicles for Byton.
Photo: CNA
A few Hon Hai employees are still stationed at Byton’s factory, but “they are wrapping things up and preparing for the end when it becomes necessary,” another source said.
Some higher-level personnel involved in the project has even left Hon Hai, the report added.
However, the firm’s plans to build factories in the US and Thailand to assemble entire vehicles in 2023 are intact, the report said.
Hon Hai declined to comment, while Byton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, the firm has agreed to team up with Thailand’s state-owned oil supplier PTT Public Co to invest up to US$2 billion in launching an EV joint venture in Thailand.
Hon Hai signed an agreement with PTT on Tuesday to open an EV production site, with the two partners setting their sights on the ASEAN market, it said.
Through the joint venture, PTT would use its subsidiary Arun Plus Co to consolidate the group’s energy development resources and help the two partners build an EV development chain in Thailand, Hon Hai said.
EV designers, component producers, assemblers, power system providers and battery suppliers in Thailand are welcome to join the development chain to roll out their products, Hon Hai added.
At the end of May, Hon Hai announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with PTT to enter the EV market in Thailand.
The agreement signed on Tuesday included financial terms for the joint venture.
After signing Tuesday’s accord, Hon Hai said that the investment plan would be carried out over five to six years by setting up production lines, a supply chain management center and an engineering research and development center.
Hon Hai said that the EV joint venture’s production site might be built in the Eastern Economic Corridor special development zone in Thailand.
The development zone is an initiative the Thai government has laid out as part of a 20-year strategy for the country to achieve high-income status by 2036.
In the initial two to three years of the agreement with PTT, the joint venture aims to produce 50,000 EVs a year, with production expected to expand to 150,000 units annually, Hon Hai said.
The government targets 30 percent of all vehicle production to be zero-emission vehicles by 2030, in an effort to produce 725,000 emission-free passenger vehicles by that year.
Hon Hai said that it is planning to take advantage of the government’s ambition to provide the domestic market with innovations and resources in EV development and thereby help Thai auto and auto part makers transform themselves into EV developers.
Commenting on the joint venture with PTT, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said that he expects that the EV market in the ASEAN bloc would grow rapidly and cooperation with PTT would create tremendous business opportunities for many Thai vehicle developers.
Additional reporting by CNA
Zhang Yazhou was sitting in the passenger seat of her Tesla Model 3 when she said she heard her father’s panicked voice: The brakes do not work. Approaching a red light, her father swerved around two cars before plowing into a sport utility vehicle and a sedan, and crashing into a large concrete barrier. Stunned, Zhang gazed at the deflating airbag in front of her. She could never have imagined what was to come: Tesla Inc sued her for defamation for complaining publicly about the vehicles brakes — and won. A Chinese court ordered Zhang to pay more than US$23,000 in
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that its investment plan in Arizona is going according to schedule, following a local media report claiming that the company is planning to break ground on its third wafer fab in the US in June. In a statement, TSMC said it does not comment on market speculation, but that its investments in Arizona are proceeding well. TSMC is investing more than US$65 billion in Arizona to build three advanced wafer fabs. The first one has started production using the 4-nanometer (nm) process, while the second one would start mass production using the
US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose up to 100 percent tariffs on Taiwan’s semiconductor exports to the US to encourage chip manufacturers to move their production facilities to the US, but experts are questioning his strategy, warning it could harm industries on both sides. “I’m very confused and surprised that the Trump administration would try and do this,” Bob O’Donnell, chief analyst and founder of TECHnalysis Research in California, said in an interview with the Central News Agency on Wednesday. “It seems to reflect the fact that they don’t understand how the semiconductor industry really works,” O’Donnell said. Economic sanctions would
‘NO DISRUPTION’: A US trade association said that it was ready to work with the US administration to streamline the program’s requirements and achieve shared goals The White House is seeking to renegotiate US CHIPS and Science Act awards and has signaled delays to some upcoming semiconductor disbursements, two sources familiar with the matter told reporters. The people, along with a third source, said that the new US administration is reviewing the projects awarded under the 2022 law, meant to boost US domestic semiconductor output with US$39 billion in subsidies. Washington plans to renegotiate some of the deals after assessing and changing current requirements, the sources said. The extent of the possible changes and how they would affect agreements already finalized was not immediately clear. It was not known
RSS