The chairmen of Asia’s two largest automakers made a rare joint public appearance at an event to showcase their companies’ high-performance vehicles, underscoring the trend of rivals joining hands in the face of electrification.
Toyota Motor Corp’s Akio Toyoda and Hyundai Motor Group’s Chung Eui-sun were at a racing festival in Yong-in, south of Seoul, over the weekend. Samsung Electronics Co chairman Jay Y. Lee and Hankook & Company Co chairman Cho Hyun-bum also attended to meet Toyoda and Chung.
The event displayed rally cars from both automakers and several future-oriented models, including hydrogen-powered vehicles.
Photo: Bloomberg
“Toyota and Hyundai are joining hands to create a better society and shape the future of mobility,” Toyoda said yesterday, adding that he and Chung discovered a shared passion for racing when they met earlier this year.
Toyota and Hyundai — the world’s No. 1 and No. 3 automakers by sales respectively — are facing intensifying competition in electric vehicles (EVs) from Tesla Inc and Chinese carmakers such as BYD Co (比亞迪), the biggest maker of EVs. As Asia’s top legacy automakers, they share similar challenges and ambitions. Both are proponents of hydrogen-powered vehicles in their push toward carbon neutrality.
Yesterday’s festival marks the first time the two auto giants have teamed up to hold an event, raising the prospect of further collaboration. Earlier this month, Toyota’s research unit and Hyundai’s Boston Dynamics Inc announced a plan to jointly develop humanoid robots with artificial intelligence.
Global car companies are increasingly joining forces on production and research and development to lower costs and boost competitiveness. Nissan Motor Co and Honda Motor Co in August announced a joint research agreement to develop a platform and technologies for next-generation software-defined vehicles.
Hyundai has also partnered with General Motors Co around joint product development, manufacturing and future clean energy technologies.
At the event, Hyundai showcased rally cars from its World Rally Championship program, including the i20 N Rally 1 Hybrid and i20 N Rally 2.
Toyota’s Gazoo racing unit presented its GR Yaris Rally 1 Hybrid, GR Yaris Rally 2, GR Supra and GR86 among others.
‘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
RSS