VinFast has been making headlines around the world in the last few months for the right reasons. The Vietnamese carmaker recently confirmed its plans to bring a pair of its electric SUVs to the American market during its debut at the 2021 Los Angeles auto show.

Now, Vinfast is planning to set up a battery factory in the US as well as part of its planned US manufacturing complex. The company hopes to build electric vehicle battery cells and packs. Vinfast has previously said it planned to start producing electric vehicles in the United States in the second half of 2024.

VINFAST BUILDS VIETNAM’S FIRST EV BATTERY FACTORY

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Speaking to Reuters, Le Thi Thu Thuy, Vingroup vice-chair and VinFast Global CEO said the new plant will be a Gigafactory. While the company will continue to source batteries from its suppliers, as it will initially assemble battery packs with cells sourced from its supplier at its U.S. complex before starting its own production.

“We have narrowed down from I think, over 50 sites to about three sites,” she said during her U.S. visit to attend the CES 2022 in Las Vegas.

Reuters also reported her saying that the mega-site will also include an electric bus factory. In December, Vingroup has already started construction on a battery cell plant in Vietnam as part of its plan to build its own battery supply chain.

We’re thrilled to introduce our newest range of all-electric vehicles. Each one is designed to make the switch to EV an easy and exciting experience. Explore the benefits of going #EV with VinFast. See disclaimers in reply. https://t.co/OKXqiPe19u #VinFirst #CES2022 pic.twitter.com/heqy92X4EG

— VinFast (@VinFastofficial) January 6, 2022

In fact, battery supply chain issues have already led to delays in the production of several electric vehicle brands around the world. Some of these companies have now chosen to also build their own battery factories to deal with the shortage.

Vinfast is looking to initially produce 100,000 battery packs per year with US$ 174 million of investments and then upgrade its capacity to one million. As Vietnam’s first fully-fledged domestic car manufacturer, Vinfast is also considered the most advanced car manufacturer in the ASEAN region, designing and building better models than other ASEAN car manufacturers.

(Source – VinFast)

Having only hit the streets in 2019, the carmaker began selling electric vehicles in Vietnam at the end of 2021. At CES 2022, Thuy also announced that VinFast will be a fully electric vehicle company in 2022.  With the new announcement, Vinfast hopes it will be able to cater to the growingly competitive electric vehicle market in the US.

Apart from its new battery factory announcement, the car company also announced that it will commence a reservation program for its first two electric vehicle models through blockchain. Blockchain will be used in the process to certify reservations, payments, and eventually vehicle ownership.

Vinfast’s application of blockchain makes it one of the world’s first automakers to put this advanced technology into use. It will first apply blockchain in the reservation process in the US and is looking at the possibilities of using this technology in other markets in the near future.

“VinFast’s Customer-First Philosophy leads us towards providing high-quality products with reasonable pricing and outstanding services as well as offering solutions that inspire global customers to join hands for a more sustainable future for all,” added Thuy.

The post VinFast to build battery factory in US appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

SK Nexilis, as part of SK Group’s Electric Vehicle (EV) value chain, has announced a proposed investment of RM2.3 billion to set up its first overseas production base in Malaysia in January 2021.

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SK Nexilis is building a copper foil manufacturing facility base located at Kota Kinabalu Industrial Park (KKIP) in Sabah.

The commercial operations will kickstart by 2023, and the new facility will increase SK Nexilis’ copper foil production capacity by three times its current global capacity to about 100,000 tonnes.

SK Group subsidiary SoCar to set up an EV platform in Malaysia

This comes in line with the recent announcement that its Malaysian subsidiary SOCAR Malaysia Sdn Bhd (SOCAR) has closed a $55 million Series A round of investment. EastBridge Partners led the deal, a leading private equity firm focused on Asia and the Pacific region investments, joined by strategic investor Sime Darby Berhad.

The company is planning to set up an EV platform in the country to deploy hundreds of EVs in the next five years.

Socar and Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) have also recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to leverage shared demand data on EV usage in Malaysia as part of efforts to speed up the adoption of EVs.

The MoU outlines TNB’s plans to leverage Socar’s data on travel behavior and vehicle usage to identify locations along key travel routes to install charging infrastructure.

“TNB is set to take a leading role in driving EV adoption in Malaysia, especially among fleet management operators, and one of the key steps to achieving this is by establishing more EV charging zones that would be utilized optimally based on known travel routes,” said TNB chief retail officer Datuk Megat Jalaluddin Megat Hassan.

“This recent collaboration with Socar is more extensive, compared to our initial partnership back in December 2019 when TNB became the enabler for SoCar’s first two EV zones in Cyberjaya with the introduction of the first-ever EVs in their fleet”, he added.

Strategic investment into BigPay

In addition, the company made a strategic investment of up to $100m into BigPay, a leading regional fintech company based in Malaysia. The August 2021 investment into BigPay is SK Group’s first step in entering the fast-growing fintech sector outside Korea.

In a statement, SK Group said that the investment into BigPay was a testament to the ability of Malaysian fintech companies to grow not just domestically but also regionally and become a significant player in Southeast Asia. 

SK Group said it was also joining the AirAsia Group Bhd’s e-wallet unit BigPay to apply for Malaysia’s upcoming digital banking license.

“The company intends to expand its product sets and grow the model to new markets with the funds”, said BigPay co-founder and chief executive officer Salim Dhanani. 

Chief Representative of SK Malaysia, Jung Kyu Kim said, “We are confident that SK’s experience in financial tech services will contribute to successful digital bank ecosystem in Malaysia and further growth into the ASEAN region.” 

The post SK Group to invest US$700m in EVs, environment in Malaysia appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

For the past 15 years, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC Motor) is China’s largest traditional automaker. Owned by the Chinese government, the automaker is now adding more features to its electric vehicles.

SAIC Motor recently announced the official operation of its Mobility Robotaxi, which is also China’s first L4 self-driving platform in China.

Cooperating with Momenta, SAIC Motor Lab would provide intelligent driving solutions to Robotaxi; its platform offers powerful computing power with 600 trillion operations per second.

Its “vision + radar” solution can also independently complete 3D perception and data-driven fusion to ensure multiple and high-level redundancies in the system.

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Now, Cipia, an auto-tech company providing automakers and fleets with advanced AI-based in-cabin sensing solutions for driver and interior monitoring, has announced the first purchase order from Tier 1 Technomous, and the start of production with China’s largest automotive company SAIC Motor.

Cipia is delivering its market-leading Driver Monitoring System (DMS), Driver Sense, for integration in the Roewe RX5 MAX car model running on TI TDA4VM SoC, with production already underway.

This project joins other car models already in serial production with Driver Sense on board. The project with Technomous for SAIC was included in Cipia’s IPO prospectus as part of the design wins and forecasted lifecycle value.

(Source – Cipia)

David Tolub, CEO of Cipia said, “The integration of the system in such a short time span is a testament to the quality of the solution and service level, and offers automotive manufacturers the ability to remain at the edge of technology and safety, and enjoy a competitive advantage in the market.”

Research from Continental China and non-profit organization HCVC, 74% of people who survived road traffic accidents attributed the main cause to distracted driving.

With the growing number of distractions in cars coupled with an overreliance on semi-autonomous driving features, there is a clear need for technology to mitigate the dangers of distracted driving.

The computer vision and AI technology powering Driver Sense monitors and analyzes the driver’s behavior by detecting visual attributes such as eyelids, pupils, gaze direction, and more. This then translates them to the physiological state of the driver (drowsiness, distraction, talking on the phone, etc.), enabling life-saving warnings and actions.

The Chinese automotive market has been in a steady growth state for the past two decades. In 2020, 25 million vehicles were manufactured in China, a figure more than the US and EU combined.

In recent years, Chinese automakers started acquiring international auto brands and targeting western markets with international brands.

SAIC Motor has been the top-selling automotive manufacturer in China for 15 consecutive years, reaching a sales volume of 5.6 million vehicles across its brands in 2020.

The post Chinese automaker SAIC Motor invests in driving monitoring system appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Ransomware, everywhere

Tech trends in cybersecurity have generally edged towards targeting remote working victims.

The spike toward record ransomware attacks and data leaks in 2021 looks likely to spill over into the coming year.

Cyber-extortion heists break into a victim’s network to encrypt data, then demand a ransom, typically paid via cryptocurrency in exchange to unlock it.

A swathe of factors has fueled the trend, including the booming value of cryptocurrencies, victims’ willingness to pay and the difficulty authorities have in catching attackers.

Businesses and the most-at-risk retail sector should start now, rather than later, to prepare for the incoming onslaught.

James Forbes May, vice president for the Asia Pacific at Barracuda believes that there will be a renewed focus on governments prioritizing cybersecurity initiatives, building alliances with vendors, and sharing data with other countries.

More electric vehicles

We’ve seen how the devastating impacts of climate change exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic have wreaked havoc on lives in the Asia Pacific. 

One way nations here are looking to ameliorate climate change is to promote the replacement or at least, increase of zero-emissions vehicles on the roads. 

This picture taken on September 9, 2021 shows a Nissan Motor autonomous vehicle during a press preview for a field operation test of Easy Ride, a driverless mobility service, at the Minato Mirai business district in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture. (Photo by Kazuhiro NOGI / AFP)

Tech trends in the Asian automotive industry are definitely moving towards increased EV design, manufacture, but uptake may be fragmented, depending on the country.

Some nations with growing EV markets include India and Japan.

But the spotlight will be on China, a huge player in the Asian EV industry, whose government has pushed for more EVs to curb carbon emissions.

More Chinese automakers and players are collaborating, whereas home-grown Chinese stalwarts like Nio are targeting richer overseas markets.

As of now, a plethora of companies, even those traditionally in consumer tech, have put one leg into the proverbial electric boat to start production and sales of EVs. They include Huawei and  Xiaomi. Smaller countries such as Malaysia have made some semblance of headway into promoting EVs too, with taxation policies.

However, the biggest issue impeding its adoption in Asia is simply, the cost required to acquire EVs, which is especially true for the economically developing SEA.

Global leading automakers have, however, expressed interest in smaller markets such as Malaysia, though.

The semiconductor complexity will go on

Experts say the global chip shortage is like to continue until 2023 at least. 

Key chip supply chain player Malaysia may see increased competition from manufacturing leaders such as Vietnam, although more investments are coming in, such as from Bosch and Intel. 

Malaysia’s semiconductor industry may need time to recover, though, given the impact of not just COVID-19 lockdowns, but the recent flash flooding which has displaced tens of thousands of people and wrecked chip plants there.

China is trying to reduce its reliance on Taiwan’s TSMC to grow its home-grown SMIC. China is the largest buyer of 5G smartphones and also supplies a majority of consumer tech to the world.

Chinese big tech brands are moving to in-house design and manufacture of their own chips, one of the tech trends seen in the West too. They include Oppo and Alibaba.

More Big Tech regulation in China

In China, the big tech crackdown has been going full steam, as regulators have slapped fines and withheld licenses for a litany of charges that Chinese big tech have flouted.

At the same time, the state authorities have come up with draft after draft of legislation to govern the movements and operations of big tech in the country.

Even foreign firms aren’t spared, prompting some to even leave China. Some of these laws include anti-monopoly, data privacy, foreign IPOs, and more. 

Trade sanctions on China-sourced goods to the US have resulted in a trade war that has affected Chinese and global supply chains. This dynamic arguably underlies these recent actions by Beijing, particularly where it concerns the movement of citizen information or data across borders.

As a result, China has been expanding its influence into SEA, where some nations have a more favorable disposition towards Chinese tech.

Part of China’s strategy to avoid the US and move to trade in other markets has resulted in their interest in being a part of regional trade agreements. China is now part of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which starts January 1.

They also aim to rejoin the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) in a post-Trump administration.

Meatless meat

Meat alternatives have become common in an increasing number of western households, thanks in part to Beyond Meat and Impossible Food plant-based products. They have improved taste-wise, and are cheaper now, partly because of increased awareness of the impact of meat production on the environment. 

In Southeast Asia, however, real meat still trumps plant-based or lab-grown meats — simply because it’s too expensive. 

Ironically, plant-based mock meat has been very popular in the region for decades, owing to a large number of vegetarians. Asia, is, after all, a region home to two of the world’s largest religions that eschew meat, namely, Buddhism, and Hinduism. 

However, most mock meat products suffer from sub-par texture, flavor, and closeness to real meat, which makes them unattractive to the mass market of meat-eaters. 

However, the demand is there — just not enough for manufacturers and developers to reach a critical mass production point where the prices match or even go lower than real meat products.

Producers are, however, taking stock of this trend as some Asian nations are already working on commercializing or at least, exploring these efforts, including Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Singapore-based Growthwell is one, and they aim to produce completely plant-based, nutritionally complete meat alternatives. 

With additional reporting by Joshua Melvin with Julie Jammot for Agence France-Presse

The post 2022: Five tech trends in the Asia Pacific appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

The automotive industry has entered into an intense era of collaboration among carmakers, technology giants, and even software start-ups, among others.

This trend comes as countries, including China, accelerate into increased usage of EVs and AVs. Numerous partnerships have sprouted up in the past year, adding density and life to this ecosystem. 

Among Chinese automakers themselves, a handful of significant partnerships were made to accelerate the developments of EVs and AVs within the country.

In fact, China is shaping up to be the first real test of Big Tech’s ambitions in the world of car making. 

Take tech giant Baidu for an example, just 11 months after announcing that it is collaborating with automaker Geely to start a new company to build connected, autonomous electric vehicles, Baidu, which runs Chinese top search engine and a mapping app, announced that they would start mass production of its first “robot” EVs in 2023.

JiDU Auto, the electric vehicle venture between Baidu and Geely, would make EVs that are of the autonomous Level-four (L4), which needs no human intervention, Baidu Chief Executive Robin Li said during the company’s Baidu’s annual developers’ conference on Monday. 

JiDU was established only in March this year and in a mere 207 days, the venture reached the stage of developing intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit for a SIMU car.

This has set a new record in the industry, according to the CEO — last August, the internet company had launched a robocar with L5 autonomous driving capabilities. 

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This time, the automotive robot, deemed by Baidu as the ultimate form of vehicle transportation in the future, will demonstrate JiDU’s three aspects of their product philosophy.

First, the vehicle will have L4 autonomous driving capabilities to empower freedom of movement.

Second, the robot vehicle can communicate naturally with human beings thanks to the accurate recognition of human-vehicle interaction and speech semantics. 

Finally, the robocar is expected to have the capability to self-learn and self-iterate, which will continue to study user habits and improve user experience based on the habit data.

According to Baidu’s vision, intelligent transportation is the result of the deep integration of technologies as Artificial Intelligence (AI), 5G, and cloud computing into the transportation segment, based on autonomous driving, smart vehicles, and intelligent roads. 

The company also said that intelligent transportation can cut traffic accidents by 90%. Baidu’s autonomous driving capabilities have made rapid progress in recent months. As autonomous driving technologies develop, these vehicles will eventually be safer than human drivers, the company claims.

According to reports, with 115,000 rides provided in the third quarter of the year, Baidu’s autonomous ride-hailing platform Apollo Go has become the world’s largest autonomous mobility service provider.

Just last month, Baidu and self-driving startup Pony.ai won approval to launch paid, driverless robo taxi services that will see the firms deploy not more than 100 vehicles in Beijing.

According to Baidu’s statement, it would be its Apollo Go service’s first commercial deployment on open roads. The company is aiming for the Apollo Go service to be in 65 cities by 2025 and 100 cities by 2030, Li said during its latest quarterly results.

Besides Baidu, Geely and Pony.ai, Chinese electric-car maker BYD Co. is also apparently building a joint venture with tech startup Momenta to develop autonomous driving technology, according to Reuters.

It is said that BYD and Momenta have established a 100 million yuan three-way partnership to deploy autonomous driving capabilities throughout BYD automobile mannequin strains.

Known as DiPi Intelligent Mobility Co, the new partnership will combine BYD’s expertise in the auto sector with Momenta’s experience in smart driving algorithms, the startup said in a statement on Monday.

Reports are claiming that the preliminary scope of labor will embrace deploying “Level 2 plus” autonomous driving functionality throughout some car mannequin strains.

Separately, even SAIC Mobility, a unit of Chinese automaker SAIC Motor and Momenta, started providing autonomous robotaxi test rides to the general public in a Shanghai district as a part of a trial, earlier this month.

The post More Chinese automakers collaborating on EVs, AVs appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Around a week ago, Chinese electric car start-up Nio unveiled its second sedan, considered as the latest competitor to Tesla Inc.

While the latter may be the world’s best-known manufacturer of electric vehicles (EVs) – Chinese brands are quickly catching up. This time, adding to the list of companies that are giving the American EV giant a run for its money is mobile tech giant Huawei Technologies Co.

Huawei, best known for its telecommunications products and smartphones, isn’t making electric cars of their own but is working with automakers on car technology such as autonomous driving.

At its maiden launch, Huawei introduced the Aito M5–the first model under the Aito brand, (an acronym for “adding intelligence to auto”). 

Huawei’s consumer and business group executive director Richard Yu at the company’s winter product launch event yesterday said that the Aito M5 is part of automaker Seres.

Seres’ cars have previously only incorporated Huawei components, but not Huawei’s design.

That said, Aito M5 is the first car running on Huawei’s HarmonyOS operating system (OS) and it runs on both electricity and fuel, according to Yu.

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Prior to this, Huawei had collaborated with Chinese automobile companies to launch cars like the SERES Hybrid sedan and the Avatar 11 electric SUV.

That said, this is not Huawei’s first foray into the automobile industry.

How do Huawei and Aito M5 come together?

Integrating the HarmonyOS into the new Seres car in China is a concept that is sought after by many electric car start-ups.

Many reckon that automobiles will eventually grow into a role not unlike the one smartphones play in the lives of consumers.

Reports quoting Yu’s one-hour presentation highlighted the features of Aito M5 which include peak power and driving range that is better than Tesla’s Model Y. 

Unlike Tesla’s cars, however, the Aito M5 is not purely powered by electricity as it has a fuel tank for extending driving range when the battery runs out of power.

“This model also has the ultimate cornering performance, which is stronger than McLaren. Its performance surpasses many fuel vehicles and surpasses many pure electric vehicles,” added Yu.

The Aito M5 interface also provides advanced sense and intelligent functions, “surpassing all models and car companies, such as L2 + level intelligent driving assistance, HarmonyOS smart split-screen”, and others.

To top it off, Huawei’s OS will integrate some of its smartphone-oriented technology into the vehicle. A Huawei smartwatch, for example, can be used to start the Aito M5.

Huawei’s push into electric cars signals a major shift in business focus for Huawei after two years of US sanctions that have cut its access to key supply chains, forcing it to sell a part of its smartphone business.

Even mobile giants such as Xiaomi Corp have been stepping up efforts in the world’s biggest market for such vehicles, as Beijing heavily promotes greener vehicles to reduce carbon emissions.

The post China’s electric car industry heats up as Huawei joins the race appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

In the next few years, Vietnam will see its electric vehicle battery industry scale up significantly with the help of a new project in the central province of Ha Tinh.

Vingroup, Vietnam’s largest private conglomerate, said it had started building a $174 million battery cell plant for its VinFast electric vehicle project on an 8-hectare (20 acres) plot.

It is one of a Vietnamese firm’s most ambitious new ventures and highlights its growing ambition to expand outside its domestic market into Southeast Asia. 

The cell plant would also enable Vinfast to own its supply chain of batteries and parts.

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Vingroup to mass produce EV batteries

According to Bloomberg, VinFast’s new battery plant will have the capacity to produce 100,000 Lithium battery packs annually. It will supply batteries for 80,000 EVs per year when fully operational in 2022.

Thai Thi Thanh Hai, vice-chair of Vingroup and vice-chair of the board of VinFast said, “This is in the focus of VinFast’s localization strategy of supply.”

In an emailed statement to Reuters, the company works with various batteries partners, including StoreDot, Gotion High-Tech and ProLogium. VinFast also focuses on internal research and development while establishing research facilities to develop battery and charging technologies.

The company also announced a US$200m investment to establish headquarters in the US and plans to commence construction of a US vehicle manufacturing facility by 2025.

APAC – a growing market for EV batteries

The Asia-Pacific region is a growing market for EV batteries. The EV battery industry in the region, which includes China, India, Japan and South Korea, is expected to record robust growth over the next few years. This can be attributed to these countries’ rising demand for electric vehicles.

The Asia-Pacific EV Batteries Market is expected to reach a value of $90.41 billion by 2028, at a CAGR of 20% during the forecast period 2021 to 2028.

In 2020, China posted 1.3 million electric vehicles sales, driven by the increasing adoption of the Tesla Model 3 and Hongguang Mini. Increased government efforts to increase sales of electric vehicles to 25% of car sales by 2025 have significantly boosted the growth of this market in China.

Increasing government initiatives to deploy electric and hybrid vehicles, including tax reductions and grants for residential and commercial infrastructure, encourages the adoption of electric mobility. This is expected to drive market growth over the forecast period.

Rise in EVs in the APAC region

The APAC region is seeing a rise in EVs demand. Over the next few years, EVs will become a mainstream option in this region. Government regulations also support its growth by providing incentives and subsidies to buyers.

Many countries in the region realize the need and importance of electric vehicles to replace gasoline or diesel cars. Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Myanmar have shown interest in increasing the adoption of EVs over the next five years. EV sales in these four countries will increase by more than 10% year-on-year till 2021

Additionally, consumers demand for EVs in this region is growing because of their environmental benefits over conventional internal combustion engines (ICEs).

The post Vinfast builds Vietnam’s first EV battery factory appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Just last month the Malaysian government announced a 100% elimination of all taxes on electric vehicles (EVs) in the country, including import and excise duties, as well as road tax.

It was meant to boost the sector that Malaysia has long lagged behind. Following the announcement, reports have surfaced that Toyota and Tesla are expected to uplift the EV offerings locally.

For starters, the Malay Vehicle Importers and Traders Association of Malaysia (PEKEMA) has announced earlier this month that it has begun taking more-than-usual orders for Teslas in Malaysia. For context, Tesla doesn’t officially sell its vehicles in Malaysia. 

Meanwhile, UMW Toyota Motor Sdn Bhd, Toyota’s local distributor, aims to introduce hybrid EVs and strengthen its position in the domestic market. A report by a local news outlet said the Japanese marque is finalizing the launch of the Toyota Corolla Cross Hybrid, its first locally-assembled hybrid EV.

Tesla in Malaysia

The association is aiming to sell 500 Tesla EVs each year during the tax exemption period of two years. PEKEMA revealed a detailed listing of Tesla models that can be purchased through its network, as well as their indicative pricing, with tax exemptions in place. Potential buyers can pick from the entire range, with prices anticipated to start from RM288,888 for a Model 3 — a new unit brought in from Hong Kong.

The price is a huge difference compared to when it used to cost RM523,000 in 2019. The Hong Kong model however will have restrictions on some apps including no on-board games or internet browsers. Those features are available at a higher price tag as PEKEMA would import them from the UK.

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Should the purchase of a Tesla vehicle be made via PEKEMA, additional services and benefits are provided. That includes eight years of battery/electric motor warranty and four years for other hardware. According to reports, the association claims to have technicians who were trained in Tesla Singapore for repairs.

Additionally, PEKEMA is also said to be working on bringing Tesla vehicles from Australia and New Zealand as well, but that also means different prices and availability. PEKEMA VP Raja Petra Marudin told Soya Cincau that they hope “the government will consider our application to bring in Tesla units through Tesla Singapore, which will further facilitate logistics for customers”.

Given how EV infrastructure is an issue in Malaysia too, PEKEMA and Malaysia Automotive Robotics and IoT Institute (MARii) announced plans to collaborate on setting up a network of 1,000 DC rapid charging stations around Malaysia by 2025.

Currently, there are about 500 public AC charging stations in Malaysia and only nine public DC fast-charging stations for EVs, with another 10 in development.

For context, Thailand, which has more than double Malaysia’s population, has 1,406 public AC charging stations, and 771 public DC fast-charging stations.

Singapore, a much smaller island, has 61 DC fast-charging stations. That said, Pekema and MARii will have to build 981 DC Fast Charging Stations within the next three years. 

Both PEKEMA and MARii also plan to co-develop connected aspects such as e-payments, charger locators, battery management systems as well as service center networks for the charging ecosystem.

It appears the tax exemption proposal has stimulated some encouraging movement within the automotive sector, with even companies like Mercedes-Benz announcing that a range of electric vehicles will arrive starting next year.

Even national carmakers such as Proton have confirmed that hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and full EVs are in the works, while Perodua is currently conducting a market study on hybrid cars.

The post Malaysia gets an EV boost from Toyota and Tesla appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

For years, Toyota was leading the automotive industry with its eco-friendly vehicles. Its cars like the Prius and crossovers give the company a fuel-efficiency edge over some of its competition. But when the world was transitioning towards electric vehicles (EVs), Toyota didn’t pick up on the hint — for years.

Now, when it revealed plans to move to zero-emission vehicle sales in Western Europe by 2035, it is seen more as a compliance step due to impending legislation in certain markets.

While the announcement is a step forward for Toyota, the automaker has been significantly slower to move into purely battery-powered EVs than its competitors, relying heavily on hybrid technology instead. In fact, it wasn’t until last month until the Japanese carmaker announced details about its first mass-produced EV that is due for its release next year.

If anything, Toyota has been hinting a rather conservative and cautious tone when it comes to its approach towards battery-electric models. During the recent media event in Brussels, Toyota Europe outlined its plan for a 100% CO2 reduction in all-new vehicle sales in the Western Europe market by 2035. 

For starters, the goal will be preceded by a sales mix of at least 50% zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) in the region by 2030, signaling that internal combustion engines will play a significant role for quite some time. 

It is overall a part of Toyota Motor Europe’s 14-year plan. The company is even willing to increase its EV production capacity should “customer demand go even higher.” Toyota Motor Europe’s president & CEO Matt Harrison said. To be fair, Seems like an admirable goal, albeit a little slow. However, as Electrek puts it, “Toyota is simply doing the bare minimum to continue to sell vehicles in that market.”

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For context, just in July this year, the European Green Deal was revealed whereby the EU proposed an entire package of climate proposals, including reductions of new car emissions by 55% by 2030, and 100% by 2035. That said, Toyota’s goals are aligning with that of Europe’s because it has to, not because it wants to.

The Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All campaign’s acting director Katherine García told Autoweek that  “Toyota’s announcement about delivering electric vehicles in Europe does little to speed up its molasses-slow electrification strategy in the United States. Why is Toyota ignoring its largest market?”

Given how the automaker did not announce a phase-out date for hybrids and PHEVs in Europe shows that the pace of EV adoption among the EU states might be unpredictable. Otherwise, Toyota’s long-term plans are generally in line with those of other automakers that have set some fairly concrete phase-out plans for internal combustion engines.

The post Toyota is committing to 100% zero-emission sales in Europe by 2035 appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

And now, with robotaxis being granted approval to launch paid driverless taxi services in the capital, the industry is clearly moving way ahead other similar services around the world. The robotaxis are from Chinese internet giant Baidu and self-driving startup company Pony.ai.

China had recently published its first national standards for grading autonomous driving. According to reports, the standards provide a benchmark for carmakers to develop future technology in autonomous driving. China’s six-level standards, called “Taxonomy of Driving Automation for Vehicles”, provides official definitions for self-driving cars from level zero (L0), which relies largely on human drivers, to L5 that achieves “full driving automation”.

(Photo by WANG Zhao / AFP)

The global robotaxi market is also likely to grow at a CAGR of around 60% during 2021-26 due to the surging demand for e-hailing services and mounting concerns over road safety and emissions. Robotaxis can also help reduce the cost of vehicle ownership, enhance fleet management, and provide a convenient and budget mode of transportation.

According to Reuters, Baidu said in a statement this will be its Apollo Go service’s first commercial deployment on open roads. Customers will be able to hail one of the daily service’s 67 cars at more than 600 pick-up and drop-off points in both commercial and residential areas.

Baidu had already established itself as the world’s largest autonomous driving service provider. The Apollo Go ride-hailing platform has already been providing free ride services in the last quarter and now operates in Beijing, Guangzhou, South China’s Guangdong Province, Changsha, Central China’s Hunan Province, Cangzhou, North China’s Hebei Province, and Shanghai.

Robotaxis the future of urban transport?

CNBC reported last week that Baidu CEO Robin Li aims to expand its Apollo Go service to 65 cities by 2025 and 100 cities by 2030. The company also announced its next generation of robotaxis would cost half the price to manufacture compared to the prior generation.

Meanwhile, AutoX, the Alibaba backed autonomous driving company is also offering fully driverless robotaxis in the Pingshan District of Shenzhen. The company has been offering free robotaxi rides to members of the public who signed up but it was not immediately clear whether there was a cost to ride.

Interestingly, the world’s first ever self-driving taxis started trials in Singapore in 2016. However, since then, the development of robotaxis in the island nation and other Southeast Asian countries have not taken a huge step forward. In Vietnam, Phenikaa Group, a multi-sectoral corporation, has introduced its prototype of a level-4 autonomous vehicle. NanoMalaysia Berhad have also announced a development of level 4 autonomous vehicles in the country. It is unclear if these vehicles will be made into robotaxis.

Over in the US, Alphabet’s Waymo have been testing similar products, primarily in California and Arizona while General Motor-backed Cruise said earlier this month it has applied with the California government for final approval to become the first robotaxi operator to commercialize fully autonomous rides in San Francisco.

For now, it seems that robotaxis in China are making their presence felt around the world. Other countries will be looking closely at the China to see how they can implement similar regulations to robotaxis as well. Either way, autonomous driving taxis are fast becoming the future of urban transportation.

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