Hon Hai to Keep Investing in EV Biz in Shanxi Province, China: Chairman Guo

Hon Hai Group of Taiwan, a major EMS (electronics manufacturing services) provider globally, will continue to invest in Shanxi Province of China to aggressively develop the EV (electric vehicle) business, said group chairman Terry Guo, at the 2014 World Jin-Merchant Convention in Shanxi recently, and that his group plans to invest another 5 billion renminbi (RMB) in the province this year, to take Hon Hai's annual production value there to exceed 60 billion RMB, with Hon Hai's workforce in Shanxi being about 100,000 people.

Hon Hai has been engaged in automotive and EV businesses in recent years. Innolux Display Corp., an affiliate, for example, is a major supplier of automotive display panels to many international automakers. Hon Hai is investing in companies focusing on production of lithium-ion batteries, automotive molds and dies, wire harness etc., also  planning to step into vehicle assembly.

Guo said previously at the  company's shareholders meeting in Taiwan that if Hon Hai engages in assembling EVs, the group will target developing and making models popularly-priced at less than US$15,000. Some industry sources interpret Guo's statement at the convention as Shanxi Province being a major part of Hon Hai's EV business.

Addressing merchants of Jin (Shanxi's original name), Guo said that Hon Hai has analyzed the technological development between 2014 and 2020, deeming that cloud computing to be inevitable trend to tap Big Data related to social networking,  connected clouds, Internet of Things (IoT), intelligent robot  manufacturing, intelligent EV, Smart EV, Smart City, healthcare etc.

The self-made tycoon said that Shanxi is the most important exporter of energies in China, and Hon Hai looks to contribute to the province in developing the so-called circular economy, which aims at environmental protection, pollution prevention and sustainable development, without revealing specifics of target volumes and product categories of  EVs to be made in Shanxi.

Having invested for some 10 years in Shanxi, his father's hometown, Guo has poured a total of about 20 billion RMB in two plants in the province, where its Jincheng plant focuses mainly on production of industrial robots, automation equipment, precision knives and dies, optical lens etc., while that in Taiyuan on producing parts and components for high-end smartphones.