Formosa Auto electric truck to hit market in 2022

Taichung, Nov. 11 (CNA) Formosa Automobile Sales Corp. is now developing batteries in house to pave the way for production of its own electric trucks that are expected to officially hit the market in 2022, the company's chairman said Wednesday.

Speaking at a ceremony promoting Formosa Auto's new DAF CF Euro 6 trucks, Chen Sheng-kuang (陳勝光) said his company, a subsidiary of the Formosa Plastics Group (FPG), has been working on e-truck development for some time in anticipation of strong demand.

FPG founders Wang Yung-ching (王永慶) and Wang Yung-tsai (王永在), who died in 2008 and 2014, respectively, foresaw that electric vehicles would be the future of transportation, which is why the company has steadily invested in electric car batteries, Chen said.

The company is planning on producing 6.5 and 12-ton e-trucks and a 10-ton e-bus in the near future, according to Chen.

Of the three, the 12-ton e-truck is being designed by using an existing truck frame and then adding the motor, electronic control system and batteries.

The company will begin to assemble and test a prototype of the truck in June 2021, and it hopes it can hit the local market in 2022, Chen said.

Meanwhile, the 6.5-ton e-truck and 10-ton e-bus are scheduled to be available between 2022 and 2025.

Formosa Auto has handled the marketing, sales and production of DAF trucks in Taiwan since 2005.

At Wednesday's ceremony, Chen said his company reached a milestone earlier this year when it sold its 10,000th DAF truck in its 15 years in Taiwan's market.

The company foresees that it will only take another six years to sell another 10,000 DAF trucks locally.