Connect with us

Tech

Toyota, partners to start selling electric micro-vans by March 2024

Published

on

Toyota, partners to start selling electric micro-vans by March 2024

 Toyota Motor Corp and two allied automakers unveiled a micro-sized electric van targeted at Japan’s delivery industry on the sidelines of the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Hiroshima.

The small electric commercial van will run on a battery electric vehicle (BEV) system that Toyota is jointly developing with minivehicle specialists Daihatsu and Suzuki Motor Corp, the companies said in a joint statement.

The van, which will come in Toyota, Daihatsu and Suzuki-branded versions, is slated to have a range per charge of about 200 km (124 miles) and be released by the end of the current financial year running to March 31, 2024.

Daihatsu, which became a Toyota subsidiary in 2016, will produce the vehicles, the companies said in the statement.

Advertisement

The van will be classed as a “kei” vehicle, which are low-powered, low-taxed domestic fare.

Micro kei vehicles are hugely popular among businesses and households to deliver agriculture produce, parcels and other goods in urban areas and the countryside in Japan, in part due to their relatively cheap price.

Kei models accounted for 40% of 78.8 million four-wheel vehicles owned in Japan at of the end of February, showed the latest transport ministry data.

Reducing emissions has been a keyissue at this year’s G7 meeting.

The roll-out by Toyota, which owns 4.89% of Suzuki, and its partners also comes as other automakers in Japan are expanding their lineups with electric mini-commercial vans.

Advertisement

Honda Motor Co Ltd said in December it would start selling a micro-sized commercial electric van with a target cruising range of 200km in spring 2024, as part of its effort to electrify its vehicle lineup.

Mitsubishi Motors Corp in November re-launched its own small commercial van, Minicab-MiEV, which has a shorter cruising range of 133 km.

Mitsubishi will also start producing the van in Indonesia in 2024, it said in February, as it seeks to build out the vehicle’s sales across geographies.

Japanese delivery giant Sagawa Express Co has previously said it planned to start replacing all 7,200 of its commercial mini-vehicles with electric vehicles supplied by China’s Guangxi Automobile Group from last September onwards.
The company declined to comment when asked on Thursday whether it had started the process.

Advertisement

Tech

Apple CEO says looking into possibility of building manufacturing facility in Indonesia

Apple CEO says looking into possibility of building manufacturing facility in Indonesia

Published

on

By

Apple CEO says looking into possibility of building manufacturing facility in Indonesia

Apple Inc will look into the possibility of building a manufacturing facility in Indonesia, its CEO said on Wednesday after meeting President Joko Widodo.

Apple CEO Tim Cook arrived in Jakarta on Tuesday, after visiting Vietnam. He met with Jokowi, as the president popularly known, and will be inaugurating an academy for Apple developers on the island of Bali.

“We talked about the president’s desire to see manufacturing in the country, and it is something that we will look at,” Cook told reporters after the meeting. 

Apple has based much of its key manufacturing of iPads, AirPods and Apple Watches in Vietnam and suppliers for MacBooks are also investing in the country.

Advertisement

Apple has no manufacturing facilities in Indonesia but has established four Apple Developer Academies.

Indonesia has a huge tech-savvy population, making the Southeast Asian nation a key target market for tech-related investment.

Continue Reading

Tech

TikTok quizzed by EU on TikTok Lite launch in France, Spain

TikTok quizzed by EU on TikTok Lite launch in France, Spain

Published

on

By

TikTok quizzed by EU on TikTok Lite launch in France, Spain

ByteDance’s TikTok has been given 24 hours to provide a risk assessment on its new app TikTok Lite launched this month in France and Spain on concerns of its potential impact on children and users’ mental health, the European Commission said on Wednesday.

The move by EU industry chief Thierry Breton under EU tech rules known as the Digital Services Act (DSA) comes two months after he opened an investigation into TikTok over possible DSA breaches. 

The landmark DSA requires companies to do more to tackle illegal and harmful content on their platforms, with fines of up to 6% of their global annual turnover for violations.

The Commission on Wednesday said it had sent a request for information to TikTok, asking for more details on the risk assessment the social media company should have done before deploying TikTok Lite in the 27-country European Union.

Advertisement

“This concerns the potential impact of the new ‘Task and Reward Lite’ programme on the protection of minors, as well as on the mental health of users, in particular in relation to the potential stimulation of addictive behaviour,” the EU executive said in a document seen by Reuters.

“TikTok must provide the risk assessment for TikTok Lite in 24 hours and the other requested information by 26 April 2024, after which the Commission will analyse TikTok’s reply, and then assess next steps.”

The Commission also asked for details on measures the company has put in place to mitigate systemic risks.

TikTok Lite, an app with a new functionality aimed at users aged 18+, was launched in France and Spain this month.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Tech

SiTime introduces chip aimed at saving power in AI data centers

SiTime introduces chip aimed at saving power in AI data centers

Published

on

By

SiTime introduces chip aimed at saving power in AI data centers

SiTime (SITM.O) on Wednesday introduced a chip that it says is designed to help data centers built for artificial intelligence applications run more efficiently.

SiTime makes what are known as timing chips, whose job is set a steady beat for all the parts of a computer and keep them running together in sync, like a conductor in an orchestra directing multiple groups of instruments. The company says its new line of chips, called Chorus, can do so with 10 times more precision than older styles of timing chips.

SiTime CEO Rajesh Vashist said the company aims to help customers save electricity with that precision. SiTime’s chips themselves require less than a watt of power, but powerful AI chips such as Nvidia’s (NVDA.O) require more than 1,000 watts of power.

With a more precise clock to keep all the elements of a computer in sync, parts of the machine can be turned off for a few milliseconds at a time when they are not in use. Over the multiple years a power-hungry data center server might be in use, it can generate energy savings, though the amount will depend on how SiTime’s chips are used.

Advertisement

“We deliver timing that they can rely on so that they can wake up their products and bring data more efficiently to them, rather than just running more often,” Vashist said in an interview.

SiTime said the chips will be available in the second half of this year.

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © GLOBAL TIMES PAKISTAN