Apple Supplier Foxconn Partners With Saudi Wealth Fund To Build EVs (reuters.com) 16
Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth said on Thursday it will make electric cars in the kingdom under a joint venture with Apple supplier Foxconn as part of a push to build new industries and lessen dependence on oil. Reuters reports: Ceer "is the first Saudi automotive brand to produce electric vehicles in Saudi Arabia, and will design, manufacture and sell a range of vehicles for consumers in Saudi Arabia and the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region, including sedans and sports utility vehicles," PIF said in a statement. PIF said its cars would be available in 2025, adding Ceer would draw more than $150 million in foreign direct investment, create up to 30,000 direct and indirect jobs and is projected to contribute $8 billion to the kingdom's GDP by 2034.
The joint venture "will license component technology from BMW for use in the vehicle development process," PIF said in a statement. "Foxconn will develop the electrical architecture of the vehicles, resulting in a portfolio of products that will lead in the areas of infotainment, connectivity and autonomous driving technologies," it added.
The joint venture "will license component technology from BMW for use in the vehicle development process," PIF said in a statement. "Foxconn will develop the electrical architecture of the vehicles, resulting in a portfolio of products that will lead in the areas of infotainment, connectivity and autonomous driving technologies," it added.
Let's guess what those EVs will be like. (Score:3)
I'm going to go with shiny, over-simplified and waaay over-priced
Re: Let's guess what those EVs will be like. (Score:1)
Another Foxconn grift? Like their factory boondoggle in Wisconsin that still hasn't created any of the massive employment they promised to get enormous state tax abatements.
I wonder what kind of subsidies they're going after. Any bets whether the actually deliver anything they're promising?
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Just take a look at foxconn's website here, no guessing needed: https://www.foxconn.com/en-us/... [foxconn.com]
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It's not actually Apple though, it's just Foxconn who happen to make Apple's products, as well as a large number of other companies' wares.
Foxconn certainly has a lot of manufacturing experience, but in consumer products rather than in cars.
Apple Supplier? (Score:3, Informative)
Why mention Apple? Foxconn supplies Google, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Amazon.
Lol. (Score:1, Flamebait)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn [wikipedia.org]
Working conditions
Allegations of poor working conditions have been made on several occasions. News reports highlight the long working hours,[42][43] discrimination against Mainland Chinese workers by their Taiwanese co-workers,[121] and lack of working relationships at the company.[122] Although Foxconn was found to be compliant in the majority of areas when Apple Inc. audited the maker of its iPods and iPhones in 2007,[7] the audit did substantiate several of the allegations.[123] In May 2010, Shanghaiist reported that security guards had been caught beating factory workers.[124]
In reaction to a spate of negative press, particularly that involving worker suicides in which 14 people died[125] from January to May 2010, Steve Jobs defended Apple's relationship with the company in June 2010, citing that its Chinese partner is "pretty nice" and is "not a sweatshop".[126] Meanwhile, however, a report jointly produced by 20 universities in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China described Foxconn factories as labour camps[127] with widespread worker abuse and illegal overtime.
Concerns increased in early 2012 by an article published in The New York Times in October 2011.[128] It reported evidence that substantiated some of the criticisms. The 2012 audit commissioned by Apple Inc. and performed by the Fair Labor Association found that workers were routinely subjected to inhumane bouts of overtime of up to 34 hours without a pay increase and suggested that debilitating workplace accidents and suicides may be common.[129][130] A Hong Kong non-profit organisation, Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour, has written numerous negative reports on Foxconn's treatment of its employees, such as in 2010 and 2011.[131] These typically find far worse conditions than the 2012 Fair Labour Association audit did,[132] but they rely on a far smaller number of employee informants, circa 100 to 170.[133] The Fair Labor Association audit in 2012 used interviews with 35,000 Foxconn employees.[129]
In January 2012, about 150 Foxconn employees threatened to commit a mass suicide in protest of their working conditions.[134] One worker said the protest resulted from 600 workers being moved into a new "unbearable" factory location.[135] In September 2012, a fight at worker dormitories in Taiyuan, Shanxi, where a guard allegedly was beating a worker, escalated into a riot involving 2,000 people and was quelled by security.[136]
In October 2012, the company admitted that 14-year-old children had worked for a short time at a facility in Yantai, Shandong Province, as part of an internship programme,[137] in violation of the age limit of 16 for legal workers.[137] Foxconn said that the workers had been brought in to help deal with a labor shortage, and Xinhua quoted an official saying that 56 underage interns would be returned to their schools. Reuters quoted Foxconn saying that 2.7 percent of its workforce in China were long- or short-term interns. In response to the scrutiny, Foxconn said it would cut overtime from the current 20 hours per week to less than nine hours a week.[137]
Also, in October 2012, there was a crisis concerning an injured worker in which 26-year-old Zhang Tingzhen[138] suffered an electric shock and fell in a factory accident[139] a year earlier. His doctors did immediate surgery to remove part of his brain,[140] "[after which] he lost his memory and can neither speak, walk".[141] When his father attempted to get compensation in 2012,[140] Reuters reported that Foxconn told the family to transport and submit him for a disability assessment in Huizhou 70 km away, or it would cut off funding for his treatment.[138] His doctors protested the move for fear of a brain haemorrhage en route,[141] and the company stated that it was acting within labour laws.[139][142] His family later sued Foxconn in 2012 and argued in court that Tingzhen had been summoned to the wrong city.[138] In 2014, a court ruled that he had to be assessed in Huizhou to receive compensation, with Foxconn offering a settlement for the father to recant his criticisms, which was refused.[140]
In February 2015, Beijing News reported that an official with the All China Federation of Trade Union (ACFTU), Guo Jun, said that Foxconn allegedly forced employees to work overtime, resulting in occasional death by karÅshi or suicide. Jun also said that the illegal overtime resulted from a lack of investigation and light punishments. Foxconn, in return, issued a statement questioning Guo's allegations, arguing workers wanted to work overtime to earn more money.[143]
In November 2017, the Financial Times reported that it had found several students working 11-hour days at the iPhone X plant in Henan province, violating the 40-hour-per-week mandate for children. In response, Foxconn announced that it has stopped the interns' illegal overtime work at the factory in which 3,000 students had been hired that September.[144]
Since 2016, Foxconn has been replacing its workforce with robots, which have replaced 50% of Foxconn's labor force in 2016, and there are plans for completely automated factories.[145]
In 2019, a report was issued by Taiwan News stating that some of Foxconn's managers had fraudulently used rejected parts to build iPhones.[146]
Again...why Apple? (Score:3, Informative)
You didn't answer the question. Foxconn was supplying everybody when all of that went down and they are still supplying everybody. They're Micosoft's supplier and Google's supplier and Nintendo's supplier so why, in a story that has nothing to do with Apple, are they Apple's supplier?
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Why mention Apple? Foxconn supplies Google, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Amazon.
My thought as well. It's like saying, "Boeing supplier General Electric" and implies one of two things: that the subject company does little else than supply this one customer, or that said customer is related to the story in some way, which is shitty reporting and. presumably, it is only in there to add this to the news feeds of people/organizations who are interested in "Apple" news.
Apple EVs? (Score:1)
Everybody place our bets on Saudi Arabia's future (Score:2)
Classic Saudis (Score:2)
So they outsource to Foxconn because doing it themselves would be too much work.
Everytime I go to Arabia, I'm horrified by how oil money has caused suck extreme lethargy among the financial leaders. Universally, Arabian business owners treat the local people as dumb and childish. They al
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The Kingdom moving towards EVs ? (Score:2)
Love it (Score:2)
The writing is on the wall. I am glad Saudi Arabia isnâ(TM)t holding on to magical thinking and instead adopting green technologies.