Foxconn (officially known as Hon Hai) will host a major event on October 18. It’s the HHTD21 (Hon Hai Technology Day). In last year’s edition, it showed the MIH Open Platform, an open-source electric vehicle architecture. In 2021, it will present the vehicles it intends to build: a C-segment SUV, an E-segment flagship, and a bus.
The new carmaker even has an official website: foxtronev.com. None of these vehicles is there yet, but the video Hon Hai released shows all of them. Sadly for the company, it was not the first time we had seen the E-segment EV. It would be named Model C and looked like a fastback in the leaked photos we published on September 15.
Ironically, the new video is more secretive precisely about the car we have already seen. The C-segment SUV is presented fairly generously, enough for us to correct the information we had until now: the Model C is not the E-segment vehicle, which now seems pretty obvious. Model C refers to the C-segment SUV. Who could have guessed, right?
Foxtron could try to stick with this naming strategy to refer to its flagship as Model E if that was not something that Tesla already tried before Ford threatened to sue it. That means the larger EV that we have seen before will be called something else. Although limited, the images revealed by the video demonstrate that it is indeed a fastback. It also has fading lights on the body’s surface at the front, side, and back, making it seem like the most conceptual vehicle among the ones Hon Hai will present.
At least one of the passenger cars was conceived by a European design company that was not officially disclosed. However, the video reveals a tiny Pininfarina badge under the A-pillar of the E-segment concept. That clearly demonstrates the Italian design company is involved with at least one of Foxtron's vehicles. Considering how interesting the SUV and the bus seem to be, we would not be surprised if Pininfarina also conceived them.
Both of them are fully functional, and Foxconn said that the attendees of the HHTD21 will be able to ride in the concepts. That implies the company intends to sell them under the Foxtron badge, but local reports mention that their main goal is to present its technology. Sony already said that about the Vision-S, and we didn’t buy it.
If the goal was solely to demonstrate the MIH Open Platform, why would Hon Hai present an electric bus? It does not use the open-source architecture developed by the company, and we’re yet to understand its role in Foxtron’s strategy.
According to Foxtron’s website, it will offer all automotive services Foxconn promised in the previous edition of HHTD. In other words, it will manufacture cars for other companies, design, develop, and even homologate them. In that sense, selling vehicles with its own brand may make other carmakers wary about hiring its services, just like Apple would probably not like if Foxconn had its proprietary smartphone brand.
Despite that, Foxtron may actually have a career ahead by selling its cars, such as the Model C and the mysterious E-segment EV about which we still know so little. The HHTD21 will fix that in a few days.
Google News