2019 Taiwan Industrial Outlook - Motor Vehicles

Globally, the top five countries in worldwide sales in 2018 showed a decline in volume or a slowdown in growth. Due to the trading tension between the United States and China and the industrial transformation of China, the markets in the United States and China have gradually slowed down, but still play a crucial role. Likewise, the growth of India has slowed down slightly, resulting in the growth momentum mostly driven by the ASEAN countries. In the electric vehicle segment, the global sales volume of electric vehicle reached 4.067 million in 2018. Among all types of electric vehicles, the hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is still the mainstream product. However, sales of the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) and the battery electric vehicle (BEV) are gradually rising due to the support of various government policies and incentives.

In Taiwan, even though there were many beneficial factors such as the governmental policy of goods tax subsidy to encourage car owners to buy new cars, redesign of the domestically produced best-selling models, and the standardization of the smart & safe driving equipment, the sales volume of automobiles in Taiwan in 2018 only reached 435,000 vehicles, a decrease of 2.2% from 2017. Such result is attributed to the gradually rise of the crude oil price, the adjustment of the global export capacity of car manufacturers, and the business strategy of Korean car manufacturers to add equipment without increasing the price, making the sales of imported cars in Taiwan to reach a record high, which accounted for of 45.3% of the total sales.