Asian Tech Press (Oct 18) -- Taiwan-based foundry giant Foxconn unveiled three prototypes of its self-developed electric vehicles (EVs) on Monday, which the founder called the best birthday gift in 71 years.

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., trading as Foxconn Technology Group, held its annual Foxconn Technology Day event in Taipei on Monday and formally unveiled three EV prototypes, the luxury sedan Model E, the light SUV Model C, and the electric bus Model T.

In the release session, the founder of Hon Hai, Terry Gou drove the Model E into the venue, strongly responding to the previous network questioning that the trailer segment was a virtual animation.

Gou said, "Personally, it's the best birthday gift I've received in my life since I turned 71, and in terms of Taiwan, it shows the overall industrial strength of Taiwan, and it only took a year."

The three vehicles are created by the joint venture company established by Hon Hai and Yulon Motor, Taiwan's second-biggest automaker. And foxconn said that the joint venture was established only one year ago and yielded fruits, not only with fast research and development, but also with products full of sense of technology.

The Economic Daily News, Taiwan's largest financial newspaper, reported that Hon Hai plans to debut its branded car modeled on the Model C in Taiwan in 2023 at the earliest, while the Model E vehicles will follow after the Model C debut.

The report said that in addition to hardware, Foxconn Chairman and CEO Young Liu today also announced the company's intention to lay out software and semiconductor sectors for electric vehicles.

Liu announced that the company will set up a software R&D center and plan to gather more than 1,500 software application talents within Foxconn Technology Group.

In addition, Hon Hai will also send out a call for heroes to recruit more than 1,000 more software R&D engineers in three years as an important step to promote software defined enterprise in the future.