With his sunny face and curly hair, 60-year-old Wu Pi-hsiang does not give the typical staid impression of a company president; on the contrary, he emits an impish, animated quality.
Wu, who has won numerous awards and applied for over 100 patents, remains engaged in R&D. His passion for invention seems to be in his blood. He grew up in a military dependents' village, and when he was ten, his mother asked him to heat up water for a bath. Eager to go play with his friends, he thought about how heating a kettle of water takes a few minutes, while heating a whole tub would take nearly an hour. In a flash of inspiration, he took an aluminum tube he found near the house and broke it in two. He attached one end of one tube to the faucet and placed the other end into the top of the kettle on the stove. Then he connected the other tube to the spout so the heated water would drain into the tub. This simple water heater freed him from having to constantly stand by the stove!
From a poor family, Wu often created inventions to earn pocket money. In seventh grade he built crystal radios to sell to his classmates, and in eighth grade he advanced to making transistor radios. To buy expensive imported schoolbooks while he was attending the Pingtung Institute of Agriculture, he bought newborn calves from local farmers, which he raised on the school's pastures for two weeks before selling them again for a profit of NT$150 per head. And later, in a school workshop, he fulfilled a dream he had had since high school: to invent a hillside farm wagon.
Wu started a farm machinery company after graduation. The equipment that farmers needed for planting, cultivation, spraying, harvesting and transportation were no problem for him to build. He would repair any defective product, including replacing damaged parts, free of charge. "If a vehicle is defective, it means I didn't make it right. Of course repair should be a free service; I can't abuse others' trust." Wu's earnestness won him the good graces of farmers, and for many years he ate freshly picked produce that farmers sent him in appreciation; one even sent him a whole hog.
After the Shoprider became a big hit, many imitations appeared in the market. Wu believes that this violation of his interests was a small matter, instead worrying more about the poor technology of the imitations, some of which posed the danger of lurching forward after being parked. "This is an enterprise of conscience," he says. The heart of this undertaking is in the interests of real people; this is the prime impetus of Wu's devotion to R&D.