In 2006, a consortium consisting of Marubeni Corporation, Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Hitachi was awarded a contract from the Bureau of High Speed Rail (BOHSR, now part of the Railway Bureau) of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) of Taiwan to supply the systems and build the depots for the Taoyuan Airport MRT project.

Under the contract, Marubeni was in charge of overall project coordination, signalling communications and trackwork; Kawasaki responsible for rolling stock; and Hitachi for transformers.

[7] Much like the earlier Taipei Metro C371 and C381 trains concurrently supplied to Taipei Metro, the building of the trains were split between Kawasaki and the Taiwan Rolling Stock Company (TRSC); the first trainset, 1001 and a later batch of trainsets (1018 to 1020) were built by Kawasaki at its rolling stock plant in Hyōgo whereas the rest of the initial order was built domestically by TRSC.

[10] The trains commenced revenue operation with the official opening of the Taoyuan Airport MRT line in March 2017.

[7] The 1000 series are also fitted with exterior LCD displays to denote the nature of the train service and the stations served.