Toyota Motor has raised its production target for this year and plans to start buying batteries from Sanyo Electric to meet brisk demand for its hybrid vehicles, news reports said yesterday.
The world’s largest automaker now aims to produce 5.95 million Toyota-brand vehicles this year, up from a previous goal of 5.8 million, the Nikkei Shimbun business daily and other media reported without naming sources.
Toyota is enjoying brisk demand for its remodeled Prius, which has been Japan’s top-selling car in recent months as government incentives spur strong demand for fuel-efficient vehicles.
STRONG DEMAND
The Japanese giant will buy some 10,000 lithium-ion batteries a year from Sanyo from 2011 because its battery joint venture with Panasonic is having difficulty keeping up with strong demand, the Nikkei said.
Sanyo — which is being bought by Panasonic — now supplies nickel-metal hydride batteries to Honda Motor and US auto giant Ford. It also plans to supply lithium-ion batteries to Germany’s Volkswagen.
NO COMMENT
A Toyota spokesman declined to comment on the reports, which sent Sanyo shares soaring more than 10 percent to ¥247 (US$2.62), while Toyota shares gained 0.2 percent to ¥4,050, outperforming the wider market.
Toyota, which overtook US rival General Motors last year as the world’s top auto company, has idled plants and slashed thousands of jobs as it tries to recover from its first annual loss.
Earlier this year the company appointed Akio Toyoda as its new president, turning to the grandson of the company’s founder to rescue it from its biggest ever crisis.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
RSS